5 November 2008

Right the overarching story in Eva. What is it exactly? It's trying to be at least two things at once, or rather, in sequence, although the two ideas aren't totally discrete. The first part is the guys killing robots stuff. And like, fair enough, they've tried to do stuff with that, but it's not very impressive. I quite liked at first where you had some big badass robot destroying whatever it felt like, but then inside you get this little 10 year old nerd screaming in incredible terror and pain the entire time, but they get over that really quickly and after that all the fights are very mundane. All the religious symbolism and everything, that just falls totally flat for me. It's not really an original idea and it doesn't really bring up any interesting ethical dilemmas or exciting plot elements.

The second focus of the show is all the characters' problems. I just found this really, really boring. It is a totally perfunctory and pedestrian review of existential angst. Nothing was at all thought-provoking, the pacing during these elements slows down to a crawl, and for what is supposed to be an 'animation,' the visuals become incredibly lazy and meaningless, and it's hard to keep interested in a show that consists entirely or immobile, pointlessly repeating or just totally unrelated art, whilst listening to this really basic monologue of some guys incredibly prosaic self-doubt that is either in a language you don't understand, therefore requiring you to just sit there reading subtitles without, essentially, audio or visuals to keep you interested, or listening to a pretty wooden dub. The last two episodes of evangelion are genuinely some of the worst pieces of television I have ever watched.

And then you have the characters. Jesus christ. Every single woman in this show is a pathetic little failure of a creature that exists only to gain the recognition of men and cannot function without it. Along with being sexist as hell, it is dumb, ignorant, boring and even offensive. It's not even worth going into the female characters in detail; they really are that shocking.

The rest of the principle cast consists of the three men that the disempowered sluts of the female cast are thrall too. You have Ikari Shinji, who is in some ways the fairly featureless, generic, default likable main character you get in a lot of shows like this, but he is also this bizarre snivelling little crybaby, to the extent that it just seemed unrealistic and totally unrelatable to me. He is an emotional incontinent, completely slave to the same ridiculously irrational emotions as the famale characters. Gender theory wise, he is a feminine character, and as such is almost as poor as the female cast. Then you have his dad, who is just the opposite. A hypermasculine emotional cripple. There is nothing really more to be said about him. Once again, his character provides little justification for his actions. Then you finally have Ryoji Kaji [who's named I had to look up - well done being memorable, arguably only interesting character!]. Who, unlike Ikari Gendo - who has too much screen time, but not enough ideas behind the character - always feel rushed. Whenever he is on screen, it seems like the creators wanted him to be doing more than they gave him time for. His screen time compared to the other two is minimal - although he does get basically all of the worthwhile character development in the show happening when he is around - but the effect he has on other characters is massively out of proportion. Given the focus attended to his scenes that doesn't exist for any of the other characters, it seems bizarre that his story is so rushed, over before it really gets started, especially considering the amount of impact it had on the other characters, and the unbelievable amount of dead time in the show's narrative/animation (like the entire of the last two episodes, almost all of the other pointless monologue sections, and to some extent, large chunks of the robot fights).

So all in all, I do feel I have to give the show some credit for trying to do something with the 'a really big robot does stuff' genre that was at least a little notable or out of step with the rest of the oeuvre. But, just about everything added seems abortive or cursory or rushed. And it's not like the framework of the original genre really leaves them with anything to build on.

23 October 2008

1 Man Heroes is on the iPlayer.

2 I've heard that in series 3 Mohinder gained superpowers or some shit. so fuck that.

1 Marlo is in it.

2 No way. That's a dirty lie to get me to watch.

1 It's true he's right here

2 What's his character's name?

1 I don't know do I look like some guy who watches heroes?

2 Frankly yes

1 Someone turned in to ice and died
India is ill. He has a rash.

2 He's got powers now man. Someone told me. He goes evil or some shit.

1 He just beat up some wifebeater.


1 That girl who is really boring has a pony tail and a blue suit.

2 Which one? The REALLY boring one?

1 The one who is the most really boring.
She's meeting a german who made her.

2 A german? Who made her?

1 Messed with her genes or something.
Seems like he made Weapon X as well.
She wants to get her boring taken out of her so she grabbed him and he turned in to ice, but then turned out of ice.
Boring police doughnut is in Africa, where there is another guy whose power is he draws pictures of the future. He ate some chocolate or mud or sand or something and put on a walkman and his eyes turned in to milk. Now it is four years in the future.
Main character is with main character from the future and everyone is flying around with super powers. Future main character has a really lame walk. He is a bad actor.

2 Yes.

1 Because the future is hard I guess my walk will be more rigid.
Cheerleader just shot main character from the future and he is dead.
Now there is a picture of the world, and it turns to black. But instead of Africa there is a series of white islands that are in the shape of the word HEROES.

Marlo is here. He has orders to kill main character.

2 Fuck you man. Marlo is not there.

1 If she wont ask her, Marlo will. He has a small beard and nappy hair.

2 No he doesn't, because he's not there.

1 Hiro and Ando are in level 2 (?) and they have to get out!
He sees a vent. But it is too high. They have fallen out with each other.

2 What the fuck is level 2?

1 I have no idea. It just said it. In the future Ando murders Hiro and this has become a bone of contention in their friendship.
Main character's brother/dad is in a meeting with Colonel Sanders and a man with a phone who has taken lots of pictures of desks.
Colonel Sanders is just in his head though I think.

2 This sounds incredible. I want to watch it now. But if none of this stuff is happening, I'm going to fuck you up. With my mind.

1 I made it all up.

2 Fuuuuuuuuck.

1 Some whiny bitch Lopez is with India. Cleaning up his cereal. This guy's house is messy, but all of the mess is related to cereal. Lopez is being pretty annoying. I think she has a superpower too, but she's leaving.

2 This sounds retarded/awesome/better than the real show.

1 The set looks like the house of the original guy whose power was to draw comics of the future.
But I don't know if its the same since it's full of computers and cereal.

2 Fucking cereal?

1 India's rash is getting worse. He's making notes on his dictaphone. He leaves it on the table and then it becomes four years in to the future, which means that forty feet of spider webs are on top of everything.

2 Good.

1 Oh it is heroin comic house. Main character just walked in and looked at some of the comics.
A guy wearing a hoodie is in the house. I think it is India.
Yes it is. He fell over. He seems quite ill. Like the bad guy in Lost in Space.

2 Uh. What.

1 His hands are all crumbly and flakey.
Maybe he just merged with all the cereal.
Main character just teleported off somewhere like he didn't care and did some Bioshock spell with his hands. He has gone to Sylar's house. He is in an apron making waffles with his son. He gives Main character a hug.

2 Is he gay as hell now?

1 He made a son. So I am guessing straight.
What the hell are american waffles even made of. Like...honey? With honey on them?
Sylar gets his kid out of the way and gets intense with his giant eyebrows.
He realises that Main character is the one from the past, and Main character finds out that Sylar is his brother, and then there is a shaky close up of Main character and there are some noises (?). Sylar's name is Gabriel and Main character wants his power, but Sylar tells him it is a rough time that makes you hungry.
(Possibly for cereal?)

Oh god. Main character just picked up a paintbrush. Threateningly points it at Sylar. "PAINT IT!" Now Sylar is doing milk eyes.

King of Queens is with a baby. He doesnt want to use the baby to find Main character.

2 What the fuck.

1 A girl is there too. She seems pretty annoying. Another girl is there too.
Called Holly or Olly. She has a wide face and is the daughter of the original girl.
Annoying woman goes outside. Cheerleader and Marlo are there. Annoying Woman is called Daphne. Her and Marlo can die. Apparently Cheerleader is also the neice of Main character. How are they all related. Who wrote this.

2 Look. I am going to watch it.
If the first five minutes are not fucking amazing. I am stopping.

1 My write up is much better than the show.
Main character is fixing a watch with his brain. Turns out it was barely broken; there was just a folded CGI cog on top of the mechanism.
Marlo is here. He has grabbed Sylar's kid. Apparently they stole this house from the cheerleader.
She wants to shoot Main character.
Cheerleader has brown hair now by the way.
And she got punched in the head.
And then Daphne smashed Main character though a wall and they are having a fast fight.
Oh what??
Marlo is walking around making a fruity ass noise.
MARLO FEEDS ON FEAR. FEAR MAKES HIM POWERFUL.
Marlo killed the little kid. It made Sylar's eyebrows huge.
When he punches Marlo it makes disco noises. Sylar went fucking nuts. Making noises.
Went gold. A huge explosion happened.

Now we're back with those fucking gooks. Hiro was trying to do something. But
Ando did it first try.
FURR HAUSSS.
But he's still being a prissy bitch about their friendship.
He's helped Hiro escape.

2 Why is Boring doing ice shit?

1 No idea. I think she did it in the "Previosly..." shit at the start too.

2 Why is doughnut cop in the desert?

1 Hiro is escaping. But before he is totally escaped Ando and Hiro make up.
But then before he is definitely totally escaped, a man is suddenly in the room with them.
Maybe he was in the show before.
Boring is on the phone. It's really boring. She gets upset and it makes her do ice on the phone and it breaks.
Now she's crying.
Looks like she did ice ON HER ACTING ABILITIES.

Now we're with India. Back in the present I guess. Something's wrong with him.
He touches a table. When he pulls away his fingers are all gluey.
Like that glue they glue CDs on to magazines with that you can roll up with your fingers.

Boring is resigning from President Main character's brother's employ.
I think it was Boring anyway, but she didn't have a pony tail.
Colonel Sanders is back. Sitting behind the new desk. He is also a bad actor.

2 No man.
Colonel Sanders is Malcolm Mcdowell.

1 His acting is poor. I don't give a shit. He's putting his feet up on a desk to show that he is a cool apparition who doesn't give a fuck. That is lame.

2 He's Malcolm McFuckingdowell.

Also, wasn't there some kind of huge ass virus in Series 2? And everyone died?

1 I don't know, I've never watched Heroes?

2 And there were some Irish people?

1 Boring found out politican can fly. He's pretty blasé about it. Boring showed him her power too. Turned his whisky

into

WHISKY ON THE ROCKS.

Now they are making out.

2 Oh man.

Fucking Marlo.
Marlo Marlo Marlo.

1 Now there is a press conference. Someone died I think?

Main character is on a table. Next to Main character. With Cheerleader and the scary man from Hiro's room. He disables powers or something. Cheerleader is slicing Main character's chest with a scalpel.

2 Ok. So. Cheerleader regenerates right?

1 Yes.

2 So how does she have pierced ears and shit?

1 That is an excellent point.

2 Wouldnt it instantly heal? Or does she just ram that shit right in there?

1 If her skin never dies, wouldn't more and more of it just build up on her body?

2 Yes. What the fuck.

1 President is here, makes Cheerleader go away. He's talking to his brother, uncuffingg him.
They're making an army or supermans. Main character is doing spells.

2 This is crappy man.

1 The way they show it is really bad.

His brother is sad. He is pulling a sad face.

Where's that fucking guy with the glasses?

Main character is making cuts on his brother and he fell over bleeding.
Maybe he's dead.

Now back to the present! Sylar is on Level Five (?). Main character appears there too. Talks to Sylar about how he met him in the future.
King of Queens wakes up in the desert. A place called Costa Verde underwent a large explosion. I think that's where Sylar exploded. Police doughnut is experiencing this in the present as a vision I think.

Daphne is back. Her back is gone. That was pretty ridiculous.

2 Who the fuck is Daphne?

1 Some woman who is with Police doughnut.

Police wakes up in the present. African is drinking something from an Ikea cup.
Police has silly american football lines on his face. I guess this is what americans think africans
"do".
The african is a Jungian. Tells Police to find a totem.
He instantly finds a tortoise and he has followed it around 500 miles immediately.
And now Sarah Palin is talking to Ando and Hiro.
She wants some formula that they had that can make people into X Men.
But they lost it. Now they're going to get it back. Now they're digging up graves.

The only good thing about these guys is the fact they wear ties.

Some germanic dude is in the grave. He wakes up. Pretty angry. That is
the end of the episode.

Looks like Britain made a tv show too: "Merlin".

Here is an overview of one of the episodes:
Valiant: Knight valiant competes at Camelot's annual sword tournament. Merlin
believes he's a cheat.

2 That sounds shit.

1 I've clicked it out of perverse sadism.

2 You freak.

1 Will Carling is the knight. From Two Pints of Lager and a Packer of Wanking. Oh dear. They've somehow made this show ride the Harry Potter wave, even though it doesn't make any sense.

Oh shit. Will Carling has that shielf that Arnold wanted in Conan the Barbarian; "Two Snakes - BUT THEY ARE ONE!" But the snakes come alive. This is really shit. The intro was awful. Harry Potter is learning how to do sword fighting. He's rubbish.

2 Look, I don't care.

1 Hey buddy I didn't care about Heroes.

2 But you watched it.

1 Fucking Victor Meldrew is Harry Potter's mentor. Oh this is good. There's a black woman in it. And she's a blacksmith. And she speaks in modern parlance. Everything about that is good.

2 Modern parlance? Like "cool" and "groovy"?

1 She said the fact she knew a lot about weapons was "kinda sad."

2 Wow.

1 She's also a black woman in a position of power in dark ages England. A black guy is one of the entrats in the tournament too. Maybe he's the King of fucking Scotland. Wow. Giles from Buffy is the King of England. Is the BBC on crack? He's offering a prize of one thousand gold pieces.

2 Fucking sweet. You could buy like, an X Box and a car in whatever fucked medieval England the BBC have created.

1 Yeah. But it's the BBC, so he'd probably buy a wheelchair.

Another black guy! Where the fuck are they coming from?

2 Africa.

1 Yeah.

Two people are having a swordfight. It's worse than that one Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader have.

2 With that awful spin.

1 Where Kenobi does that horrific 80-year-old man spin. You know it.

2 Oh god I hate that shit.

1 Someone fell over and everyone's cheering. Two Pints of Lager won his match too. A muslim is here. He has two curvy swords, much like all muslims.

2 Fucking muslims. Why aren't they in Iraq with Parsons and Colbert.

1 Two Pints has taken him out.

2 Look. I'm going for a piss.

1 I'm not stopping.

Oh dear god. Harry Potter is using spells to clean this guy's armour. And then Meldrew comes in "ARR YOO YOOZIN MAJIKK AGEN?!"

This Two Pints guy, he'll never win - he has a working class accent.

That fucking black woman is back, standing with the King of England and Morgana Le Fay. The third most important person in the country apparently.

Harry Potter found the magic shield, but Two Pints found him and he's out of there.

This. Wow. This is a fucking scene. Harry Potter's like, 'Master' guy told him to dress him, and all this intense music has come on, for this gay dressing scene. The black soldier has to wear purple. I guess because it's the colour most like his skin. Two Pints made his shield snakes bite this Blue Peter haircut black guy.

2 That is rough.

1 He's going to die. Unless Victor Meldrew can make an antidote.

Two Pints is feeding his shield. Is that really necessary? I mean the snakes don't even have tails. Where does the poo come out?

2 Clearly one of them pukes it up.

1 Maybe that will be in a deleted scene. I recognise the actress playing Morgana, but I don't know where from. Hollyoaks probably, or Zoo.

2 They are basically the same.

1 Another 9 second swordfight. The reaction shots of this black blacksmith are longer than the fights. All this grass is so neatly cut. Who cuts it? Did the muslim bring a lawnmower with him "from the Orient"?

2 Dinosaurs.

1 Two Pints is a fruit. He's bolted his door from the inside, but then someone left the room, having sat his shield on a chair like a person, all neat and facing the door.

2 Being an actor must be shit.

1 Especially if you were in Two Pints, and then shit.

2 Haha.

1 I meant 'this'. I typed shit, which is really only half accurate, since it implies that Two Pints wasn't shit.

Anyway, there is a snake in the rafters of Arthur's room. Do castles really have rafters? The answer is no they don't. The snakes bitten that Blue Peter knight again. I think he's dead. He looks dead. Yeah turns out he's dead.

But Giles is having none of this shit. This is a timeless story. Harry Potter is only a servant and carries no water with the King. Giles has no time for his shit - he kills vampires!

2 This sounds SO fucking shit. Wait, is the premise that Merlin suspects the guy of cheating, but no one else believes him, even though it happened in a big arena being watched by presumably the entire population of England?

1 Yeah apparently no one noticed, despite literally everyone being there and looking directly at the people whilst the act happened. Arthur is sacking Merlin.

2 Fucking hell. Can you get the episode to end?

1 It's three minutes longer than Heroes but it feels like three years.

Oh okay Harry Potter has walked into this ridiculously enormous cave, that is just 'there' (??). Oh right yeah a giant homosexual dragon lives there of course. It is animated exactly like Jar Jar Binks.

2 Fucking hell. This sounds SO shit.

1 Black Blacksmith is now hanging out with Harry Potter. Seems like she is the childhood friend of both Morgana and this little servant scrote. And also the smartest person in the caste/country/world. Also she has managed to artificially curl her hair.

Harry Potter has been up all night.

2 What the fuck for?

1 Reading a book out loud to a dog statue.

2 Well. I didn't see that one coming.

1 See - you don't have the talent to write a show like this. None of us do.

2 I am fucking bored. This show sounds so awful.

1 Yeah there has been some major down time in this episode. The fight is starting.

2 What fight?

1 'The fight'. The final or whatever. The tone is funereal but stoic. Arthur is being a true Englishman. Not like this working class Two Pints guy.

2 Fuck the working class. That's the moral, right?

1 Unless they are black, then they must be installed in positions of power.

Harry Potter turned that dog statue in to a doberman.

2 Nice job.

1 It only took nine hours of constant talking. That is some shitty magic.

These fights are so boring.

2 Yes. Is it done yet?

1 They only have four sound effects for these swordfights. Arthur knocked the helmet of Two Pints, AND THEN TOOK OFF HIS OWN HELMET. This man is perfect.

2 Arthur was fighting him?

1 He still is. Arthur dropped his sword, this swordfight has now become 'a fight'.

2 This is like, old Arthur? Like Arthur Pendragon?

1 No he's a kid. His dad Giles From Buffy is still King.

2 Wasn't Merlin an old man when Arthur was king? And Arthur became king when he was like 30?

1 Yeah, but only in the same way that black people weren't major forces on the political scene in dark ages England.

Harry Potter did a spell that made the shield snakes come out when Two Pints didn't want them too, and now everyone knows he is a dirty cheater. So he's trying to make the snakes kill Arthur. But Morgana gave Arthur a sword and he murdered Two Pints and everyone is cheering and extremely jubilant. Isn't that a bit fucked? Arthur unfires Harry Potter. Giles is clapping. But oh no, Morgana is using Girl Power on Arthur and they've had an argument.

2 Bummer.

1 Well, if they got together, they wouldn't be able to make hundreds of additional espisodes of this excellent show.

2 Wait. The BBC is funded by TV licensing. And I have a TV licence. Does this mean I paid to have this show made?

1 Yes you did. It probably cost millions of pounds.

2 Fuck that. The world could have done without this shit.

12 July 2008

A friend of mine brought some eye drops round to my house that he'd got while he was at university. He said if you put a drop in each eye you'd see something you'd never seen before. He said I should have a go. I never really enjoyed putting drops onto my eye, but I suppose no one does, and I wasn't terrified of it like some people, so I thought I'd do it. Nothing happened at first. I asked why my friend didn't put any drops in his eyes, and he said it was because he absolutely hated it and doing it was the worst thing he'd ever done. I asked why he made me do it then, it didn't really seem like that was good behaviour, even if it didn't seem to do anything, and he starts saying something about how he thought it was a good idea but before he's finished I'm somewhere else. I'm watching Stephen walking to the shop to buy a drink. I know he's called Stephen and where he is going because I know everything he knows.

Stephen had his headphones on when he saw someone he knew walking towards him. This person wasn't one of his closest friends, but he'd definitely have to take his headphones off and talk to him for at least a moment.

"Hello."

There were smiles.

"Hey Steve, how's it going?" said his friend. I don't know his friend's name because Stephen didn't think about it the entire time. I do know that Stephen didn't really have an opinion on whether people called him Stephen or Steve, or even if they wrote his name down as Steven. This is not to say that Stephen is an exceptionally laid back character who drifts through the days with a blasé attitude and cool exterior. In fact right now he was feeling acutely awkward and self-conscious. Stephen has recently 'come out' as a homosexual. I know this because this is all he is thinking about right now. He thinks he didn't do it very well. He told his best friend, and then a week or so later, he told a couple more of his friends. A few days later another friend of his had asked him if he was actually gay. Stephen had said yes he was gay. He said this because he was gay. Stephen didn't particularly like telling people he was gay. He wasn't ashamed or shy about it, it just never really seemed like there was a particularly good time to say it. And upon finding out that someone had known without him personally telling him, Stephen felt he had probably 'come out' enough. Part of him would have liked a dramatic event featuring everyone he knew, where he was forced to scream out his true sexual alignment, but this had never happened. And now that some people knew he was homosexual, it wouldn't be as good as it could have been.

"What can you see?"

It is my asshole friend. He is talking to me. I think I say "Stephen," back. It isn't a very good thing to say, but it is the only thing that seems relevant. I don't know if I say it or not, because I don't hear anything, and I'm not aware of my mouth moving, because right now I do not have a mouth. He doesn't say anything back.

The problem with Stephen's method of coming out was that, apart from the four people he had told, and the one person who asked, he didn't know who knew he was gay, and everyone who had heard didn't know if he was actually gay, or if it was just a lie. Stephen looks at his friend and thinks that he knows that he is gay. But what can he do? He can't just confirm that he is, truly, gay, when no one has asked. That would be even worse than saying it normally. For a moment Stephen thinks that the ball is in his friend's court. But then he realises that if his friend has heard that he is gay, him asking something along the lines of "So. Gay, huh?" would be even worse than him confirming. So, predictably, nothing about Stephen being gay is mentioned in the whole conversation. When Stephen gets to the shop he wants to buy a Cherry Coke, but then he thinks that might be the gayest drink in the shop, so he just buys a regular.


When I can see out of my own eyes again, my friend has gone and the next morning there is a photo of me looking like a vacant idiot on Facebook.


9 February 2008

After a fairly unremarkable 4 and a half years, I suppose it's time for another post. I'm currently holed up in my parents' house without any cigarettes, reading through a stack of Vice Magazines. It turns out I am embarrassingly addicted to cigarettes. It's only been about 14 hours since I had one but I can't think of much else. And I can't go and buy any because the only reason I'm at my parents' house is because they've gone on holiday and left my little brother (7) here. So I can't leave the house with him still in it, and I can't take him to the shop with me, since he's the one person in the world who doesn't know I smoke, and I don't really want that to change.

The other day I was playing a tennis videogame at someone's house, and I was doing a fairly mediocre Henman-style serve and volley, holding my own and all, but Evan Almighty had been on for what seemed like hours, so I had to leave. On the way back a group of 12 or so 30something working class gentlemen stopped me. I did the ostentatious 'earpiece removal/head turn/quizzical eyebrows' maneouvre. "What about you mate, southern or northern?" This was a good question. "Uh...northern," I responded, as if it was the only answer that makes any sense (it is). Their response was pretty fantastic. About three quarters of them did things people like that do when they're drunk, like put a hand in the air or make football noises, whilst berating the rest of the group, who I'm guessing were idiot southerners and deserved it.

However I couldn't join in at all, because, and I have no idea why, I was obsessing over the fact that as a child, I was brought up to refer to my grandparents as 'Grandma Bristol' and 'Grandma Cambridge' (my proto-Granddad Bristol had died before I was born so Grandad was fairly specific. In case you are wondering, Grandma Bristol is still going strong, only she now lives in Taunton and nobody has called her Grandma Bristol for years). I don't know why this was bothering me so much. Something to do with how everyone else had much more sensible names for their grandparents. Why would you pick to name them after where they live. I was around 5 years old at the height of these names, and had no real concept of Bristol or Cambridge. I would get in a car, fall asleep, then I'd wake up and we'd be there. Plus I didn't like the idea of being a Granddad Manchester or something when I was older, if that situation ever happened. I'd want a much better name, like Granddad Fantastic or Granddad Airship.