Tom Charman

So, apparently, a rough-ish cut of the first episode of Doctor Who is out online somewhere.

And I’m sitting here, not downloading it. Which I’ll have to continue doing until … well, until the proper, transmitted version turns up on the internet. Then I’ll bite. After all, it doesn’t look like it’ll be shown in Australia until the end of the year. And I promise to watch it then, too.

And then, buy the DVDs.

But still. I’ve got 18 days, 19 hours, 29 minutes to hold myself back until then. Grrr.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there have been a lot of comic book movies out there recently. Let’s call it a subtle trend. What’s interesting to me is that only by seeing the trailer — or sometimes, by hearing the casting details — you can usually tell which of two categories they fall into. These categories are, of course:

1. Awesome and exciting.
2. Cheap and shitty.

With hindsight of course, it’s easy to classify them, but just for fun: Catwoman — Crap. Spiderman 2 — Good. Elektra — Crap. Batman Begins — Good. Well, probably.

Constantine however, was a movie that I really wasn’t sure about. The trailer was a mixture of good and evil.[ftn] Some cool effects and set pieces, but some very slow-looking dialogue, and a painful aura of seriousness. Going to see it was a bit of a gamble. And for most people, it hasn’t paid off. Most people in my cinema were laughing at the serious bits, and guffawing at every plot development. A lot of the reviews I’ve seen online are quite damning. And fans of the comic book Hellblazer on which the film is based don’t seem particularly thrilled.

And yet — I kind of liked it. I mean, if you want to scorn this film, I’m sure you could. And yet for some reason, I was drawn in. I’ll try to explain why for the rest of the review.

Perhaps it’s the setting. Constantine has a fabulous, catholic-esque[ftn] universe to explore. John Constantine is a cynical shell of a man, wandering around a world he’d never have believed in if he hadn’t seen it. The film establishes some solid rules for all the angels and demons wandering about, and sticks to them. Constantine is given a bunch of anti-demon gadgets by his Q-equivalent, and they all get used.[ftn]

But then, you might find Christian mythology very hard to take seriously, and find shotguns with crucifixes lame and not cool. It’s possible that Keanu’s po-faced explanations of all the stuff going on might irritate rather than enthrall. It depends how believable you find Keanu.

There’s a lot of other interesting characters, too; a fat, alcoholic priest, a nervous, bookish fellow who lives behind a bowling alley and just manages to avoid being a cliché, the kind of androgynous angel Gabriel, and the lovely Rachel Weisz. Miss Weisz does a pretty decent turn as a tormented cop having her eyes opened to a bizarre new universe — reminding me a lot of Elizabeth Rohm in the first season of Angel. She’s perhaps just a shade too sensible at times; I find just a touch of “this is all a bit silly, isn’t it” works rather well in this sort of movie.

Of course, you might think the acting’s all really lame. I’m just not sure.

John Constantine himself, however, is my favourite thing about the film. I’m sick of heroes that are completely incompetent until just near the end of the final act. I’m sick of heroes who claim to have only the most pure and noble of intentions, yet get all the ancilliary benefits (girls, souls, whatever) at the end of the film anyhow. I’m sick of heroes who don’t really have much of a plan, charge in, and win because of pure luck rather than improvisational skill. John comes across as a clever guy, who knows which battles he can win, and which he can’t. He’ll break the rules if he has to, but at the same time, he’ll use them to his advantage. And he doesn’t warn bad guys before he attacks them. He’s pretty sensible.[ftn]

Keanu plays Constantine with his usual understatement, but like Hugh Grant, he’s an actor who knows his strengths and limitations and steps so deftly within them that he actually ends up performing quite impressively. He can walk sombrely in a trenchcoat pretty well, and take the piss out of it when necessary, too.[ftn] I’m aware that there’s people out there who hate Keanu. You folk won’t like this movie, I’m pretty sure. You can take your place with all the Hellblazer fans who can’t accept a brown-haired American playing a blond Brit.

I really enjoyed this film. There’s adventure, there’s jokes, there’s a lot of subversion of expectation, there’s an awesome bit with a shotgun, and the finale is clever, amusing, and dramatic. You’ll only hate it if you’re the sort of person who gets too self-conscious watching things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.[ftn]

Footnotes

1. Like everything man touches.
2. Never will I stop making up dumb words.
3. Yes, even the car with the rocket launchers. Oh, alright, there isn’t one.
4. Actually, he kind of reminds me of Angel. The vampire, that is, not a catholic angel. Sorry for confusing the issue.
5. I particularly liked the chewing gum.
6. Or Doctor Who. 17 days…

All the time, I see things about the place and think — I should write about that in my weblog. And then I forget them. So I won’t be mentioning any of those today.

• The new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trailer looks mighty fine. Well, except for the stupid flapping-up head-smacking things. I don’t know what they’re all about.
• Having a lecturer faint mid-talk seems like a bit of fun, but later on, it’s hard to listen to them and not panic every time they stutter or pause.
• Life sometimes drops things straight in your lap. Cheltenham truly is the most perfect place to live in the world. Well, alongside Banff obviously.
• Wallace & Gromit looks good too. In a Wallace and Gromit kind of way. That Tom Baker fellow is everywhere these days.
• I’ve missed the first two episodes of the actual Battlestar Galactica series. Watching TV on the TV is so impractical. Lost is looking up though. I’m starting to like some of the characters. Especially their ‘Spike’ character.
• I’ve got a review for Constantine coming up. I’m sorry everything’s been so quiet. I’ve also got a review of Spy Lounge ready to roll with. Not from me, obviously. I’m considering having an official, Grapefruit-updating day of the week, so that I have a deadline to aim at. How does Wednesday sound?
• I got new headphones! I’m now the proud owner of a stealthPod. There’s enough white headphones in the city to sink a ship. A very small ship, of course, but bigger than you might otherwise think.

I’m rather behind in my TV watching, and only saw the first half of the Battlestar Galactica miniseries yesterday. I was pretty impressed though. It reminded me a bit of the beginning of Star Trek: Generations, but way cooler. I like the grumpy old captain (who looks a bit like Tom from Joe Btfsplk’s if anyone’s seen both of them). I like the sexy evil chick, except when she’s killing babies. I like the pathetic, self-obsessed scientist. I like the Secretary of Education/President (played by Donnie Darko’s mum).

There was one particularly cool scene where a whole bunch of nuclear blasts went off and two people stood sillhouetted as the explosion rushed through their house and towards the camera. Awesome stuff.

Overall, a bit of corn, and maybe taking itself a bit too seriously, but pretty good and great fun.

Well, I’ve just finished the highly anticipated sequel to 2003’s game of the year – Knights of the Old Republic II. And…

Well, it’s not as good as number one. I’ll write a review after I’ve played it through evilly, but the fact that I’m not playing it again right now says a bit about its relative quality.

What KOTOR and the original trilogy have in common, and what makes them so much fun to me, is a sort of heroic, fairy tale, adventure kind of feeling. Heroes, romance, destiny, quests, and a strong focus on friendships. KOTOR II has a lot of characters, but you never quite feel like they’re your friends. Sparse conversation options don’t help this. There’s one girl who I talked to once when she arrived on my ship, had nothing new to say to her for the rest of the game, until the end when she wanted to sleep with me. Oh, the romance.

The plot of the game is interesting, but kind of uninvolving, and lacking in derring do and heroic actions.

I won’t waffle on more, I’ll save it for later, but basically — I like my Star Wars with a gritty exterior but with a heart of gold. KOTOR II is all gritty and ambiguous, and a little contrived in places too. With some absolutely pitiful character interaction. And awesome lightsaber moves.

I’m sorry I haven’t been saying more here recently. Though naturally, I’m still light years ahead of Jackson and Andrew. When did Andrew last post to his blog? The bronze era?

Anyhow, I’ve been busy saving the universe in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, so you can’t really expect me to waste time here. Except when I’m at work, naturally. Things were a bit boring until I got my lightsaber and got to rally a whole bunch of losers to take down an attacking phalanx of mercenaries. In quiet moments, I spar with a hot but anonymous handmaiden and spare cute Sith assassins who try to kill me. Life’s good. Well, except for the grumpy old hag who seems to think she’s my teacher.

In the real world — outside JB today we noted that their Security Officers are now known as “Loss Prevention Officers”.

KotORII:TSL should be able to keep me occupied until March 26th or so.

Yesterday began the Chinese Year of the Rooster.

I’m a Rooster, and I know many others who are too, of course. Here’s hoping this is a good omen, or something. Not that, of course, we didn’t see it coming.

Why am I at work? I could have used this storm-screwing-up-public-transport excuse to come in at least another hour late. I could have been home, playing Burnout 3! Which is awesome. Slow motion and crashes are made for each other. Like spinach and ricotta cheese. Mmmmm, ricotta…

If Andy’s still insisting on being the cynical one about the curse, then I suppose I’ll have to be the hopeful one. I never get to be the cynical one. Still, if Andy’s been lured back into the curse’s terrible sphere of influence then he can’t really be all that cynical. Has he realised that even if his inspired plan to convert games from Xbox to Gamecube works, he’s still only got the Halo 2 bonus DVD? I wondered where that case had gotten too. Jackson was asking. It turns out the playdisc was transported inside the Xbox, which he’s not normally in favour of. I thought he was OK with it, but then he smashed my car into oncoming traffic. So maybe we’re not cool.

Electronics Boutique shouldn’t be allowed to put cases out in their ‘coming soon’ shelves. It’s evil. Shortsighted people like myself are convinced for minutes as they walk towards the shop that Knights of the Old Republic 2 has been released.

This happened to me the other day too, at work. There I am, trying to get my new tabbed interface for the AMES Quality System working, and consolidate a whole bunch of pages into a simpler system, and this funny scratching noice keeps niggling at me. Normally when Windows makes funny noises at me, it’s because I’ve pressed ‘shift’ five times in a moment of indecision and enabled ‘StickyKeys’.

On this occasion, it was not me at all, but just the fact that I had previously done a search of a networked drive. Clearly, this is something I needed to be reminded of by the sound of a dog scratching himself. Even though I’d already looked at the results.

Ah, the Windows XP searching dog. I’ve, uh, turned him off.

Just to mention something nice about Windows — I don’t know how long it’s been doing it, but the folders in the Windows Explorer ‘folders’ sidebar are now spring-loaded: i.e. you can drag a file onto a closed folder and it opens up to show you what’s inside. Macs have been doing this for several years now, and I’m glad to see the innovation get into Windows, too, as it’s super useful.

I need advice. See, I’ve had my old phone for a while now, and I wouldn’t mind a new one. And you can get such sweet new ones. If I get a Nokia Series 60 phone, then I can use it as a Bluetooth remote control for my computer. I could sit in bed, control DVDs, turn the computer off, open downloaded episodes of ‘The Daily Show’, etc.

It can also, of course, synchronise with my computer’s address book, calendar, etc. But all bluetooth phones could do that.

It’s reasonably nifty. But the cost… the cheapest series 60 phone seems to be $480 australian dollars.

Is it worth it? I’m thinking, no-ish.