Aka Monday 20th July - Sunday 26th July 2020
…I was working from home this week, and there’s nothing new to say about that, except I did a bit of training over Teams and it was a bit of a nightmare. I thought I could highlight my main screen and anything on that would be seen by the others, but no. Every time I want to saw a different or new screen/app I had to go into Teams, select that new screen/app, wait for it to load up for the others, then after a minute or two I’d go back and select the original screen for a little while and then have to show a new screen/app and repeat. The training went on for about an hour and a half, and it felt like an hour was just spent on switching screens!
…I also found out
that Q is closing/ending with eth next issue (out the last week of July) and
it’s sad to see it go. Which feels a bit weird, because when I was young, in my
late teens/early twenties Q was the music magazine for Dads, mostly featuring
mainstream, rubbish bands, like Simply Red, Hootie and the Blowfish, Crowed
House, etc. But over time it did change, becoming a much better magazine, while
still being in the middle ground, not overly specialised, nor overly bland. In
apart I assume this happened due to (a) changing mainstream tastes, (b) because
writers from other, hipper magazines, which had closed down, started writing
there, and (c) because print media is shrinking Q had to have a more unique and
enticing hook to get people to buy it. So, it's a shame to see it (and Mixmag
and Kerrang) go, leaving that middle ground more or less empty. Yes there is
Mojo and Uncut and Viva la Rock and Record Collector and Electronic Sound, but
they skew either to a too specialised audience or focus to much on
old/mainstream music (how many articles do we need about The Beatle Mojo?!?):
…on the sunnier side of thing’s, the postman delivered my hardback copy of Faith Erin Hicks ’One Year At Ellsmere’. This is a “remastered” version of Ms Hick’s earlier work ‘The War At Ellsmere’, in which Ms Hicks has re-inked, and occasionally re-worked, the original art work and had it coloured by Shelli Paroline. Ms Hicks is a great creator and her work is always worth checking out and I’m looking forward re-reading this story and comparing it to the “original” version to see what changes have been made:
…and on Saturday, on the even sunnier side of thing’s (although it did rain for a little while) we (some work friends) had a BBQ. And it was great, just to hang out, eat some freshly cooked food (which was very tasty), have a few drinks, chat nonsense, play silly games and just relax. A very nice time was had and looking forward to the next one!
…I also got this week’s New Comic Book Day gems:
…and I watched a few films this week:
…the first was ‘Color Out Of Space’, which is based on a HP Lovecraft story, starring Nic Cage, about a meteorite that crash onto a farm and affects the family who live on the farm. It’s a nice, slow film, almost an ambient film, that draws you in as you get to know the family, watching them be themselves, living their lives until the meteorite tips them over. And when that tipping point comes the horror floods out and the family is forever changed by the meteorite. It’s well acted and perfectly shot/directed. It looks so great, you could turn down the volume and put on a favourite album and chill out, until the last third or so of the film when the horror comes to the forefront…I then watched ‘Cape Fear’ and the ‘90’s remake:
…both films are about Max Cady (played by Robert Mitchem in the original and Robert De Niro in the remake) getting revenge on Sam Bowden (played by Gregory Peck in the original and Nick Nolte in the remake), who in the original version testified against Max resulting in him being spent to jail for rape and in the remake failed to defend Max properly against a charge of rape. In both versions Max uses the law to target Sam and his family, driving them to use extreme methods to protect themselves from Max. It’s weird to compare both versions, the main difference between the two versions is that in the original version the Bowden family is united, loving and without any problems, but in the remake they are not united the teenage daughter is very much in the rebelling phase and there is a tension between Sam and his wife. And considering that the original version had to dial some things down or just imply things rather than show, due to the ratings board/censorship, Mitchum as Max (in the original version) comes across as sneakier and sleazier, almost as though, if he hadn’t been sent to jail, he would still be tormenting this family just for fun, whereas De Niro as Max comes across as just nasty and vengeful. Both versions are well worth watching and do a great job of showing how the law can be twisted and used to trap and hurt people, with Robert Mitchem and Robert De Niro doing a great job of portraying Max Cady, perfectly capturing his menace and nastiness, while Gregory Peck and Nick Nolte nicely portrayal the family guy slowly losing it and having to resort to more physical (and less mental) ends to protect themselves and their families.
...and I watched ‘Avengers: Endgame’, for like the 23rd time and it still gets me at the end, with a few tears at the deaths and at the triumphs, like Sam Wilson’s ‘On your left’, which is just perfect as the snapped heroes returned and stand by Cap just as he was on his own facing down Thanos and his army.
…and I read a lot of comics:
…I read a bunch of Whedonverse titles (Firefly #16 and #17, Angel #10 and #11, Buffy #14 and #15, Buffy: Every Generation and Buffy: Willow #1):
…and, as per normal, they do a great job of capturing the feel of the TV shows, while expanding those universes, or in the case of the Buffy comics, re-imagining and updating the shows, taking familiar characters and situations and taking them in new drections.
…then I caught up with ‘John Constantine: Hellblazer’, reading #5, #6 and #7. And Simon Spurrier does a great job of writing John and his world, capturing the horrors of the modern world in the best Hellblazer tradition with possibly the best and scariest Hellblazer stories since it’s early years. With #6 being particularly taut and scary and possible the best Hellblazer story since Jamie Delano’s run, using a ghost story to look at and show the nasty side of modern Britain, and #5 contrasting John, in his middle-aged, ‘80’s glory, with a very modern, very 2020 mage (he does yoga, doesn’t really drink alcohol, doesn’t smoke, is vegan, etc.). And these stories are beautifully illustrated by Matias Bergara and Aaron Campbell, with colours by Jordie Bellaire and letters by Aditya Bidikar.
…and then I read ‘All-America Comix’ #1, by Joe Casey and Dustin Nygen, which introduces us to America Vasquez, a pretty powerful superhero, who accidentally (?) wakes up a celestial being, which may change/destroy her reality. This one-shot does a great job in setting up who America is, what her world is like and how she sits within it. And it's a shame that we won't be seeing more as it'd be interesting to see where it goes from here. Would it have been a grounded take on superheroes or are the superheroics a “cover” to exploring larger themes or, knowing Joe Casey’s previous work, both.
…and then I read ‘Kajiumax’ Season Five #3, by Zander Cannon, with colour assists by Jason Fischer, in which pre-trial shenanigans continue and romance blossoms in the prison (or is one of the inmates being sneaky?). An engrossing read that plays with genre tropes and characters, while also touching on real life issues.
…and listened to
‘Mojo & Trojan Present Reggae Nuggets’ a Trojan compilation given away with
Mojo, which went very well with the warm weather, but didn’t have any very
memorable songs on it. There were pleasant to listen too, but didn’t stick in
my mind.
…and I went for a Long Walk:
…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a weird start, we had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (six out of 24) which is not good, but three of those we had no chance of getting because they required exact knowledge. There is no way I could have guess that a ‘tree with orange-red berry-like fruits’ is a ‘Rowan’, that the ‘wife of Orpheus’ was ‘Eurydice’ and that an ‘Oriel’ is a ‘type of bay window’. And we almost got ‘from Des Moines?’, but we got our US states mixed up and I thought Des Moines was in Idaho, but it’s not it’s in Iowa and the answer was ‘Iowan’. But we should have gotten ‘acme’ from ‘peak’ and ‘laid into’ from ‘savaged’. And the little grey cells chewed through the rest of the clues in pretty straight forward fashion…
…things dip down a little with Wednesday’s crossword as we had to cheat on a fifth of the clues (five out of 25). A think that’s because we didn’t spend enough time on a few of the clues. Like for ‘woody plant’ we went for ‘bambo’, when the answer was ‘shrub’ and we should have gotten ‘scrawny’ from ‘thin – underfed’ and ‘grudge’ from ‘active resentment’. But we did learn that the ‘Poplar’ is a ‘tree with catkins as flowers’ and that to ‘fish by pulling a hook, line and sinker’ is to ‘troll’…
…and things perk up a tad with Thursday’s crossword, as we had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 24). Not great, but better than yesterday! The little grey cells waded through the clues okayly, except for those four, and we should have gotten ‘fickle’ from ‘inconstant’, ‘Chaucer’ from ‘14th-Century English poet’ and that a ‘wart’ is a ‘small hard viral skin blemish’, but we did learn that a ‘falsetto’ is an ‘extra high male singing voice’…maybe this is the start of an upswing…
…and things perk down a tad with Saturday’s crossword as we had to cheat on nearly a sixth of the clues (four out of 26). Maybe the Toots were premature? Slightly annoyed that we read the clue ‘Herald’s tunic’ as being about King Herod!!! Although for three of the four clues we didn’t get we would never of gotten them as we just didn’t have the specific knowledge and couldn’t guess at the answer. Or in other words, we learnt that the ‘Tapir’ is a ‘nocturnal mammal with a short flexible proboscis’, that the ‘Hollyhock’ is a ‘tall garden flower’ and that ‘Hera’ is the ‘Greek equivalent of Juno’, so it wasn’t all bad…and I liked the call out to Monday’s crossword with the clue ‘Iowa’s largest city (3, 6)’ (referencing Monday’s clue of ‘From Des Moines?’)…
No comments:
Post a Comment