Archive for September, 2012

Legend

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

L

L


Legend – There is something hypnotic about this film, despite the icky presence of Tom Cruise. The film is more similar to a Peter Greenaway pic than something by Ridley Scott, and it oozes atmosphere, with its foggy forests and hidden waterfalls, with maidens dancing innocently with unicorns… before they are stolen away by goblins in the employ of the Goblin Lord. The narrative is clumsy, and Tom Cruise absorbs the light (meaning the opposite of “he shines”). Okay.

The film starts off with the demon’s lament, “sunlight is my destroyer.” The film is full of forest sounds, strange rays of light, fairies, colours and shadows. Creatures run past like Alien creatures. Over-wrought soundtrack (there are two – I’d like to hear the one that’s done by Tangerine Dream, rather than the full Jerry Goldsmith one). Nice horny Pan creature, Honeythorn Gump. By the end of the film we get the true entrance of the Dark Lord, which is bloody cool indeed, and the strange black cathedral, with the ghoulish wedding between woman and beast. “We are all animals; most are too afraid to see it.” Great underwater shots.

The Narnia films

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

TLTWATW

TLTWATW


The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – A nice little story, with World War II intruding on the beginning. Great casting, with wonderful performances from the four kids, especially the tormented Edmund. Tilda Swinton is great as the Evil Queen, and Liam Neeson sounds nice as Aslan. Great dialogue:

The top geezer – the King of Narnia!

We’re not heroes – we’re from Finchley.

You’re worse than Beaver on bath day.
Worst day of the year.

Great talking animals, great film.

PC

PC


Prince Caspian – Political intrigues in Narnia, the magical creatures have been put down by some sort of Spanish Armada, which is no fun for the forest creatures. Young Prince Caspian, tagged for assassination by his evil uncle, allies himself with the Narnians and our young kings and queens, who eventually launch a full battle against the Spaniards, mowing everyone down. Ouch! Jadis, the Snow Queen, makes an attempt to return to our world, but is foiled. Too bad – she was interesting.

The deep magic comes and talks and walks, and the four kids get transported from Finchley to Narnia once again, this time to save a rotten humanity from the ultimate battle between the Narnians and the humans. Not that much fun, although for a brief moment we dread, fear, or hope that the Ice Queen will be revived. No such luck. Okay, cool. More bloody battles, with Susan the Magnificent teenager mowing down human soldiers with her magnificent bow and arrow. Of great interest is the sarcastic dwarf, and the chivalrous mouse. Nice stuff.

VOTDT

VOTDT


Voyage of the Dawn Treader – The third film in the series, but not the third book in the series in its internal chronology. This one is probably the best of the three, as when the kids show up they don’t act like bumbling fools (like in the first film) or trained killers (like in the second film). Here they find a mystery – what is amiss in Narnia, which finally knows peace? They discover it, and fall under the leadership of King Caspian. They hop on the Dawn Treader, battle sea serpents, and defeat a hideous green fog that acts like some sort of mysterious Loc-Nar, oozing evil and destroying happiness.

Interesting adventures with the invisible foot creatures, and strange challenges pose themselves to the three kids, leading to Harry Potter-like dream fantasies. Reepicheep, the swashbuckling mouse, is good fun, and at the end he bids adieu to our gang by joining Aslan in “his land.”

Oh, yeah – this time they brought along their annoying twit of a cousin who gets turned into a dragon (?!?!), then proceeds to become less annoying, and maybe a bit of a hero. The kid who plays him must be a good actor, because in the beginning he’s truly very annoying, but by the end of the film we really like the kid.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

SPVTW

SPVTW


Scott Pilgrim vs the World – Nice/stupid little movie, significant mainly because it’s a Hollywood movie filmed in Toronto that describes itself as taking place in… Toronto? Wow… when has that ever happened before?!?!? Besides showing the Toronto skyline and referencing Toronto (and describing people as Canadian or American), it’s funny/awesome to note that one of the concerts in the film takes place at Lee’s Palace!! There’s reference to a film set, “they make movies in Toronto?!?” It’s also nice to see Pizza Pizza joints in the film. Funny dialogue:

I’ve never even kissed a boy.
Me neither.

I’m a big fan.
Ha ha – why wouldn’t you be?

All of our shows are secret shows.

You cocky cock – you will pay for your crimes against humanity!

What’s the “L” word?
Lesbian?
The other “L” word?
Lesbians?
No, it’s “love”, you dimwit.

I’m in lesbians with you.

Good music, nice band performances and music dynamic. Cool names, like Knives Chao. Bad plot, stupid action scenes, retarded video game element to the film, and the swift editing grates a bit with its insipid cleverness. Oh well. Watching the extras, you get 22 minutes of alternate scenes, including an ending where he doesn’t get the girls. Oh well. At least Ramona is very cool, even if Scott isn’t.

Scrooged

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

S

S


Scrooged – Amazing to see a fake movie trailer at the beginning with Lee Majors (!?!?!?!?) playing an action hero, wow! Wild satirical dialogue throughout, with bouts of faked bad-acting from Bill Murray, who looks like he lost patience with the director’s vision at parts of the film. Nice. Great scenes with Carol Kane, who beats him up, and a manic Buster Poindexter (David Johanssen), a wise-cracking ghost of Christmas past. Weird cameos from Jamie Farr and a chubby little Mary Lou Retton. Bill does a great Richard Burton impression. “You know I like the rough stuff, don’t you Frank?”

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, the DVD

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

ZSATSFM

ZSATSFM


Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars – A short (90-minute) DA Pennebaker movie about Bowie’s final Ziggy Stardust concert in 1973, showing some backstage scenes (the first few minutes, and at two interludes; we get to see him talking to Angela Bowie, Ringo Starr seems to be be hanging about). The show is so-so, although “Time” and “The Width Of A Circle” are significant standouts (especially the latter, which is a full 16 minutes long!!!). Mick Ronson is covered in sweat, and at times his solo seems doctored, but otherwise he’s magnificent (and the only musician who even gets close to having any amount of screen time). Long shots of a girl freaking out in the audience. Skinny Bowie shown during a costume change. His live version of “Space Oddity” seems to have spooky Pink Floyd-like elements. “Cracked Actor” includes mouth harp, bombastic theatricality, a costume change, nice stitching!

Angela Bowie, Backstage Passes

Sunday, September 9th, 2012

ABBP

ABBP


Angela Bowie, Backstage Passes – I didn’t have high expectations of this book, but thought it would be fun to see just how raunchy it might be. Turns out it’s not all that raunchy, although it did give a good glimpse into sexual experimentation in the 1970s with men and women and stage performers, while also offering a glimpse into David Bowie’s icy 1970s insanity, drug use and sexual excess.

Angela gives a bit of background to herself, not too much, and writes well (or her co-author Patrick Carr does). Some nice passages putting people in their place, and she had a lot of evil hanger-ons to deal with, not to mention show business leeches (Bowie was no different than the Stones, Black Sabbath, or any number of bands that got ripped off by management). She gives the impression that she indulged in sexual and drug excess only a small proportion of what her husband engaged in, and she hardly seems to know her son Zowie (the remarkably unattractive film maker Duncan Jones).

Born in Cyprus, but an American, she met Bowie in 1968 when she was 19, they married a year later, had a tumultuous 12-year personal and professional relationship, and divorced in 1980. The book covers up to 1980, hinting only slightly at the years that followed. The strangest thing about the book is Bowie’s descriptions of Michael Jackson – she knew him before Thriller and praised his normalcy. The book was published in 1993, my version is a 2006 reprint that doesn’t appear to be updated at all. She also recounts the famous episodes of the song “Angie” (not written about her at all – she came close to sleeping with Mick Jagger but never actually did), and also finding him naked in bed with her husband – she neither make assumptions about what went on nor confesses to spotting K-Y jelly in the vicinity.

It’s a great slice of life of London in the Swinging Sixties, and rock ‘n’ roll excess in the Seventies, although it was not exactly all like you’d think – just as she talks about avoiding Jagger’s bed, she also did the same with an offer from Jimi Hendrix. Horreur!!

The Round House was a revelatoipn, as was the crowd. So this was where all the peopo from Notting HIll and King’s Road, all the most advanced trendies on the circuit, came at night! It was like London’s Fillmore, a forum for the most fascinating artists and a place for the tuned-in to congregate, and you’d see them all there; long-haired blones and afroed brunettes in wispy see-through skirts with delicate Indian-print sashes binding their breasts; better-heeled types in bright velvet capes and wide-brimmed straw hats decorated with ribbons and wild-flowers, or top hats studded with badges and icons; and even then, in the pre-metal years, very pale figures dressed in black, carrying a charge of mystery, danger and eroticism. you knew those people knew how to fuck. They were like crows among birds of paradise. I noticed them; I always do.

The girl is full of ass about her enemies in the business:

Unlike David and his friends and associates, including the people in charge of managing and promoting him, I had nine-tenths of a degree in marketing and more than enough savvy to make up for the missing piece of paper. So all the little shits who have denigrated my role in the launch of La Bowie, and all the chauvinist oinkers of every sex and stripe who at one time or another have dismissed me as “the wife,” can kiss my highly-credentialed, much more than adequately competent ass and feel damned lucky I let ‘em. Okay? Do we have that straight?

Great anecdote of James Brown and George Clinton competing to see who can do the splits the most often. James did 27, George struggled to do 23. “You’re still the boss, James.” The menage-a-trois with a lovely dark-haired actress, Clare Shenstone, on the eve of their wedding, and other games. “Monogamy would’t have appealed to me in the first place; I myself was anything but a one-man-or-woman woman. As long as we held true to each other and respected the love between us, then David and I were perfectly free to romp and dally with whoever else might tickle our fancies.”

She discusses the “gay mafia”, indicating that about 75% of the middlemen of the industry were queens. She also, on page 108 and 109, hints at the sexual preference of Dolly Parton, George Michael (?!?!?), Freddie Mercury, Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross, Barry Manilow, Pete Townsend, the Pet Shop Boys and Jimmy Sommerville of the Communards. It gets raunchy

God knows, Madonna ha been up-front about swinign g both ways. But what about the ‘rumours’ regarding a member of that famous seventies rock band? What about that legendary dark-haired, lithesome pop singer/actress? God knows, a lot of men have ben through her life, but why doesn’t anyone ask her about that certain woman in her life? And while we’re on the subject of swinging on both sides, don’t forget Mick Jagger. But more about him later.

She sums it up well by saying “I liked Mick in his place; but he was such a slut.” She hardly had sex with David, because he claimed he got a rash when he did it with her (weird to marry someone you’re allergic to). “Trying to have a relationship with a coke freak is like trying to eat an aircraft carrier.” Great anecdote about how she got seduced by Marianne Faithfull, who “got me stoned as a silly schoolgirl on pills and great big hash joints, then slipped up on me when I wasn’t looking. She’s wild, that woman. I love her and admire her.” She also gets quite funny when describing Bowie’s manager’s nose:

A peninsula of a nose, a protuberance of proportions beyond Cyrano, beyond compare; a lunar probe of a nose, a Graf Zeppelin of a nose! everything else about Tony receded into the background behind that one amazing asset. Not that, as assets go, it did much good; so much air-ntaking acreage, and still he was asthmatic.

Funny zeitgeist:

Put yourself in tour shoes, among the crowd at a typical 1969-1970 rock concert – in London, New york, San Francisco, a Kansas college town, wherever. For one thing, it smells. You have the basic grunge of the hall, which until recently (perhaps as recently as the afternoon before the show) may have ben functioning as a triple-X porn-movie house, attracting odors closer to the dead-fish than the fresh-popcorn end of the spectrum and inviting, most likely, a certain degree of flea infestation – ah, yes, little biters up your MOther Earth macroskirt what fun! Then too, the promoter probably hasn’t seen fit to have the bathrooms leaned before the show, so beneath the scent of stale semen you ahve an olfactory undertow of ancient urine, the odor sharpening as the show proceeds and legions of your stoned-senseless brethren migrate through the bathrooms, doing their business in every conceivable way but straight down or forward. Impaired flushing apparatuses, both mechanical and human, lead to increasingly severe and widespread toilet blockage, adding a richness one recalls with something very close to horror. At times a kind of sickening sympathetic resonance gets going…

Interesting – I didn’t read any of this stuff in Bill Grahams autobiography!!

She describes Bowie’s shows at the time, and is particularly descriptive about the Diamond Dogs tour:

Sometimes, when the coke was working for him, he was brilliant, almost as good as he could be when he ewas straight. Other times, when he wasn’t up enough, or he’d been up too long, or he was beyond up, into mania, he missed cues and forgot moves and botched things in all kinds of ways. But surprisingly, his voice stayed strong – I can’t conceive how that happened, what with the abuse from chemicals, cigarettes, and sleeplessness – and his cast stayed strong too (those people were great), and so the shows worked almost despite him. He’d done such a good job of creating and putting the whole production together that his personal performance on any given night could afford to be below par.

Interesting Michael Jackson quotes:

And speaking of aliens…

Michael Jackson comes up at this point in the story because, like Oz and the Wizard, he was at the end of the yellow brick road when teh Diamond Dogs show pulled into the western terminus of its tour, the City of the Angels.

Really, though, Michael’s no alien. He had a strange childhood and adolescence, but to my mind he’s turned out rather well. His heart’s certainly in the right place he’s into love and brotherhood – and that’s more than you can say for most people, child stars or not.

Nice anecdotes of hanging out with the Jacksons in their family homes, mama Jackson and the boys, not a daughter in sight.

But just imagine the warp in this boy brought up by Joseph Jackson, a star since he was a nipper, forbidden to date, who seeks teenage best-friendship with Diana Ross (and, a little later, Elizabeth Taylor). It really is a wonder, and a great achievement on his part, that Michael has grown into such a gentle soul. I think very fondly of him.

Weird how she loves Peter Grant, the horrible manager of Led Zeppelin who Bill Graham had so many problems with; nice anecdote of Angie helping John Bonham get his fix of morning bangers while on tour. Always trying to help out…

Angie comes clean on the rumour that David stored bodily fluids away from sight. She says… maybe he didn’t, maybe he did… seems like she didn’t know him that well after all…

Other strange stories in the book were the time that they had to exorcise a demon from the indoor swimming pool, and also the time that Rose Taylor (the wife of Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor) purportedly gave her a line of very strong heroin to snort, which she did, thinking that it was cocaine. Nearly killed her. Thanks, Rose…

My big bad Batman page

Saturday, September 8th, 2012

I’ve read a bunch of Batman comics recently, might as well review them all on the same page. Comic collections are now turning up at the local library, which is helpful and saves me money (and storage). Sometimes comic sets are conclusive, meaning that they include an entire run of a certain limited series (Batman Year One), while others re-package related issues from here and there (Batman Versus Bane, Birth Of The Demon, etc).

BYO

Batman Year One – Stunning storytelling, with great stylized art to go along with it. Fresh bande desinee-style sketches that are warm, even when they’re violent, and the story strums along, picking up with Bruce Wayne coming back into town after 18 years away training on the top of a mountain, with a young Jim Gordon coming into town with a pregnant wife, up against a corrupt commissioner and his creepy henchman Flass. Great story about Gordon’s encounter with corrupt cops who don’t want him causing trouble, and then his revenge on them; at the same time, Bruce Wayne’s on a mission in the corrupt East End, where he tries to take down a pimp while in disguise – not the scary avenger garb of the Batman, but some leather duds and some face paint (a fake scar) to throw people off the scent. It’s a failure. But Wayne learns. He also comes across Selina Kyle, the Catwoman. Nice. There’s the first appearance of the psychopath Branden and his SWAT team, a hostage taker that Gordon takes out single-handedly, paralleled with a near-failure from Bruce Wayne as the caped crusader. Gordon meets Sarah Essen, the Batman takes on the crime bosses, he gets trapped in an abandoned building with the cops chasing him, he makes fools of all of them. It would make a great movie!

The book builds and cooks, seemingly not very real in its depictions, but of so real in its situations and emotions. There is nothing truly clumsy about the story developments, and it’s very mature throughout.

The bonus materials at the end of the book are also very good, showing artist David Mazzucchelli’s submission samples to DC from 1981 and 1983, as well as a cute little thing that he drew when he was six yeas old in 1966.


Batman Versus Bane – Adventures that both precede and follow the “Bane broke Batman’s back” episode. The first tale tells the unimaginably cruel tale of the birth of Bane, in a prison, for the crimes of his father (who, we later find out, is known to Ra’s Al Ghul). It also introduces his gang – Zombie, Trogg and Birdy Colossimo (the dude with the blonde mullet). Then there’s his first encounter with the Batman, which takes place after he wipes out two mob families (one of them includes three stooges that look like Larry, Moe and Curly). The cops bust in on the scene before these guys can confront each other, so it’s really no big deal.

The next episode follows Bane on his return to Santa Prisca, first to kill the monk that once showed him kindness as he seeks the identity of his father, and then when he narrows his search down to one of four possible men based on the fact that three of them are dead, off we go on another wild goose chase (his ego won’t allow him to consider that his real father might be among the three dead men). Great. Lots of scenes of Bane single-handedly taking on armies of armed goons… and killing them all. Nice. And so, he discovers a satanic sect of creeps linked to one of his possible fathers, and the trail leads him to… Singapore (it’s amusing to consider the irony of how DC tends to create cities like Metropolis for New York and Gotham City for Chicago, while Marvel tends to go for real city names – except for Singapore, which Marvel calls “Mandripoor”). It’s here that Bane intersects with Thalia and Ra’s Al Ghul’s people. He enters into bizarre deals with them, at one point bedding Thalia before she turns on him and gets all snooty, “you amused me, now you sicken me” (funny to see him get all soft and gentle. It also turns out that they can’t speak Middle Eastern languages in front of Bane because, well, he’s taught himself how to speak Farsi and Urdu and Dhari and… whatever. And Thalia, like a little princess, orders men to their deaths with great regularity. Bane is unmasked throughout this second tale. Ra’s comes along and does his whole macho “any man would die for less than this” sort of medieval thing. Hard to tell why Bane and Ra’s are allied in the first place, other than both are psychopaths. By the end of the book it seems like Batman is about to come into the picture. Very good. Too little too late, though, I’m afraid…

ASBARTBW

ASBARTBW

All Star Batman And Robin The Boy Wonder – If Batman Year One was the birth of the bat in Frank Miller’s Dark Night universe, where Batman is an antisocial grouch who looks down on his fellow crime fighters, then this is the introduction of Robin. The book is full of gorgeous artwork from Jim Lee, who manages to take all of the best elements of John Byrne without being overly sentimental, also incorporating fantastic cityscapes and skylines, only rarely indulging in an ÃœBER-muscular Hulk-like Batman.

The tale starts off with Dick Grayson, whose parents are assassinated by a thug working for the Joker (yes, this deviates from the regular story). Bruce is, of course, in attendance with Vicky Vale, and as the Batman he saves Dick from corrupt cops in a wild chase that gets splashed across the headlines. The tale follows with episodes from the life of Batman, but also a few random non-Batman episodes – Vicky Vale on the case, the Black Canary in a barroom brawl, a heavily-tattooed Joker murdering a lawyer, Barbara Gordon dressing up as a bling-laden Batgirl, an encounter between the Justice League of America where they sing “how do we solve a problem like the Batman…”. Wonder Woman is, of course, a total bitch.

And there are a lot of problems with the Batman. He’s a prick to 12-year-old Robin, who’s just seen his parents murdered, he uses the Batmobile to into his own Rolls Royce, killing Vicky Vale and injuring Alfred (?!?!). He hardly tries to come up with an alibi for Robin not being Dick Grayson, after it became headline news that he’d kidnapped Dick following the death of his parents, and he lets Robin nearly kill the Green Lantern (rendered powerless in an all-yellow room – how lame is that?). He deals with his Vicky Vale problem (she’s dying because of him) by bullying Superman into retrieving heart surgeon “Ekhart” from Paris, which he does by picking up the poor guys limo and running across the Atlantic with it like some Kryptonian errand boy. Yes, weak story telling at its weakest. Jim Gordon doesn’t show up at all, except talking on the phone with his ex-girlfriend Sarah Engel while his long-suffering wife loads up on whiskey (what a creep, man…).

The best thing about the edition, though, is the amazing six-panel pullout of the Batcave, which apparently “just doesn’t end”. Nice reference to the dinosaur robot later on too… Also, great splashes of Batman stalking and jumping. Nice. The episodes where he takes out a gang of would-be rapists is good, as are the strange panels showing a very buff Alfred Pennyworth in the gym. The lettering is also inventive – colour-coded according to the author (Batman, Alfred, Dick, the Joker), with appropriate font as well (Alfred’s is crisp and bold, the Joker’s is Joker-ish). Lots of “goddamn Batman” in the text; apparently this has become a joke/internet meme. Nice. Nice horny shots of Batman and the Black Canary making out (and one of Supes and Wonder Woman making out – despite him viagra cialis levitra cost comparison and her being a bitch). The Catwoman, sadly, is only seen in two panels. There’s also a funny spot where Robin contemplates calling himself the Hood, after Robin Hood (with a costume that includes a hood too – clever!) that Batman mocks by tugging fiecely on the hood. “Lost the hood. You’re Robin.” So much for picking your own identity.

BOTD

BOTD

Birth Of The Demon – There are some comics that are thematic reprints of other stories, this one collects two tales of Ra’s Al Ghul. The first one is a Batman adventure, and in it Batman allies with Ra’s to fight a common enemy, a former lieutenant of Ra’s who eventually went by the name Qayne, after Cain, the original murderer. He’s helping a central Asian dictator to hijack American technology to control the weather. The story is a bit disjointed and silly, and in the end we learn that Thalia is to marry Batman. She carries his child. But she lies to him that it is lost. In the final panel we see an orphan abandoned on a doorstep. Corny.

The second tale is much better, it is a tale of medieval cruelty and the evil prince and king who created Ra’s Al Ghul, or at least the ones who set him on the mission to destroy a corrupt humanity. Nice.

B:ADITF

B:ADITF

Batman, A Death In The Family - Chronicling the 1988, 1989 and 2006 adventures of Batman and Robin, all three versions of him. Principally concerning itself in the first half with the fate of Robin Mark II, the book follows Batman’s crisis as he broods with his cape a-blazing, across the deserts of Lebanon, Jordan and Ethiopia, as Jason Todd searches for his real mother, focusing on three possibilities, each one more horrible than the last. Todd dies in an explosion (readers phoned in to vote on his fate, agreeing in the end to send him on his way). The Joker comes into the picture, even posing for a moment as the ambassador from Iraq to the UN (he tries to kill them all, unsuccessfully – not like Mars Attacks, where the House Of Representatives is wiped out by grinning ambassadors making speeches), before he’s chased out of the building into a sure death (which is never what it seems).

In a later episode, they have some fun with a newscaster talking about a spelling champion. “Nine-year old Moon Caplan returns from her meeting with George Bush. Asked what she thought of the President, the adolescent abecedarian said ‘read my lips,’ and spelled something not suitable for family listening.” There’s some stuff about Dick Grayson returning to the circus he was raised in, to the Batcave, to another partnership with Batman as they confronted Two-Face (no adolescent quips any more – why not?!?!? Nice upside-down room, and a mystery really no-one saw coming. Too bad Two-Face, after all this trouble, was dispatched so quickly. Comics really aren’t worth the time of day…

H

H

Hush – Not a flop, but also not really a great book; of course, the art by Jim Lee is stunning (the sculpted drawings simply call out to be touched and fondled; the influence of artists like Todd McFarlane, John Byrne and John Romita Jr is clear). Writer Jeph Loeb is clearly intent to produce a masterpiece, so he calls up every single major Batman foe and gets them into the picture. Batman confronts the Killer Croc, Two Face (handsome after an extensive bout of plastic surgery). Poison Ivy, a bewitched Superman (yes – like The Dark Knight Returns, Batman gets to beat the snot out of Superdude), the Riddler, the Joker, Scarecrow, Lady Siva, Clayface, Harley Quinn and maybe a few more – oh yeah, Ra’s Al Ghul too. But, meanwhile, there’s a hidden plotter manipulating everybody, and Batman gets to figure out who it is… sort of. And, of course, there are plenty of ghostly flashback scenes to make everything in the past very alive and relevant. Nicy kryptonite ring. Interestingly, all of the Robins also make an appearance – Dick Grayson (as Nightwing), the undead Jason Todd, and the mini Tim Drake). And, of course, there are also three guys wrapped up in Hush bandages. Outrageous!

In one of the sillier scenes, he hijacks Thalia’s private jet mid-air in order to provoke her estranged father out of hiding (did I mention that she now runs Lexcorp, which Lex Luthor has had put in trust while he serves his term as President of the United states. Ooooo-kay!! Did I mention that he’s now in love with Catwoman?

The most infuriating element is the resurgence of Thomas Eliot, a childhood friend we’ve never heard about before, who uses the word “hush” in an early scene… c’mon, how can he not be the character Hush?!?!?!? Loeb nearly throws us off the trail once, but eventually it all comes together – and how many times does he need to talk about it being a game before we clue in to the flashback scenes of Bruce and Tommy playing chess. Oh yeah… let’s not just observe a detective in action, but maybe we can also be a bit of a detective ourselves. The writing is very show-offy and grandstand-ish, and in the end, even with the story concluded, Loeb still can’t resist giving it another layer, so… the Riddler did it. Wow… my mind is blown.

Malaysia trips September 2012 – Pulau Rawa!

Sunday, September 2nd, 2012

Just got back from a great trip to Pulau Rawa, where we stayed at the Rawa Island Resort. Just three hours away from Singapore, door-to-door (including coach pick-up from Singapore, customs to Malaysia, travel through Malaysia to Mersing, and ferry to Pulau Rawa), this was one great deal! While we had a bit of trouble connecting with our pick-up in Singapore, everything after that went smoothly – even the weather. No problems at all!

The island was superb, our hut only 15 metres from the surf (the first night we slept with the doors closed and the air-con on because the waves were noisy, but after that we had the doors opened, the screens closed, and the fan on – perfect). The food was not so great, but the weather, the climate, the entertainment… all superb – we played ping pong, badminton, and all sorts of beach activities, chilling out and hanging out to our heart’s content. While we couldn’t do proper scuba diving (none of us had masks adjusted to our various levels of near-sightedness, and therefore no snorkel breathing apparatus), we did skin diving with our goggles and saw plenty of coral, tropical fish, not to mention a cloud of sardines that was hanging around. We had our guitars there, so there was plenty of groovy times. It was a young crowd, aged 25-45, with kids of all ages up to 12 or so.

Here are a couple of pics:

On our way to Pulau Rawa

On our way to Pulau Rawa

Rock 'n' roll Rawa

Rock 'n' roll Rawa

First view of our home for the next three days - exquisite!!

First view of our home for the next three days - exquisite!!

First beers - evening on Rawa!

First beers - evening on Rawa!

First beers - evening on Rawa!

First beers - evening on Rawa!

View from inside the cottage - beach in the background

View from inside the cottage - beach in the background

Explorin' in the mornin'.

Explorin' in the mornin'.

Explorin' in the mornin'.

Explorin' in the mornin'.

Rock 'n' roll breakfast

Rock 'n' roll breakfast

Rock 'n' roll breakfast

Rock 'n' roll breakfast

Rock 'n' roll coffee

Rock 'n' roll coffee

Beach bitch

Beach bitch

Peter and Zen - sardine cloud in the background

Peter and Zen - sardine cloud in the background

Brunch hunch

Brunch hunch

Rock 'n' roll lovin'

Rock 'n' roll lovin'

Peter and Zen in a kayak

Peter and Zen in a kayak

Peter and Zen in a kayak

Peter and Zen in a kayak

Weekend warriors

Weekend warriors

Weekend warrior

Weekend warrior

Guitar bungalow

Guitar bungalow

our porch

our porch

Chilling out, reading the Angela Bowie book...

Chilling out, reading the Angela Bowie book...

Our cottage

Our cottage

Zen and his new friends playing foozball

Zen and his new friends playing foozball

Feeding the fish

Feeding the fish

Peacock on a hot tin roof

Peacock on a hot tin roof

Peacock on a hot tin roof

Peacock on a hot tin roof

Naoko atop Bukit Rawa

Naoko atop Bukit Rawa

View of Rawa Resort's jetty from Bukit Rawa

View of Rawa Resort's jetty from Bukit Rawa

Kayaks passing Cape Rawa

Kayaks passing Cape Rawa

Peter on Bukit Rawa

Peter on Bukit Rawa

Bukit Rawa

Bukit Rawa

Captain Kayak!!

Captain Kayak!!

Kiting in the face of a powerful storm

Kiting in the face of a powerful storm

Kite power!

Kite power!

Let's swim... there's a storm coming...

Let's swim... there's a storm coming...

The eye of the storm above us!!

The eye of the storm above us!!

Rage against the machine!!!

Rage against the machine!!!