I missed you most of all, Gmail

[alexsarll]

Finally saw the hilarious Superbad on Friday; I loved it, though being shown it by a female friend I could see that her amusement was purer, in that it wasn't tempered with that terrible recognition anyone who's ever been a teenage boy must feel. Mentioning it to augstone later, he thought I was asking if he'd seen Superman; I wasn't, but if his secret identity were McLovin instead of Clark Kent, wouldn't that be glorious? Also on Friday night: got lost in Emirates, impersonated a chessboard, saw Sex Tourists/Doe Face Lilian/The Firm. As is traditional on Holloway Road love-ins, the roster also included one band I didn't know; as is traditional, they were pants, ie so pants that even being pretty girls in knee-length socks covering 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' couldn't save them. Let's hope tradition stops before the Gaff burns down, though.
Saturday and Sunday also fun, but Monday...that Monday was overacting. It hammered its point home with a scenery-chewing excess of Mondayness. I did not approve.

Glen David Gold's Carter Beats The Devil was, quite deservedly if unusually, a success both with the general public and with people I know. His follow-up has been delayed and delayed, but should finally be with us this year. Except, just like various bands have had exclusive distribution deals with various chains (mainly in the States), in the UK Waterstone's get Sunnyside in July, and everyone else has to wait 'til Autumn. What makes this even stranger - that's the hardback, ie the prestige edition aimed at people who have money to spare and really can't wait for the book. Which comes out in the US in May, and can be pre-ordered from amazon.com for $17.79. That's not quite the bargain it would have been two years ago, but if you're into the book enough to get a hardback in July, for about the same price you can get one in May instead. So what do Waterstone's and the UK publishers get out of this, except for winding up other booksellers?

Comics links: have a bunch of Grant Morrison rarities, including Batman and Superman text stories from 1986 - two decades before he got to do definitive runs in the main titles - and Alan Moore interviewed on the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Obama, and his grimoire-in-progress:
"We want it to be a lot of fun and we also want it to be exactly like the way you would have imagined a book to magic to be when you were a small child and had first heard of such things."
As someone who has attempted to read Crowley, that sounds like just what Doctor Dee ordered.

I'd been looking forward to Tin Man, a reimagining of The Wizard of Oz starring Alan Cumming, Callum Keith Rennie and lovely, lovely Zooey Deschanel. Not only was I disappointed, but I don't even have much to add to USA Today's disappointment when they say that "Ambitious and intriguing though it may be, Tin Man is simply too long, too grim and too determined to impose a Lord of the Rings universe-saving quest on top of a simpler, gentler story." It perhaps doesn't help that Alan Moore so recently finished showing how you could reinvent that story to a darker end, so long as you had a point, rather than just mashing together various fashionable SF and fantasy tropes into a world with no thematic consistency or resonance, much less plausibility.

Comments

[tintintin.livejournal.com]

I saw the first half of Tin Man and thought it was pretty but dull and too self-aware by half. Calling your protagonist 'D.G.' throughout might seem like a nice idea at the scripting stage, but it made no sense for the character to be called that by her own family, and it sounds crap and a bit of a tongue-twisting mouthful for people to say. In reality, people would call you 'Dee' within a matter of minutes.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I think the 90 minutes I (and presumably you) saw may only have been the first *third* rather than half. Which is pretty worrying.
I didn't have a particular problem with the name - I know two people who are pretty universally known as CJ and EJ and whom I'd never think of abbreviating any further. Didn't even start wondering if she was the Director General, come to think of it.
The problem was more that it was self-aware without knowing what to do with that. He's a Tin Man but not like that! Aaaaaaaah.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I would have said much the same before I attempted this, but I seriously doubt whether I shall ever watch the other two episodes.

[ursarctous.livejournal.com]

some people are just so pretty that i don't really notice if what they're acting in is a bit rubbish. therefore, i enjoyed ALL THREE parts of tin man. twice! hurray!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Somehow I knew one of the comments on this would be from you! But it does puzzle me that you love him so given he seems invariably to play utter gits.

[ursarctous.livejournal.com]

he was so lovely in due south, and that's all i knew of him for about ten years or so, so the loveliness hasn't quite worn off yet, even though he seems to be trying his best to only take horrible roles these days... apparently in his next project his character has multiple personalities, so maybe one of them will be nice! er.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I suppose at least one of them must be, or where would be the contrast to be worth having the multiple personalities in the plot in the first place?

[xandratheblue.livejournal.com]

What was so bad about Monday? It was a bit grey, I'll admit...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I just found it massively grey and inert and a very hard day on which to do anything. Which perversely meant that I got a fair amount done, because I wasn't going to let it get me, but still.

carter beats the devil

[ksta.livejournal.com]

oooooh, that and getting to see the third series of 30 Rock first (though series 2 was better) are compensations for not having easy access to custard.

Re: carter beats the devil

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

My experience of ordering books from Amazon US suggests that it's considerably less hassle for us than mail order custard would be for you...

Re: carter beats the devil

[ksta.livejournal.com]

ha. You are of course, welcome to order stuff to my address, then I can post it on. I'm sure you have friends on the East Coast, though, which would be marginally faster.

Re: carter beats the devil

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The postage isn't that bad just to order it direct to the UK, tbh. And that even worked with the Black Dossier which was supposedly not for sale to the UK at all.