Weblog | I don't like the word blog, it's ugly. Anyway, new content happens here. (Swedish dito)

About me and the site | Twenty-something male who likes text. Obsessed with things such as books, reality, communication, and one or two tv-shows.

Archives | Things written here since... well, 2001. Some of it is good, some is utter shait.

Books | Books read, not books written. So far I've struggled to maintain unpublished.

Photo | I like my camera and it likes me.

Links | Outwards, away, flee.

e-mail | J. Nicklas Andersson

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Guest, but no a guest

Best movie of this year? A Mighty Wind. I haven’t seen it, but the competition isn’t that spectacular. Christopher Guest is a genius, and this time he brings back McKean and Shearer. Sure, it’s the usual Guest mockumentary thing except with a slight twist. There is a story. A story, plot or whatever you want to call it. If you’ve seen the SNL-bit from ‘84 about the Folksmen, you know the premise. This is about their reunion. But we here in the cold Sweden will probably have to wait for a video release next year.

(At least I’m not alone about this...)

Tomorrow I plan to write about Best in Show as I plan to see it one more time later tonight. (Yes, I mean tonight. Late even. No sleep for the... you know, me.)

Proof that elves are local

While I haven’t seen the Two Towers, I do actually think I want to do so. If only because Hugo Weaving turns to Liv Tyler and says: “Arwen, you don’t belong here.” Is Elrond Tubbs or Edward? (Probably Edward due to his attitude towards humans.) Does he begin with “This is a local shop for local people?” And if Arwen isn’t local, then who is David? Questions, questions.

Weird fictionwise

For those inclined, there is a thread at the TTA Press messageboards about the new British weird fiction “movement”. It is long and extremely interesting. Authors in the midst of it all — such as M John Harrison, Alastair Reynolds, Justina Robson and Steph Swainston — write about their point of view on the whole thing. Genre flaws and “mainstream” reception comes into it as tat seems to be a pretty important part of British literature. Apparently even more so than in Sweden or the USA.

(And you can meet mr Reynolds in person and have a chat about this and other things the 15-17 August in Uppsala..)

This is why DC can't get a decent comic adaptation

So, we’re officially screwed. The Hellblazer movie is going to be... Batman & Robin all over again.

Shuler Donner added that it will be a challenge selling audiences on a hero without the name recognition of X-Men. “I think the challenge is just to make a really good movie,” she said. “Even though there’s a name, a cachet, the movie [still] has to stand up on its own.”

Well. Let’s see. They’ve taken John Constantine and made him 1) American, 2) a con-man and 3) into Keanu Reeves. Neither of these changes are any good, and the producer thinks mr Reeves is perfect for the part. The whole point is that Constantine doesn’t have to use magic as he charms his way through life anyway. And they’ve given him a Batmobile.

Even better is this, from another interview:

“He’s hot in the role, he’s perfect for Hellblazer because he has that innocent quality about him, a bit naive, but someone you like,” Donner says to Zap2it.com. “He’s a bit like Tarzan, or a hero like that. But this time, he sends demons to hell.”

Naive? Constantine? I’m howling with laughter here. Really. I hope this never gets made... Can’t Terry Gilliam visit the set or something? With his pockets full of rocks from the Failed Movie About Don Quiote. Anything. Please.

Far better choice of audio track

What can you say about the League of Gentlemen? It wasn’t bland. It was weird. Needless to say, I loved every minute of it. Too bad it was the second season, as it makes me want to go out and get the first one so that I’ll be able to see it from the beginning.

I did however do something weirder myself. I don’t remember why, but the tv was on. I think I had just watched a movie on dvd. Suddenly, the screen, with transmissions for the tv networks, changed to the next scheduled programme. This turned out to be a movie with the annoying Olsen twins. I don’t know which, and I don’t want to know. It was bad, but I didn’t change channel. Yeah, call me a masochist.

Instead I lowered the volume and pressed play on the stereo. Talk about clash between cultures that don’t mix. From the cd came this:

What do you say if we lighten things up and talk about abortions? You know. Feel like I’m losing some of you here, and I want to win all of you back with this one. Let’s talk about abortions, let’s talk about child killing and see if we can’t get some chuckles rippling through the room here. Let’s talk about mass murder of young, unborn children and see if we can’t combine it into one big healthy gut-laugh.

This simple move, transformed the horrible movie from an all-around family comedy bore that was about as inoffensive as it can get without involving dancing in the alps, into something far far better — or worse, morally speaking. Imagine, when they rode a roller coaster you didn’t hear them laugh and scream. You heard Bill Hicks scream, but not a scream of joy. It was more along the lines of “sucker of Satan’s cock!” as he was ranting about Jesse Helms. And I laughed, because what else could you do? Talk about avantgarde art installation.

• DrBacchus' Journal: The League of Gentlemen
  

It's just a bunch of guys, no more

This is what the epilog comments about the recent war has driven my to practically scream. In type nonetheless.

Stop this right now. I can’t take it anymore. All this damned talk about good guys and bad guys. It is an imaginary division that we make in order to justify certain actions. There are not bad guys and good guys. The idea that there are persons that’s paragons of virtue is a fairy tale. The actual existences of such persons are rare unless they have the mental age of a three-year old child. After that humanity kicks in and we learn how the world works. I try not to be cynical here, but the world is a shit-hole. It really is. And the proper way to fix the problems is not to divide everything into a black-and-white spectrum and settle for short-term solutions.

Another thing is that while there might be people who are nice, friendly and boy scout material 24-hours a day, seven days a week — I give them exceptions for the Easter, when they’re allowed to wallow around doing immoral acts of drinking hard liquor — none of them can be politicians or high government officials. You know why? They’re the scum of the earth. They suck the blood out of living mammals and settle their differences with duels where they hit each other with crying babies. No matter what they use for excuses, their actions are tainted with the deep dark tar of greed and covered in the ash of crumbling decease. Objectively speaking.

Countries are even worse. Nirvana doesn’t exist and the closest we can get to Shangri-la is when we might get a glimpse of the computerised special effect version on Kung Fu - the sequel. It contains a lot of smoke and sucks even more than the rest of the series.

Thank you. I’ll leave politics alone now, until the next time that is.