Technology

Spent most of today battling to fix my iMac (late 2006 model, according to Apple's help pages).

It seems to be well & truly screwed though -- something wrong with the hard disk, basically amounting to the computer not being able to find it. Could mean it's just come unplugged (lord knows how), could be thoroughly done for.

Hopefully, at the very least, some or all of the data can be retrieved from it though, because there's so much stuff on there -- including all my notes for future 100 Films reviews and, more importantly, a heck of a lot of work-related things.

Nothing more I can do, it seems. A trip to the local Genius Bar will be required -- I'm just thankfully that, firstly, so many Apple Stores have popped up across the UK now, and secondly, that I live in Exeter, where we have one! Not sure when I'll go though, as I'm not sacrificing Watchmen time tomorrow and I hate town on Saturdays.

Sunday then...

TV

QI
6x10 Flora and Fauna (extended edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Getting so far behind with TV viewing again...

Films

Lethal Weapon (1987)
[#8 in 100 Films in a Year 2009]

Articles

Many Doctors to save the universe
(from Forbidden Planet International Blog Log)
An unusual piece of Who art...

Papers sorry for 'Facebook party' story by Oliver Luft
(from guardian.co.uk)
Oh they got it wrong, and how! Interestingly, the Guardian wasn't one of them.

Robert Patrick to appear in Terminator 5? by Chris Hicks
(from Total Film)
Could be good... maybe...

Sucker Punch - Mamma Mia! The cast for Zack Snyder's next film has been announced
(from Live For Films)
This film sounds mad. Follow the link for more info.

Plus, so many Watchmen articles they get their own post here.

Articles: Watchmen

As its Tomatometer slowly slides downwards, here are today's Watchmen-related articles of interest...

Manhattan-on-Thames
(from WatchmenComicMovie.com)
"Dr. Manhattan, the blue skinned, super-powered being beloved of all Watchmen fans, will rise above the murky depths of the Thames to a height of over 70 feet and tower over all those who dare to attend. This dramatic, one-off spectacle will be created using the world’s biggest water screen projector. The water screen... will create an enormous vertical screen of water that will extend to 72 feet in height and 100 feet across."
Sounds pretty impressive. This was due to happen earlier this evening, but I've not come across any reports or photos yet. Please comment if you have. I'll report more if I hear more...

Watchmen has already broken a record by Carl DiOrio
(from THR.com)
"However high Watchmen grosses can climb, the superhero actioner sure will be playing wide: Its 3,611 playdates will be the most ever for an R-rated film. [It] will play in an impressive 1,600 locations at midnight [on] Thursday. That's substantially more than the 656 midnight shows that helped [director Zack] Snyder's ancient Greece actioner 300 fetch an incredible... $71 million opening weekend in March 2007... The previous widest release for an R-rated pic was the 3,603-theater bow for The Matrix Reloaded...
dates include 124 engagements in Imax giant-screen auditoriums... Imax's Web site crashed four times this week because of traffic surges by Watchmen fans looking for ticket information, Foster said."
Looks certain it'll beat 300 to become the 2nd highest grossing R-rated opening weekend, but can it beat The Matrix Reloaded too? I'd bet "yes" myself.

And as Empire begin a "Watchmen Week", here are the first two items...

Watchmen: The Failed Attempts
(from Empire)
"take a look at the Watchmen movies that might have been..."

Watchmen: The Added Stories
(from Empire)
"Watchmen [is] punctuated with texts that expand upon that main story, clarify it and occasionally go off on a tangent (or seem to). Here are the pieces of the puzzle outside that main story that you may not see on the big screen"

TV

Film 2009 with Jonathan Ross
Episode 6 (3/2/09 edition)
Wossy weviews Watchmen. I've found that Ross' opinions often chime with my own, so was pleased to find he enjoyed it so much (with some reservations). Only two days to go now...
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Nature's Great Events
Part 2 The Great Salmon Run
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Non-Fiction

The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry
Chapter One: II (p.21-33)
Christ I'm progressing through this slowly. Really need to speed up -- it's a week tomorrow that I have to hand in / work through in class a 'progress report' on the module so far, and I've done nothing like enough work to write such a thing without being in Trouble.

Articles

Behind the Mask by Craig McLean
(from Telegraph Magazine 22/2/09, p.36-43)
Just another Watchmen preview, really, but a decent one. (Plus it was in a genuine printed magazine, all too rare a thing to be mentioned round 'ere. Though I've also found it online for your reading pleasure.)

British entrepreneur Rob Williams dies on skiing holiday in tragedy played out on Twitter by Richard Edwards
(from Telegraph.co.uk)
A good use of technology, even if it was still too little too late.

Crushed by the tyranny of the nipple: where it all went wrong at Arena by Brian Schofield
(from Organ Grinder at guardian.co.uk)
So, Arena magazine is dead. I'm not too fussed, I never bought it; but how can you resist an article with that title?

Life on Mars canceled by Tim Surette
(from tv.com)
And I never got round to watching it (this is the US one, of course). At least it sounds like they'll have a chance to wrap up the story, so maybe I'll catch the DVD set.

TV

Heroes
3x14 A Clear and Present Danger
See here for my thoughts on this episode.

Law & Order: UK
1x02 Unloved
Apparently the first episode did very well in the ratings (don't have figures, just overheard it on TV) and this is a strong episode, so it deserves to continue.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Watchmen (aka Watchmen Motion Comics)
Chapter I At Midnight, All the Agents... [2nd watch]
Chapter II Absent Friends
Chapter III The Judge of All the Earth
See here for my thoughts on these episodes.

Films

Done in 60 Seconds Finalists
Connected to their forthcoming film awards, Empire have run a competition in which readers recreate a famous film in 60 seconds. These are the five finalists -- you can view them, vote on them, and the winner wins... well, an Empire Film Award, I presume.

They're all pretty good, in my opinion; so much so that I honestly can't remember which I voted for any more. It was probably Seven though, so I've embedded it (and/or all of them) below...

Fiction

The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges (translated by James E. Ibury)
A sci-fi/fantasy short story, about a universe in the form of a vast library that contains all possible 410-page books, brought to my attention courtesy of a classmate's poem that may or may not reference it. It seems to be a moderately seminal work, based on the contents of its Wikipedia entry.
You can read it for yourself at the link above -- it's really not very long, but it is very interesting. I wonder if it played any conscious part in inspiring the Doctor Who two-parter Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead...?

Non-Fiction

The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry
Chapter One: I
The basics -- a very, very good place to start. I know so much more about iambic pentameter than I used to.

Articles

7 Things That Must Be In Ghostbusters 3 by James White
(from Total Film)
Apparently it's actually happening, so here's Total Film's thoughts on what it must include. Hardly all essential, and the most obvious one is the hardest to nail: it just has to be good.

BBC receives almost 250 complaints over 'all-black' EastEnders by Leigh Holmwood
(from guardian.co.uk)
"the first episode of EastEnders to feature an all-black cast in its 24-year history... A BBC spokesman said 239 complaints had been received from viewers, with 57 received before it aired and 183 after the broadcast. It is understood that most of the complaints were from people who felt it was "inappropriate" for the BBC to have shown an episode featuring an all-black cast."
Speaks for itself, really.

David Tennant's curtailed Hamlet will rise from the grave by Tim Walker
(from Telegraph.co.uk)
"the entire cast of the RSC production are preparing to make a film version of the play in June to record for posterity his portrayal, which was described by some as the greatest Hamlet of his generation... Oliver Ford Davies, [who played Polonius]: "We are intending to film it over two or three weeks in June. It won't be a full feature film as there isn't time but it will certainly be more than just the filming of the stage.""
Hurrah! It was fantastic, so this is great news.

Dark Visions: Watchmen and Leave Her to Heaven by Anthony Lane
(from The New Yorker)
Positively scathing review. I think this guy may feel rather bitter about something...

Who Watches the Watches - Cool Watchmen T-Shirt
(from Live For Films)
Title says it all: a very cool shirt. (See pic above.)

Zack Snyder and Dave Gibbons talk Watchmen Black Freighter and Motion Comic DVDs by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub
(from Collider.com)
Interesting interview about how these projects came into being, as well as the tie-in video game that's on its way. There seems to be a certain amount of "it's going to happen anyway, so just like it or lump it" about at least two of those -- in this respect, Snyder and Gibbons are both pleasantly honest.

Heroes 3x14: A Clear and Present Danger

Heroes returns with Volume Four, Fugitives. Why not just call it Season Four, hm? Bloody US TV silliness.

Still, the main thing is, it's a helluva lot better than before! This episode contained as much incident as half a dozen episodes would've in the old-style Heroes and, with the exception of the odd unsubtle misstep (orange jumpsuits), it was all good, exciting, intriguing stuff.

But it's probably come too late -- the show's phenomenon status is well and truly shot on both sides of the Atlantic, with falling ratings over there and very little promotion for this new run over here (so little, in fact, that I skipped this ep on broadcast to watch L&O:UK, and only remembered the show was even on when I checked this evening's listings); plus tie-in making-of series Heroes Unmasked has apparently been cancelled.

It's all a shame, because if they'd pulled this kinda quality out of the bag for season two -- or even the start of season three -- it might've been enough to save the show's status. Now it's got to rebuild its popularity, and that's a big ask.

Watchmen Motion Comics: Chapters I - III

Putting off plans to continue watching one animated comic in order to watch another here, but for a good reason: with the live action Watchmen movie out next Friday, I thought it was time to reacquaint myself with the graphic novel... though in a somewhat different medium. And with the final chapter of this adaptation released just last week (in the US, where I have my fully-paid-up-and-legal-thank-you-very-much subscription from; in the UK soon, one would hope), it seemed a reasonable time to be getting on with it. So, chapters one to three today, and hopefully the rest before The Big Day...

It's actually a rather good adaptation, in my opinion; the best analogy is probably that it's an audiobook for graphic novels, although it goes beyond that. The animation (all based off the original art) is surprisingly animated, almost enough that you could genuinely get away with labelling it "The Animated Series", and it has sound effects and a full, original music score to back this up.

The main thing that lets it down is having one voice artist do every character -- his women aren't especially feminine and are all bit indistinguishable, and while he has a good array of male voices there are times when the on screen speech bubbles are required to be certain who's speaking. But still: throw in just one female voice artist and an additional bloke, animate the mouths and remove the speech bubbles, and I swear this would pass as simply Watchmen: The Animated Series, not the rather more clunky (and plain odd) Motion Comics.

For those who are interested, the Watchmen Motion Comics are currently available on iTunes (£20.99 for the series, £1.89 per episode (there're 12)), and are released on R1 DVD and US Blu-ray on 3rd March and R2 DVD (no Blu-ray planned) as an online exclusive on 9th March. At just £8 from the major retailers, the DVD is considerably cheaper than iTunes.

TV

Damages
2x02 Burn It, Shred It, I Don't Care
Things pick up a little, but not a lot. It has the feel of a "difficult second album" so far: a long way from being bad, but not a patch on season one.

Non-Fiction

The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry
Foreword
How to Read this Book
Mr Fry's guide to writing poetry, very much from a beginner's perspective. Or, rather, aimed at beginners, though also apparently useful to this who are more (or think they are more) experienced. Hoping it'll be of serious use to my MA!

Music

While I was listening to these two for the first time last night, I shared my thoughts track-by-track on twitter. Here are the highlights (I use that word loosely).

Watchmen: Music From the Motion Picture

My Chemical Romance - Desolation Row: Never listened to MCR, so no idea if this is typical of them.

Nat King Cole - Unforgettable: "Varied" is too light a word for this soundtrack.

Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-Changin': Can't wait to see this sequence -- even those who hated the film have been praising it.

Simon & Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence: Always loved this song. It's like an old friend among unfamiliar tracks.

K.C. & the Sunshine Band - I'm Your Boogie Man: Will the Watchmen go disco dancing? I fear we can but dream.

Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower: Will be intrigued to see how well this works in the film.

Budapest Symphony Orchestra - Ride of the Valkyries: Mmm, Wagner. Watchmen will have to go some way to beat Apocalypse Now's use of this.

Nina Simone - Pirate Jenny: Not actually from Watchmen; from Tales of the Black Freighter. Which will be part of Watchmen eventually. Seems very apt -- kinda odd, creepy. This song is brilliant. Wins the Best Track I'd Not Heard Before Award for this soundtrack, I think.

Watchmen: Original Motion Picture Score by Tyler Bates

1) Rescue Mission: I'm guessing this OST is out of order, which sucks -- I hate it when soundtracks do that. Actiony opener.

3) Tonight the Comedian Died: Now THIS is the beginning. Creepy, throbbing -- a Rorschach-based cue then!

6) You Quit!: The shortest track on the CD. More memorable -- kinda Blade Runner-y, very '80s feel. Shame it's so short.

8) The American Dream: Slow, remorseful -- nice bit of irony in the title then.

11) Prison Fight: Clearly the showpiece track, as was B-side on single of Desolation Row. VERY VERY like Bates' 300 score.

12) Just Look Around You: Can guess where it's from & wager works beautifully. Nice contrast to tr11.

13) Dan's Apocalyptic Dream: Clue's in the title. Typically nightmare-ish, doesn't really deliver on its own build up

17) Countdown: In bursts, a great 'time is running out' track -- and, of course, time does run out. Suitably apocalyptic close.

19) All That is Good: Uncertain exactly what we'll see during this, but it may be a perfect marriage

Not sure of stand-out tracks on Bates' score, but mostly quite good I thought. Can't tell 'til see in context.

As I said, full comments on every track from both CDs is available on my twitter -- you'll just have to dive into the archive to find them.

Articles

Indie Edge February 2009: Alan Moore
(from Previews)
Long rambling interview/conversation with Alan Moore, which doesn't even mention Watchmen (unlike all the other interviews going round with him right now). Instead, it covers the forthcoming third volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen plus Moore's other interesting projects in the works.

Poem of the Week: Night Drive

by Seamus Heaney

A 48 hour delay for this week's poem because, quite simply, I forgot. More on this piece at the other end...

The smells of ordinariness
Were new on the night drive through France:
Rain and hay and woods on the air
Made warm draughts in the open car.

Signposts whitened relentlessly.
Montreuil, Abbéville, Beauvais
Were promised, promised, came and went,
Each place granting its name's fulfilment.

A combine groaning its way late
Bled seeds across its work-light.
A forest fire smouldered out.
One by one small cafés shut.

I thought of you continuously
A thousand miles south where Italy
Laid its loin to France on the darkened sphere.
Your ordinariness was renewed there.

So, Heaney is one of our nation's most beloved poets. And by "beloved" I mean "bought" -- apparently sales of his books account for two-thirds of all poetry sales in the UK. And yet I've never really read him 'til now.

And, to be honest, I still haven't -- only a slight dabbling. I should read more. Anyway, this is the one I most liked from my dabbles.

It can be found in New Selected Poems 1966-1987, but is originally from Door into the Dark, first published in 1969. I suspect it's also in Opened Ground: Poems 1966-1996, a newer selection designed to replace New Selected Poems -- so why our course directors still have us buying the older collection I don't know.