Navigation

Archive | Uncategorized

Dune (The Movie)

By on July 12, 2006 in Uncategorized

Watched the 1984 version of Dune on DVD today (it’s a holiday in Northern Ireland). If ever a film needed an extra hour added its this one. It’s not often you hear people asking for scenes to be added to a film. I don’t think it would be possible to understand the film if you haven’t read the book. Urban legend says that the first cut of the movie was 5 hours long. Interviews in the DVD Extras reveal that David Lynch wanted to release a 3-hour version in theatres but the producers wanted a 2-hour cut. Lynch was correct I think. It’s interesting in this era of long films that in the 1980’s it was deemed that a 3-hour release would be too long. Hopefully one day we will see a restored David Lynch Director’s Cut.

Dunespecialedition Click Picture for larger view

The Kraken Wakes – John Wyndham

By on July 12, 2006 in Uncategorized

I’ve been on a bit of a John Wyndham binge lately. Sparked off by rereading The Chrysalids. Fuelled by The Midwich Cuckoos. Just finished The Kraken Wakes. It was really good. If anything it was too short as the end seemed a bit rushed and maybe has a bit of a deus ex machina quality to it. The story itself was nothing like I thought it was going to be. I did expect sea monsters à la those encountered by Captain Nemo 🙂

It’s not like that at all. The story is told as a retrospective account of events by a pair of journalists who are husband and wife. Due to their position they have access to important characters and events. I like the way it’s done, apart from the rushed ending. Like in The Chrysalids I want to know what happened next! The character interactions towards the end of the book reminded me a lot of Adam Roberts’ The Snow. Wyndham’s book was first though I’m sure many others have used similar themes. I’m starting to think of Wyndham in the same terms as H.G. Wells. I’ve got The Day of the Triffids sitting here and three other books of his on order. I think I’ll take a break though and read Oxygen by Nick Lane as I’ve been wanting to get into that for a while.

Thekrakenwakes

The Chrysalids – John Wyndham

By on May 21, 2006 in Uncategorized

I took the urge to reread John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids a few days ago. Don’t know what made it pop into my head. I’d dumped my old paperback copy, that I’d had since secondary school, in a book bin at the local recycling centre a few months ago. So I ordered a copy from Amazon UK along with a copy of The Midwich Cuckoos.

I read a bit of The Chrysalids over a few nights but last night I was up to 03:30 finishing it. It really is an excellent read. I won’t outline the plot or anything about it as that’d be a spoiler for anyone who hasn’t read it. I’d highly recommend it. It’s a pity that there was never a sequel. Not that the the story is left needing one, but I’d like to know what happened to the characters in the years after the end of the book. On to The Midwich Cuckoos. I’ve never read this but it was the filmed as as Village of the Damned and dramatised on BBC Radio 4 about 3 years ago. I’ve got the BBC one on my iPod. It’s excellent.

Double standards

By on May 14, 2006 in Uncategorized

Many people on lists I read and post to, mainly posters from the USA, will end their posts with some variant of “god bless” or “I’ll pray for you” in response to someone’s problem. If they think that praying to this god character is a productive use of time and that said entity will be able to help with the problem at hand then I’d like to know where it was when the problem started. If the entity could intervene to sort out, say an illness, then where was it when the illness started. Funnily enough they never seem to address this question. Double standards? Hypocrisy? Or fairy tales?

3 years later

By on May 14, 2006 in Uncategorized

On the 20th April it was 3 years since my first post here on my Soapbox on the subject of testicular cancer. Oops. Missed the anniversary. This is good. As far as I’m concerned after 3 years the TC is something that is in my past. I was really lucky as I got a form of TC that science and medicine have more or less made 100% curable over the last 30 years. Others are not so lucky and there are more aggressive forms of TC. I still read the various TC related lists and from time to time there are posters with untreatable variants. So there is still a lot of work for science to do to win the battle against cancer.

V for Vendetta

By on March 18, 2006 in Uncategorized

Went to see the new movie version of the V for Vendetta books tonight. I loved it. Lots of ideas and layers at work in this film. It certainly made me think. Some people are complaining that it glorifies terrorism. I think the word bollocks is an apt response to that. Well worth seeing. I’ll be going again.

People should not be afraid of their Governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.