Category: Uncategorized Page 34 of 122

More Child-Ish Than Plain Childish, I Feel

On 13/06/2009

Just over a year ago, I posted a pair of book covers which I thought were rather similar, one of which was a novel by Lee Child.

In fact, I’ve referred to Mr Child’s books a number of times over the lifetime of this blog – probably because I enjoy his Jack Reacher novels, and tend to keep an eye out for new ones.

Mind you, it looks as if book designers are still under orders to tailor their covers to catch the eye of people like me, as the pictures here show (the Child book came out in hardback last year, and the Hilton book has just been released). When it’s that blatant, though, it tends to push me away rather than reel me in.

Which is a bit of a shame, actually, as the Hilton book sounds like it might be a fun read. As the groovier websites might put it: book design FAIL.

It Could Be Another Picture From That Oh-So-Controversial Annie Leibowitz Vanity Fair Photo Session, I Guess

By John

On 12/06/2009

In Film, Fish In A Barrel, Link, London, Pictures, TV, Uncategorized

This picture is currently being used to promote Miley Cyrus’s concerts in London this December.

However, I can’t help but think it looks more like a still from an episode of CSI.

Presumably Billy Ray Cyrus will manage to snag the role of grieving father, weeping over the perforated autopsy table.

After all, as well as appearing in the recent Hannah Montana film, he has demonstrated his range in other roles.

If You Hand Them A Script In Person, Don’t Write The Name Of The City On The Envelope Lest It’s Mistaken For A WW2 Acronym – First Impressions, Etc

By John

On 11/06/2009

In BBC, Link, Uncategorized, Writing

In addition to the dates I mentioned last week, the BBC Writersroom Tour has added an extra date, this one in Norwich.

It’s on Wednesday 16 September at the Norwich Playhouse, and runs from 5:30pm – 7:00pm. As is usual, the way to get in is to get yourself on the guest list, but it is free, and all you have to do is send an e-mail asking if you can attend.

Full details of the Norwich date, and other forthcoming Writersroom sessions, can be found here.

Cylons And Sensibility

By John

On 10/06/2009

In Film, Link, TV, Uncategorized, Writing

Priding myself of being ahead of the game in many regards (reading Watchmen as it came out in monthly chunks in the 1980s, listening to Dido’s No Angel CD on import before we all got heartily sick of it), I also often try to avoid things when they’re atop a wave of publicity, in the hope I can experience them without being distracted by the attendant hype.

Well, anyway, that’s my excuse for only recently having watched any of Battlestar Galactica. As recommended by pretty much anyone who likes it, I started with the mini-series (or backdoor pilot, as some people prefer to call it – oh, the cynicism), and I thought it was good stuff. I’m told, though, that the series meanders and rather loses focus a bit in the middle before coming to an unsatisfyingly deus ex machina ending – can anyone tell me if it’s worth pursuing?

The thing is, though, that whilst watching it, I didn’t feel that I was watching a science-fiction TV programme, but more a drama which happened to be set in space. Oh, sure, the conflict and drama was ultimately rooted in technology and the like, but the main focus is frequently on emotion and interaction, which is why I suspect it’s popular – the backdrop may be unfamiliar, but there are people loving and hating and scheming and being heroic in ways that all of us are familiar with. It’s probably the reason why Shakespeare’s plays are so popular and perennial, despite the changes in society – going even further back, it could well be why Jesus’s parables still resonate.

Anyway, it occurred to me that, in a broader sense, stories such as Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek are effectively contemporary dramas but with different sets and costumes; no matter what the setting, the story tends to find a wider audience when it doesn’t require an in-depth, in-universe knowledge of made-up interplanetary diplomacy, but instead shows people acting and reacting in ways which we could imagine we might.

So, taking this a thought-step further, it occurred to me that if the most successful SF is that which most resonates with our current emotional and interpersonal states, the same may well be true for fantasy, and indeed costume drama, which, though invariably set in the past, tends to deal with relationships and disputes which we all recognise. One example of a costume drama which went down very well in recent years was Bleak House, which emphasised the drama as much as the costume, and even played to our modern sensibilities by being presented in a format akin to that of a soap opera.

I say all this because it’s occurring to me that some story ideas I have could work just as well if I set them in the past or the future; my natural tendency is to set stories in the present day (I said earlier I’m prone to miss trends until they’re over – it may well be that I’m a New Puritan a decade late), but I’m now feeling that certain tales might be more effective if set in other eras, be they historical, imaginary or a combination of both.

Mind you, a combination of future and history, or science fiction and costume drama, isn’t impossible either; case in point, the forthcoming (and superbly-titled) film Pride and Predator…

We’ll Be Moving Our Anna Karenina Update To The Docklands Light Railway So We Can Shoot The Final Scenes

By John

On 09/06/2009

In Fish In A Barrel, Link, London, Pictures, Uncategorized, venting

If you live in the London area and have somehow missed it, just a quick note to alert you to the impending London Underground strike.

Unless something happens in the next couple of hours to avert it, then the entire tube network is going to be pretty much dead from 6.59pm tonight for a period of 48 hours.

In theory, this should mean that tubes will be back up and running from 6.58pm on Thursday, but given how good London Underground are at meeting timetables at the best of times, I wouldn’t be expecting to see any trains rolling up to platform edges and opening the doors until Friday morning.

All pretty ho-hum really, but one line in the Transport for London press release on the strike amused me:

“Among other things, the RMT has also demanded … improved travel facilities”

Yes, RMT, I think a few million other people may have asked for better travel facilities in the London area over the years. Good luck with that request!

The Film Adaptation, I Guess, Will Feature Shirley Bassey Singing The Monty Python Song Finland

By John

On 08/06/2009

In Books, Fish In A Barrel, Link, Uncategorized

People often underestimate the quality of Ian Fleming’s writing, and if the reviews for Goldfinger are to be believed, the setting and themes are a bit more involved than you might think as well.

Nuns On The… Er, Gun

By John

On 08/06/2009

In Books, Link, Pictures, Uncategorized

Apropos of pretty much nothing, I wanted to share the image to the left – the cover to the original paperback edition of Divorcing Jack by Colin Bateman.

I’ll freely admit that I’ve never read the novel (nor seen the film version that came out, though people I know said it wasn’t a patch on the book), but I’ve always felt that it had one of the best, and most intriguing, covers I’ve ever seen.

Why is the nun so glammed-up? Why is she carrying a dog in one hand, and pointing a gun at the viewer with the other (her left hand, no less)? I genuinely think it’s a terrific image, I have to say, and it’s a shame that the more recent edition doesn’t catch the eye in the same way.

Not To Be Confused With The Beverly Hills 90210 Spin-Off Series Of The Same Name

By John

On 07/06/2009

In Comics, Link, Pictures, TV, Uncategorized

Sometimes, US comic publishers do things which are designed to gain publicity or mainstream press coverage, and hopefully increase sales.

A recent example would be the way Marvel Comics put President Obama on the cover of an issue of ‘Amazing Spider-Man’. Any sales increases from this sort of thing tend to be pretty short-lived, rather akin to the effect of including a free gift with a magazine, but in the current financial climate, I guess publishers are probably willing to accept that.

However, one of the more questionable (if not downright risible) publicity stunts of recent months has been the announcement that the forthcoming Marvel comic Models Inc (pictured) will feature Tim Gunn of the reality TV show Project Runway. I can understand that he’s amused at the idea of being drawn into a comic – it’s kind of flattering, I guess – but I don’t really know how Marvel think that this slightly gimmicky thing will translate into publicity or sales.

The Marvel publicity stuff about it suggests he’s going to be in a story involving Iron Man’s armour, which for me seems to sum up the problem here; it falls between two stools. Tim Gunn in a story about Iron Man’s armour isn’t necessarily what fans of Project Runway are interested in seeing, and fans of Iron Man probably don’t want to see some chap off a TV show who doesn’t have any superpowers (as far as we know) in an Iron Man story . It’s neither fish nor fowl, as it were (though as a vegetarian, neither of those possibilities is quite my thing).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against Marvel (or anyone else in comics or any other medium) trying something to reach a new audience, and I’m not anti-Mr Gunn (not that I’ve ever watched Project Runway, of course, though he’s always polite and well-dressed on the show), but I just think this is the kind of publicity trick which someone thought of without then stopping to wonder if it was necessarily going to have any kind of useful effect. Because I can’t really see the Gunn/Iron Man crossover story making the headlines which, say, The Death Of Superman did in 1992, or leading to many new readers buying it out of curiosity.

That’s not because I think casual readers won’t be amused and lured in by the fake-magazine cover aspect of the presentation (though there is a ‘variant’ cover showing Messrs Gunn and Iron Man), but because I understand that, like the vast majority of US comics nowadays, Models Inc will only be sold in comic shops – what’s known as the ‘Direct Market’. So the only people who might see the comic are people who’ll be in a comic shop anyway, and I’m not too sure how many of them will be enticed by the cover depicted above, or the prospect of seeing a chap off the telly, into buying the comic.

Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, and this comic will exploit that valuable Iron Man/Project Runway demographic, but since that’s probably about fourteen people, they may not live close enough to comic shops to make this publicity stunt pay off.

BBC Writersroom Event: CBBC Q&A

By John

On 06/06/2009

In BBC, Link, London, TV, Uncategorized, Writing

Please forgive the acronym-laden heading for this post, but hopefully it’ll prove useful; if, like me, you’re planning to send something to the CBBC Writing Opportunity I posted about here, you may be interested to hear that the BBC Writersroom are holding a Q&A event with the Steven Andrew, the new head of CBBC Drama.

It’s being held in the evening of Monday 15 June, at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Exact time is to be arranged, and you have to send an e-mail to get on the guest list, but it is free to get in, and could prove useful… even if attending does mean a risk that one might realise that the draft script needs a complete and utter re-draft in the light of things which might be said.

Still, worth attending, I’d say, and you can get all the information here.

I’m planning on going – anyone else game for it ?