BEWARE OF SPOILERS BELOW

Watched Iron Man 3 a couple of days ago, and in some ways it's better than I expected. It's somewhat like the feel of The Avengers, in that despite its multiple imperfections, it's a far more enjoyable product than the sum of its parts.

There's no arguing that the Iron Man franchise is the international money horse of the Disney/Marvel-owned cinema universe (in distinction from the Sony-owned Spiderman who due to these factors is unable to join the Avengers on their foray despite being a key member of the team). One can argue that without the success of the first Iron Man, there would be no Marvel cinema universe...and perhaps there would be no rekindling of RDJ's career.

It's worthy to note that RDJ's contract with Marvel actually ends with this movie, so he is not contractually obliged to continue his stint as Tony Stark, though he clearly is very fond of the character.

Assuming that this is RDJ's final outing (as unlikely as it seems at this point), I think it makes a good final installment of a trilogy - or perhaps in all, Tony's 5th official appearance.

I was a bit hesitant about the news of Shane Black directing. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was critically acclaimed, but I thought the flavour was too macabre and cynical for Marvel. The feeling of KKBB is like a dark fairytale, like maybe the original Grimm tales, full of gore and betrayal and happy endings at a Pyrrhic price.

In that respect, I was wrong. And as Shane Black and RDJ promised, the third movie stripped down the superfluous action and got closer to Stark's vulnerabilities. The script reads tighter than IM2, though the awkward ad-libbing is still obvious in some scenes. It doesn't quite reduce Stark to the level of helplessness in IM1, but it puts him in a tight spot for most of the movie and allows for an easy flow of an abundance of well-choreographed action scenes.

It was also nice to see a continuation of The Avengers storyline. Several of the pre-Avengers movies were accused of being too light on its own plot and too heavy on hinting to the combined movie. IM3 is fortunate in that it's the first movie to follow The Avengers and it doesn't need to carry the mantle of building up the Avengers' second outing. All it needs to do is acknowledge that Manhattan had happened, and it does so nicely by extending Tony's range of emotions and hence actually requiring RDJ to do some of his excellent acting.

In fact, as the story flows, we forget to wonder why Iron Man didn't call for help from the Avengers. For Tony Stark, his fight has always been personal. When Captain America stood on the Helicarrier and accused him of fighting only for himself...there was no argument. Tony is not a soldier or a mercenary, he's a self-made vigilante who would never drag other people into his personal battles.

One thing Shane Black excels at is creating some very dimensional characters. Despite a large number of new characters introduced into the cast, many of them are quite memorable, and yet the old characters are still further developed.

Pepper Potts manages to be amazing in this movie. She's not the helpless damsel-in-distress she's always been, but a totally kick-ass woman in her own right. Gwyneth Paltrow has been saying for a while (since completing filming) that she wanted to leave the franchise, but apart from replacing her I don't see them writing Pepper out of the picture. This version of Tony is far too attached to her, and he'll just have a major meltdown if anything happens.

SPOILER ALERT FOR THE NEXT BIT

Now, onto the flaws, and there's a few. Firstly, the trailers are pretty misleading, though that in itself is not necessarily a flaw. But the trailer gave the impression that the Mandarin was the major villain in this movie...when in actual fact, he's not, and that is a pity.

Sir Ben Kingsley is an amazing actor, who can turn from a threatening dictatorial presence to a doddering old junkie in the next, so it seems an enormous pity that the plot wastes his talent in revealing the Mandarin as nothing but a mannequin. In the comics, the Mandarin is Iron Man's greatest nemesis. He is to Tony Stark what Loki is to Thor (though obviously...different in many ways). I do hope he makes a reappearance at some point...and that brings me to the second point.

Aldritch Killian is too weak as a villain. Oh, physically he is almost invincible, sort of like a conveniently more destructible version of the Wolverine. But as far as villains go, Iron Man has had a run of three poor villains. The first was motivated by greed, the second by revenge, and this guy by...what? Both? Tony Stark still stands as the most visible superhero within the Marvel cinematic universe. He is a weapon-maker who spouts ideals of peace and green-love and all things, that would to a cynical eye look, hypocritical. It is time that he meets someone who can match, not only his cleverness and strength, but who can also shred his flimsy ideology to the rubbish it's worth. People adore him because he wins...but what happens when he loses, will his ideology still look so appealing then? That would be very interesting to explore and I think it should take someone like the Mandarin to test his mettle.

Thirdly, while the action scenes are very fun to watch, there's a lot of flaws abound. The logic of the suits and of the Extremis virus haven't been planned that well, and the abilities of each armour unit and each Extremis host vary wildly from scene to scene, from battle to battle. The thing about video games is that it doesn't just have to look cool, there has to be rules and the rules have to be enforced. IM3's most visible flaw is that no one's bothered to think of the rules and as a result there is a movie filled with enemies that would be indestructible up until the moment they're dispatched with one simple blast.

Aldritch Killian and the Mandarin were not the only ones who were slighted in their development. I expected more of Rebecca Hall's character...but she didn't last long. And despite her being pretty spunky and Pepper being actually cool, the movie still failed the Bechdel test.

It was a very enjoyable movie, and it amended at least one flaw of the previous Iron Man movies, which was that the climax here actually deserved to be called a climax. What it would benefit from is actually finding some villains with good ideological conviction. Other than that, the logic of the suits and the powers of the Extremis hosts could have done with some more thought...because it does get distracting eventually.

After many long years, Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden finally drawn to an end.

I guess at least we should admire Watase Yuu for sticking to her guns even until the end. Takiko and Rimudo had the ending they were always said to have in the original...and poor Tomite and Hikitsu volunteering to stay behind.

Unfortunately it just increases the bitterness when one thinks about how annoying Miaka was compared to Takiko...although at the same time it goes to show how much the Seishi admired their Miko, to the extent of spending 200 years just waiting for shit things to happen.

I can't believe Rimudo actually reigned for 100 years. That means he lived for like 118 years or something! What the heck!

As much as I like Rimudo, I feel Watase Yuu's main characters are still weaker compared to her side characters. Again, as in the Suzaku and Seiyuu groups, the other Seishi all had a more distinctive character than the main guy. For example even now I can remember what the personalities of Nuriko and Suboshi and Amiboshi and Hotohori were like, but if you asked me to give a good description of Rimudo, I can't. He's just the generic Watase Yuu main guy - generically protective, generically caring, generically enigmatic. Maybe that's why I didn't feel too sorry for him in the end....

I'm getting old...getting to the age where I can't bear to read sad stories any more <-- person who is currently 64 pages into writing a horribly depressing story should just shut up.

I like happy endings, but I don't like happy endings stretched out beyond the lifespan of the character...I don't think of it as happy ending. It's different for the author, the imagination for your own character is endless, but I try to take the story as what is written...and if they died before a happy ending is reached, it is the end. A passing promise of meeting in another life is something...I can't consider as a happy ending.

I'm not sure I can really bear to read the Suzaku story if there ever is one.

Completely random, but thought to look up the actual definition of this very common phrase "the seven passions and six desires" which are inherent in all ordinary humans, and which in Buddhist philosophy are all attachments to be renounced.

The seven passions
As according to Buddhist definition: 喜、怒、忧、惧、爱、憎、欲
Happiness, anger, worry, fear, love, hate, lust

As according to traditional Chinese medicine definition: 喜、怒、忧、思、悲、恐、惊
Happiness, anger, worry, anxiety, sadness, fear, surprise

The six desires
As according to Chinese philosophy: 六欲，生死耳目口鼻也
Yearning for life, (fear of) death, aural, visual, oral, nasal (stimuli)

The Buddhist definition refers to all six desires as pertaining to lust: 色欲、形貌欲、威仪姿态欲、言语声音欲、细滑欲、人想欲
Desire of sex, desire of appearance, desire of mannerism/authority, desire of words and speech, desire of touch and tactile, desire of thoughts

"The six roots" or "the six dusts"
六根:眼、耳、鼻、舌、身、意
Referring mainly to desires caused by the six "sensations": eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind.


Also completely randomly, started reading The Art of War in its original (incomprehensible) glory. It's actually quite an amazing text. Traditional Chinese script is amazing in how much meaning can be conveyed in a few words, even compared with modern Chinese (let alone any form of translation which requires pages of explanation to bridge the cultural barrier). Less a book about how to win a war, it's more about effective planning and management of resources, both human and non-human. It's extremely practical cynical and comes with such gems as:

故將有五危，必死可殺，必生可虜，忿速可侮，廉潔可辱，愛民可煩。

Hence a commander may have five pitfalls: he fights as though he's unafraid of death - he can be killed; he fights as though he must live at all cost - he can be captured; he acts on reckless anger - he can be provoked; he lives to be righteous and clean - he can be shamed; he loves his people - he can be harassed.

The first three are understandable, but the last two are interesting. Clearly anything in excess is a danger. Being far too much of a perfectionist and being far too benevolent have their flaws when there are big things at stake.

下雨天、無聊天，一不小心便栽倒在不該進入的大坑

耽美文、言情文，這些都不是以故事情節為長，一篇好文，還是好在它對人物的描寫

( ThoughtsCollapse )

It had been a toss-up between The Hobbit and Les Miserables on Boxing Day. In the end, we chose the former because we wanted something more light-hearted on Boxing Day.

I remember we jokingly said that if we didn't end up crying through Les Miserables then it would have meant we didn't quite get our money's worth.

Well, let's just say at approximately 15 minutes before the movie drawing to a close, I was thinking, "Damn it, something good better happen in the next 15 minutes because otherwise I really haven't gotten my money's worth!!!"

And then Valjean sat dying in his chair and everyone in the cinema burst into tears, including me, so I felt a little bit more placated. Questionmark.

So according to the above, if I were to summarise the experience in one sentence, it would be, "I nearly sat through all of Les Miserables without crying until Hugh Jackman sat down to die."

Having never watched a stage production of the musical, I'm not going to comment on the music itself. There are some wonderful numbers, and then there are others that clearly bridge one scene to another, and are half-spoken, half-sung, with the unfortunate effect of being half-melodic, half-tuneless.

There are some questionable directorial choices; the much-touted live-singing both a gift and the cause of its flaws. There are excruciatingly long lingering shots during some of the most emotionally piquant songs, and it never really capitalises on its medium as a film to bring the story to life. It never leaves the stage, and in many ways suffers for it.

It is a movie in which you realise that there really is such thing as charisma, that there really are actors who can engage and carry a scene even when all else fails. The more veterans actors in particular - Jackman, Hathaway, and Crowe - both Jackman and Hathaway make their extremely long scenes watchable just by the power of their acting; and Crowe, despite being a little bit distracting with his lack of musical range and hence inability to fully achieve the impact of some of Javert's more powerful songs, still manages just by the weight of his presence.

Once the story moves forward and the younger actors appear, apart from the wonderful Samantha Barks as Eponine, the rest of them were difficult to care about, which is a great pity when their story becomes the whole film's climax. As much as I've liked Amanda Siegfried, the extremely high-pitched range of Cosette fails her, and the story of the lovers never makes any emotional impact.

I heard Gavroche's role had been expanded especially for this film, but instead of making him easy to sympathise with - him being supposedly the face of the evolution, the young, the idealistic, the warm-hearted - it just made him rather an annoyingly precocious little twerp.

I feel it was a wasted opportunity. The live-singing brings a rawness of emotion that unfortunately becomes disconnected by the artificiality of the camera work. It never elevated above being a filmed musical; it could have been a lot more mobile, a lot more dynamic, a lot more complex, a lot more engaging. All the ingredients were there, but they didn't quite come out fully baked.



As an aside, I see where all the Les Miserables references are now in The Night Watch. The uprising of the poor, the flower pinned to their lapel, the watchmen becoming embroiled in the fight, the barricades, the riots.

And Vimes, watching the inevitable snowball forward and stood in its way. Well, we'd hardly compare him to Javert.

Halfway through the half hour of trailers preceding this 2 hour 50 minute long test of bladder wall elasticity movie, there was that cheeky 007 commercial that finished with the line: James Bond is GREAT Britain.

Unsurprisingly, The Hobbit is, once again, a catalogue of a fine selection of landscape photography from the geographically blessed islands of New Zealand. Or whatever it says on the back of that travel magazine.

A hilarious spoof from the always reliable Honest Trailers:


Cynicism aside, The Hobbit was a surprisingly enjoyable journey. It's a much lighter story than Lord of the Rings, than even The Fellowship of the Ring. The driving thread of the story is much simpler, of one dwarf clan's quest to reclaim their kingdom.

There are disadvantages to this set up. The simpler story, coupled with the need to fill three movies worth of plot, allows for some rather superfluous scenes: Frodo's cameo for example felt more gratuitous than contributory. There is also a great deal of exposition: FOTR already had great swathes of narration by the husky-voiced Cate Blanchett to explain how the Ring came to be, but that bears nothing against the good solid hour of flashforward and flashback and flashback yet again to explain the plight of Erebor. It's nearly an hour and a half past before the story explodes into action, and though it doesn't noticeably drag, it will make the less patient surgeons tap their foot.

In LOTR it was much clearer why hobbits were chosen for the task of bearing the ring - the Ring affected the great, the wise and the powerful most strongly; and hence the task fell on the "ordinary" folk who nevertheless had amazing courage and companionship.

It remains to be seen why Gandalf was so adamant to drag Bilbo on this quest. That said, Martin Freeman does a remarkable job of making Bilbo likeable - considering the last we saw of him was a rather mentally imbalanced old hobbit. Frodo was a bit of a maiden in distress and was always in tears needing to be rescued (or maybe my memory hasn't done him justice). Bilbo, despite his lack of any training, rather holds his own against the brawny dwarves.

The dwarves were adorable. There's thirteen of them, and apart from their snappy prince Thorin, the rest are interchangeable. However, they make for an entertaining team, squabbling and jostling, pouring ale down their beards, juggling good food in the air and being generally obstinate loud-mouthed brats. Being generally dwarves, as dwarves are often portrayed in fantasy. Or maybe just in Ankh-Morpork. Damn those gold-loving buggers.

There are flaws to the story, Gandalf always being there to save the day one of them, and the lack of well-defined characters outside of the central three another. But take the inevitable LOTR comparisons away and it stands up well as its own movie, as long as you remember it's never meant to have the scope, the span and the intensity of the previous trilogy.

Argh, LJ has changed its posting layout again. I am getting too old to learn new tricks.

Speaking of Old Dogs, apparently you can get a silly china bulldog for yourself, at only 50 pounds from Royal Doulton.



Yes, even the most touchingly humorous scene in the movie is a product placement.

Obviously they're now out of stock and if you desperately need one for a Christmas gift, they're flying around Ebay at around 5 times the price.



It was very hot 2 nights ago and combined with the anxiety of having to work a 14.5 hour shift the next day, I had one of my classically vivid and mildly disturbing dreams.

It was at a train station: not any station I can recognise at all and appears pretty non-western to me. The open platform was long and dark. The train that drew into the station was very long too, and actually looks quite antique in construction, black metal shell and rounded frame and all.

When the train finally stopped (because it was so long), due to some construction problem, the friction of the wheels and the construction of the wheels makes it prone to catch fire. There's actually a few employees who are there for that purpose, and they go around dogmatically putting out the fires by pouring water down the gap between the train and the platform.

A few minutes the train appears clear, but then one of the workers notice the reflection of orange flames flickering on the belly of a middle carriage. He goes and pours some water down the tracks. The flames subside a little but doesn't extinguish. He pauses, and pours more water down, and suddenly the fire swells up and swallows up the middle section of the train and expands quickly down the length of the platform.

There is immediate panic, and people run to the stairs leading out of the station, but the fire is spreading too quickly and already the heat is unbearable. It's not enough time to get up the stairs. Instead, one of the workers led some of the people at the far end of the platform down the tracks and onto the other side of the train, where they were able to find a safe area about five meters from the burning train to climb over a wall and get out.

And then I woke up. And it was very hot.

The fact that Skyfall "is already being hailed as the best Bond film ever made" may be more a sign of the times than of its inherent quality. We're in a cinematic era where fun is immature, and dark and depressing is automatically equated with depth and weight. More and more, it's a plot requirement for heroes - and superheroes - to be brought broken to their knees and then claw their way back to their former glory. Take a beloved character and give it some implausible heart-wrenching story, and suddenly you have a "critically acclaimed" "best XXX film ever".

Of course, in reality most films are just trying to emulate the trajectory of Nolan's Batman films. Apparently, nothing impresses critiCs more than a supposedly mindless franchise unexpectedly embued with some tragedy-laden back story, and out of nowhere it becomes "heightened realism".

All that's said, Skyfall is an enjoyable movie in most parts. It's a very contemporary film, in that possibly in no other era would you get a Bond who apparently experienced childhood trauma that is yet unresolved, and creepy homoerotic bantering with the villain. At the same time, it is the good ol' British stoicism and the good "old ways" that win.

Never has the sense of age featured so prominently in a mainstream super/hero franchise. The camera lingers thoughtfully on the deep wrinkles beside Craig's eyes or on Dench's face. It's amazing to think that Dame Judi Dench has played M since 1995. To put M at the forefront of the story is a stroke of genius and I'm not surprised at all the "M is the best Bond girl" quips on the net. The relationship between Bond and M is certainly very watchable. Unfortunately (or fortunately), Dench's acting and presence far overshadows that of the other Bond girl, the short-lived Severine whose liasions with Bond feels perfunctory at best. I'm not even sure to include Miss Moneypenny on the Bond girls list, though it's nice to see Naomi Harris again on the big screen.

It's a good movie, but not without plot weaknesses, and its tone is a bit of an anomaly in Bond movies. The action feels secondary, and this version of Bond may just be a little too fallible for such an icon.



I am in love with Craig's pretty eyes, as usual. WHAT. I HAVE A BLUE EYE FETISH OKAY.

"Just as the world contains both light and darkness, humans are divided by good and evil. Thus, humans created a system to punish the sinful, but are only those who are punished guilty?"

Despite starting with such a ponderous speech and despite the title usually calling to mind something more macabre or malicious, Monsters is the sort of Japanese detective drama that is created for family viewing - hence, neither is there much detective work nor is there much in the way of monsters. It is, however, very entertaining and forgettable.

Katori Shingo (SMAP) pairs up with Yamashita Tomohisa (ex-NEWS) for a quirky police drama that solves its cases with good ol' Japanese deductive reasoning rather than solid evidence that can actually stand up in court. Katori plays the bizarre Hiratsuka Heihachi who is clearly too smart for everyone else. He would be sociopathic if he didn't take so much joy in pulling everyone's strings.

Playing his much more normal and very put-upon partner is Yamashita at his prettiest. It's been a while (since Nobuta wo Produce to be exact) since Yamapi played such a puppy dog role, all eagerness and naivety and adorable tail-wagging whinging. Much like how he amazed everyone with Akira in Nobuta, he makes Saionji a necessary highlight of years of playing uptight-wooden-dead-fish-eyed-main-characters, like Aizawa for example.

The tone the drama hits is comical, even more so than the quirky BOSS, which at least made an effort to use a bit of science and ensemble work. The rest of regular supporting cast plays it with convinced campiness but never to the point of cheesiness. Having just watched Strawberry Night recently, it's hilarious seeing Endo Kenichi repeat his fierce squad leader role but this time with intentionally comical results.

The actual detective business is bad, but not terrible. As is often the case with these things, the pilot was the best-written episode. There are a lot of issues with the reasoning of successive episodes, but at least the journey to getting there is fun.

So...remember how I said not long ago that I wanted to watch this so I had something to laugh about?

...Remember how I kept screaming at JIN for the ridiculous "medicine"...Yeah, I should have. I really should stop watching medical dramas, now.

As a drama Doctor X isn't bad, although I'm not a huge fan of Yonekura's wide-eyed mostly expressionless acting, but at least she is at the respectable age to play a freelancing surgeon.

I like me some drama that prods gentle fun not only at the widely-accepted ridiculous Japanese working hours (i.e. 9-5 plus all hours before midnight), but also at the widely-accepted ridiculous surgical working hours (i.e. 7-4 plus all hours before...well, 7am the next day).

I also enjoy a character who is pragmatic and brisk - which is what surgeons are all about, after all - who cares not a flying donkey about the rigid ridiculous ritualistic schedule that define a prestigious hospital's working life, including the hilariously familiar 25-peopled ward rounds led by the well-weathered director and trailed by a troop of forcefully alert faces.

That said, while she's free to fight for her own working rights, there are bits about her "rules" that make for good drama but for terrible medical practice.

Her refusal to participate in daily rounds on the basis that "you don't need a medical degree to go on rounds" is ridiculous. Sure, every surgeon hates rounds, that's why they do surgery, but isn't she even going to check out her patients after surgery?

In fact, the first time she brought up the "you don't need a medical degree" argument (for paperwork) it was a laugh, but the fourth and fifth time it really began to irk me. Her refusal to shake the director's hand citing that exact reason really clinched it for me. You don't need a medical degree to eat lunch, do you? Getting a medical...ahem, even a SURGICAL qualification doesn't excuse you from human decency and basic courtesy.

And other bit that really pissed me off cracked me up was when the patient went into clear shock on the operating table, the anaesthetist sat there swinging her legs for 15 bloody minutes until Daimon got changed and scrubbed and gowned and gloved, and THEN said "GIVE SOME ADRENALINE".

OMFG You're a bloody anaesthetist! Not a scrub nurse!!! YOU'RE the one managing the ABC's. WHY THE FRICK were you waiting for the SURGEON'S instructions???? You're the one the surgeons turn to when shit hits the fan during surgery, especially when that shit is a systolic BP of 60!!!

At this point I don't think it's even worth mentioning that they pushed 10mL of adrenaline through via a peripheral intravenous line. PALM. MEET FACE. (Unless, of course, the anaesthetist had the foresight to make up the 1:100,000 solution, which I can't find any reliable guidelines to say you can/can't give it as a bolus)