I fall on the floor and I'm laughing

So here's the thing.

A few months ago, an announcement was made that Simon and Garfunkel would be travelling to New Zealand for one concert, in Auckland. And I was excited. I remember in 2003, when the duo reunited and went on a US tour, thinking how incredible it would be to see them perform live, and how sad it was that I would never get to have that experience. But now that experience was there, it was possible. And I was thrilled.

On 17 April 2009, tickets went on sale for the concert. And at 9am on that morning, I was sitting at my computer, hurriedly refreshing the Ticketmaster website as fast as possible, waiting for the "tickets are not yet on sale" screen to change to the "make your selection" screen.

Then it happened. Tickets were now on sale. Quickly I selected my options, made sure I was ordering the $150 tickets, went through the security check intended to separate humans from automatic systems, waited while it conducted a search, and then told me it couldn't find any tickets for my criteria. What? Tickets only went on sale one minute ago, they'll hardly have sold out the whole arena already. I tried again and again, with no result. After a few minutes, I stopped searching by price. Just give me anything. And after ten minutes of searching, it offered me a ticket. A $350 ticket. I nearly bought it, but with the clock in the corner of the screen counting down until the tickets would be offered to someone else, at that moment of pressure, I decided not to buy the ticket. I like Simon and Garfunkel, but not that much. I continued to try and search, for literally an hour, hoping it would offer me something in a cheaper price range, but it never did. I later learned the show apparently sold out in 19 minutes. For the last 40 minutes, I was just wasting my time with no chance of achieving my goal.

There were rumours that an announcement about a second show would be made in the next few days, but the announcement never eventuated. And eventually I moved on, pausing every now and then to kick myself. I should have bought those tickets when I had the option. They're never coming back here. It's literally a once-in-a-lifetime show, the only chance I'll ever have to see them. And I'm not a music person at all, there are few groups I would even consider going to see live. But Simon and Garfunkel are one group that I would love to see. And I turned it down because it might cost me a mere $200 more than I intended? What was I thinking? There were times when I found myself going back to the site and searching, just on the off-chance that tickets may appear. They never did.

Then, yesterday, long after I had given up on the announcement ever occuring, it was made. A second show, the night after the first. Tickets go on sale next Tuesday. I was excited, until I realised the date. With work commitments in the following week, the time I would need to take off to go to a Sunday concert rather than a Saturday would be difficult to justify. Dammit. But then, things changed again. For long and complicated reasons that I won't go into, something unexpected happened, and suddenly it looked like I could actually make a Sunday concert work with my job requirements. Hooray! Now I just need to get the tickets.

So it was that today, I went onto the Ticketmaster website, just to confirm the information about when tickets go on sale. And there it was, the second concert, sitting right beside the offer to search for tickets to the first concert, with no indication that show sold out a month ago. What the hell, I thought, and did a search for tickets to the Saturday concert, although I knew it was pointless. The show's sold out, I thought as I passed the security check. I'm wasting my time, as I sat there watching it conduct the search. Hey, that's different, as the search result came up with a screen that didn't tell me there were no tickets to offer. Instead, it said it had a ticket for me, a $350 premium ticket for me for the Saturday concert.

And immediately, I was unsure. Should I just wait and see if I can get cheaper tickets to the Sunday show. I actually closed the webpage down, and immediately started berating myself. You bloody idiot, I yelled at myself (in my mind - I'm not insane). You've just spent the last month angry at yourself for turning down tickets, and now you're turning them down again in the vague hope that you might be able to get something a bit cheaper in the future if you're lucky? What are you thinking? You're right, I responded to myself. I am an idiot, I will buy the ticket. You'd better hurry, my mind advised me. Every second that passes, someone else may find that ticket and snatch it up, and then you'll be annoyed with yourself all over again.

Now I was in a hurry. I knew that ticket was there, I just needed to get to it before anyone else. Every click on the website became agony, as I waited for the page to load up, but every click brought me one step closer to my goal (or further away, since at one point I clicked the wrong link and found the site offering to sell me tickets to the Pussycat Dolls and Disney On Ice - quite a variety of shows at the Vector Arena). Finally I made it through, got my tickets, somehow managed to make it through the purchase without messing it up, and now I am going to Simon and Garfunkel.

Although, $350. That's a lot of money...

---------------------------------------

And this seems like a good opportunity to share the best Simon and Garfunkel joke I've seen in the last few weeks. Okay, it's the only Simon and Garfunkel joke I've encountered in the last few weeks, but it's still a legendary joke.

From How I Met Your Mother, 4.22, "Right Place Right Time"

Humanity reaches its peak

So here's the thing.

This may be the greatest news story ever.

You see, KFC have introduced a new product over in the States. Believe it or not, it's Kentucky Grilled Chicken, "marinated and grilled to perfection for that five-star, fall-off-the-bone taste." And looking at the photos, it really looks awful. I'm pretty much the prime market for KFC, I go there way too often (although at least I hate myself for it afterwards), so if I'm looking at the advertising photo that is supposed to make the product look its best and most appealing, and I'm thinking "that looks awful", then it must look pretty bloody revolting.

Anyway, to promote the release of the new chicken, they've put coupons for free grilled chicken up on a website. All you need to do is download the coupon off the internet, print it off, and then take it in to KFC. In return, you get two pieces of non-original-recipe grilled chicken, two sides, and a "biscuit" (which is what the Americans call a kind of scone/bread roll). The coupon was only available to download for two days, but it could be used for two weeks, although for some reason they excluded Mothers' Day from the offer. Which was wise, because otherwise they would be inundated with mothers looking to spend Mothers' Day getting ghastly-looking chicken with a free downloaded coupon.

So what happens? Well, firstly, everyone in America apparently tried to download the coupon. As you might expect that they would. Which means servers crash, and people have real difficulty downloading the coupons. In one of the more intriguing comments on the website, someone wrote "I WAS JUST NOW ABLE TO PRINT THE KFC COUPON! IT TOOK OVER 3 HRS."

Now, let's put a bit of context on that comment. Simon and Garfunkel are coming to New Zealand next month, so a few weeks ago, I tried to buy tickets on the internet as soon they went on sale. I spent an hour trying unsuccessfully to get tickets before giving up. We're talking about tickets to what will probably be my only chance to see an important iconic music duo that I really enjoy, and I gave up after one hour. This woman spent three hours just to get $10 of revolting-looking KFC chicken. Isn't that a bit crazy?

But at least that's just people being inconvenienced while sitting at their computer. It's all in the privacy of their own home. I mean, as long as the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people who actually succeeded in downloading the coupons don't then have to all converge on a limited number of places to claim their free chicken, then no-one else should be inconvenienced, should they?

So what does happen when hundreds of people turns up to a KFC store demanding free chicken? Well, in one New York store (that I'll randomly select because this was the store where everything happened that prompted me to hear about the story in the first place), the manager understandably decided "Enough. We are not accepting any more coupons today." But if you offer people free chicken, be prepared to give away lots of free chicken. Otherwise, irate customers may feel ripped off, and decide to start an impromptu sit-in, refusing to leave until they get the free chicken that they were entitled to. Let me say that again: these people had nothing better to do with themselves than sit in a KFC store all afternoon. Their afternoon was valued at $10 worth of horrible chicken.

But clearly this reaction wasn't enough. So the hundreds of people crammed into the store took the next logical step to express their disappointment. They rioted. One report has "racial epithets ... being spewed" and the manager running from a "screaming horde". Now, don't forget, this is over chicken. And not even good chicken, but KFC Grilled Chicken. I keep looking at this story, trying to find the point where this behaviour makes sense, but I can't find it. Who are these people, and why are they acting like this?

But there's one detail that I haven't mentioned yet, one detail that stops this story from being merely an amusing story about a misguided promotion and a weird chicken-loving populace, one detail that lifts it to the level of "the greatest news story ever". What website was it that the coupon was posted on? What website partnered with KFC to make this offer available, and thus inflict all that trouble on the world?

Oprah.com

Yes, people were angry and frustrated and irate, people felt cheated and ripped off, threats were made, impromptu protests occurred, riots broke out. And the woman that caused it all to happen in the first place, the woman whose actions led directly to this pain and suffering and misery, was Oprah Winfrey. I have to say it again. Oprah caused a riot to break out in a New York KFC restaurant. And I think that's pretty damned funny.

Memo to Oprah: For future reference, screaming hordes are good when the people have been given free cars. But that doesn't mean screaming hordes are good in every circumstance. You may want to be more judicious in future with your giveaways. Just a suggestion.

Mirror, Mirror

So here's the thing.

For many years in geekdom, there was a well-known, authoritative rule that you could absolutely rely on. This was the "even-numbered Star Trek film" rule.

The basic principle of the rule was simple. The even-numbered Star Trek films are all excellent, or at least very good. If you're watching an odd-numbered Star Trek, it will be at best an average film, at worst it may make you lose your will to live.

Think about it:
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Terribly slow and tedious, with a pacing closer to 2001 than Trek (and I do love 2001, but it's an entirely different thing to Trek). Plus, the climax doesn't even involve the original characters at all.
- Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan - The standard by which all Trek films are judged. Just brilliant. And it has one hell of an ending.
- Star Trek III: The Search For Spock - Probably the best of the odd-numbered Trek films, in that it's pretty average rather than actually bad. It's not bad, it just is.
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - In my view it's the least of the even-numbered films (it's preachy, the fish-out-of-water comedy is frustratingly broad and obvious at times, and it is terribly dated these days), but despite that, it's a very enjoyable film.
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier - No. Just no. ... No.
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - The end of the Cold War interpreted through Trek. Complete with a murder mystery, some great action, and some nice commentary. An all-round excellent film.
- Star Trek: Generations - Who cares about the rest of the film, we were only watching for Kirk to meet Picard. Instead, Kirk vanishes ten minutes into the film, and only reappears right at the climax, where Kirk and Picard make breakfast before Kirk dies in a bridge collapse. Major disappointment. And the rest of the film is pretty average as well.
- Star Trek: First Contact - The Borg. On the big screen. And time travel back into Trek's past but our future. And James Cromwell is in it. What is there not to like?
- Star Trek: Insurrection - Just bland, a film made solely for the purpose of making a Trek film. There's no cinematic scope to the film, nothing to distinguish it from dozens of Next Generation episodes.

And then they had to go and ruin such a perfect pattern by releasing Star Trek: Nemesis, a bad even-numbered film. I rewatched it recently, just to see if it was as bad as I remembered, and it really was. The film felt like an exercise in cynical filmmaking, as though throwing a bunch of explosions and space action was enough to fool us into believing we were watching a good film. The film itself is well-made, but the core of the film, the script, just felt underdeveloped and empty, with a collection of potentially interesting ideas that never go anywhere. In the end, the film just lacked a soul.

And, if that wasn't enough, early reports of the new Trek prequel film, Star Trek, sound like this could be a great odd-numbered film. And if that proves to be true, it puts a final end to the even-numbered-Trek rule.

But back in 1999 I noticed a much more interesting pattern developing in the Star Trek films, even though that pattern was, by its very nature, only half-developed at the time. The pattern was, to me, more interesting than a simple odd-number-bad-even-number-good rule, largely because it draws on the core plot elements and character motivations that underpin the different films. Over the last ten years, as another two Star Trek films were released, I've looked to see whether the pattern would survive. And it's a pattern that, with the release of the new Star Trek film, has reached its completion. To the best of my knowledge, I'm the only person to have ever noticed this pattern. I've certainly never seen it referred to anywhere else. Which is a shame, because I find it rather interesting.

Think of it as "The Mirror View of the Star Trek Films".

The basic idea is that every Star Trek film (with the exception of Star Trek VI, for a particular reason) reflects one of the other Star Trek films in some fairly fundamental aspects.

Let me explain. The reason why Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country doesn't reflect any other Trek film is because it is the mirror point. The pattern is revealed by moving backwards and forwards film-by-film from Star Trek VI. Make sense?

Here's what I mean. If we start at Star Trek VI, the film before that one was Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. In that film, the villain was on a quest to find God. Now, at the same time, the film after Star Trek VI was Star Trek: Generations. In that film, the villain was on a quest to find the Nexus. Which means nothing, until you realise the Nexus was a place where people live forever, happy and content in a wonderful perfect paradise. Basically, the Nexus was a non-theistic heaven. So basically, in one film, the bad guy is trying to find God, in the other the bad guy is trying to find heaven. In my view, there's a pretty strong similarity to those central ideas.

Let's move along one step. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek: First Contact are the time travel films. In both films, the crew of the Enterprise deliberately travel back in time to prevent the destruction of Earth in the future. Given the fact that (with the exception of the new film, which reportedly uses time travel in a very different way) these are the only two time-travel films in the run, again, that seems like a strong similarity to me.

As I say, I first noticed this pattern in 1999 with the release of Star Trek: Insurrection. In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the Enterprise crew deliberately defied a Starfleet order. (This was not a minor plot point - it actually led to them having to steal the Enterprise as a result.) Plus, the film revolves around the Genesis Planet, a planet that actually brought Spock back to life. In Star Trek: Insurrection, the crew of the Enterprise also deliberately defy Starfleet orders (not a minor plot point either - it's actually reflected in the film's title, Insurrection), while the film revolves around a planet that has life-rejuvenating, fountain-of-youth-type properties. Life-giving planets, open defiance of Starfleet orders? Yup.

Having noticed this pattern, I eagerly awaited Star Trek: Nemesis, to see if the pattern would hold out. And it did. The climactic point of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan had the most logical member of the crew, Spock, choosing to sacrifice himself to save his crewmates. But, before he dies, he implants part of himself in Bones' mind, which allowed him to come back in the later films. In Star Trek: Nemesis, the most logical member of the crew, Data the android, chooses to sacrifice himself in order to save his crewmates. But, earlier in the film, he downloaded all his memories into the Data-prototype android B-4, offering the obvious suggestion that Data could be recovered. (Indeed, in the recently-released Star Trek: Countdown comics that acts as an official prequel to the upcoming film, we discover that this has indeed happened.)

And so we come to the new film. And where Star Trek: The Motion Picture was the first film for the original crew of Kirk, Spock, and Bones (as played by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley), the new film, titled simply Star Trek is also the first film (indeed, the first adventure) for the original crew of Kirk, Spock, and Bones (albeit played now by Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Karl Urban).

Plus, here's the really great thing. I was always a little worried by this pattern because it breaks down after 11 films. After all, there's no film for the 12th film to reflect. But instead, based on reports of the new film (which I obviously haven't seen yet), the appearance of Leonard Nimoy as the older Spock acts as a perfect finish to the existing films, while the time travel element reportedly establishes this in a different timeline to the original series. In other words, the mirror pattern applies only to the films that relate to the original Trek timeline, and this film puts a fairly definitive end to the pattern. I don't need to worry about whether the 12th, 13th, 14th Trek films will reflect the other films, and how that will damage the pattern, because in my mind at least, there is a definite break between those films and any future Trek films.

Anyway, that's the mirror Trek pattern. I think it's quite cool, I'm rather proud of noticing it, and I hope you found it interesting.

And that is all that love's about, and we'll recall when time runs out

So here's the thing.

Given my current responsiblities at work, I probably should be a bit more conscientious about saving the planet, and ensuring that we preserve this world for the future. The problem is, I don't really care. It's not that I'm actively trying to destroy the world - it's a very pretty place, and I would be sad if it was rendered unlivable. Or at least, I would be sad if I weren't dead because of the unlivable state of the world.

It's just that I'm fundamentally lazy, cheap, and selfish. This is the reason why I work in a green sea of empty V bottles on my desk. I never used to accumulate empty V bottles, because I used to have a rubbish bin by my desk that I could throw things into. It was easy to keep my desk clear of rubbish, and I did so. (This meant the only things I accumulated on my desk were several days worth of used dishes that I couldn't be bothered taking to the dishwasher and couldn't throw away.) But then they took my bin away, instead expecting me to use the various recycling bins by the kitchen to dispose of my rubbish. That's a full 24 steps for me to take to reach the rubbish bin, and another 24 steps back to my desk. 48 steps! And that's an intolerable distance for a lazy person to go. So I only gather up my empty V bottles and make that trip once my manager has told me for the third time this week to get rid of the bottles. Now, once I'm there, yes, I dispose of my bottles in the glass recycling bin, because it's no more effort to throw the bottles in that bin than the general rubbish bin (well, you do have to wash the bottles, but I don't mind that because playing with water is fun), but in general, if they didn't force me to recycle, I probably wouldn't bother.

Honestly, yes, I should recycle, yes, I could care about the extinction of the whales, yes, I should eat free-range eggs and chickens. But recycling is a big effort, I'm actually a little curious what whale-meat tastes like, and while I'll admit free-range eggs and chicken do taste better, it's not the three-times improvement required by the price increase, and since I'm not the person being hunted to extinction or kept in a tiny cage, I'm not really bothered. It's so much effort to do the right thing, especially when it's so easy to do the wrong thing. I mean, why bother going to a rubbish bin when it's so simple to wind down my car window and drop things out as I drive along. Hell, with electric windows, I don't even need to go to all the effort of manually winding the windows down, I just press a button and whoosh, the rubbish is gone.

So, yes, I guess I am destroying the Earth. Oh well, it's not like I'm the only guilty party - there are lots of other people that are doing much worse than me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go and watch Wall-E, because those Pixar films are very good. In the meantime, I found this week's Basic Instructions strip particularly funny.

Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-nürnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mitz-grandlich-grumblemeyer von Hautkopft of Ulm

So here's the thing.

As someone whose home town is the city of Wanganui, which is divided by the Whanganui River, I'm very much aware of the challenges that can attach to correct spelling of placenames. Naturally, I'll be following with interest the process by the New Zealand Geographic Board to potentially change the spelling of the city's name, and am curious what the final outcome will be.

But today I learned that, H or no H, it could be worse.

Officials have agreed to correct spelling errors in road signs pointing to a central Massachusetts lake with a 45-letter name.

Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in Webster has one of the world's longest place names. It's been spelled many different ways over the years. Some locals have given up and simply call it Lake Webster.

But after researching historical spelling combinations, the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester said local Chamber of Commerce officials agreed that some signs were wrong. There was an "o" at letter 20 where a "u" should have been, and an "h" at letter 38 where an "n" should go.

There are many stories and legends about the origin of the Indian name. One popular myth - later debunked - holds that the name translates roughly to 'You fish on your side, I fish on my side, and nobody fish in the middle.'

And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future

So here's the thing.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

So here's the thing.

Back in 1999, a full ten years ago, I came across an internet article talking about some comic book superhero movie that work was (at that time) progressing on. I'd never heard of the book before, knew nothing about it, but the article revealed one piece of information that interested me. Terry Gilliam (a director that I have admired for years now) had been attached to make this film back in the mid-1990s, before pulling out saying that he thought the book was unfilmable. The article quoted Gilliam talking about how much he loved this book, how incredible it was, even if he did feel it couldn't be captured on film. This intrigued me, and the next day I went to the library and hired a copy of the book.

And this was how I discovered Watchmen.

Now, I need to emphasise, I am not a comic book reader - the last time I had read a comic book, I was ten years old, and back then all I would read was the occasional Asterix, Tintin, and Archie. It's quite a jump from Asterix comically punching Roman soldiers to the Comedian being thrown through the window of his skyscraper penthouse, and reading Archie dithering between Betty and Veronica is about as far from the Comedian raping the first Silk Spectre as you can get. And the most dastardly of criminal plots uncovered by Tintin doesn't come close to the horrors of chapter 12. So reading Watchmen was quite a shock to the system.

But what a great experience it was. Once I got used to the idea of actually reading the pictures as well as the words (which was quite an adjustment), and learned to sit and soak in the artwork, I found the reading experience to be unlike any other I've had. The book challenged me, frightened me, excited me. And while I may not have had the full grounding in comic book vocabulary or history to fully grasp even half of the techniques being used in the book (for instance, it wasn't until someone pointed it out to me that I understood that issue 5 actually reflects back on itself, and it took about three readings before I actually understood how the Black Freighter actually commented on events), nevertheless the book astonished me. I've returned to the book three or four times since then, and am constantly blown away by the new things I'm discovering or noticing. It's a really extraordinary read.

It's interesting to see the film coming out in the aftermath of The Dark Knight, because the Nolan Batman films (which, incidentally, I really do enjoy) at least purported to be a realistic portrayal of the Batman character as he would exist in our world. And that's fine as far as it goes, but the extraordinary thing about Watchmen is that it tries to honestly portray what the world would be like with costumed heroes. It challenges this strange idea that people who, for whatever reason, decide to dress up in costumes to fight bad guys are suddenly imbued with some great moral core principles that govern their actions. After all, people in general are guilty of anger, lust, avarice, even when we're not wearing a mask and people know who we are, so why should the anonymity of a secret identity suddenly create some perfect moral being? The end result is that Watchmen (both the comic and the film) "look" more like a comic book superhero story than the recent Batman films do, but at the core of the story it's a much more realistic and honest story.

So how did I feel about Watchmen the movie? Overall, I loved it. I really loved it. It had it's flaws, which I'll get to a bit later, but overall it's really great. I never would have imagined it possible to get a film this close to the book. I had always thought it inevitable that when Watchmen was made, it would be softened, made less ambiguous, easier for the average audience. Instead, the moral ambiguities are preserved - we get a film where a character like Rorschach is presented as a seriously-disturbed emotionally-scarred psychotic vigilante sociopath, yet he's (arguably) the moral core of the story. The book is shockingly disturbingly violent, and the film preserves that and then some (but I'll get onto that). And the book's complex storyline and structure (with frequent diversions into flashbacks, that aren't strictly necessary for the plot but which are pivotal to develop these characters and this world) are well-presented and honest to the book. I mean, we really did get a ten-minute presentation of Dr Manhattan's backstory, and they actually work to retain the fractured presentation of the story that tries to replicate the experience of being a person who does experience all points of his life simultaneously. The exciting thing is that Zack Snyder had a lot of power after the success of his film of 300, and he used that power to make a movie that was phenomenally close to the book. When you hear about the types of changes that the studio wanted to make to the story (spoilers in that article), to say nothing of the more notorious scripts that have been written in the past (one script somehow omitted the Comedian's death that starts the whole story, another changed the ending to revolve around an assassination of Dr Manhattan creating a time paradox!), these are changes that would have ripped the soul out of the film. So it's nice that we had a director who was in a position to say No to those suggestions, and get away with it. Now there is a hell of a lot cut from the story - the book is really densely packed, and it would be impossible to fit is all into a film's running time - and as I was watching I was disappointed certain scenes and characters didn't make the film, but I was surprised how well it held together without that material (although if I had been new to Watchmen, the lack of explanation for Rorschach's mask would really have bothered me). That said, I look forward to the director's cut, which should have a lot of that material restored. And while some of the acting isn't that great, Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson are excellent, while Jackie Earle Haley's Rorschach is about as perfect a performance as you will find. The end result is a Watchmen that is pretty much as good as it could ever be, and a lot better than I think it would have otherwise been.

But since I'm a grumpy bastard, I tend to find it more interesting to talk about what I think the film did wrong. And this is where I get back to the violence. The book is violent, bloody, gory, and the film reflects that, but there's a sadness and emptiness to the violence in the book that's not in the film. Unfortunately, Zack Snyder seems to enjoy the violence a bit too much, which does make the action scenes more exciting to watch, but seems to lose a bit of the point. Add to that the fact that the book is very clearly about ordinary people (with the exception of Dr Manhattan) with no special powers or strengths. Yet all the way through the film, we see fight scenes where the human heroes display strengths that go beyond simple fighting skills - one kick from Nite Owl II will not only break bones, but cause the broken bone to burst through the skin, while in the opening scene the Comedian not only manages to punch through walls, he stands up to impossible punishment before his death. In other scenes, the violence really goes over the top - in the book one character has his throat slit out-of-shot, and we just see the blood gushing over another character, where in the film we watch as he has both of his hands cut off with an electric saw. And to the degree that they made the action overly gratuitous and unrealistic, that's the level to which I was disappointed by the violence. (Although I do approve of the change to the death of the child-killer - it may be (a lot) more graphic than in the book, but the book's set-up would have played in the film as derivative of the Saw films, and I actually liked the idea of treating the child-killer like a dog by killing them all in the same way.)

One issue that really was a minor problem, but it bothered me through the entire film - the makeup work in the film really was appalling. Old-age makeup to artificially age an actor always looks bad, but even by that lowered standard, the makeup to age Carla Gugino is ghastly. But worse than that, anyone made up to look like a real-world personality is just awful. Particular attention has to be paid to the makeup used to make Robert Wisden look like Nixon. I can understand the temptation to try to make the actor look like the person they're portraying, but the problem is that the makeup looks like it was designed by someone who only had 1970s political cartoons as reference material. This means the actor still looks nothing like Nixon, but now he looks nothing like Nixon but with a comical and distractingly huge nose. Which was unfortunate, because every time Nixon was on screen, I found myself thinking less about what was happening, and more "what is up with that nose?"

And it's another small point, but I hated that they renamed the Crimebusters as the Watchmen. The name Watchmen was never used as a name for the core group, it's a lot more complicated than that. The title refers to the famous quote "Who watches the watchmen?", and that question really is the core theme of the story. I can understand why they would make that change, they felt they needed to explicitly justify the title, and it's really not a big issue to change one name to another, but it is still disappointing.

But my main issue with the film was with the ending (and I would like to emphasise that on the whole, I did like the ending as well, despite a few qualms). And this discussion obviously involves spoilers, so I'll hide the text as white-on-white. If you've read Watchmen, or seen the movie, or both, highlight the white space below.

[highlight from here] So, as anyone who followed the making of the film knew, the ending was changed. Veidt was still the villain, his motivation (to force peace between the US and USSR) was the same, and his plan was ultimately just as successful, but the mechanism used by Veidt was different. Basically, "the squid" wasn't in the film. And it was an entirely understandable decision, and one I agree with. The book's ending would really have complicated the book and already lengthened an already unusually long film. After all, to set up the squid, they would have needed to take time establishing Veidt conducting research into psychic phenomena, teleportation, and genetic engineering (and the ongoing presence of Bubastis is a slightly confusing element in a film otherwise without genetic engineering), as well as needing to add a lot of other foreshadowing and hinting to ensure that the squid doesn't feel like it came out of nowhere. And they had pared the book down to its bare essentials already, they really didn't have time to add that material. And, even if they had included it, I really doubt that the wider movie audience would have accepted the squid ending. To be honest, it works in the book, but only just - there's no way it could have worked in the film.

And thus we have the ending where Veidt frames Dr Manhattan for the attack. And as a concept, it works really well. But they seemed in the film to be uncertain exactly how the attacks motivated that peace. There was an initial reference to the two sides banding together to fight the threat of Dr Manhattan, but where that was the motivation in the book (coming together to fight an unknown foe), it didn't quite work in a film where Manhattan is both known and known to be beyond being stopped by any human technology. A few scenes later, there was another scene where reference was made to there being peace for as long as people think Manhattan is watching. And that makes more sense - especially with the change to launching attacks on multiple cities. People would perceive it as Manhattan basically being the parent telling both sides to "play nice", and fear of the consequences motivates the peace. I've heard some people suggesting there would be some resentment against the USA for creating Manhattan in the first place, and maybe there would be, but I think people would be too afraid of Manhattan to actually take action against the US. So I think Ozymandias' plot works, even though the film itself seems a bit confused about the actual reasons why it works.

What really doesn't work is our first glimpse of New York after the attack. I remember when I first read the book - you turn to the first page of chapter 12, and it's the most shocking thing. You just find yourself confronted with the most disturbing image of death and carnage I've ever seen. You try turning the page, but there's no escape, more bodies. Page after page, no words, nothing but graphic pain and suffering and death, for a full eight pages, a quarter of the chapter just filled with bodies everywhere. It's appalling to read. By contrast, the film has us seeing New York basically as a hole in the ground that we see for five seconds before leaving. It's conceptually shocking in the way that someone killing half a city is, certainly, but it doesn't come close to disturbing the viewer in the same way the complete graphic carnage of the book did. In the film, it's just an abstract idea, "kill millions to save billions". In the book, we see the millions of bodies, and the question about whether their deaths were justified is made so much more real.

And I was disappointed that Nite Owl II saw the death of Rorschach. One of the things I love in the book is this sense that we never actually see the real Rorschach - he's always hiding behind a mask, either literally or (during the prison scenes) figuratively. We only ever see the real Rorschach, the pain and anguish he's been carrying, right at the moment of death as he demands that Dr Manhattan "do it". And the only person to see the real Rorschach was Dr Manhattan, the man who killed Rorschach and almost immediately left Earth forever. Having Nite Owl II see the death destroys that sense of Rorschach being completely alone when he died, as well as that idea that no-one in the world will ever have seen the real Rorschach. And that's a sad change. [stop highlighting]

When Gilliam talked about the unfilmability of Watchmen, he said he thought the only way it could be filmed was as a five- or six-hour mini-series on a cable network like HBO. And in general, I agree with him - a six-hour mini-series on a network like HBO that was able to include the sex and violence really would have been great, allowing them time to fully explore the story, the characters, and the world. But Snyder has shown that the film is filmable, and he got bloody close. The film's not just a retelling of the story, they really did manage to explore the characters in a way I never would have expected. If we had a director with a bit more restraint (say, Darren Aronofsky, who was attached to the film at one point), working from pretty much the same script as the eventual film, we would have had a perfect Watchmen. But then again, maybe that film wouldn't have been made without Snyder and his 300 success allowing him to put his foot down and say No to all the bad ideas that would have turned it into just a generic superhero film. Who knows? As it is, we got a bloody good film, and one that, for all my criticisms, really did leave me speechless, in awe of what I had seen. I look forward to many repeat viewings. I look forward to the release of the director's cut, restoring so many of the little moments, details, and characters I did miss. It's not as great as the book, and if you've never read it, I urge you to rectify this as soon as possible. But the film captures Watchmen, in all its brilliant and disturbing nature. And for that, I'm very happy.

--------------------

And you've almost certainly seen this, since everyone who writes about Watchmen seems to be required to post this video, but in case you haven't, here's a rather amusing video in which someone tries to imagine what a toned-down kid-friendly Saturday morning cartoon version of Watchmen would have looked like. It's pretty hysterical.

Staff Arrow Swan Flame Pearl Orchid Hydra Looking Glass Tempest Lamp Post

So here's the thing.

The fifth season of Lost has started airing on TVNZ, which means one thing: Jane Clifton is writing a review of the show for the DomPost. Clifton usually writes two reviews of Lost, one early in the season, and one after the season finale, and her reviews tend to be really rather astonishing for her strange tendency to completely overthink some aspects of the show while completely failing to understand elements that are plainly stated.

Last season, her post-season review became rather spectacularly confused as she constructed a nine-person Oceanic 6 (anyone who left the island by any means was counted, as well as one person who quite explicitly did not leave the island), while this season she outdid herself, trying to explain Miles' nosebleed (usually an indication that someone has been on the island before) by suggesting
"perhaps he has been before, but since his "before" is happening out of sequence with his "after", then technically he is a future previous visitor, which qualifies him for a nosebleed."

Now, I realise they don't exactly make Lost the easiest show to follow, and the inclusion of the skipping-record time shifts really don't help, but Lindelof and Cuse do a really great job in telling this phenomenally complex story in a comprehensible manner. It's not actually that difficult to follow. Arguing for Miles as a "future previous visitor"? It isn't possible that instead Miles may have been on the island in his past (perhaps as a child) and just doesn't remember? You have to go straight to "future previous visitor"? Really?

But the thing I find most enjoyable about her reviews is her complete inability to understand that one question has already been answered, multiple times. Every time she reviews Lost she raises this issue, expresses frustration for the show's failure to explain one single question that have already been answered. She refers to the question in the current review as "the still unexplained polar bear", and "that damned bear". She's so busy trying to overcomplicate things and "pondering the metaphysicals of Lost" that she completely failed to understand that we were given an answer to the question of "What the hell? Polar bears? On the jungle island?" back in season 2. Is it possible that the fact the orientation film actually showed us a polar bear while referring to "Zoology" as one of the areas of study for the Dharma Initiative told us something? That one moment answered the question - the Dharma people were brought the polar bears to the island for experimentation. Simple. And, if you missed that not-exactly-subtle explanation, in season 3 Kate and Sawyer spent six episodes locked up in the cages where "the bears" were kept. So anyone that was distracted during the orientation film had six whole bloody episodes to figure it out. And Clifton still doesn't understand? Wow. And not only that, she insists on proclaiming her ignorance every time she writes about Lost? Truly frustrating.

But the inclusion of the time skips does seem to have proven confusing for people other than Clifton. After watching an episode, the first place I visit is always What's Alan Watching, where Alan Sepinwall's posts offer some of the best Lost analysis around, examining how each episode worked (or didn't), whether it be in the mythology or just as dramatic television. And one thing I've found astonishing is the number of people that have difficulty understanding the concept of time travel. One particularly surprising misunderstanding seems to be that time travel into the past effectively renders you immortal. As one person recently commented "Since the 816ers are all living in 2004-2005, they can't potentially die in 197x". I find it fascinating reading as people struggle to understand how time travel could work out, and have difficulty understanding that there is a difference between linear time and the timeline of a time-travelling person, that someone's past may be in the future, and that a person's past existence doesn't actually preclude someone from being injured or killed in their present no matter what their place in the timeline. To me this all seems simple and logical, so it's astonishing to find just how many people are struggling with all this. Have they never seen a time travel film before? Have they never rewatched Back To The Future to try and figure out how the timeline changes came about, or struggled to understand what was going on in 12 Monkeys? Is it possible Lost is the first encounter these people are having with a time travel story.

In any case, it's proving to be a genuinely great season of Lost. I stuck with the show, even in those periods in early season 3 when the show really wasn't great, because even then there were enough sparks of brilliance, enough intriguing questions (and the occasional answer) to remind me what the show could be. But the best thing that happened to the show was the negotiation between the showrunners and ABC to finish the show after six seasons. It's astonishing just how free Lindelof and Cuse seem to be now they can plan the show out to completion. Every episode adds something, provides new information, advances the story, takes risks. They're positively racing towards the finish line. And the end result is a show that is actually getting better, at a point where most shows would be well down the track of getting tired creatively. It's exciting to see a show where the show makers are clearly fired up and inspired, and producing some of their best work. And I can't wait to see where they take us next.

In other words, Yay Lost.

Do we simply turn our heads and look the other way

So here's the thing.

A few years ago I went to watch the Oscars with a group of friends. But after an hour, as they were going through the Art Direction or Live Action Short awards, a couple of people became a bit bored and went away to do something, asking me to call them when the important awards started. So time passed, and finally they started giving out the big five awards, so I called my friend in. But my friend became annoyed at me for this, saying "Who cares about the screenplay? I asked you to call me when the important awards start." It was at that point that I realised she only really cared about the stars. The behind-the-scenes workers, no matter how important (and the screenplay writer is pretty bloody pivotal) are relegated to a ghetto in the public perception, where they just waste time and lengthen the ceremony, and no-one really cares.

And that annoys me, because cinematography, art direction, costumes, editing, sound design, these are all pivotal parts of the filmmaking process, and I personally love that they all get acknowledged as part of the real ceremony, not dumped into some secondary award ceremony. And even the recipients of the scientific and technical Oscars (which do have a second ceremony) get acknowledgement in the main ceremony. A few years ago, they experimented with trying to save time by having a microphone in the middle of the theatre, having all the nominees for some of the "lesser" awards stand lined up by the microphone, the winner is announced, takes two steps up to the microphone and starts speaking. And it was awful, because again it reinforced that these awards aren't all that important, they just occupy time, and these people don't desere to sully the stage that should be reserved for the stars. But it also denied these hard-working deserving winners their moment where they are the most important person in the film world, they were denied that moment of excitement, of being able to walk up through the theatre to reach the stage, and receive the applause and recognition from everyone in the industry.

But as bad as that was, I felt that what they did at this years Oscars was even worse. Because every other award got the normal treatment - presenters give a little talk, they read the nominees, the winner comes on stage and gives their speech. But for the acting awards, suddenly they bring out five past winners for each acting award. And each of those winners gives a little speech to one of the nominees, talking about the delicacy of their performance, or the fearless nature of their performance, or the excellence that they bring to their every performance. It was a special treatment that was given only to nominees in the four acting awards (not even the director nominees got that treatment), and it really confirmed this idea that the actors are the ones that are important, reinforcing the ghettoisation of anyone whose face doesn't appear on the poster.

I wouldn't have minded had they done it for all the awards - sure, it would have been a much longer show, but it would have been nice to hear people talking about this cinematographer shot this film to match the film's tone, or the choices the editor made, or just genuinely acknowledging the importance of the role they play, instead of rushing through those awards as fast as possible to get to the "big" awards. But giving that special treatment to one part of the industry really offended me.

Ultimately, I think the problem is that these days too much attention is paid to producing a show for the people at home. It almost seems like, in the immediate aftermath of the ceremony, more attention is paid to how well the show rated and how it was as entertainment to looking at the merits of the winning films. The truth is, the Oscars are (at least in theory) about the film industry recognising excellence by their own members. Now, they do manage to put on an interesting and entertaining show, and people are interested in films, which is why they show the Oscars on television. But as they pay more attention to show ratings and the home audience, I fear that the Oscars may actually lose track of their purpose for being (such as it is). Every year, people complain about the show's length, or how boring the non-star awards are. And I am concerned that, in a few years time, we may reach a point when these "minor" awards are given in a seperate ceremony, in order to respond to an E! audience that is more interested in seeing movie stars than appreciating artistry in the cinema. And should that happen, I think the Oscars will officially lose all interest for me, and will have as much relevance as the MTV Movie Awards. And that will be disappointing.

(And one other note - I was very unhappy with how they presented the In Memorium segment of the show. This is one part of the show where they should just present simply and with restraint, but instead it was all moving cameras shooting on-stage screens showing the video, while also trying to show Queen Latifah singing the accompanying song. The end result was that, even on the reasonably sized 46 inch television I was watching the show on, it was difficult to read the names of the people being remembered, and pretty much impossible to read the tiny-print roles of the behind-the-scenes players. So I was very happy to discover that the montage is available on YouTube. It's worth watching.)

Oh my gosh, it's a new post!

So here's the thing.

Each year, I try to make sure I see each of the five films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar before the award ceremony takes place.

The first of the films was Frost/Nixon, a Ron Howard film that tells the story of the famed interviews between British television presenter David Frost, and disgraced US President Richard Nixon. After seeing the film, I watched the actual climactic interview where Nixon discusses Watergate, and it's compelling television, even today, with Frost probing and pressing Nixon until the former President actually acknowledges wrongdoing. The story is small scale - two people sitting in a room talking - yet intense and suspenseful, and you can see why Peter Morgan saw it as the perfect subject for a stage play. Michael Sheen and Frank Langella played the lead roles on stage, and at this point they know and inhabit the characters absolutely. So it's got great performances, and a well-written screenplay. But yet it felt like the film lacked something.

I think the problem is, to be honest, that Ron Howard isn't a great director. He's not a bad director, he's a good working director, but little more. He doesn't have the directorial spark to elevate the material. (I feel bad saying it, but I suspect the main reason he has the high reputation he has is because of the lifelong residual goodwill that comes from being Opie and Richie Cunningham rather than because of any particular greatness as a director.) The end result is a very enjoyable film, but one that feels like it offers little cinematically.

There's another true story that has been nominated for Best Picture. Milk tells the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in the US, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It's a good film, with some excellent performances by some talented actors (it's always nice to see James Franco), but I didn't think it really held together.

It's partly because of the awkward framing device - Harvey Milk speaking into a dictation machine, telling his story for people to hear if he ever is assassinated. It doesn't really contribute much, and unless I missed it, they basically abandoned the device halfway through. It just added another moment of self-conscious awareness of future events, like all the constant references to whether Milk would or wouldn't live to the age of 50.

Then there's the issue of Milk's murder, which did seem to come out of nowhere. Milk was murdered by a fellow member of the Board of Supervisors named Dan White. (White had also killed the Mayor several minutes earlier.) But the killings came out of nowhere, and in some ways that's understandable (Milk may have expected to be killed, but he wouldn't have expected it from a fellow politician, so that would have surprised him). But on the other hand, the film throws out a lot of pointers to possible motivations, but seems to come down on the view that White was frustrated as a politician, and blamed Milk for failing to provide support for various issues. The problem is, in order for that to work, I felt you needed more explanation of Milk's political decisions. There were moments where Milk certainly seemed to promise a Quid Pro Quo, you vote for my measure I'll vote for yours, and then failed to support White's matters but still expected White to vote for Milk's matters. And while that doesn't justify murder, at those moments Milk came across as a bit of a bastard, almost like he was deliberately targetting White. So I felt that I needed to understand his reasons for voting how he did in order to understand the circumstances that led to his murder. But in the end, the film seemed to view Harvey Milk as a perfect saintly man who was brutally gunned down by a evil man filled with hate and resentment, and while there's probably a lot of truth to that, that's far too simplistic to be an accurate reflection of the reality.

Then there's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I liked, but which really lacks something. The broad concept of the film - a person living his life backwards - is really great, and could be the basis of a brilliant thoughtful film. And much as I like Fight Club and Se7en, I really like the restrained David Fincher that directed Zodiac and Benjamin Button.

But the film needed more than that. I felt that the film needed to say something, to use the unusual aspect of the title character to express some idea, whether about the way we live, our way of viewing the world, our mortality, the way our experiences change us, or some such idea. But the film ended up just being a sad story about a couple in love who are separated because one of the two always looks either so much younger or older than the other. It has some great special effects (the digital work involved in creating a recognisable Brad Pitt in the face of an 80-year-old man or a six-month-old child was extraordinary), but without any added depth to the story, it just becomes a sad story about a curiosity, and nothing more.

The worst of the nominees would have to be The Reader. For the first half of the film, I was really hating the film. As we watched a 15-year-old boy having an affair with Kate Winslet, the whole thing seemed like little more than a teenage boy's fantasy and an excuse to see (the extremely beautiful) Kate Winslet with minimal clothing. Interesting to watch, certainly, but not a good movie at all. The film improved markedly in the second half - we learn that Winslet's character was a prison guard during the Holocaust, and she finds herself on trial with many of her fellow guards for a particular event during the war. It starts to look at some interesting issues, how instantaneous decisions in moments of uncertainty lead to enduring guilt, or the difficulties of reconciling one image of a person with another, or questions about when one should or shouldn't speak up about knowledge one may have.

Yet, even though the film does improve and does become interesting, even looking at the better parts of the film, it's never a "Best Picture" film. So one has to wonder why it was nominated. It's tempting to remember what Kate Winslet herself said in the TV series "Extras", that if you make a film about the Holocaust, you're guaranteed an Oscar. But I don't think that's it in this case. The film superficially touches on the subject of the Holocaust, but it's not really about that - the film doesn't even start until ten years after the war, only comes up halfway into the film, and we only ever hear people talking about it. It’s also tempting to blame Harvey Weinstein - the film is a Weinstein Company film, and one of Weinstein's big talents is successfully campaigning for Oscar noms for lesser films (*cough* Shakespeare In Love *cough*) But to be honest, I think the explanation lies in the fact that the Academy allowed an exception to its rules to allow four producers to be listed for The Reader's Best Picture nomination. Two of those producers, Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, both sadly passed away in the past year. One finds oneself viewing the nomination less about acknowledging the merits of the film, and more about it being one final chance to recognise two talented, well-respected and well-loved filmmakers (both of whom had won Oscars as directors).

Which leaves the film most people seem to agree on as the likely winner, Slumdog Millionaire. And certainly of the five films, it is my favourite, it was a genuinely enjoyable experience, and yet... A lot of people have talked about the film as poverty porn, and I can see their point, this idea of taking people who are living in these horrible circumstances and making that life into a feel-good film for people who live in immeasurably better circumstances than those kids ever will. And it's so pretty and funny, and we're able to feel good watching the film, the slums are bad but not too bad (they're actually kinda pretty to look at in some ways), and the kids may encounter some dangers, but we know they'll make it through, and it just felt far too safe and happy for a film with that subject.

But my main problem with the film is more evident in the framing device, where the main character goes on a bizarro version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (where the show is broadcast live and where the host has contestants tortured if he thinks they're cheating). And his every life experience happens to equip him with the exact knowledge he needs to progress in the game. The film is trying for some kind of line where the two leads are bound together by love and fate, an idea the film expressly points to by opening with a question. The film asks "Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 20 million rupees. How did he do it", with possible answers like "He cheated", or "It was luck". But the answer was revealed at the end of the film to be "It is written".

The problem is that is literally true - this is one film where one is very much aware of the hands of the author working to make it work out. Not only are his limited life experiences the exact ones he needs to gain particular knowledge to answer the questions, but those experiences even happen to occur in the same order as the relevant questions. The hands of the writer were so completely evident in forcing the storyline to work that it detracted from the film.

And yet I did enjoy the film. Danny Boyle is an interesting and skilled filmmaker, and it was a very-well-made entertainment. It has its flaws, and significant flaws at that, but of the five nominees, this is the one I can actually see myself wanting to revisit.

Still, it's a shame. Last year, we had two genuinely great films competing with each other, and as a result it's disappointing to watch this year's set of nominees and find them so uninspiring. (Personally, I'm still a bit annoyed that the creation of the Best Animation Feature award meant Wall-E was never going to be nominated for Best Picture. The first half-hour of that film was the most perfect moment of cinema I've seen all year, and the film as a whole was far better than any of the actual nominees.) Still, I'll be watching the ceremony when they start in an hour, and hopefully it will be a fun ceremony.