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Fluid Radio – taster

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

I often sing the praises of Fluid Radio – an eclectic internet radio station from Experimedia in the UK with a couple of varied channels. Usually I listen to their mixes more than the radio stream – it’s cool having artists I recognise bringing some of their favourite tracks, whether their own or those of others, together in a honed set.

Something I’ve been listening to lately is the Taster – a mix of tracks from forthcoming projects on Fluid Audio. Best, I think, for listening to with the lights low, perhaps only with the light from your screen.

2010 Taster |Fluid Radio:

Daniel Pecqueur – Golden City

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Golden City, a series of graphic novels in French by Daniel Pecqueur. First admission – I don’t understand French, just the occasional word: certainly not enough to follow the dialogue or prompts. The art, however, is extraordinary and very sci-fi, so it’s suiting me and where I’m at. I’m finding that I’m doing a lot of science fiction world building in my writing of late and these kinds of illustrations of unusual planes and boats, of underwater suits and giant cities, are all stimulating my imagination. These are the kinds of pictures I’d love to do of the worlds I’m imagining, if only I could draw even fractionally as well. In some ways the pictures remind me of a cleaner, crisper version of Moebius from the eighties. Pecqueur’s action and sense of composition is wonderful – even understanding hardly a word of it, I’m thoroughly engrossed and entertained.

Iron Man 2

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

I went to see Iron Man 2 last night and I would say that it’s mixed and fragmented. Some moments are superb, others lackluster. The action didn’t live up to my expectations, there were too many baddies and the story seemed to drift around without real urgency (perhaps a bit too much set up for an Avengers movie?). I guess I like my action flicks simple – one big threat, escalating danger and lots of stuff blowing up. When I start noticing continuity glitches (the angle of the box of strawberries on the table) then I know I’m not fully engaged.

The highlights, however, were anytime Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow were on screen together – the dialogue is busy and natural, their characters so real and fluid: those scenes alone made the movie worth seeing.

Certainly some of the effects are extraordinary, but given that just about anything can be done digitally now I guess I’m getting harder to amaze. I went with a mate, who loved it, says it’s better than the first, so it’s all just opinion anyway.

Date Night – maybe not

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

No writing for reading post this week – my reading is just going way too slow and I’ve been hard at work on a 5000 word story with a deadline of tomorrow, and trying to do that review.

We thought about going to Date Night – should be a good date movie right? I think Steve Carrell and Tina Fey are both amazing. But then I read that it’s their performances that save mediocre material. Uh-oh. Then I saw that the director also directed Night at The Museum. Now that’s one of the few movies I’ve stopped watching, and fairly early on at that. Usually I can stand almost any old dross, but Night at The Museum just didn’t work for me at any level. I’m perhaps the only one, since it made a ton of money, enough apparently to justify a sequel. Anyhooo, I’ll save my $14.50 and maybe check out Date Night on DVD in six months.

To double feature or not.

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much. So I watched Alien versus Predator, which, although a bit light and breezy (and filled with factual inconsistencies) still has some cool elements. Then, right after that I watched Aliens versus Predator Requiem.

Hmmm. So AVPR has its problems, but does have some cool elements too – I do like the dark forest with face-huggers. I’m not sure that it works so well as part two of a double feature. Maybe I should just watch it stand-alone with the commentary.

Another time I watched Pitch Black – one of my favourite low-budget movies. Again it has some problems and some logical inconsistencies, but it’s fun for what it is. Then I watched The Chronicles of Riddick. Hmmm, again. Riddick has its problems and its cool elements (I like the opening chase, with the bearded Diesel, and some of the prison scenes), but as a double with Pitch Black, I can’t recommend it.

What would I recommend? We stayed home to watch Stone of Destiny followed by Moon. Both intense, character studies, but wildly different – different enough that it’s easy to stay engaged. Another time, last year, I think, we saw The Hangover, followed by Inglourious Basterds. We had meant to see Bruno, but had misread the movie schedule, but had organised the time, so chose The Hangover – probably enjoyed it more since we had low expectations and it was better than those. When we got around to seeing Bruno, didn’t like it as much. Hmm. Anyway, back to that combo – Hangover then Tarantino – certainly no boredom, both such different movies, and both above average (though I struggle with Tarantino at any time … though he did do the Grindhouse thing, which I never saw). I wonder how that mixing up would work though for movies I’ve seen before and want to revist on DVD? I guess I’ll try it sometime – Bull Durham and AVPR, or Pitch Black and Wedding Crashers. Or maybe not.

Suspension

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In a brief moment I had to spare (well 98 minutes), I watched Suspension, an indie film with a cool concept – that time can be stopped by an individual, and the world manipulated while the rest of us are in suspension. It was hard to identify with the main character, sure he’d lost his family in a wreck, but he became creepy and scary. It was cool, plotwise, to think that there were alternatives the writers could have taken, but didn’t – not that it’s bad, just at times it didn’t quite gel for me. The end, though, brought it home well. I think it’s cool to see low-budget indie films like this from time to time since the hollywoodmachinery hasn’t cloyed it into romcom banality. And, surprisingly, the production values were excellent – those moments of stopped time kept me wondering “how did they do that?”: enough that I watched “the making of” (oops, so that’s more than 98 minutes of my life gone).

Green Zone is not Bourne, nor should it be

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I got along to see Green Zone and enjoyed it for what it was – a well-paced political/military thriller. Some of the promotion for the movie – guns levelled, helicopters crashing and the star/director combo – seems to suggest that this is just Bourne by another name. A pity because it stands on its own as well-made cinema. Perhaps they should have made it before Ultimatum?

Pecha Kucha trainwreck

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

Whew, after weeks of being overwhelmed and consumed by my preparation for the Pecha Kucha event at Te Manawa, it’s done and over and wrecked. I had fun, even if I got a bit caught up in the talking and losing track of where I was, having decided to abandon my notes and talk to the slides, a little technology glitch, talking about things before the slide arrived, then talking backwards about slides which had already passed, I stumbled and careered through the 6 minutes forty and ended up back in my seat breathless. Wow, it was much harder than it had looked, but hugely worthwhile. The other speakers were inspiring and entertaining and informative, so it was a good night.

My talk was about Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville and his invention of the phonautograph, and the recording he made, and writing and the Infrequency project with Scott de Martinville’s recording, and ambient music and computer art. There were some photos taken, so I may be able to get hold of them and make them available somewhere. I took a video too, but that may well stay in the vault.

Now, on with the tutoring.

Scott H Young dot com – super learning

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Scott H Young’s site on getting more from life is worth checking out.* Often I find I’m reading into websites just for little motivational pushes to help stay focused on the goal line, and beyond. I especially like Scott’s article on reading and how to read more (70+ books a year) and read more effectively (I do like the “cut down on TV” idea in there, though I think there are other ways of speedreading – I do it without the finger).

Okay, as per my previous post this is a Wednesday – random what’s up post. Tomorrow will be a reading for writing post on what I’m currently reading, which kind of relates to the above – reading 70 books a year. At the moment it’s more like 52 at a stretch, and if I’m going to post every Thursday about a new book, then I need to get cracking.

*Another guy, without the H – just plain Scott Young – has a site on getting more from life too, just from a different focus. Don’t confuse the two, though for some people I’m sure they are quite complementary.