prunesquallormd | Mostly waffle, with the odd opinion, and the occasional rant

Well, having rearranged gaming from tomorrow to tonight so I can meet up with Glyn, Jamie and Cath for a final pre-Christmas drinky tomorrow, it turns out that Ade, Anna and Miriam all have stomach bugs and had to cancel. (To be honest, the junk Ade and Anna feed that child, it's a wonder Miriam's not constantly ill. Maybe I'm just overly puritanical, but feeding a baby crisps, chocolate, pizza, curry, basically whatever they happen to be eating themselves, can't be a great idea. Especially the crisps and sweets - while a child is young enough not to want to stuff itself full of sugar and chemicals, wouldn't it be a good idea *not* to encourage it to do so? But I digress). So no gaming tonight, and for the first time in forever, time, energy and inclination have coincided. Hence, update.
I shall avoid doing the OhMyGoWhereTheHellDidTheYearGoLastTimeILookedItWasSpring thing, cos that's just depressing. So what have I been doing since Whitby then? It feels like I haven't stopped, so there must be something to report...
My last minute decision to make the trek to the Voices Of Masada/Elusive gig turned out to out to be a most excellent idea. It was my third time seeing Voices of Masada and, I think, the best. The home audience made all the difference, and it was good to see the amount of people who turned out at 8pm (a disgracefully early hour to be doing anything, especially if, like me, it takes you the better part of 3 hours to look even remotely presentable). Sinbad and co were fab as ever, and they did Shine, which is guaranteed to make me happy.
Elusive were entertaining and very personable, although it was very hard to tell if they were actually any good given the amount of booze the the singer managed to plough his way through. I'll admit, I tend to assume that that level of alcohol consumption must be masking other problems, if only a terror of performing (surely noone can actually enjoy drinking so much they pass out on stage?), but, then, my last alcohol induced hangover was at least a decade ago and I can't remember the last time I was more than just tipsy, so what do I know? Either way, he seemed to be enjoying himself but it didn't exactly help his performance.
The rest of the evening didn't disappoint. Slimelight was full of friendly people, and it was fab to see

sahrapatroness and

sinbadsilk again. And, as ever,

corone and

lareinemisere were excellent hosts, even though I'm sure I always turn their flat into a bomb-site for the weekend :).

I actually managed to get to the cinema 4 times in the last 6 weeks (although 2 of them were for the Golden Compass), so ...

The Dark is Rising - This is based on the second of a sequence of 5 children's books by Susan Cooper (Over Sea, Under Stone; The Dark is Rising; Green Witch; The Grey King; Silver on the Tree) which I first read when I was 8 years old (my battered and much loved boxed set is dated 1980, and they look rather older). The Dark is Rising was always my favourite and I have no idea how many times I've read it. Of course, this guaranteed two things: first, the moment I found out they'd made a film out of it I was bound to see it, and, second, that I'd hate it.
Stripped to the bone the plot is rather generic, and not that special: child discovers that he is the last of an order of supernaturally gifted immortals engaged in a battle of Light against Darkness, for which (as is always the way) he must engage in a quest to collect a number of objects without which said supernaturally gifted immortals will be defeated by the bad guys. Ignoring the fact that I was a little less critical at 8 than I am now, this rather trite plot was (and, for me, still is) saved by Cooper's fairly subtle use of British legend, particular Arthurian mythology; and a refreshing moral ambiguity (most children's books (at least the ones I've read) then, as now, being far more in the Tolkien/Lewis camp of clearly defined good versus evil than the moral complexities and shades of grey that we see in Philip Pullman, for example).
Of course - did I even need to doubt it - the film managed to strip every shred of complexity or interest from the story. They also made the central family American (although at least they resisted the temptation to move the whole thing to America) purely for the sake of dragging in a young American audience, and increased the age of the hero from 11 to 13 so they could add a little romantic interest without it being too icky (while, at the same time, making him a lot more immature and annoying - I'm sorry, but blowing things up just because he's annoyed, is there any point to that other than just to use up your special effects budget?).
It wasn't all bad: the cast did a fair job (Christopher Ecclestone nicely creepy as the main baddy, Ian McShane passable as the hero's mentor, and the younger unknowns were fine), it looked good and there was some pleasingly brooding and atmospheric camera-work. Over all, though, I'm afraid it was a good example of how not to adapt a book for film, as well as showing me - yet again - that it's a good idea to be wary about rushing out to watch some hack film-maker violate a major part of the imaginative landscape of my childhood.

I was on safer ground with Beowulf, given that I came to the story quite late (in my teens) through the rather unorthodox medium of Marillion's Eighteen And A Half Minute Progressive Rock Epic (TM) "Grendel", which was based on John Gardner's book of the same name and told the story from the point of view of the first of the three monsters whom Beowulf encounters. I read Grendel in my early 20s and only then did I psyche myself up to read the original (much like the Iliad and the Odyssey, fab story but rather boring poem). So anyway, I was already inclined to be sympathetic to Grendel, and I was pleasantly surprised that, as well as being genuinely horrifying (more so than I would have thought possible) Gaiman and Avery's Grendel is probably the film's most sypathetic character (it was also a nice touch that, although the rest of the dialogue is in modern English, Grendel's is Old English, the vocabulary having been specifically chosen to be understandable to a English speaking audience without subtitles).
The CGI is extraordinary, so realistic that when I saw the trailers I actually though that it was live action and Ray Winstone had just slimmed down and toned up A LOT, and there's some excellent acting: Anthony Hopkins disgusting and pathetic as Hrothgar, John Malkovich conniving, whining, brutal and hypocritical as Unferth, the film's only Christian character and its poorest excuse for a human being. My only real issue was with Winstone's Beowulf, who was a Cockney thug right out of 'Scum'. It wouldn't have been that surprising, after his 'I'll kill your monsta' to see him squaring up to Grendel with a 'Where's your tool?' 'What f*cking tool?' 'This f*cking tool'. I like Ray Winstone and he does a good job, especially later, as he is consumed by regret and self-disgust, but I'd have to say that the casting was a little ill-judged.
Minor niggles aside, I loved it. It was frightening, funny and very, very sad and I'll definitely be getting it on DVD.

And that only leaves 'The Golden Compass'. I resent the use of the American title rather less now that I've seen it, as this isn't Northern Lights. Any and all references to Lyra's obsession with the North and the Aurora Borealis have been removed from the script, which is fair enough; after all, some things have to go when you reduce 400 odd pages of book into less than 2 hours of celluloid. My main criticism, and worry, is that, in attempting to not offend the Christian Right in America they'll strip the story of its soul. And anyway, the Christian Right are going hate it regardless, so screw the lot of them and have the courage of your convictions will you? As I've said before, I can understand why they didn't want to end their big children's Christmas blockbuster with the sacrifice of a child, but if Roger doesn't die at the beginning of the next film I shall want to know why. But, of course, I'll know why - they don't want to make the hard decisions or engage with the central argument of the whole story, they just want to exploit a ready made fan base to put money in New Line's coffers.
I hope I'm wrong, and I especially hope that

corone is wrong in his suggestion that they might expunge Will entirely and replace his role with Roger. We'll see, but I can't begin to say how annoyed I'll be if I'm not.

Well, I'm sure there's been other stuff, but I've waffled for long enough. I'll be down South over Christmas so hopefully I'll catch up with some of you then.
Have fun :)