Scattershots

Like a blast from shotgun, these are the days of my lives....


Just a few bits and pieces as they occur to me. It's a bit self-indulgent blog-like, so get out now while the getting's good. Otherwise, let us continue:

ITEM! I watched Event Horizon again for the first time in a long time last night. I was very excited to see the nifty new gimmick box set. I'm usually averse to gimmick box sets, as they're a pain in the ass to store anywhere, but it was £10 on Amazon so what the fuck.

Now, Event Horizon is a film that I have long defended as not being as bad as people make it out to be. I loved it in the cinema, and remember it as being flawed, but great looking and quite gripping.


I now must revise that opinion. It IS as bad as people make it out to be. But I still enjoyed it. Yes it is full of cardboard cutout characters and situations (largely taken from Alien and Aliens standees and lobby cards), yes the editing is jumpy and full of pacing problems, and yes the plot is riddled with holes and characters appear and disappear without explanation, but it's got a daft horror film sense of fun. And New Zealand's own Sam Neill.


Which is to say, if you have any 15 year old part of your brain that still jumps to the fore every now and then, there's plenty to like. The concept is great (ship with revolutionary star drive powered by black hole goes missing on it's first activation of the drive, shows up 7 years later as a ghost ship, team go to investigate, bad things happen, just where did the drive open a gateway to?), the gore is top notch, the scares are generally pretty good with some nice creepy set-ups, there are more than a few unintentional laughs, and yes it still looks great. While I'm disappointed that I can't still come out in as firm a defence of the film as I would like, at least I now know who I can recommend it to.


I'm talking to you, Bruce. You, Martin, and that bottle of whiskey.

ITEM! Going to see Sunshine today. Oh yes. Okay, so I'm expecting a little disappointment, but still hoping for good things.


ITEM! I was thinking last night about my job, and how nice it's been to work in a place where coming into contact with comics creators of all kinds is a fairly common occurrence. The idea, when I was 18 or 19, that I would one day be in a store where I wouldn't think it unusual (if still uncommon) to have Alan Moore walk in (mad-ass heavy metal rings and all) would have sent me over the edge.


I've met a ton of creators whose work I admire since starting at Gosh!, and the little geek inside me thinks that's just darn swell. It was a happy thought for me, and I thought I'd share it.

ITEM! Summer is nearly well and truly here. Last night I was wandering home, and there was that most heartening of London sights: people spilling out of pubs onto the streets. It really creates such a nice relaxed vibe.

ITEM! Where does all my fucking time go?


I'm writing again (a good thing), but that has taken over my morning coffee reading time (I make sure to stop in a park for 45 minutes or so on my walk into work every morning). This means my news reading needs to be done in the evenings before bed, supplanting my novel reading. So I'm trying to read more novels during lunch, but lunchtimes are often taken up with other things. This is all not helped by the fact that my reading pace has slowed to a crawl. Mind you, my retention is so shit these days that I don't know why I bother. And don't get me started on where I get time to watch films or read comics. Or write blog entries, which seem to take an inordinate amount of time to write even the smallest thing. Meanwhile the grim spectre of death looms ever closer.


Maybe I'm being a little melodramatic...

ITEM! Watched The Man Who Wasn't There the other night. I love that film. Billy Bob Thornton delivers one of the greatest ever film monologues: laconic and dry, but filled with a slow-burning sense of longing and loss.


It's a beautiful thing.

ITEM! Got the DVD & CD set of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds on the Abbatoir Blues tour. I was quite excited, as I was at the Brixton Academy gig on disc one, and I'm happy to see they've put in the astounding version of Stagger Lee they did there. It'll knock yer socks off.


The whole package is pretty good actually, and well worth the money if you're a Cave fan. Less successful (on a couple of listens at least - it has the potential to grow on me) is the Grinderman album, which is basically the same band minus Mick Harvey. Nick Cave does garage rock. It's okay, but nothing really standing out yet, even though it does have the nasty, recorded in a shed feel that I so appreciate in music nowadays.

ITEM! I at last watched 3-part tv doco The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear the other day, which charts the origins and rise of neo-conservatism (and the architecture of modern US foreign policy) against the rise and fall and rise (sorta) of radical Islamism, from their common origin to their current meeting-point.


It's a great series, putting a wonderful sense of perspective on many things we are fed as a given in a blackly comedic manner, and features some astounding archive footage.

ITEM! Want to waste some time on the internet? You know you should relax more, and stop just using it as a tool for research and the betterment of mankind. Well, go to Fist-a-Cuffs, and vote on the outcome of battles between creatures created by a variety of artists for your gladiatorial entertainment.


The brain-child of Sam Hiti.

P.S. Vote for Blazin' Blades, The Delegates of Pain, and The Maliciously Merciless Monarchs Of Misery. 'Cos they're my friends.

ITEM! I'm just padding now...