The Dark Night: a review

Yeah, this is all about the Batman. Or should I call him ‘The Dark Knight’? You be the judge. As with all my film reviews, I’ll try to fit this into three words:

Convoluted

Could they have packed any more into that? It was fab, I enjoyed it, but my first thought was that perhaps they could have kept some of it for the next one. But looking back, I don't think they could. We needed the Joker to set up the whole Two Face thread, but we also needed to know how and why. If any of it had been cut, I doubt we could have got the same from it. At least this way we have a stab at understanding why the Joker did what he did.

Speaking of which, I believe that the Joker was inventing Two Face to do things he couldn't because he didn't have the background. He knew that by turning the white knight into an ee-vil supervillain, he could fuck the city up in so many ways, whether he was still there or not. A legacy, then. And talking of legacies, I find it very odd that the Scarecrow himself turned up at the beginning to attempt to do some good. Or did he?

Screen-sharing

A goodly amount of screen time went on developing the two villains here. And while the new Two Face was villainous and will be back shortly, the big surprise to me was that the late great Heath Ledger was as good as I'd heard. For once we got a proper scary villain and not some Travis Bickle wannabe. I loved his Joker right from his "I can make a pencil disappear" trick. How ace was that? And how well played was the rest of it?

Bruce Wayne got few good scenes, and I'm unimpressed by the lack of kit-shedding moments. However, Batman went postal a few times, and I love a good rumble, so that made up for it a little. He did get an Unshed Man-Tears moment when he knew Rachael was dead and he was kicking himself for that very same fact. (Again: Joker wins, Batman got pwned). And can I mention that I noticed a tiny weeny continuity error when Bruce were ont balcony, sipping champagne? Cos actually, he’d just chucked his entire glass-full over the balcony, so when Harvey appeared to interrupt their little chat, he should have had an empty glass. Except he didn’t - he sipped summat that looked really very champagne-like. Hmm. Anyway, dunt really matter, cos the moment was more important. Just goes to prove that same-sex groups are all fine and dandy, but when you introduce an opposite sex bit of eye-candy, everything gets fucked up.

Darkness

No, not Justin Hawkins and his band of merry men, but full-on dreary ‘Bladerunner’ type murkiness - in both emotive backdrops and characters. Now I love a bit of shitty-existence future stuff (like ‘Dark City’, etc.) mostly cos I believe the world is heading that way already. So no, I didn’t find it too depressing or bleak - that’s what it’s like, get over it. I thought it was refreshing instead of the usual Hollywood pick-me-up flicks and happy, sunshine saccharine endings. Lovely.

All in all it’s a grand affair that deserves to be seen a few times before any comment is made. The mere fact that here in Hong Kong, it took a few days of concerted effort to even get into the bloody theatre to see it should tell you that it’s about as popular as Kylie’s arse-cheeks. And so it is - well, more so cos Christian Bale got his shirt off a little (which, for me, is much more preferable that Kylie getting her arse out, but I’m just sexually biased like that, sorry), Heath Ledger went full-on proper ee-vil baddie, and Lucious Fox (A.K.A. Morgan Freeman) put a would-be blackmailer in his place without losing his place int newspaper. Class.

On another note, what were proper freaky were sitting int Palace IFC (the cinema in the IFC building, Central, in Hong Kong) and watching Batman leap off the very same building. Just freaks you out. I noticed a few heads int cinema actually crane up to look at the ceiling. I felt like bellowing ‘yeah love, cos he’s still really there!’ across the theatre. But I restrained myself. And another thought, praps only relevant to a Hong Kong audience - Mr Lau, the lying bastard that he is, might have hidden in Hong Kong cos he thought he were safe from the Batman and ‘not even China would extradite one of their own to the US’, but he weren’t even from Hong Kong! The dirty lying mainlander spoke Mandarin the whole time! The guards int building, being the faithful, low-paid Hongkers that they were, of course went on in Cantonese. But Mr Lau? Pththththththt! Even complained about the lack of proper security in Mandarin. No wonder his instant service from the security lads were lacking!

Anyway, I bloody loved it and had a whale of a time watching it. Except Christopher Nolen owes me two long fingernails, after I bit ‘em off in tensiony type moments. And that shallot. I have stuff to do. Believe it or not, I have a life…

Soopytwist!

Tags:
Batman ~ Christian Bale ~ the Joker ~ Heath Ledger ~ Hong Kong ~ Christopher Nolan ~ Morgan Freeman

This was the week that was

So Stereophonics were fucking fab last night at the HITEC Starr Hall thing. How could they not be? They did all the hits and gave us a bloody ace show. Kelly Jones is still a god and his voice will be echoing round my head for the next week.

The only thing that spoiled the night was the fact that there were no signs or help to actually reach the venue. When we went to see Muse at the airport, it were posters, signs in two languages, helpful stewards pointing and ushering, the whole nine yards. This time we got out of Kowloon Bay MTR to find we needed to find the Hang Seng tower, which unsurprisingly was not where the map said it should have been. Finding the shuttle bus to the Emax or whatever the hell it’s called now was a trek Shackleton would have been eager to tackle. We just wanted the concert, man. I were missing warm-up act Soler, and I were not happy about that.

Looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend, after last week was all about getting through the trauma of a Chinese wedding banquet. Not that the actual event was a hardship: it were quite pleasant and the food was of course fantastic, as you’d expect from a swanky hotel. No, the only trauma I suffered was having to wear a posh frock and girl-shoes the entire evening (which I had to buy especially, as every other pair of shoes I have is actually Converse in a variety of colours and styles). Did not like. Very uncomfortable, and I felt like the sorest thumb at a manicured hand convention. I kept expecting Mr Barnum to pop out from behind a plant and ask if I wanted to run away and join his circus. Trouble is, I might just have taken him up on his offer if there'd been non-wine spirits at the dinner...

Finished another ‘Supernatural’ fan-fic, but after the last one I were feeling it really really wanted to be similarly off the wall. And it was, but for some reason I feel it's lacking all over. Needs serious amounts of over-hauling, so it's going to be a while before this one gets unleashed on an unsuspecting site. It's currently languishing in development hell while I take a break from it to take time to smell the roses - in the form of season two of ‘Dark Ackles Angel’. Hey, while we wait with baited breath for 18th September for ‘Supernatural’ to start again, I have to get my fix of Jensen Ackles somehow. And the show’s pretty damn funny. It’s like Joss Whedon trying to be the straight man. If Jessica Alba could only act, I’d be a rabid fan…

So that’s pretty much it - got my tickets for ‘The Dark Knight’ (finally!) tomorrow night, and then there’s ‘The X-Files: I Want To Believe’ next Thursday. Would have watched it when it opened last night, but Kelly Jones took priority, even over an older (and so much better for it - I loved ‘Californication’) David Duchovney. We even have tickets for The Kooks next month! Yes, they’re playing Hong Kong for one night only, and we’ll be there.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to nick off to HMV and ascertain if the fab songs Soler were rocking out last night are from a new album I don’t have. Yet. I recognised some fab favourites from the tail-end of their thirty minute set, but a few escaped me. We’ll soon fix that!

Peach and lube, people.

Tags:
Soler ~ Supernatural ~ Stereophonics ~ Dark Angel ~ Ackles

Ok, bored now

I know, I know, haven’t blogged in ages. I should be reticent, I should be apologetic, but I’m really finding it hard to care. I don’t know why - I used to blog twice or even three times a week, right? I blame it on my abject laziness - and current Writing Thing.

I’ve always kinda written shit, my sisters will tell you that. But right now I’m getting immense pleasure out of writing a shedload of fan-fiction when I should be knuckling down to the real world and doing stuff like joining gyms and losing the 2 (or 3) stone that keeps me in Ugly Bird territory when we go down the Winchester for a few not-so-swift halves and pub quizzes. Ah well. I console myself that I’m there to make all the skinny birds look good. If there were no fat birds, and everyone were skinny lanky streaks of piss, then there’d be no reason to find skinny birds the nice surprise, right? Would, in the words of Queen, all that beauty and that style go kinda smooth after a while?


Anyway, I digress. What did I have to say? Oh yeah - busy week this week. Still trying to get in to see ‘The Dark Knight’, as every single one of the seven million people living in Hong Kong has bought tickets fert duration. Which means I can’t get in. Fuckers. But I have high hopes of getting to the ticket counter of the Palace IFC cinema (Broadway circuit) tomorrow morning and buying for Friday night.

Then Thursday night we’re off to see the Stereophonics - yes, they are in Hong Kong for one night only - and we’re going to melt at the sound of The Welsh God Who Is Kelly Jones singing in that razor blade voice we love so much.

21st August, which just so happens to be the six year anniversary of me landing in Hong Kong, we’re off to see The Kooks. How fab is that? Of course, if it were real anniversary I’ve paid for this night with the last six years of work and hardship type stuff, then it would be Oasis or the Arctic Monkeys (or maybe Little Man Tate, or Milburn, or Paul Rodgers) playing this humble territory in which I now live. But you can’t have everything, eh? Wouldn’t have anywhere to put it. Unless what you wanted were somewhere to put everything you wanted, of course.

Then we get to the important telly bits: ‘Life’ has finished, ‘Doctor bloody Who’ has finished, ‘Supernatural’ has finished, everything’s finished. Apparently we get season two of ‘Life’ in October, ‘Doctor bloody Who’ Christmas Special at, well, Christmas, and ‘Supernatural’ September 4th. Yes folks, that’s Supernatural season four starting September 4th - only on the CW. (And all us overseasers who have access to Friends With Net Benefits.) And no, I STILL do not want to see any spoilers for said Winchester shenanigans. I have my theories, and my hopes, and more importantly, my faith. Sam, much like life, will find a way. Or Dean, much like my iMac, will get bored waiting and just do it himself (so to speak).

That shallot. No, yer onion. Always get those two mixed up.

Tags:
Doctor Who ~ Supernatural ~ Stereophonics

Must. Have.

Just a few blatant plugs before we get to the real reason to post tonight:


Stroke the nice Captain Jack to get more.

And then I finally finished off my latest work of ‘Supernatural’ fan-fiction. It started out as a one-shot, but it was suggested to me that it deserved a complete follow-up, so over the last few weeks I’ve built it into a complete tale. I’m actually sad to see this one go; it was fun to write, fun to proof-read, fun to have around. And now it’s all grow’d-up and out on the big wild Net by itself. *sniff* But all good things must come to an end - before they turn to shit (yes, ‘Lost’, I’m talking to you).


Right, now that’s over with, on to the actual reason I were posting tonight. If you have iTunes (come on, who doesn’t have iTunes nowadays?) or similar Net radio thingy, go find a station called Radio IO (‘eye-oh’.) It’s bloody ace for classic rock. If they’re not playing Triumph, AC/DC, Bad Company or Led Zeppelin, they’re playing Joan Jett, Bob Seger, Deep Purple, Rolling Stones, The Doors, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jimmi Hendrix, Queen, and a million others I’ve forgotten to mention. It’s fab.

There, I have spoken. Time for a little jiggery-pokery starting a new fan-fic tale, then time for bed, said Zebedee.

Tags:
Doctor Who ~ Supernatural ~ classic rock

Elation / Disappointment

My Tinternet is fixed again. We’ll see how long it lasts. But more on that in a later post.

Danger! Danger! Spoilers Will Robinson!
Doctor Who season four finale episode 13 (‘Journey’s End’) spoilers are contained in the following post!

So where did we find ourselves at the end of the penultimate episode? Oh that’s right - on the edge of our seats. Seriously, could that episode have been any better? Really? No, I didn’t think so either. Which brings us to the latest one:

After the amazing cliffhangers at the end of the last one, RTD now gets himself out of every single one so quickly and effortlessly, using a whole slew of Miraculous Escapes, I felt like pressing pause to make sure I’d actually seen them. If I’d blinked I would have missed it, I’m sure. At least Mickety-Mick-Mickey was back (we love Mickey!), so Sarah Jane is saved. And Ianto (oh, and Gwen) saved by a Torchwood timelock booby-trap thing set up by Tosh. Hmm.

Now then. This using the regeneration energy of his stored hand to heal himself business - what the hell? Really? Really? Was it really necessary to put the Doctor in such dire straits, just to find such a blatantly contrived and let’s face it, little silly, way to save him after all? Hmm… Not too impressed, but bearing in mind it’s a radical improvement over the finale of season three, I’m going to let it go. And it was fun to see Captain Jack’s reaction. Now, Donna and Jack in the same TARDIS? How excellent is that? But we have to have the much-vaunted hyped-up final hello-hug between Doctor Ten and Rose, or it wouldn’t be an RTD episode. Perfectly understandable.

Daleks nicking the TARDIS and everyone inside - nice work. Sarah Jane getting herself, Mickey and Jackie to the Dalek Crucible too, excellent work. Martha sending herself to the UNIT base to try and use the Oster-Häagen-Dazs key. And just when you thought the daleks couldn’t get any cuddlier, they’re speaking whatever language they need to get people exterminated. Excellent.

And we get the first suspicion that Donna is not all that she seems - all timelines converging on her? Whatever could that mean? Please let her be a Time Lord - please please please! So everyone leaves and Donna’s trapped in the TARDIS - or did the TARDIS close the door on her on purpose? Cos she needed her? She needed Donna cos she knew what she could do? Ooohhhh, I love the TARDIS… and Donna… Can she be a Time Lord now please?

Then we get more of RTD’s Miraculous Escapes as we’re landed with a fully-functional re-grown Ten. Except he’s not though, is he? He’s half Donna and half something else - and then a quick dalliance with slapstick as we find out that New Not Ten speaks a bit ‘rough’ (what’s the difference between ‘rough’ and ‘Mockney’, then?). I did like the fact that he finds only having one heart and being half human ‘disgusting’.

Martha doing battle with the great language of Germany to get herself into the secret underground bunker - ace. But daleks incinerating Jack? That’s going to really hurt. Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie, being frog-marched into the Crucible. We’re really jumping around now, aren’t we? Trying to draw all these strands together, to get everyone into the right position for a showdown. And we’re getting some fantastic music from past and present - Murray Gold, you are a genius.

Enter Davros - and the exchange between the Time Lord and the Kaled scientist is indeed interesting. And Dalek Caan and his crazy, crazy prophecies… Nice. Got to love a madman. And then comes the revelation of the whole Dastardly Plan - swiftly followed by another Miraculous Escape, this time by Jackie. Can’t say I blame RTD for this one - you can’t kill off Jackie. But isn’t Davros just excellent? What a fantastic bit of acting, there, well done, son. Although, if I could just point out the obvious - if you destroy Reality itself, what’s left? You’re all going to shelter from the cataclysm, are you? And when you come out again and you’re victorious, what do you do then? Retire? Tend gardens? Get a job counselling post-war daleks? Cos there’s going to be bugger all else to do if you’re truly the last race left in the entire bloody universe.

Love the meeting between Mickey and Captain Jack - cheesecake, beefcake, same-same. And then Miraculous Plot Device occurs as Sarah Jane whips out her warp-fold conjugation trapped in a carbonised shell - cos we all pick up these little trinkets from dodgy back-street markets, right? Anyway, true to form and the herding mentality, everyone then decides to do the same thing at the same time, which is give the daleks an ultimatum. Nothing at all to do with bringing everyone together, or contriving to get three different kill-or-be-killed plots going at once? But hey ho, what’s this? New Not Ten planning to whack a rubber band on the back of the daleks’ Death Star beam, so it’ll slap back and kill them all? Say whaty who now? Since when does the Doctor (or any part of him) plan to kill people? He didn’t even do away with the Family of Blood, after all they did.

And Rose likes Martha - who wouldn’t? Final clarification of all that cack flying about that there’s some kind of competition or sense of one-upmanship between Companions. Bollocks, all of it. Of course Rose would recognise that Martha - and of course Donna - are worthy Companions. Surely the Doctor wouldn’t have travelled with them otherwise? (No, he wouldn’t - and don’t call me Shirley.) Cos Martha’s not stupid, and she’s an expert negotiator - cos we know that true negotiators don’t care about the outcome. They’re willing to gamble everything. Which means she will bloody well destroy the Earth just so that the daleks can’t keep their precious twenty-seven planets. It’s bigger than just the Earth, after all, and perhaps only someone as well-travelled as Martha woulf really understand that.

Nice bit of emotional torture from Davros - how many good people have died in the Doctor’s name? A stirring montage, coupled with some expert Unshed Man-Tear wrangling by David Tenninch Tennant, remind us that you can never truly get away from a bit of Bond Villain on a Saturday night as Davros goes into full-on Crazy Mode, screaming those fateful words: “Nothing can stop us now!”

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Nothing appears from the TARDIS and she does. The Doctor-Donna, that is. Just as the Ood predicted. Weird, little bit freaky, but YEE-HAAA is she so very, very ace! Oh yes Donna, the universe has indeed been waiting for you!

And the manipulator - the meddling kid that stopped every dalek getting away with it. Oh Dalek Caan, you’ve taken it a tentacle too far. But it’s ok, cos even though Big Bad Supreme Dalek comes to clean the slate, Captain Jack is there to point and laugh at his attempts at Ass-Kickery and blow his head off. Good boy, Jack.

But there we are - Dalek Caan smooth-talks his way into New Not Ten’s head and makes him turn every dalek into a lovely fiery Catherine Wheel. Nice, emotionally satisfying, but absolutely not what real Doctor Ten would do. Hmm… But Davros. Oh, you cheeky git - had to get the last word, didn’t you? Naming the Doctor the Destroyer Of Worlds? That’s going to come back and bite him in the arse, mark my words…

And then again we lapse into Sentimental Mode as we try to jam in as many missing faces / GUIs as possible. Out comes K-9 as we roar headlong into Happy Ending Mode, towing the Earth home. (Nice mention of the fact that TARDISes actually need a six-man crew. Was wondering when RTD would get that into an episode.) But what is that music as they’re towing? Started out sounding like summat I recognised, but then appeared to turn into some semblance of some Eastern European country’s national anthem. I loved the overhead shot of everyone twiddling, pumping, fiddling with the controls - and Martha’s cheeky grin directed straight at the camera.

Very quick goodbyes from Jack, Martha and Mickey - please say Martha and Mickey are going off to work for Torchwood. Please, please? And then we’re back to Sentimental Happy Ending At All Costs Territory. Yup, the final solution - and this is where I’m not happy.

Part of it makes sense - yeah, shuck off the extra New Not Ten and leave him with Rose. I mean, next best thing, right? What she always wanted - except she weren’t careful what she wished for. Clever Doctor Ten, using a bit of subterfuge to cover his escape. However, if I’d written it, I’d have killed off New Not Ten. Sorry, but I would. It’s just not right. He’d have been a kind of hero though - wiping out daleks, whether it was genocide or not, then dying heroically. Would have gone down better than ‘now I can bunk off and die of old age with Rose, ah happy days’.

And then to top it off, we have to lose my favourite Companion in active memory. Taken back to her family, memory wiped, all those amazing things she said, did, accomplished despite thinking she was useless. All of it gone. Poor Donna. Poor Wilf and Mum. Purr wee Doctor Ten.

Donna’s complete ignorance of him as he tries to say goodbye is painful enough. But Wilf’s parting shot was worse. Calling him Sir, telling him he’ll look for the TARDIS in the night sky, oh it were heart-breaking. Bernard Cribbins, you are still a hero. And poor Ten all alone again, dripping and not caring, leaving by himself.

Finally, there's a ten second ‘coming Christmas 2008’ trailer - featuring the amazing David Morrisey! Oh, and some Cybermen. It’s going to be a long wait till Christmas, I know that. But int it weird? This episode for me were a bit 50/50. Some of it I loved, some of it were over-done, some of it were a little silly. But in the end, I know I’ll be glued to the set to watch the Christmas episode, same as I was last year. Let’s face it people - Davids Tennant and Morrisey back together ont BBC? Has to be good!

That shallot. I’m all tired out now, and have fanfiction to proof-read. Not just for me, mind. Believe it or not, other people write it too.

So soopytwist everyone - you’re not getting peach or lube tonight, and you can blame that on RTD. However, you can all have a bit of peach on account, as we eagerly away Steven Moffat’s helming of Christmas and the Easter specials beyond…

Tags:
Doctor Who ~ David Tennant ~ Donna Noble ~ Catherine Tate ~ Dalek ~ Davros ~ Sarah Jane Smith ~ Rose Tyler ~ Billie Piper ~ Captain Jack Harkness ~ John Barrowman ~ Ianto Jones ~ Torchwood ~ David Morrisey

Not my fault

Not in a Han Solo ‘It’s not my fault! They told me they fixed it!’ kinda way, but a ‘PCCW / Netvigator are playing silly buggers with my net connection again’ kinda way. This is why I haven’t posted in a about sixty years, and this is why my write-up of ‘Doctor bloody Who’ series four finale is going to have to wait till it’s fixed.


Did I mention I’m angry? Hmm, can’t quite remember a time when I was this angry… Oh no, wait, yes I can - the last time they gave me a piece of shit wireless broadband modem and then cut me off for a week, telling me it was my fault cos obviously my computer was fucked up and not set up properly. Then sending two engineers, one of which saying the signal strength to the building was to blame but he’d fixed it, and the next telling me he weren’t surprised it didn’t work cos the useless bastard thing - and I quote, people, ‘is not compatible with Mac’s Airport’.

Yes, I shit you not. They actually believe this is a reasonable excuse in this day and age. What’s next, my DVD player is not compatible with my front room? Oh no, wait, I’ve got one - my arse is not compatible with my sofa. He actually had the balls to stand there and say that Mac did not work with his precious modem. Oh no, no, no, I said, I think you’ll find your fucking waste of space box doesn’t work my my Mac. And let me tell you why.

A long convoluted conversation about the fact that I can pick up everyone else’s wireless int residential block of flats, and the fact that my settings are just fine, ta, seeing as Jarvis II took them from the modem itself without humans getting int way, and he’s almost thinking about changing his story.

I don’t care. I couldn’t give a foetid pair of dingo’s kidneys what he believes, so long as he makes the fucking modem work. I mean, not to be rude, but it’s their job. It’s not like I’m asking them to repair the road outside my flat, or fix my fridge, or provide me with milk every morning. All I want is a working modem for which I’ve already paid. At this rate I don’t think I’ll pay my bill at the end of the month - prove to me I’ve actually used the fucking service first, eh?


Anyway, the wait for this morning's engineer continues...

Tags:
PCCW ~ Netvigator ~ Airport Extreme ~ Mac