The Great Podcast Experiment

For those of you who are interested my friend Joey and I have finally gotten around to that podcast. This is our first time so forgive the loose format and bear in mind that Joey had a bit of a cold at the time of recording and so his voice sounds a little unclear. Also our friend Kyle talks in the background a few times and chances are you won't hear him, so bear this in mind because we do address what he says on a number of occassions. Anyway I hope you enjoy it. Constructive feedback is welcome.

  (1) Birdface and Bearman by Angus Vodes Baillie

Thor

Here is just a small sample of some words that rhyme with Thor. Bore, abhor, snore, chore, poor and Norse Folklore. Now, having read that I want you to try and deduce my critical opinion of the movie Thor. Oh go on! Don't just sit there waiting for the answer. You've done it? Good. Thor is shit.

A number of times previously in this ancient tome some people call "a blog" (and others call "are you still writing those?") I have touched on the idea that DC comics seem to produce better shit than Marvel comics. Now if I were a Marvel supporter I would be very careful about mentioning this movie in any argument because it has very little to recommend it. If I had to sum up the plot, which let's face it I DO because the alternative would be to reproduce the script, I would say it's about a prick living in a kingdom populated entirely by mythological Norse pricks who gets stripped of his powers and banished to Earth for being too much of a prick. OK so that's a kind of shitty summary but that's essentially it. Thor is the son of Odin who is a little too keen to assert his dominance against the Ice Giants. His father forbids it for sound diplomatic reasons and Thor chooses to gather a crew of adventuring buddies to storm the Ice Giant's home and exact brutal revenge for making Thor look like a war hungry, arrogant dickhead. I particularly "enjoyed" the hasty and lazy characterization of the war buddies as Thor set a minute of screen time aside to go to each in turn and list their name, rank, specialty and fondest childhood memory. It was the biggest shock for me to see that his band of merry men actually consisted of one young, hot, nimble woman in skimpy tight leather who would then be characterized as "the woman." But it was all for naught really as each of these characters probably only has about 10 minutes of screen time and enough dialogue between them to fill a single script page. AND they probably had to share it.

So to the absolute shock of nobody Odin is quite displeased with Thor and decides the best thing to do would be to strip him of his magical hammer and throw him through a wormhole to Earth along with the hammer, that he will not be able to use until he (do I even have to say it?) PROVES HIMSELF WORTHY. Which I suppose sounds perfectly functional but basically means that the superhero in this superhero movie has no powers or abilities for most of the movie, which as far as mistakes in superhero movies goes is pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty big. "So what do we fill in the other 80% of the movie with?" I hear scriptwriter A pontificate. "Clumsy love interests? Vague science stuff? Fish out of water comedy antics? Secret government branches?"
"How about all those things?" says scriptwriter B.
"Nah" replies scriptwriter A "I think we need to make things a little more focused than that."
It was at this point that the director, obviously drunk and sleeping with scriptwriter B, walks in a beats scriptwriter A to death. So yeah 80% Thor is essentially packing foam for a flimsy, fragile plot that still manages to break. The aforementioned secret government business is perhaps the most baffling part. Does America have a branch in the secret service devoted to the science behind interstellar hammers? Because after the hammer is found, lodged King Arthur style in a rock, there is a massive labyrinth of plastic domes and quarantined zones set up around it within a day or so. There are scientists scanning it on computers, looking at it though different heat and colour spectra. What the fuck is going on exactly?

Perhaps the biggest surprise I got from Thor came days later when I read the wikipedia article and discovered it got "generally favourable reviews." I was geniunely baffled and shocked by this news. That is, before I read closer and discovered that the people who reviewed it favorably are those kind of "critics" that work for The Hollywood reporter and prefer to fellate the film with fad sentences like "kicks off this superhero summer with a bang." Which isn't a review as much as it is a stale piece of marketing. But actual, proper critics like Roger Ebert who can still spot a pile of shit after the polishing, gave it the negative write up it deserves, which comforted me immensely. The fact of the matter is Thor as a movie was unfocused and boring. The story can be summed up as 114 minutes of an idiot getting his magic hammer back.Which could be forgivable if it wasn't relying so heavily on the development of characters that you couldn't possibly care about. If you manage to stick around after the credits they have some little bit with Samuel L. Jackson that's supposed to get us excited because "Thor will be back in The Avengers." Great, well I definitely won't be watching that then.

The Great Gatsby

You know it occurred to me recently that for all my critiquing and bitching about movies, TV, anime, games and life in general I've never really dealt with books in any meaningful way. I guess I find books and music a little harder to talk about because they seem like much more personal things. Also I've become extremely slotheful when it comes to reading books, which I blame on the aforementioned mediums which are consuming my life hastily and aggressively like a fat man on a half-hour lunch break. Or your mum in a circle of naked men. So in order to embrace a new medium I'm going to ignore your mums persistent phone calls and saddle up for The Great Gatsby, which happens to be the book I finished last night.

So reviewing what many people with a brain consider to be a classic may seem lazy. Because I can easily just say "yeah it's pretty good and well worth reading" and get back to Facebook without any concern for opposition. But I like to think I'm better than that, even if I'm not. So whilst not budging from the stance that The Great Gatsby is also "the great book" I'd like to actually discuss the books artistic merits and what personally interested me about the book.

I'll keep the plot synopsis brief to avoid spoilers as best I can. So the year is 1922 and we're in "the Roaring 20's" when the USA was enjoying the giddying highs of a soaring economy. The protagonist and narrator has moved into a rental house on Long Island next door to a Mansion owned by a man named Jay Gatsby; a legendary local figure who frequently throws extravagant parties and is the subject of gossip, speculation and rumor. Actually it is interesting the way the character of Gatsby is introduced into the story through the speculations of another character, so that when Gatsby does make his first legitimate appearance the reader is able to share the sense of awe and curiosity that grips so many of the locals in the novel. Upon meeting Gatsby and growing closer to him it is soon revealed what motivates him and it is here that the story really starts to get interesting.

So the plot may not sound like much and to be fair for a good hunk of the book it isn't. But it's the sudden depth the book has that I found particularly interesting. In the last chapter especially the true natures of the characters is revealed and many established expectations are turned on their head. It's quite disturbing and perhaps even shocking the way in which we suddenly see the world for what it really is and to my complete amazement I was left feeling lost and sympathetic in regards to the tragic turns of the novel. If I had to sum up The Great Gatsby in a crude, oversimplified way I'd almost be tempted to compare it to a soapie. This might sound like a flaw, especially from me, but I mean it in the sense that it spends most of it's time developing characters through entwined romances and everyday social conflicts but then delivers big on the season finale when it decides to knock it all down before us with a boating accident or a wedding massacre. Of course this is executed in a way that is far beyond the quality of any and all soap-operas and will likely leave an impression that will last well beyond the final page. Interestingly enough the book didn't sell particularly well during the authors lifetime and despite it's now classic status F. Scott Fitzgerald died thinking it and himself a failure. Knowing that the tragedy of the art would later be reflected in the tragedy of the artist adds to the impact of the novel and gives me a massive literature context stiffy. So if you feel a strong connection to my stiffy and feel we share similar stiffy inducing values I highly recommend you read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It will blow your load, uh, I mean "mind."

*coming soon: I will be reviewing Thor (movie), Skip Beat! (anime) and de Blob 2 (videogame). They should be funnier than this.*