Day 402

aka Thursday 8th March 2018

Today I went for my morning walk:

…potted about when I got home, did the G2 crossword (which went pretty badly, I had to cheat on over half the clues!!!):

 

…and watched The Omen Trilogy, about the birth and rise of the son of the Anti-Christ. I had to start watching them in the afternoon as the first Omen still frightens me and while the second and third have scary moments, they’re not as scary as the first.

I think the first Omen is scariest for a number of reasons, it’s well written, well acted, has a great soundtrack, is well directed and it builds and builds a feeling of dread and terror. Although there aren’t many deaths or much gore in The Omen, each death is memorable and shocking, from the nanny hanging herself (It’s for you Damien, all for you) to the priest being impaled and Keith’s decapitation. And even when people aren’t dying, there are devil dogs menacing our heroes, animals going wild and a ‘crazy’ archaeologist telling our heroes that to save everyone they must kill Damien, by stabbing him with seven daggers, on consecrated ground. At times it feels (and looks) like a documentary rather than a feature film and it taps into loads of things I learnt at Sunday School/bible study (which makes me wonder if people who are Jewish, Muslims, etc., or were brought up in non-Christian households, find it as scary as us who were raised Christian or are Christian???).

Damien: Omen II is a slightly odd film as not much happens in it and at its end we’re left in the same place as The Omen (which isn’t really it’s thought as it’s the second film of the trilogy). We see a teenage Damien learn who he is and after initially rejecting it, accepting that he is the son of the devil. While this is happening various family members and other threats are bumped off (via demonic crows, ‘faulty’ trains, lifts or traitorous partners). There are some scary moments, and although there is good acting and direction, the story is a little weak and feels a little too much like a quick cash-in on the success of The Omen.

The Omen III: The Final Conflict has a better story, as the final part of the trilogy it can go all out and bring in the Second Coming and the possible apocalypse, and it stars Sam Neill, a great actor, who is always worth watching. There is also a return to more psychological, less gory horror, we see that Damien has an army of followers, who are willing to do anything for him, up to and including murdering children. The film starts with Damien firmly in the driving sit as everything goes his way and the monks, who have been sent to destroy him, are easily dispatched, apart from one, who, together with Damien’s lover, Kate Reynolds, manages to turn the tide and defeat Damien, which is one of two complainants I have with The Omen III: The Final Conflict. That the ending of the film is a little rushed and basically comes down to Damien, the master strategist, being distracted, allowing Kate to stab, and kill, Damien. My second complainant is that in The Omen we’re told that the Damien can only be destroyed if he is stabbed by all seven daggers (the first to kill his physical body, the remaining six to destroy his demonic self).

Regardless of my complainants, The Omen Trilogy is a great horror story and every horror fan should see it.

Day 401

aka Wednesday 7th March 2018

Today was New Comic Book Day, so I went into town and picked up these beauties:

...and as luck would have it Cecil Castellucci and Jamie Coe were signing at Orbital, so I was able to get my Shade, The Changing Woman #1 signed!!!:

…and I got some Tintin books (I loved Tintin when I was younger and I’m replacing the battered and wore copies of my youth), Twin Peaks Season 3 boxset and The Quiet American:

...I also did today’s G2 crossword:

...and I also learnt/heard that the NME announced that the 9^th Mar 2018 print edition would be the last print version of the NME. Which both surprised me and didn’t, before it became a free paper I hadn’t brought the NME because (a) as I got older my taste in music stayed the same and weren’t reflected in the NME and (b) the newer music the NME focussed on bored me or passed me by, but I assumed that I would be replaced by a younger reader, reading about bands doing music that is new and shocking to him/her (in the same way that it had done for me in my youth).

Then, due to the pressures of the modern world faced by print media, it became a free paper and I picked it up again and it was terrible. A soulless facsimile of the music paper it had once been, more interested in selling advertising space than reporting on music, which could be read, cover to cover, in literally ten minutes or less. Basically, they were holding up a white flag and surrendering to market forces (unlike other magazines, like Louder Than War and Electronic Sound who have found a way to survive as a printed magazine). 

For a good ten to 15 years the NME (along with the Melody Maker, Jockey Slut and Select) was a weekly (or monthly) part of my life, cluing me onto new bands, new sounds, new political ideas, new lifestyles and new ideas and now it’s gone.

Day 400

aka Tuesday 6th March 2018

Today I took my morning constitutional around the park and after last week it was almost like taking a tropical walk:

When I got home I watched a bit of TV, saw Matthew Wright annoy Iain Lee so much that he left the show, during an ad break, so we didn’t get to see the storming off.

Then I watched the new episode of iZombie (S04E02), whose main story is the murder of a wealthy socialite, and the new season is already much darker, e.g. the Angus mob attacking the black market brain sellers and the consequences of Major’s unit breaking up an argument between pro and anti-zombie factions, but the writers are keeping the laughs (e.g. Clive and Ravi’s sex talk, the golf gun! and Liv on rich old lady brain. I also liked that people in iZombie use their seat belts, it always takes me out of the scene when people drive and don’t use the seat belts, as it highlights that they’re probably not driving and are on a soundstage. Also, if you eat more brains, do you get more visions?

Then I caught up on my comics reading (all great reads and summed up in one-line reviews):

Goro #4 – a less physically action-packed issue, but plenty of emotional action as we get a better understanding of some of the characters personalities. 

Batgirl #20 – Batgirl deduces who is behind the chaos in Burnside and why they have caused this chaos, another fun issue of classic super-heroics. 

Rick & Morty #35 – a wubba lubba dub dub play on Jurassic Park/World, with Summer becoming more like Rick and ‘The Rick Identity!’ concludes in an unexpected manner (although looking back it is a very Rick & Morty conclusion!).

Giles #1 – an intriguing start to this miniseries focusing on Giles going undercover in a US high school, with lots of echoes of Buffy’s early days in Sunnydale. 

Big Trouble In Little China: Old Man Jack #6 – Jack and Lo Pan learn to appreciate each other’s virtues/abilities and move one step closer to (maybe) saving the world (although with Jack’s track record he my save the world for a worse fate!!!)

Throwaways #12 – we get a bit more character background/motivation as this storyline builds to its conclusion, with shades of The Parallax View and The Manchurian Candidate coming to the fore.

Witchblade #3 – Alex becomes more accepting of the Witchblade and her new role in the world, although the bad guys still seem to be several steps ahead.

Later I Listened to episode 3 of Sara Pascoe’s The Modern Monkey, which is about territory (from countries to personal space). This is a great series equally full of jokes and thought-provoking facts/information. I got a better appreciation for personal space and how even small (or micro) invasions can have large effects on those whose space is being invaded.

I also watched Smokin' Aces I and II. I’d watched Smoking Aces I ages ago and liked it (lots of flash and style, as a hit is put out on an informer), so given this was on special offer it seemed a no-brainer to pick it up. Smoking' Aces I was a s much fun as I remembered, a kinda American Lock, Stock… or Snatch (in as much as it is highly stylised and concerns lots of characters converging at one point). 

Smokin' Aces II (the FBI protect one of their own, who has had a hit put out on him) is very similar, but the stylisation is really ramped up and, for me, totally distracts from the story, pulling you out and questioning the validity of what is happening on screen (e.g. it feels like the circus gun is primarily there for laughs rather than primarily for story reasons and the laughs are an added bonus or the love story between two assassins that developed in a couple of minutes, even though they were previously depicted as heartless/focused only on the hit). 

And I did today’s G2 crossword: