Tuesday 11 November 2008

TV

Argumental
1x03 (10/11/08 edition)
The blues was robbed! It's still a shame this is premiering on Dave, because more people should see it. I don't know how many are seeing it, but as it's on Dave I should wager it's "not enough".

Natural World
Titus: The Gorilla King
Gorillas are amazingly human-like. Titus' life story could easily be made into a plot involving humans (probably a political/monarchy drama set in the past, a la The Tudors) and no one would go, "that's weird, why're they behaving like that?" Unless you kept the flea-picking bits in, of course...
[Watch it on iPlayer or read about it at Radio Times.]

Non-Fiction

Story by Robert McKee
Chapter 13

Articles

Details on How Terrence Howard Lost His Role in Iron Man 2
(from FirstShowing.net)
True or not? Sounds like it might well be to me. Either way, it's an interesting story, and nice to have a proper explanation after all the speculation.

James Bond is back with martinis but not the gadgets by Geoff Boucher
(from Hero Complex at Los Angeles Times Blogs)
Not much new to learn from this interview with Quantum of Solace director Marc Forster, but it amuses me how many of these articles are prominently branded "exclusive", despite similar (and often superior) interviews with the same people being plastered over every website and magazine going. It seems "exclusive" means "commonplace" these days; or, more accurately, "please read this!"

Lord of the Rings-inspired movie in the pipeline
(from Boxwish Blog)
No, not The Hobbit -- or 'The Hobbit 2' -- this is something else. (No, it's not another of those "films about fans" either.)

Next Big Viral: Neill Blomkamp's District 9 - For Humans Only
(from FirstShowing.net)
Bit late on spotting this one (though I did notice the banners in photos at the time, but just thought they were some silly con thing). Still, sounds interesting...

new Watchmen character posters

Nice enough, though I preferred the comic-inspired ones.

These were originally released scattered around the web as various exclusives (the one here was the first I came across, for example), which explains why some are extra-good quality, why the Dr Manhattan one is really low quality, and why Silk Spectre's has an MTV logo at the bottom (studies have shown it takes males longer to notice this logo than females.) Presumably all six sites were given equal-quality files, which makes it all the more annoying that not everyone bothered to include those -- especially the very poor quality Dr Manhattan one.

As usual, this rather silly 'exclusive' method means that any site not granted an exclusive can compile all six independently, thereby topping any of these oh-so-special treated sites. The irony of that always amuses me.

Nite Owl Rorschach Ozymandias
Silk Spectre The Comedian Dr Manhattan
Click to enlarge.

(If anyone cares, the sites that had them were, respectively, Access Hollywood, USA Today's Lifeline Live, Wired's underwire, MTV's Splash Page, LA Times' Hero Complex, and EW.com's clearly rubbish PopWatch.)

Additionally, one of the sites had another poster that I've not seen before, which is my personal favourite so far:

another Watchmen teaser

03.06.09 is too far away.

Poem of the Day: Dulce et Decorum Est

by Wilfred Owen

Following yesterday's A Martian Sends a Postcard Home, and in the run-up to needing to read a lot of new poetry for a module next year (starting mid-January), I've decided to post a poem every day (you may've guessed that from the title). I don't have any selection criteria at the minute -- old, new, long, short, familiar, obscure, anything goes. Though I have no desire to spend a long time typing anything up (unless it's really good) and don't want to violate any copyrights, so it'll just be stuff I find available online -- so mostly old stuff then, I guess.

As today is Remembrance Day, this year the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War, it seems most appropriate to include a poem by one of the war poets. There's a lot of notable poetry from this particular war, much of which I studied at A-level, and this is one of the most memorable -- very well know, but for good reason.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori
.

For those who don't know, the Latin phrase at the end was a common mantra at the time (originally written by Roman poet Horace), which translates as, "It is sweet and noble to die for one's country".

(Trying to find a version of this to post here, I noticed several variations. I went with what I considered to be a moderately definitive one, but am prepared to be corrected.)