Dipping into the world of Robert E. Howard’s Conan as much as I have of late made me curious about another major figure of heroic fantasy, Elric of Melnibone. I still own the Daw paperbacks of this six volume saga — the ones I bought back in the mid-to-late 1970s (yes, I am old). Good thing too since the only version you can get nowadays is author Michael Moorcock’s “Special Edition” volume. It seems that, like our old friend George Lucas, Moorcock can’t resist revisiting and revising his most famous creation.
Since it had been roughly thirty years since I read these books, I was very curious how they’d stand up against Howard’s tales of the Hyborian Age. As it turns out, they stand up quite well. Elric is a genius creation, really. He’s an albino, weak of constitution, who gets his power from his sword, a sentient weapon that drinks the souls of its victims and funnels that vitality into Elric. There’s just something immediately compelling about that. And I guess you can surmise just from that description that this isn’t a story full of sunflowers and puppy dogs. No, Elric’s world is not a happy one and things do not end altogether well.
But, how does Moorcock’s creation fare in a head-to-head comparison with Howard’s Conan? Again, pretty well — bearing in mind that the two men are very different. Howard is better at plotting and there’s an immediate, visceral quality to his writing. While Moorcock sometimes seems to be making it up as he goes along, his prose is very elegant and his imagination is extremely visual. I would almost qualify these two works (probably the two most famous in the Swords and Sorcery genre) as different sides of the same coin. In fact, Moorcock has said that Elric was born because an editor said to him “give me something like Conan”. The writer followed this instruction more or less, but he brought his own particular sensibility to the work — and the genre was better for it.
After a thirty year gap, I was certainly pleased with what I read.
I blame David Koepp for most of the problems with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – and, believe me, the film has more than its fair share of problems. With movies like Mission Impossible (a flick which, I swear to God, should come with Cliffs Notes) and Jurassic Park: The Lost World as part of his resume, Koepp strikes me as a very workman-like screenwriter. His stuff lacks pizazz and, often, simple logic. The latter is certainly true of “Crystal Skull”. Despite the characters giving the appearance of knowing what they’re talking about, I defy anyone (most particularly Koepp himself) to explain to me the plot of this movie. It can’t be done. To put it simply, not all of the details of this little romp interconnect. Raiders of the Lost Ark, by way of contrast, is simple, lean and it makes perfect sense. Frankly, I’m a little shocked that Lucas, Spielberg and Ford would go forward with a shooting script this sloppily put together. After a nineteen year absence from the screen, you’d think they’d want to take a few more months to make sure their story was a little more air-tight.
That all sounds like a “pan”, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t entirely. For all of its shortcomings, “Crystal Skull” does still have a lot to recommend it. At least two of the action scenes are top-notch, the actors all acquit themselves well, and there are moments of pure nostalgic joy. Indiana Jones deserved a more auspicious return to cinema screens, but his latest adventure is still worth at least one trip to the multiplex this summer. You out there: you know you’re going to see it regardless of the reviews and the good news is you’ll have a fine time despite occasionally pausing to scratch your head in baffled disappointment.
The fact that I saw this movie roughly 24 hours ago and forgot to write a review should be a fair indicator of what I thought. It’s a sad state of affairs when the most compelling character in a flick is a sword-wielding mouse — even when that mouse is voiced by the always entertaining Eddie Izzard. “Caspian” isn’t a total wash — it’s got two or three really solid sequences — but mostly what it is is boring.
Take this review with just a pinch of salt if you like… You see, I never saw The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe so I suppose it’s possible this new movie might have paid-off more handsomely if I’d been better grounded in the lore. I doubt it though.
You know, for an album I supposedly hated, I sure have been listening to Radiohead’s In Rainbows a lot lately. I wrote my earlier review after listening to the album a couple of times in the car. When it wasn’t a collection of dark pop songs like their earlier stuff, I wrote it off. You see, after ostensibly three albums worth of weird electronica, I was ready for a return to form. When I didn’t get it, I let the record sit unlistened-to and unloved for months. For some reason, I decided I’d give “Rainbows” another go and I’ve been pulling it out consistently every few days since. No, it isn’t a collection of dark pop songs and it is a little too electronic-y for me, but there’s just something about it that gets under your skin — especially when you listen to it the way it was meant to be listened too, all the way through as an album and (preferably) with headphones. At the risk of sounding grandiose or obscure, with repeated listens, In Rainbows becomes less like an album and more like a place you can crawl into and inhabit. And if that doesn’t make sense, I suggest you listen to the record a few times and you’ll either see what I mean or you won’t.
Anyway, I was wrong. Buy In Rainbows.
Good for Jonny Favreau — my old Swingers pal acquits himself well with this one. Iron Man isn’t quite on the level of Superman: The Movie, Batman Begins or Spider-man, but I’d still put it in the top tier of comic book adaptations to date. The movie gives you all of the things you’d hope for in an Iron Man flick– you see the titular hero flying around and causing some serious property damage. But if there’s a secret to why the movie really works, it’s in the attention to the characters and the nice banter-y quality of the dialogue. Put simply, Robert Downey Jr. kicks ass in the role of Tony Stark. He has an obvious reverence for the source material whilst simultaneously making it his own. He’s the axle on which the movie rolls. Good stuff, indeed.
By the by: make sure you stay until after the credits have finished rolling. Just a little tip from your Uncle Paulie.
For years, I was a 3D Artist in the games industry. For most of my career, I used Autodesk’s 3D Studio Max for all of my model building and animation. Whenever I had occasion to play with competing product Maya, I was very impressed. So much so that I always wanted to learn it. Well, now seemed like a good time, so I’m in the middle of building the sort of character one might find in a “next gen” video game. He’s an over-the-top superhero type I’m calling “The Brutalizer”. I’ve got the head knocked out, now I’m working on the body.
Here’re a couple of images…
Recent Comments