Grrr…Argh

Excuse me while I get my geek on.

There’s some talk today about a reboot/reimagining/rip off of the Buffy franchise. This is being instigated by Fran Rubel Kuzui, the director of the original (shitty) film. OK, the film version is mildly amusing, but it’s nowhere near as good as the series. This article makes it sound as though Kuzui was single-handedly responsible for the success of Buffy, even as a TV series. I’d say this quote from Joss, about the rewrites of his film script, pretty much sums up why that’s not the case:

“I had written this scary film about an empowered woman, and they turned it into a broad comedy. It was crushing.”

Yes she and her husband received producers credits on the series, but only because they, unfortunately, hold the rights, not because of anything they did to get the TV series on the air. It says they don’t rule out approaching Whedon about being involved, but I’d be very surprised if he was. I’d also be seriously pissed off if I was him.

I’m not sure if the people who wrote that article have any clue about what goes on in Buffy either. They say they can do their own version of the Slayer, and not tread on Whedon’s toes: “One of the underlying ideas of “Buffy” allows the filmmakers to do just that: that each generation has its own vampire slayer to protect it. The goal would be to make a darker, event-sized movie that would, of course, have franchise potential.” Uh huh, yeah, it used to, but since Buffy made all potential Slayers actual Slayers, that’s kinda out of the window now, you know?

As for the idea that we need another vampire slayer movie, personally I would rather have a proper Buffy film, or none at all, than this. But the one shining light is that they’re not doing a Buffy movie, because I can only imagine they’d ruin it. Instead it’ll be Vicky The Vampire Slayer or some such other crap, and I can just pretend it doesn’t exist, or enjoy it for the campy fun it will most likely be.

Basically all I can see this as is blatant cashing in on a franchise that is beloved by many people, myself very obviously included. These people haven’t had much success and they want some, whether they have to come up with something original or not.

Friday Funk

It’s Friday, I have a cold, it’s a given I’ll be doing feck all for the day. So here, have some funny reviews I didn’t write but say things better than I could.

This one is about the LOLCat phenomenon. I don’t care if I spelled LOLCat wrong. Whatever. People who know me know my feeling about cats, so I’ll spare you, but even without that I don’t think I’d get why bad spelling and pictures of cute cats are so popular. I also hate that it has become so ingrained into popular culture already that I am substituting have with has. Argh!

And I have a confession. I want to read the Twilight series. Do you know why? Because everyone is talking about it and I feel left out. Even though, from what I can gather, unless you are a simpering nitwit of a twelve year old (which may be doing a disservice to many twelve year olds out there, sorry) these books are going to make you want to bash your head in with their sheer ridiculousness and assault on the written word. I want to take part in the mocking. Because, hello, he’s a vampire that frickin SPARKLES!! Way to ruin a perfectly good legend there. But actually spending money that will go into Ms Meyer’s pockets and so aid her writing career and also convince her that this is her calling is a step I can’t take. And making the effort to join the library seems slightly worse, like I’m desperate or something. So, until someone sends me the entire series for free, or I stumble across them for a pound in a charity shop after someone has given them away in a fit of despair, I will read things like this instead and have a good chuckle.

It probably says something terrible about the state of the world we live in that such utterly naff things can go on to be so popular and make their creators shed loads of money. It also probably says a lot about me that I’m wondering if I can write a shoddy vampire related series and also make lots of money. My integrity means I won’t, but you know mine would be way better than this crap. Damn my integrity!

Yes, I do love the Pajiba reviews, and?

It’s Not Horrible

What makes a day rock? I’ll tell you what, a new anything from Joss Whedon. And if that includes singing all the better! Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is up and running (it works in the UK now, so I can stop grumbling about it), the first act is here for all to see. You don’t really need to know what it’s about, I didn’t, I just watched it and smiled and fell a little bit more in love with Nathan Fillion (although he’s not in this one much), noted my geekiness when I realised the female lead is Vi (Vi!) from Buffy and kinda marvelled at how good Neil Patrick Harris is. I need to watch that again. The second part is up on Thursday, the third and final part on Saturday. Watch it!!

Enough of this geekdom. I’m having my injections for Guatemala later. Not looking forward to it, but at least I am only working half a day.

War Path

I was raging about this yesterday and still haven’t really calmed down so need to vent some more. So anyone care to rage with me?

Sigh

Shit like this really, seriously, pisses me right off. And part of me doesn’t even want to link to it because anyone who goes there gives them more hits for their stupid site, but anyway, this is what’s making me fume. I tend not to read magazines these days because it’s just a perpetual loop of ‘she’s too fat/she’s too thin’ crap. Who can win at that game? But this was linked on a site I do go to for celeb news, one I should probably avoid because those who comment there are usually women, and pulling other women down, which drives me nuts. Of course we are all guilty of it to some degree, it seems to be our nature, or what has become our nature, to only feel good about ourselves when dragging someone else down. If they are not perfect, then perhaps it’s ok if we’re not?

But this is a whole other level than that. Men looking at women as if their sole value is in their attractiveness. I can’t stand that. I mean, seriously, what? Maybe it’s because I’m not a man, but what possible point can there be to something like this? Does it really make you feel better to pull down a woman because of the way she looks? Because she doesn’t meet your high expectations? Because she’s not fucking perfect!? How dare she be in the public eye if she’s not 100%. (This is the same kind of feeling I have for those shitty magazines who show pics of celebrities with sweat stains under their arms or not wearing make up. We get it, they’re not perfect, I feel validated, move right along now please. It’s not big and it’s not clever.)

The commentary on this is sickening. Most of these women can’t even be deemed unattractive. The comment about Christina Ricci: There’s no wonder why Samuel Jackson would slap a leash on her and keep her as a pet. Argh! I can’t even put words together properly.

In their ‘About’ section they claim:

We’re men. We smell, we gawk at hot chicks and we love to drink beer. There isn’t a day that goes by when we don’t eat 32 oz. of uncooked beef for breakfast. It is our duty to remind men everywhere, especially those who have forgotten, what it is to be a man. We spread the holy gospel of manliness through our webpages and all of it’s lovely content. Sit back and enjoy.

This is what you think is manliness? Really? Is it serious or a joke?

Please. This is a group of men who think they’re real men, who think being a real man is about drinking beer, having their jeans show their butt crack and slobbering over women they deem ‘acceptable’. Women who, in their right minds, would not look at these slubs twice is my guess. These are the kind of men who put Sarah Jessica Parker at the top of Maxim’s Unsexiest Woman list and think that’s ok, think she’s not going to see that and have it have an effect. But who cares right? She’s just a woman, and a celebrity to boot, she’s just asking to be ridiculed.

I’m really hoping their site isn’t a hit, that it doesn’t appeal that much, that ‘real men’, should they stumble there, take one look, laugh to themselves at how big a loser these creeps are, and move right along.

Read All About It

I am thrilled by this

Whatever you believe when it comes to the McCann’s, I think you have to admit that the reporting of it all has been disgusting. People believe what they read in the papers. A lot of people took what they read as gospel, which is one of the reasons people have such a hatred for them. But if you took a step back and looked at what the papers were actually saying, if you read what evidence there actually was, all of it was nonsense. Pure speculation and rumour. Someone thought they heard/saw this. A friend of a friend knows this. Give me some actual hard evidence that they killed her and hid her body and I’ll be right there with you in condemning them, but you can’t, because there isn’t any.

This is not journalism, and it’s one of the reasons I spend a lot of my time in fury at what I read these days. Journalism used to mean something didn’t it? Wasn’t it about getting the truth to people? Actually having reliable sources, checking the facts, (using a spellcheck, proofreading)? The amount of utter drivel written (badly) these days is quite astounding. There seems to be no standards whatsoever for what can and can’t be published. If someone writes a load of crap that turns out to be false, people believe it, because any kind of retraction is hidden at the bottom of page 15.

There’s another good example of sloppy journalism here looking at the Clinton/Obama insanity and how it is twisted in whichever way people want it to be. How do we stand a chance of figuring it all out when things are turned around in such a way?

So this, this makes me happy. I want people to take a look at what they read, and what they believe straight off the bat, and actually think about it. I’m sure I’ve been guilty of it, probably still am at times, because it is easy to believe the worst in people, especially when these people are famous, celebrities who seem to have everything. That’s our way isn’t it? Build you up and knock you down. But it’s maybe even more disgusting when it’s people who have had something tragic happen to them, and we all can’t wait to jump on the bandwagon calling for them to be strung up.

I’m really hoping it changes, and that I can start to read something without wondering where the writer’s bias lies, but I can’t see it happening anytime soon.

The One Where I Get All Serious Like

I went to see Jumper tonight with Max. I wasn’t expecting much, but thought it might be fun in a ‘turn your brain off’ kind of way. It was pretty ‘meh’ all round. I didn’t really like the main dude and also, Samuel L Jackson just tried to kill him, and instead of asking why or worrying about it, he goes and looks up that girl he used to think was cute and takes her to Rome? And she goes? It’s been eight years love, he could have grown up to be a serial killer! Although possibly a serial killer would not bother taking you to Rome first…

Anyway, when we came out I said ‘Why weren’t there any female Jumpers?’ He laughed, ‘I knew you’d say something like that.’ And went on to remind me of the time we saw Attack of the Clones and I said ‘Female Jedi!? About bloody time.’ But…wasn’t it about time? We’d had, what? four films before that, and not a female Jedi in sight? OK, so Leia was pretty feisty (although still in that damn gold bikini), but I always felt it was implied she would give birth to a future Jedi boy, not become one, even if she was their ‘last hope’.

Max then threw in my face my most favourite kick ass woman by asking ‘How come there aren’t any male Slayers?’ Oh OK, fine, we can’t have ONE thing that’s just ours, one time women get to be the hero, get to be stronger than men?

This makes me sound like I want women beating up men all the time, but that’s not it. It just gets old sometimes, having the only thing that represents you in films be someone who gets abducted so the man feels worry and guilt and comes to save you, after a lot of screaming and crying. Or the person wearing skimpy outfits. Or the total bitch. So I was trying to think of good films that have women as the heroes. And I’m talking decent films that did well at the box office, got good reviews etc. I’m discounting Horror because, although girls do generally win in the end, they’ve often wandered around in their underwear and screamed a lot beforehand. I discounted Lara Croft because of her teeny shorts and that she was most likely designed to appeal to men.

And so I came up with two that I am comfortable with. Ripley and Sarah Connor. Right now I can’t think of any others. Care to help?

Max suggested Underworld, Resident Evil and the Matrix Trilogy. Underworld..OK, she’s the hero, but did men go to see it for that or for Kate Beckinsale in a skin tight cat suit? Plus, it’s a pretty shitty film. Resident Evil…also pretty shitty. Matrix – she’s not the main hero is she? Neo is ‘The One’.

I don’t usually deconstruct films so, because I usually go to the cinema to turn of my brain, for the escapism factor, but maybe that’s not a good thing. So I’ve been thinking about it and why there aren’t more strong female leads in films. I figure maybe studios don’t do them more because men are the main audience and worry about alienating them if there’s no male lead. Max suggested that women don’t really want to see films like that anyway. Really? I like action films (good ones I mean). It’d be nice to have more cool women in them. So are we to blame? We’d rather watch romantic comedies, so that’s what we’re given? Do we really not care to see films outside that tiny box? I said that if they were done well, women would watch. The recent female centred ones I can think of (mainly UltraViolet and Elektra – it’s been slim pickins), were so stinkingly bad and with two leads that were still about showing off boobs and ass that women would be put off. I’d still say they were firmly aimed at men. Either that or studios have warped ideas about what women want.

I guess that’s the thing. Am I alone in this? Do women want more films where they kick ass, save the day? (Without the restrictive costumes.) Or do they not care? Do they not go because the ones that do come out are shit? Do we really only want to see men saving the day? Are female driven action films directed solely at adolescent boys? Is it because there are so few women in Hollywood? Are we to blame for continuing to go see romantic comedies? Can’t we have both?

I don’t really know the answers. I know I love having strong, powerful women as my counterpart on screen. That’s why I continue to go back to Buffy. Since her there have been few, if any, strong women for me on TV. That’s why I watch Aliens and Terminator/T2, because in the ten plus years since the last one came out, there’s been little to take its place. Or at least nothing that has stayed with me.

So what am I missing? Tell me I’ve overlooked really obvious films, or that I’m being daft.

Shameless Plug

I am back at work today. The thought of all those emails piling up in my inbox was making me sweat more than my cold and I felt guilt ridden even though I am, in fact, poorly. I feel like a skiver. Of course I’ve come in and there isn’t actually anything in urgent need of attention so I could technically have slept some more. Oh well. I do feel a bit better, although I had a slight panic last night when I thought I’d developed a rash and even went so far as to roll a tumbler over it just in case. Turns out it wasn’t Meningitis. Or a rash for that matter. I must have been sat funny. I am such a hypochondriac.

Anyway, I can get through one day can’t I? I can make it to 5 pm I’m sure.

On to the plug:

Marcia has created an excellent website/pop culture blog concerned with all things tv related. It’s full of news and brilliant commentary and I can’t remotely do it justice so why don’t you pop on over to Pop Vultures and have a look yourself?

Continuing with things internet related, as of yesterday I am addicted to Stumble Upon, a website that lets you click through different pages by adding a button to your internet tool bar. Click, and you’re onto someone’s blog. Click and it’s news. Click and a crafts page. I get lots of those. My favourite stumble from yesterday was this bizarre thing. You click the horses and they sing. Or they do if you have Flash installed which I don’t seem to have so it’s not quite as fun at work.

Right, onto some work. Maybe.

Sickened

My dislike of Eamonn Holmes grows.

Firstly his comment about the McCann’s this morning that “people want to be reassured that they are suffering”. People Eamonn, or you? Actually that’s probably unfair, as I know a lot of people in this country do feel that way.  Clarence Mitchell, the spokesman for the McCanns, was much more poised in his reaction than I would have been. Are people not going to be satisfied until they are on television 24/7 wailing and screaming about their child? Nevermind the fact that they have two other children to look after and a missing child to find? I find this whole mentality quite sick. It seems to be a form of sport or entertainment now to watch them, to judge them. What concern is it of ours whether they are suffering or not, or how much they are suffering? This is not Big Brother. It is not a game show. When it ends, if we decide we like them enough, if we decide they have suffered sufficiently for our liking, they don’t win their daughter back. They don’t win anything.

As for Eamonn in general, I really wish Sky News would get rid of him. He is not a news reader to me. I can’t take him seriously. His words have no weight behind them. Half the time I am not convinced he has any idea what he is talking about. There’s too much of his own opinion wrapped up in what he says. If I want opinion I’ll watch GMTV (which I don’t, seeing as Fiona Phillips is even more annoying and idiotic).

And in my usual unrelated news, I have Tonsillitis, which is a great big barrel of laughs.

Oh and I’m rather annoyed about this too:

I’m just a little ball of rage today it seems.

The winner of the Man Booker Prize, Anne Enright, has written a 2000 word essay for The London Review of Books entitled Disliking the McCanns. In it she writes:

“Disliking the McCanns is an international sport,” and “I disliked the McCanns earlier than most people (although I am not proud).” Um, are you sure about that?

“I thought I was angry with them for leaving their children alone. In fact, I was angry at their failure to accept that their daughter was probably dead.”

Look, I don’t claim to be an expert on anything to do with this case. I’ve followed it quite closely, mainly because at one point you couldn’t shift for it, but I don’t know all the details and we can’t know all the details. A lot of what we read about it is completely made up, just speculation and gossip, feeding into that hideous culture of ours where digging up dirt on people is a fun sport. But what the hell has it got to do with this woman anyway? Who is she to decide who should and should not be liked? Why is it necessary to write an essay about it? It couldn’t possibly be to gather more publicity for herself now, could it?

She also says that it is Gerry McCann that she most dislikes, because, “The sad fact is that this man cannot speak properly about what is happening to himself and his wife… the language he uses is more appropriate to a corporate executive than to a desperate father. This may just be the way he is made. This may be all he has of himself to give the world just now.”

Is it not also possible that, because he is a suspect in the case and not allowed to talk about certain facts, he’s being very careful of what he says so he doesn’t end up in prison? And just what should a desperate father sound like? Should grieving parents be given a step by step guide on how to act in situations where their innocence may be called into doubt? Should they both be complete wrecks every time they are seen on camera? Just because they do not weep in public does not mean they don’t do it behind closed doors. Keeping up a show of grief 24/7 would be exhausting, if grieving for your lost child in your own way is not exhausting enough anyway.

It’s probably clear where I stand on this, that I will be beyond shocked if it turns out they had something to do with her disappearance (though I am willing to keep an open mind of course). But I am sick of people jumping on the bandwagon and slamming people when really they have no idea about the situation. Just because they too may be in the public eye does not give them any more right to criticise them. Don’t they get enough of that every day anyway?

I was rather astounded that this woman has children of her own to be honest. Angry at their failure to accept she is dead? Can’t they hold on to what little hope there is left?

It has made me not want to read that damn book anyway.