Archive for February, 2008

Eating my own Words – Vol 1

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

I have to admit, I’m pretty predjudiced when it comes to things like tv-shows, movies, comics and videogames. And I have therefore stayed clear of many products because I have deemed them “worthless”. The result of this is that i often have to eat my own words when I finally bring myself to giving some of these products a chance.
This predjudice is, of course, not healthy, And could prove to be a disadvantage in the long run.

Anyway, I thought I would write a few posts once in a while about areas where I’ve had to eat my own words, regarding tv-shows, films etc. Future posts within this catagory will of course contain more recent “Eating my own Words” material, to maintain a certain “freshness”. But seeing as this is the first post, I will have to look to the past.

Buffy/Angel:

(Bear in mind that these two are not shows that I have followed actively, but rather watched once in a while.)

When I first heard about Buffy, I didn’t even consider for one second to watch it. I throught to myself: “Teenage girl fighting vampires, zombies and demons. Cheesy horror mixed with highschool drama.” The fact that the movie sucked royally didn’t quite help to alter my oppinion either.
It wasn’t until several years later that my oppinion was swayed. I was visiting my brother and found to my surprise when I arrived that he and his then-girlfriend was watching Buffy. I was reluctant to pay attention, but my brother assured me that this was good stuff.
After one episode, I found to an even greater surprise that this was not a bad show, and we continued to watch until I looked at the time and realised that we had sat in front of the compter screen for aproximately 4 hours.
This caused me to follow the spin-off “Angel” when it began airing on a Norwegian channel, and I have followed it more actively than Buffy.
So, as painful as it was to swallow, I had to admit that these shows were rather good. Not the best, of course, but pretty decent.

Battlestar Galactica:

When I first heard about it, I was not too enthusiastic. My first throughts were: “Sci-fi with no Lightsabers, re-imagination of an old show, taking place almost exclusively on a spaceship”. Incoming Star Trek vibes!.
I had only caught glimpses of it when it ran on NRK (If you say “NRK” in English, it sounds like “Anarchy”. Sweet irony!”, but then later when they started showing re-runs, I decided to watch the first episode. And I once again had to eat my own words, because it blew me away, and has become one of my favourite shows to date. It’s weird, because I would have caught onto the show much earlier, if only the people who recomended it to me had compared it to shows like Deadwood or Rome.
I have also managed to get my brother and his now present-girlfriend hooked aswell. Yay!

Heroes:
Here’s how it went:

Friend: “Man, you have got to watch Heroes! It’s one of the best shows out there!”
Me: “Ok, what is it about?”
Friend: “It’s about these young people who discover that they have superpowers, and that they have to use them to save the world.”
Me: “Ok… moving along…”

I harboured extreme predjudice against this show, and for good reason too. I mean, how often do you come across series and films involving people with superpowers that are actually good? Don’t get me wrong, I used to be an avid fan of the Marvel universe when I was younger. I read tons of Spider-Man as a kid, but lost interest in the genre eventually, and most of the films based on the comics have been terrible (I mean, Toby fucking Maguire as Peter Parker!?).
But eventually, though, I gave Heroes a chance after my brother praised and recomended the show.
And once again my own words were on the menu. I was hooked after one episode, and I realised that I had been deadly wrong when I brushed it off as “yet another superhero tale”. Because while these people have certain powers, their origin is defined as the “next step of evolution”. These powers does not grant them godlike power either, but rather gives them an advantage in certain situations.
I also love how human these “Heroes” are, they all have their strengths and weaknesses, and no-one is stereo-typically good or evil.

Anyway, that’s all for now, I’ll be sure to post fresh “Eating my own Words” material in the future.

Posted in Battlestar Galactica, Deadwood, Eating my own Words., Heroes, Tv-series. | 15 Comments »

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008

(Note this is not a review, but simply me voicing an oppinion.)

Keywords: Skag, national identity, violence, AIDS and Iggy Pop,

The movie based on the novel is one of my absolute favourites, and I’ve seen it countless times since I was 12. Needless to say, it was about time I gave the book a try,

The novel, unlike the film, is nonlinear, and it is notably absent of a clear storyline arc. It is more a collection or series of (relatively) individual short stories mostly told in a first-person perspective of various friends or associates in Leath, Edinburgh.
It’s mostly written in a phonetic scottish accent, and takes a bbit of getting used to.

Trainspotting focuses on the daily lives and struggles of Mark Renton and his friends, most of whom struggles with a form of destructive addiction. Most notably heroin, but also alcohol, violence, amfetamin etc. Welsh goes into debth to describe in detail the lifestyle, upsides, downsides, effects and the struggles of a heroin addiction. In fact, his descriptions are so thorough that you’ll deeply sympathise with the junkies, wether you like it or not.
This sounds very bleak, I know, and normally it would be. But the way these characters descbribe things that would otherwise repulse me, is kind of what makes it such a brilliant novel. It’s disgusting, and yet somehow beautiful and deadly funny at the same time.

But it’s not all bleak and morbid, Welsh also tackles and challanges controversial issues, such as, Neo-Nazism, Unionism, Thatcher, Capitalism, Orangemen and society’s Values. This is especially shown through Renton’s point of view who venomously attacks these issues on several occasions, and is repulsed by what he percieves as society’s hypocrisy.

There is also a great diversity between the characters, especially the four most notable ones.
From the somewhat caring yet cynnical Renton (Or “Rent Boy” as Begbie enjoys calling him) struggling with heroin, guilt, insecurity, bitterness, and jeleousy. To the slick and self-confident Sick Boy, adept at picking up women and controlling his heroin usage, who has a fondness for playing with his mates heads. And the kind hearted and shy Spud, who possesses a child-like naivete and wishes that everyone would just get along. To the psycopathic, brutal and hateful Begbie, who resents his friends for their heroin addictions, despite his own heavy use of alcohol, violence and amfetamin.
Through the individual characters’ narrations, we learn about their relationships between each other, and their diffrent views.
Each character has their own style of narrating, such as Sick Boy’s habit of coversing with Sean Connery while thinking to himself, and Spud’s habit of referring to people as cats.

To give a short description of the novel’s plot: It narrates the individual characters’ joys and struggles with heroin, personal tragedies, depression, relationships, views on society. All while maintaining a a witty and strong dialogue.

By the way, Trainspotting has punk written all over it, so I suggest listening to The Sex Pistols while reading.

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