Oh noooo!!! Spellcheck everything people.

Sony's new PS3 controller?!? Something just doesn't seem right...

I never thought I'd feel bad for mega-corporation Sony. But first it's the angry (yet hilarious) Sony fanboy going wild on a radio talk-show.

And now this. The picture is apparently real, coming from an actual Playstation 3 model at a recent videogame expo. All I can say is OUCH...

Favourite Movies, Part 3: Love the Sin, Love the Sinners

Former cop Hartigan (Bruce Willis) in the bar with a very grown up Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) in Sin City

In keeping with the film noir theme of my previous posts, I’ll dive right in: Sin City is a movie that instantly blew me away. Not even halfway through the first act I was ready to sign up for the fan club. Sin City is not only a perfect page-to-screen adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novels, it is film noir taken to dizzying, larger-than-life heights. The men of this movie are not hard-drinking, cynical, tough-talking anti-heroes just like the protagonists of any classic film noir, they are film noir anti-heroes raised to the purest god-like form. When Humphrey Bogart’s Philip Marlowe goes to bed at night, this is who he dreams he could be. Archetypal heroes face off against sickening villains in mêlées that defy gravity and reason, but still remain rooted somehow in a gritty logic that controls the Sin City universe.

Mickey Rourke’s built-like-a tank tough guy Marv can bust down doors, take more than a few bullets, and get hit by a car more than once and still get up a dust himself off, but in Sin City you take one look at the imposing fella and you believe he can handle just about any pain. Clive Owen’s slick Dwight is certainly not built like Marv, but he’s got a cat-like agility (along with at least nine lives) that make you believe that he can jump out of his girlfriend’s four-story (at least!) apartment window only to execute a perfect landing on the ground below. And my personal favourite is Bruce Willis in the role of Hartigan, quite possibly the only good cop in Sin City, who takes more than one bullet from his crooked partner only to be brought back from the brink of death to be tortured some more. These three can die, absolutely, but only when they’re good and ready.

Sure, no human being could survive HALF the punishment these men go through in the course of the movie, but that is missing the point. These are the film noir anti-heroes of dreams of fantasies; now thanks to Robert Rodriguez they have now broken out of the frames of comic panels and onto a completely new medium. Technology has finally come to the point where film noir can follow the rules of comics: if it looks cool and raises that thrilled feeling in your gut, then it works!

The three men inhabiting the three stories of Sin City are all driven forward by a classic quest: to protect the women they love. Marv is trying to avenge the death of a hooker with a heart of gold, appropriately named Goldie (Jaime King), and is doing it the only way he knows how: beating lots of people up. Dwight is trying to protect the still-breathing hooker that he loves, Gail (Rosario Dawson), who may not be breathing for long after her lady friends accidentally kill a cop. Finally, Hartigan is trying to keep a young stripper, Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba), who he saved from a serial rapist years ago, out of the clutches of this same vengeful (now deformed and yellow) rapist.

Yes, these women are all beautiful and either strippers or ladies-of-the-night. But these are the ideal women that the heroes of Sin City will kill for and sometimes even die for. These women make them feel like more than just thugs blowing things up, spitting out monologues, and generally leaving a wake of destruction wherever they go. To protect these women drives these men to self-sacrifice: they put the burden on themselves so the women can remain (somewhat) safe, or in Marv’s case, so revenge can be exacted. In Sin City, the only victory comes after a lot of pain, and in the logic of the world Frank Miller created this makes perfect sense.

Of special note is the amazing performance of Elijah Wood! Who knew that guy could go from Frodo Baggins to something as creepy as the Bible-reading cannibal, Kevin? All I know is that I can’t wait for Sin City 2.

Favourite Movies, Part 2: Off the Record, On the QT, and Very Hush-Hush

Bud White (Russell Crowe) holds back the inquisitive Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) in Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential

L.A. Confidential is a movie that lives and breathes. Starting from the credit sequence, Danny DeVito's sleazy Hollywood tabloid reporter gives us a voice-over knocking down the "wholesome" image of 1950's California to show us a world of gangs, drugs, sex, and a whole host of other illicit activities. Illicit activities that are his bread and butter, as owner/head writer/photographer for the infamous ‘Hush-Hush’ magazine. The Mickey Cohen gang rules the town, but is quickly losing its strangle-hold over L.A.’s streets as its top members are being assassinated one by one by mysterious shooters. With Mickey Cohen’s crew decisively pushed out, the question then becomes: who will take their place?

A disparate band of cops have this problem to deal with, along with a host of others, on a sleepy Christmas that will take no time to heat up. The three main players are Bud White (Russell Crowe), a burly grunt of a cop who is known for his especially vicious behaviour when protecting women, Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), a slick celebrity cop who acts as police counsel for the Dragnet-styled black-and-white show “Badge of Honor”, and finally Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), a political animal who would do anything to move up in the ranks but who, unfortunately, looks a little too much like an accountant for some to fully trust as a cop.

The beauty of the movie lies in the differences between these characters. They all start off following completely different tangents, and have no particular fondness or respect for each other. They feel like real people, not guys stuck in a cop movie. Seeing how each of these different men face similar challenges or talk to the same people with wildly different approaches and results gives the story a multi-layered effect for one of the most cohesive “webs of intrigue” in the movies. Cop killings, hookers surgically made to look like movie-stars, celebrity arrests, kidnappings, and dirty politicians tie together into one nefarious scheme, only to end in one of the most exciting, vicious shootouts ever put to film. The plot moves briskly, but the film is always about the characters and how they deal with their world. Of particular mention (apart from the three amazing leads) are Kim Basinger in the role of the hooker who finds the humanity in the gruff Bud White, David Strathairn in the steely role of a rich magnate who owns half of L.A. (along with the highest-priced hookers in town), and James Cromwell who plays the fatherly police captain who seems to get a little too zealous in his fight against crime.

This is a movie of secrets and those who desire more than anything to get to the bottom of a case, no matter where it might lead. “Rolo Tomasi” is a name that encapsulates this drive to solve the case at any cost. Ed Exley’s father was a policeman, shot dead by a purse-snatching thug who was never caught. No one even knew who the killer was. Exley gives him the name Rolo Tomasi just to give him a bit of personality. His entire life was then devoted to getting to the truth and catching those guys who think they can get away with their crimes. If you share any bit of Exley’s drive and ambition, then Rolo Tomasi is here to be found.

Favourite Movies, Part 1: Just Don't Ask Why It's Called Brazil

Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) in a bit of a bind in Terry Gilliam's Brazil

Terry Gilliam's movies, to start out simply enough, are definitely not for everyone. All of his works are not confined by the normal constraints of movie storytelling, say, logic, rationality, and reason. Watching a Gilliam film is more like opening the lid on top of the man's head (much like one of his funky Monty Python cartoons) to see what's inside. Gilliam worked on his film Brazil in 1984, and originally worked under the title of 1984 & 1/2 as a simultaneous tribute to George Orwell and Federico Fellini. In the year 1984 it's sure that the totalitarian planet of Orwell's book was on the minds of many people; many were surely wondering how close the world was coming to the bleak, paranoid, government-controlled future described by the British author.

Gilliam was certainly among those questioning the state of the world, and Brazil became his personal take on Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four mixed in with Gilliam's own recurring theme of the importance of dreams in human life. The film's protagonist is a meek, mild-mannered government official named Sam Lowry (played brilliantly by Jonathan Pryce) who is working a dead-end job in a dead-end department, working under a brain-dead boss. But as it turns out, that is just the way he likes it. You see, in this world the government is everywhere, watching everyone; as ubiquitous as the ducts that run through every confined living-space in the film. To not get noticed is a safe way for Sam to live out his humdrum life, his only solace being in his adventurous, gravity-defying dreams. Yes, in his dreams he's a flying warrior, saving a fair maiden from the perils of a fantasy world. However, once Sam sees this fair maiden in the flesh on a normal day at the office, dreams and reality start to overlap and the world starts crashing around our poor hero's head.

This is a film noir world of constant paranoia, forever under threat by unknown terrorists, and the government takes extreme measures to keep the public "safe". Citizens flagged as terrorists can be arrested at any time and held without trial, until the imposing Department of Information Retrieval gets what they want from the suspect. The driving force of the movie's plot is a mistaken arrest that happens at the very beginning of the film, when a bored government employee squashes a bug which then falls into the gears of a printing machine, changing the name on an arrest warrant from "Tuttle" to "Buttle". One letter makes all the difference however, since a normal family man has his home busted into by stormtroopers on Christmas Eve. He is wrapped up in a strange canvas straight-jacket while his wife and kids are left screaming in horror. In one of the film's most darkly comic moments, a calm, stereotypically British inspector trots in and shoves a form to be signed into the hands of the frantic wife. He points at the places for her to sign, then declares officially "Here is the receipt for your husband! And here is my receipt for your receipt." The first of many stabs at a stifling bureaucratic system that Gilliam obviously abhors.

The movie continues to show the ridiculous nature of this red-tape world, while also showing the inspiring signs of rebellion against the system. Sam Lowry gets dragged indirectly into the "Buttle-Tuttle" debacle through both his dream woman who happened to live above the wrongfully arrested man, and also the rogue heating inspector Harry Tuttle who swoops in like Spider-Man when he hears of a heating problem that the government is taking too long to fix in Sam's apartment.

Did I mention that the movie is complicated? That there are almost a dozen interesting things going on in every frame? That the humour is (for the most part) pitch black? That dreams and reality overlap to a level (especially near the end) that may drive some viewers crazy? But it all comes down to a perfect bittersweet ending that brings the battle between bleak reality and incredible dreams to a sensible conclusion. It's far from an upbeat ending, and Gilliam had to battle with the studio for quite some time to even get his movie released at all (as documented in the excellent Criterion Edition DVD's extras).

Brazil is not quite a perfect movie: the dream sequences sometimes drag on a bit too long, a few plot points are conveniently brushed aside, and the relationship between Sam and his dream woman seems a little unnatural in its development. This movie, however, is all about the experience: the little moments that accentuate the strange nature of its world. The moment where Sam sneaks past a security team practicing their Christmas Carols. When a man belatedly tries to get off a public tram and get his arms slammed in the doors. When Sam gets promoted to a closet-sized office and has to wage a tugging war over the desk he shares with the man next door. It all comes together into a slightly disturbing but very effective indictment of a bureaucratic world seasoned with Gilliam's dreamlike sensibilities. And I won't even get into the parallels with the current state of the world, because that could probably fill a whole book. Overall, Brazil is a great trip that you'll want to take when you're in the mood for something different.

Next time, I'll think faster.

After catching up on the new, "reimagined" Battlestar Galactica last month (after a few years of being scared off by the name and the cheesy 'Star Wars' rip-off from the 70s that it's loosely based on) I discovered that it's a damn good show! Gritty and dark, with realistic characters that are never painted in black and white; it's a necessary new step in TV science fiction. But while watching, I noticed a few intriguing similarities to another show I am already deeply obsessed with (and have been since day 1), that being LOST. I'll probably write more about this later, but both shows deal with groups of people that have survived a disaster and now struggle to make a new civilization, while dealing with constant crises of faith and infiltrations by enemy forces that are indistinguishable from normal human beings ("The Others" for LOST, and the human-looking Cylon agents from Battlestar). So many interesting parallels; these shows just had to be combined into one earth-shattering blog post!

Unfortunately I was bested by none other than Dwight Schrute, everyone's favourite nerd from NBC's The Office. I kid you not. Here is his amazing pitch for what could be the best TV crossover ever: LOST BATTLESTAR.

In other news of awesome ideas I should have had before these guys: who needs a magic-eight-ball when you've got the power of an entire world of internet addicts at your disposal? The guys at Dear Internet believe in the power of a concensus of Internet users to solve ALL of life's problems. Don't know if you should ask your co-worker out on a date? Ask the Internet. Not sure if there is a God? Ask the Internet. And a question on everyone's mind: Who would win in a fight, a flying shark or a flying crocodile? The Internet may even find an answer to that. Someday. If we're lucky.

Firsts

Well, here's my first official post in a bona-fide blog! On "Blogger" no less. My previous attempts at blogging were in the younger and slightly more foolish days of, well, last year. I took a lovely trip to France to travel (with a side of study mixed in) and started up an MSN Space thing that basically turned into a place to dump pictures.

So I think it's about time now to graduate to a real blog.

To start with, the title of my blog comes from my favourite author in the world: Neil Gaiman (and if you already got the reference then you're my new favourite person in the world). His latest full-scale novel is called Anansi Boys, and it tells a classic story of two brothers who are complete opposites and end up ruining each others' lives and then having to fix it all up again. However, they happen to be the offspring of Anansi, the mythological African spider god. Okay, it's definitely a twist on a classic story.

Gaiman has used Anansi as a character in two novels now (Anansi Boys, and the darker previous work American Gods) and he has created his own intriguing take on the mythical trickster god. To the human characters of Gaiman's world, Anansi looks like a charming, old-fashioned black man from down south: permantly smiling, always saying the right things (especially to the ladies), and forever topped off with a spotless green fedora. Unfortunately for the protagonist of Anansi Boys, Fat Charlie Nancy, even though he's the son of a spider god he seems to have gotten none of his Dad's otherworldly charm. In fact, it all seems to have gone to his much cooler long-lost brother, Spider. And that's not even the start of Fat Charlie's problems. Did I mention that Fat Charlie isn't even fat at all? Fat Charlie's search for his exciting "spider side" that lurks inside him is written in a consistently funny tone that makes for a great read.

But Anansi to Gaiman is more than just a fun character: he exists as a tribute to stories. Gaiman is a student of mythology, and his works include a dizzying array of references to mythological characters from all parts of the world (his Sandman graphic novels as well as American Gods touch on Norse, Greek, Slavic, African, and Asian mythologies) and the beauty of it all is that if you read Gaiman's work the first time, you might not get all the references. Where's the "beauty" part of that you might ask? Well, it's so well-written and interesting, you'll want to look things up, learn more, read more, absorb more stories just like Gaiman has done over his lifetime.

According to the African mythology, Anansi used his cunning and trickery to become the Lord of All Stories. His stories live on in places all over the globe, from Anancy stories in Jamaica to the Brer Rabbit tales in the American South. Gaiman sees this as a commentary on humanity in general: we want to believe that the little guy, using brains instead of brawn, tricking and charming his way into what he wants, will prevail. Odysseus wasn't the strongest or the bravest soul to fight in the Trojan War, but he was probably the most cunning. His Odyssey to return home through nearly insurmountable obstacles lives on to this day because we love to see how he will think his way out of the next challenge. It's no coincidence that Anansi is not the only Lord of Stories in Gaiman's work; Dream (or Morpheus or, well, a million other names) in Gaiman's Sandman series is also known by this title. He gives inspiration in one memorable case to a young playwright named Will Shakespeare who apparently can't string two words together, in exchange for two plays about the power of dreams. In Gaiman's mythology these become A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, notably the only two of Shakespeare's plays not based on historical facts or pre-existing works.

A love of stories is a recurring theme in Gaiman's work, but also in everyday life. Who doesn't love a good story, be it the latest summer blockbuster, an arthouse flick, a good book, a newspaper article, or something that happened to a friend of a friend a few weekends ago that everyone in town is talking about. People love a good story. We're all the children of Anansi in that way. I'll be sharing my love of good stories with thoughts and observations about the latest things that I've been seeing, reading, hearing (okay, tasting, touching, and smelling don't really apply here). Whatever interests me, even for a sweet, fleeting moment, will be here. On we go...