Book - Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
I recently read this as part of my ongoing resolution to read some of the modern classic novels that i've heard of and not yet read, but really think i should read. For most of the titles, I'm using the Modern Library's "100 Best Novels" list from last year, yet strangely Frankenstein doesn't make an appearance. First published in 1818, if you're under any illusion that Hollywood's phase of junking the happy ending in favour of more...ambiguous endings is an original idea, this book will show you it's anything but.
As I imagine quite a few people are aware (whether you've read the book or not) Frankenstein is actually the name of the doctor who creates the monster, and gives life to his creation. The monster itself is never named, and is referred to in varying (but always biased) terms. The bulk of the story is told from the perspective of Dr. Frankenstein, as he relates it to a stranger aboard a ship trying to navigate the northern ice. It begins rather sedately, taking the reader briefly through Frankenstein's childhood. We learn how he developed a keen interest in the sciences, particularly biology, and after some success in the academic world, he hits upon the idea of trying to create life from dead flesh. It's not just any life he aims to create, oh no, but the perfect man - as in, the perfect physical form. Tall and strong, and with a clever brain. As he concludes his work, and the monster slowly comes to life, the doctor becomes horrified by his handiwork. He panics and flees the creature, then promptly falls asleep - he was been working on the creature for 2 years, with little rest or food - and when he awakens, the beast is gone. He manages to fool himself that it was all just a nightmare, right up until the creature reappears...
It's easy to say that Frankenstein is meant to be a warning to science - particularly in light of the arguments over GM crops, and the tabloids' repeated use of the word "frankenstein" to describe science gone wrong - but I think there's a little more to it than that. About halfway through the book, we learn the story of the monster's early days, and the events that helped turn him into the twisted evil he becomes. Before he can even think properly, he is rejected outright by his own creator, and when he finally finds some people he believes may be willing to accept him in spite of his hideous physical appearance - which he himself was scared of when he first beheld his own reflection - he is once again rejected purely on his appearance, without being given a chance to say anything - he has by this point learnt a little human speech. These people who judge the monster by his appearance alone, have a hand in forming the evil that grows within him from this time onwards. "Don't judge a book by its cover" being the most fitting phrase here.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Monday, January 17, 2005
DVD - Led Zeppelin
I got this 2003 double DVD for christmas this year, one of my few presents - I'm saving to go on a Trekforce expedition in July so money was the main thing - from a long list of books and DVDs i gave to my parents. It was stuff I really do want, and I made the list as long as possible so that whatever I did get would be a surprise.
I'm very glad they chose this for one of the presents. I've recently been listening to more '70s rock - having heard alot of Beatles and Stones through CDs of my dad and a mate, and heard lots of single tracks from many artists during the many Thrusday nights spent at the local Cookie Club (a small club that on thursdays plays almost entirely softrock from the '60s and '70s), my apetite had been well and truly whet(ted?). Reading reviews for Zeppelin DVDs on a couple of sites, this one seemed far and away the best choice.
So it was, a couple of days after 25th December 2004, I fired up the DVD player at home, and dad reminded me the sound could be put through the stereo's amp and speakers - greatly increasing the quality and volume of the sound, really needed to do this justice - and I actually began with DVD 2, because the 1st DVD is one long performance (of 102 minutes) whilst the 2nd DVD has footage from 3 performances (well, 4 but the first one is just one song) of about 23 and a half minutes, 49 minutes and 50 minutes. So, knowing that I wasn't going to be able to sit through 102 minutes in one go at that time, I opted to go for DVD 2 first. It is, however, best viewed in order (if you can). Oh, and both DVDs have extras.
Anyway, the important stuff - the performances. Well. Watching these almost made me wish I'd been 30 years earlier so I could have gone and seen them live (or at least tried). OK, so three of the four are still alive, and there's an apparently rather good cover band called Fred Zeppelin (who even got a mention in Kerrang! last year as a "band to watch" for 2005. Not that that in itself is a recommendation for many people), but it's not quite the same. One thing that comes across real well in the concert footage (in fact, it hit me when I'd been watching for just a few minutes) is just how much the whole four were enjoying themselves when they played/sang. There is posing and showboating, but it's not the focus and it doesn't seem out of place or faked. They love the music they're making, and the fact that so many other people too is just a big bonus. There aren't too many repeats amongst the tracklist, and it's a great balance of old favourites you've likely heard at least snatches of, to some you probably haven't heard unless you are a fan. There's a version of Moby Dick (so you get to see one of Bonham's lengthy solos, though it's not the longest version he ever did) in which you really see the level of Bonham's talent - making use of all the bits of his (highly personalised btw) drum kit, even playing with just his hands for a stretch. There's Stairway To Heaven, so you get to see Jimmy Page solo with a dual-necked (6 and 12 string) guitar. Not forgetting Robert Plant's soulful and energetic vocals throughout, and of course John Paul Jones' strumming bass (and, when needed, keyboard). And these guys, they barely even paused between tracks, instead preferring to laucnh straight from one to the next. A real test of endurance, for sure. This is rock music, pure and simple, and they were very much a rock band. They weren't a one-trick pony - a number of their tracks have a distinctly folk-rock feel - and they really enjoyed what they did. And almost all of their songs are about love, in one form or another. Ok, that's pushing it a bit - but almost all of them really were about women. Heh.
The extras are comprised of a number of televised interviews, several promos and a couple of their (rare) TV appearances. They provide a brief glimpse at how the band worked together, and confirm the impression of them enjoying their performances the live footage gives.
Everybody needs a light, it's just a shame this one had to turn off (Zeppelin split in 1980 after the death of their drummer, John Henry Bonham)
On this double DVD is some of the best live footage around today. It demonstrates perfectly what rock is meant to be - fun.
I got this 2003 double DVD for christmas this year, one of my few presents - I'm saving to go on a Trekforce expedition in July so money was the main thing - from a long list of books and DVDs i gave to my parents. It was stuff I really do want, and I made the list as long as possible so that whatever I did get would be a surprise.
I'm very glad they chose this for one of the presents. I've recently been listening to more '70s rock - having heard alot of Beatles and Stones through CDs of my dad and a mate, and heard lots of single tracks from many artists during the many Thrusday nights spent at the local Cookie Club (a small club that on thursdays plays almost entirely softrock from the '60s and '70s), my apetite had been well and truly whet(ted?). Reading reviews for Zeppelin DVDs on a couple of sites, this one seemed far and away the best choice.
So it was, a couple of days after 25th December 2004, I fired up the DVD player at home, and dad reminded me the sound could be put through the stereo's amp and speakers - greatly increasing the quality and volume of the sound, really needed to do this justice - and I actually began with DVD 2, because the 1st DVD is one long performance (of 102 minutes) whilst the 2nd DVD has footage from 3 performances (well, 4 but the first one is just one song) of about 23 and a half minutes, 49 minutes and 50 minutes. So, knowing that I wasn't going to be able to sit through 102 minutes in one go at that time, I opted to go for DVD 2 first. It is, however, best viewed in order (if you can). Oh, and both DVDs have extras.
Anyway, the important stuff - the performances. Well. Watching these almost made me wish I'd been 30 years earlier so I could have gone and seen them live (or at least tried). OK, so three of the four are still alive, and there's an apparently rather good cover band called Fred Zeppelin (who even got a mention in Kerrang! last year as a "band to watch" for 2005. Not that that in itself is a recommendation for many people), but it's not quite the same. One thing that comes across real well in the concert footage (in fact, it hit me when I'd been watching for just a few minutes) is just how much the whole four were enjoying themselves when they played/sang. There is posing and showboating, but it's not the focus and it doesn't seem out of place or faked. They love the music they're making, and the fact that so many other people too is just a big bonus. There aren't too many repeats amongst the tracklist, and it's a great balance of old favourites you've likely heard at least snatches of, to some you probably haven't heard unless you are a fan. There's a version of Moby Dick (so you get to see one of Bonham's lengthy solos, though it's not the longest version he ever did) in which you really see the level of Bonham's talent - making use of all the bits of his (highly personalised btw) drum kit, even playing with just his hands for a stretch. There's Stairway To Heaven, so you get to see Jimmy Page solo with a dual-necked (6 and 12 string) guitar. Not forgetting Robert Plant's soulful and energetic vocals throughout, and of course John Paul Jones' strumming bass (and, when needed, keyboard). And these guys, they barely even paused between tracks, instead preferring to laucnh straight from one to the next. A real test of endurance, for sure. This is rock music, pure and simple, and they were very much a rock band. They weren't a one-trick pony - a number of their tracks have a distinctly folk-rock feel - and they really enjoyed what they did. And almost all of their songs are about love, in one form or another. Ok, that's pushing it a bit - but almost all of them really were about women. Heh.
The extras are comprised of a number of televised interviews, several promos and a couple of their (rare) TV appearances. They provide a brief glimpse at how the band worked together, and confirm the impression of them enjoying their performances the live footage gives.
Everybody needs a light, it's just a shame this one had to turn off (Zeppelin split in 1980 after the death of their drummer, John Henry Bonham)
On this double DVD is some of the best live footage around today. It demonstrates perfectly what rock is meant to be - fun.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Film: Collateral
Shock, horror! Tom Cruise can act - in this tale of a hitman and a taxi driver, Cruise makes amends for the rather-over-sentimentality-and-averageness of The Last Samurai. He plays a hitman, Vincent, just arrived in LA for another job. The job actually involves five targets, and pretty soon alot more work than he figured it would...
More or less the first thing he does when he arrives in LA is catch a cab to the first target. His cabbie, Max (played by Jamie Foxx) is good at what he does - much like Vincent - having been a cabbie for awhile now, even though (he says) "it's just temporary". When Vincent realises how good a cabbie Max is, he offers him a big job - ferrying him around to all his targets - although Max doesn't know just yet exactly what Vincent does. It isn't long before the stakes are raised, as the first target flies out of his 1st floor apartment window and straight onto the roof of Max's cab, parked round the back on Vincent's instructions. Cue a panicked Max beginning to realise just how dodgy Vincent is, and getting ready to run - but Vincent can't allow that, and so he forces Max at gunpoint to carry on with the job. Max is pretty determined not to stay in the company of the cold-blooded killer, and on several occasions does come close to escaping. He doesn't manage it until he pulls the particularly brave (if stupid) move of crashing the cab. Vincent is the first to emerge, and after a minute to get his bearings, quickly trots off into the darkness. When Max emerges, he discovers who Vincent's next target is and decides to go and stop him. Why? it's that good-looking, friendly woman he had as a fare just that morning, who (as chance would have it) gave him her work number. The chase ends with a rapid shootout between Max and Vincent on a moving MTA train.
The film likes to show how two people can be so different and yet so similar, and also treats us to the views Max and Vincent hold on life (particularly a five or ten minute long stretch where Max is arguing with Vincent over his shooting of a cop who was trying to help Max) and are shown that Vincent is as disconnected as the city-dwellers he speaks of with so much disdain, and some of Max's illusions are as flimsy as he doesn't like to admit he realises.
Although there's plenty of action in this, it's definitely more of a character film, albeit still with one or two cliches of the kind that wouldn't feel out of place in a standard '80s actioner.
Overall, well worth a watch. 4/5
Collateral on DVD at Amazon
Shock, horror! Tom Cruise can act - in this tale of a hitman and a taxi driver, Cruise makes amends for the rather-over-sentimentality-and-averageness of The Last Samurai. He plays a hitman, Vincent, just arrived in LA for another job. The job actually involves five targets, and pretty soon alot more work than he figured it would...
More or less the first thing he does when he arrives in LA is catch a cab to the first target. His cabbie, Max (played by Jamie Foxx) is good at what he does - much like Vincent - having been a cabbie for awhile now, even though (he says) "it's just temporary". When Vincent realises how good a cabbie Max is, he offers him a big job - ferrying him around to all his targets - although Max doesn't know just yet exactly what Vincent does. It isn't long before the stakes are raised, as the first target flies out of his 1st floor apartment window and straight onto the roof of Max's cab, parked round the back on Vincent's instructions. Cue a panicked Max beginning to realise just how dodgy Vincent is, and getting ready to run - but Vincent can't allow that, and so he forces Max at gunpoint to carry on with the job. Max is pretty determined not to stay in the company of the cold-blooded killer, and on several occasions does come close to escaping. He doesn't manage it until he pulls the particularly brave (if stupid) move of crashing the cab. Vincent is the first to emerge, and after a minute to get his bearings, quickly trots off into the darkness. When Max emerges, he discovers who Vincent's next target is and decides to go and stop him. Why? it's that good-looking, friendly woman he had as a fare just that morning, who (as chance would have it) gave him her work number. The chase ends with a rapid shootout between Max and Vincent on a moving MTA train.
The film likes to show how two people can be so different and yet so similar, and also treats us to the views Max and Vincent hold on life (particularly a five or ten minute long stretch where Max is arguing with Vincent over his shooting of a cop who was trying to help Max) and are shown that Vincent is as disconnected as the city-dwellers he speaks of with so much disdain, and some of Max's illusions are as flimsy as he doesn't like to admit he realises.
Although there's plenty of action in this, it's definitely more of a character film, albeit still with one or two cliches of the kind that wouldn't feel out of place in a standard '80s actioner.
Overall, well worth a watch. 4/5
Collateral on DVD at Amazon
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