alexsarll: (seal)
[personal profile] alexsarll
The reason I didn't get straight online to share my thoughts with the interweb...well, yes, I was also busy on some hard-fought games of Othello with the parents, but beyond that, I simply don't know what to make of it. The first time since the comeback we've had a named Part One and Part Two on TV, and fair enough because it's just too soon to say. I could have done without the Matrix bits, I guessed what "they are coming back" meant as soon as I heard it on the trailers, but the key Being John Simm stuff - I don't know yet whether that was good or not. I have invites for NYD which I may decline simply because I cannot wait one second longer than I need to before finding out where this all goes. Curse you, RTD, you glorious bastard.

In other news, I've finally caught up with Alan Moore's new 'underground' paper Dodgem Logic and...well, the articles by Moore, Graham Linehan and Josie Long are pretty entertaining, as you'd expect, if not any of their best work. The contributors you've not heard of mainly make clear why you've not heard of them; there's a lot of the sort of kneejerk hippy claptrap which eventually saw me lose patience with The Idler, the worst being the Lejome Pindling screed which rehearses the tired old complaints about 'manufactured pop'. Pindling loftily pronounces that Lady Gaga's "lyrical content is trash at best"; I suppose at least that quote is literate (if inane), which is more than can be said for most of his piece. Later he declares "The majority of albums I listen to nowadays have 2 tracks which I would consider good and a further 12 which I would say are questionable", unaware that he is himself one of those filler tracks. In between is the local content, one piece again by Moore, which I almost compared to a Northampton version of the less good bits of the capital's delightful Smoke before realising how unfair that would be. All Moore's previous Northampton work - and presumably his novel-in-progress, Jerusalem, have found the same wonder and strangeness in the town which most other psychogeographers can so much more easily pick up in London. Here, he and his collaborators are just taking the simple route and showing provincial Britain as a denatured, grotty dump. I'll give it another issue or two to settle in, clearly, but I really expect more from Moore.

And is it just me (and my family, in rare consensus) or would Wall-E have been a better film if it were half an hour shorter?

Date: 2009-12-26 12:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] johnny-vertigen.livejournal.com
What's the CD like with Dodgem Logic? The manufactured pop diatribe isn't filling me with confidence....

Date: 2009-12-26 12:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
Not played it yet. I already heard the Retro Spankees tracks on Youtube and liked them, but that was basically the presence of Moore.

Date: 2009-12-26 12:42 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] beingjdc.livejournal.com
Hmm they don't sound like that, they sound more like Polysics. Also they need more Jo in that video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GvbKsTMnXQ&feature=related

Date: 2009-12-26 01:24 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
Would she be the one the robots kill? That's far too Young Person's for me, much prefer the ones with Alan Moore on vocals. But then I would, wouldn't I?

Date: 2009-12-26 01:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] beingjdc.livejournal.com
Yes, she's lovely. It is all a bit young person but then they wrote their best material when they were, what, 17? They're not 25 now and they were gigging while I was in Northampton, so...

Date: 2009-12-26 01:45 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
They need the fiftysomething man with the beard. He's not my idea of sexy, but there's a major difference between bands I'd do and bands I have any wish to hear.

Date: 2009-12-26 01:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] baphomette.livejournal.com
I quite like the idea of a world where everyone is John Simm (as long as one person is still me). No reason. Honest.

Date: 2009-12-26 01:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
This is one of those rare occasions when innuendo fails me because it has already all been said quite openly. Sweet dreams, eh?

Date: 2009-12-26 01:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] baphomette.livejournal.com
Shit, sorry, did I just innuendo-block? How unlike me!

Anyway. Yep. Bedtime!

Date: 2010-01-01 03:10 pm (UTC)

Date: 2009-12-26 09:56 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] juggzy.livejournal.com
I mean, I enjoyed it, but found myself nodding in agreement with the person who said that it should have been half an hour shorter with far less manic laughing. I agree that I can't wait to find out what happens next, but that ability of RTD to leave the plot hanging at the most tense point is not the same as the ability to write without, effectively, being patronising to the audience. The manic laughter was used as a punchline, and then as another punchline to point out the punchline, and it is all so tediously ploddery. Contrast the blockiness and thunderous lack of wit of RTDs writing with Ianucci's glittery, swirly light touch in The Thick Of It, the 'and then we all woke up and found out it was a dream' excesses of the last TTOI episode aside.

It's testament to the power of John Simm's, erm, 'magnetism' that I can forgive all of this for the fact that we ended the show on an RTD wet dream; a planet full of John Simm. John Simm is the new James Marsters.

Date: 2009-12-26 12:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
I didn't mind the manic laughing (unlike SuperMaster, it is core to the character), but it could definitely have been cut to a normal 45-minute ep by losing some of the fat in the Saxon Cell Block H scenes and the tycoon/Elektra complex bits.

Date: 2009-12-26 01:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] juggzy.livejournal.com
Yes, but. Did you see what I did there** with the Marsters/Master play on words?

**unintentionally

Date: 2009-12-27 12:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
I assumed we were taking Buffy's influence on the revived series as read, but get similarly irked when nobody notices my (accidental) briliant material, so sympathise.

Date: 2009-12-26 02:18 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
It's recent trend not to wear jewerly with wedding dress.
よほどマッチするものじゃなければ、しないほうがいい。

Date: 2009-12-26 02:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] beingjdc.livejournal.com
Damn, Barry's going to need a whole new wardrobe.

Date: 2009-12-27 12:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
Style means never worrying whether you're currently in fashion.

Date: 2009-12-27 05:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] verlaine.livejournal.com
Wall-E would have been better without any of the humans. Doctor Who was fun but I have a deep, hateful suspicion that the return of Gallifrey has been scheduled for the second half because the sheer momentousness of the event will distract suspicion from RTD's usual inability to write a logical denouement. It hardly matters any more, between this and the regeneration it will still be everyone's FAVOURITE EPISODE EVAR for a good while.

Date: 2009-12-29 01:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
Judging by the last season finale, if he has enough (ie too much) stuff thrown in to the blender, then I'm prepared to overlook the illogic which is merely annoying when it's a comparatively restrained blow-out like Daleks Vs Cybermen. So bring on the Kitchen Sink Of Rassilon!

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