Binnsy's Hovel

Star Trek was… an interesting experience.

As many of you will be aware, I am, very much, whole-heartedly, a card-carrying Star Wars fan. For me to go and see a Star Trek film, in an actual cinema, is somewhat tantamount to blasphemy.

However, as this film, a reboot of the entire Trek franchise, was directed by one of my favourite all-time directors/creators/creativegodgenii, J.J. Abrams, I couldn’t really pass up the chance.

And I have to say that I really enjoyed it. There were moments that were beyond, in the words of my good friend Shwa, cheeserific, and self-indulgent, and in-jokey, but as a sci-fi nut, I enjoyed it.

The plot was fairly straightforward, but it propelled the agenda of the reboot forward in a very innovative and exciting way. A whole pseudo-Back-to-the-Future subplot helped this a little, but for the most part it was the interesting backstories that writers Orci and Kurtzman came up for each of the characters, and the dynamics that set up their relationships as Enterprise crew members, that really drove the story, and, most importantly, kept us all interested.

Notable cast include Chris Pine as the impulsive, rough-and-tumble, never-tell-me-the-odds Jim Kirk, Zach Quinto as the meant-to-be-emotionless Vulcan Spock, and the inimitable Simon Pegg as tech officer Scotty. I’m of the opinion that Pegg could star in anything, no matter how crap or flimsy, and make it awesome. Star Trek was already cool. And he made it just that little bit cooler.

And, of course, Leonard Nimoy was outstanding as ‘Spock Prime’, as the role is called on IMDb. I won’t say anything else here, to avoid spoilers, but Nimoy was great. Live long and prosper, indeed.

I will, though, admit to a lapse in my Star Wars devotion. A chink in my stormtrooper armour, as it were. I have watched almost the entire series of Enterprise, that attempted jumpstart of the Trek franchise that aired between 2001 and 2005, starring Scott Bakula, Jolene Blalock and Connor Trinnear. I found the dynamic of that particular Enterprise crew – the first, or among the first, in the canon, if I’m not mistaken – to be engaging, funny and somewhat informational as a writer.

But, Mr. Abrams, you’ve done well, sir. 3 and a half out of 5 for me.

Until next time…

Well, this week I’ve managed – somehow – to find time to attend various events at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, around work and some personal stuff that cropped up at the last minute. The events I went to were diverse, and I gleaned many fascinating insights into the craft and some of its practitioners.

What I found perhaps most interesting, though, was the writing festival ‘aura’. I guess this can best be described as a combination of the general atmosphere, the people and the intellectual air of the place. You have many of your standard holier-than-thou artiste types – those who think that the best way to reach your inner writing soul is to be an aloof prick to all but yourself. You’ve got your 55-and-overs who come along because they love reading and want to see their favourite authors speak – mostly they’re fine but occasionally you’ll get a pair of 45-60-year-olds who insist on conspicuously nodding or ‘mmm’-ing their approval or assent to every seemingly valid point the speaker makes. What fun.

The writer’s gait is an interesting aspect of the festival too. The odd writer, usually middle-aged, perhaps into early old age, will have developed a kind of lumbering almost-waddle, carefully nurtured by years of sitting at desks or tables surrounded by notes or feverishly, desperately glaring at a blinking cursor or empty page sitting ready in a typewriter, sipping whatever is close at hand and more alcoholic than water, eating microwave meals straight from the microwave. And in contrast you have the young, fit, cool writer type fresh from uni or SoHo – you can usually never tell which.

Overall, though, at writers’ festivals there’s a creative energy that permeates the atmosphere and the spirit, punctuated by an air of superiority that at times can be bitter, at other times selfishly satisfying to be a part of. I felt like I fit in there, and that’s a nice feeling.

I went to a few talks, and heard from David Dale, Hugh Mackay (completely by accident; I went to the wrong talk!), Catherine Therese, Jennifer Mills, Gary Bryson, Alex Ross and Graeme Blundell. I ended up buying books by Bryson and Blundell – Turtle and A Life In Parts, respectively – both signed by the authors, with each of whom I was able to have a lovely, albeit brief chat, after their talks.

I guess there’s something about hearing an author speak about their work, or read some of their own work, that inspires you to investigate further, to make a purchase. And I think that goes beyond hearing them discuss story or method, inspirations and the like. I guess it’s that when you read their work, you can almost hear their actual voice in your head, and that can convey so much gravitas and meaning that would otherwise be lost on you, or at least remain undiscovered. This is particularly true of Gary Bryson for me, who I’d never heard of before. Turtle is his debut novel, and it is a very dark, grim story that I would probably never have picked up had I not heard him read some of it in his slightly Australianised Scottish brogue. Hearing it in that accent made it darkly funny, ironic and witty, but also deeply melancholy. So it was that I was compelled to purchase. Odd indeed.

The Writers’ Festival in Sydney is usually great, but it was most grand this year. Bring on 2010!

Until next time…

So that last post was a bit pointless. For some reason I just got hooked on the super-incestuous notion that I could ‘blog’ my ‘tweets’. And it’s something that I’ll probably never do again. I just feel dirty in a kind of hyper-new-media-geek-overload kind of way.

Many things happening, some grand, some not-so-grand. Writers’ Festival this week, which I’m super-excited about, some travelling to do, some writing to do, much uni work to do. Hopefully next week I’ll find a new place to live, as uni accom’s driving me batty, and I’ll never get my thesis written if I stay there.

Anyway, that’s it for now, more later mayhap.

Until next time…

Angels & Demons. The book was better than The Da Vinci Code in so many ways. Secret societies and a riotous romp across Rome and the Vatican. The female lead was sexier in literary form, and Robert Langdon was younger, more naive, and more active than the later book.

I never really understood what any of the fuss was about with the religious response to Angels & Demons. If either book can be taken as somewhat true – which is a ludicrous notion that I’ll indulge only to make a point – The Da Vinci Code has the greater ramifications for the Church, in that it posits that Jesus was married and had children, spawning a line that survives to this day. This is a hideously radical notion that undermines Catholic teaching throughout the millennia.

The premise of Angels & Demons, however, is that of a Church trying to find its place in the modern world, and one man’s quest to revolutionise the world’s perception of the greatest institution in human history. Enter symbologist Robert Langdon, and the mysterious – and later to become love of his life – Vittoria Vetra, some shifty Swiss Guards and a dead Pope, and you’re set for a grand and rollicking adventure.

The book was better-written than The Da Vinci Code, for starters. And The Da Vinci Code necessitated a lot of explanation, so its translation to the screen, therefore, also got bogged down with trying to explain, via long expository scenes, the hidden meaning of The Last Supper, for example. Angels & Demons, though, is just one huge chase sequence, with a short stop here and there in each of the churches to explain another piece of the Illuminati’s history. This translates a lot better to celluloid.

Ron Howard is a wonderful director, and he’s proved this in films like Apollo 13, A Beatiful Mind, and his latest stellar offering, Frost/Nixon. But I think with The Da Vinci Code he failed to reproduce the book’s energy, instead trying too hard to explain every last detail. With Angels & Demons, screenwriter David Koepp was brought on board, no doubt to accelerate the pace of the action, and truly adapt the book to the book’s benefit, rather than work against Dan Brown’s original intentions, as The Da Vinci Code adaptation unfortunately did. Koepp has a killer writing portfolio, including all the first two Jurassic Park films, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Panic Room, among many others. And his influence can clearly be seen in Angels & Demons, with the plot dipping and weaving deftly and smartly through thousands of years of history and the alleyways and boulevardes of Rome and the Vatican.

Performance-wise, Hanks pooped all over his own performance in the last film. His offsider this time was the gorgeous Ayelet Zurer, of Munich fame, who actually proved a foil for Langdon (as it was in the book) instead of a hindrance to plot and protagonist, as Audrey Tautou’s Sophie Neveu proved to be in The Da Vinci Code. Ewan McGregor was inspired casting as young camerlengo Patrick McKenna. I won’t spoil anything here but McGregor’s performance was outstanding. Equally as good as the foil for McGregor’s character, was the sinister Stellan Skarsgård as Commander Richter of the Swiss Guard.

The other point of interest was the suave time warp Goldsman and Koepp pulled off by setting Angels & Demons after The Da Vinci Code. The implications for the film continuum are good, in that Vittoria Vetra will possibly return, depending on where the third book goes.

Overall, Angels & Demons is highly enjoyable popcorn fare. This time I will definitely be buying the DVD.

Brown fans have to wait till September for the next book, though, unfortunately. Not to worry, plenty of good flicks coming out between now and then!

Until next time…

If there’s one valuable lesson to be learnt from this wretched epidemic of swine influenza, it is that you should avoid exchanging bodily fluids with pigs, at all costs, especially if you are in Mexico, where you don’t know with whom and where they have been.

So begins this brilliant article by Charles Waterstreet. And the man has authored a book with a title straight from Dr Strangelove. Legend.

Until next time…

I just checked this thing for the first time in ages, and it occurs to me I have a stack of one-time-only visitors. So here’s a shout out to my solitary peeps in Netherlands Antilles, Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Tanzania, Bermuda, Mauritius, Moldova, Nepal, Montenegro, Bahrain, Saint Lucia, Aruba, Senegal, Liechtenstein (woo – no tax for you!), Myanmar, Ghana and the Cayman Islands.

Keep it real, my multi-national visitor friends.

Until next time…

Picture the scene. You’re on Wikipedia, it’s early afternoon. You’re sipping coffee, doing research for a uni assessment. Despite your best efforts, you’re conscious of your attention being sapped by one thing or another on the net. Before you know it, and with no enthusiasm having been lost, you’re reading a wiki page that is wildly removed from what you were originally researching, and you try to backtrack how you got there.

I’m going to do my best here to chart one such wiki odyssey, from latest page to the original idea:

Neil Cicierega, creator of Potter Puppet Pals

Severus Snape, Dark Arts teacher, later principal of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Nigel Hawthorne, actor who played Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Minister

Alan Rickman, actor who played Severus Snape in the film adaptations of the Harry Potter novels (and former dresser to Sir Nigel Hawthorne)

Montessori method, a unique method of teaching that is removed from the standard Western schooling system

Megan Dodds, actor in British TV series Spooks and once photographed with Alan Rickman

Keeley Hawes, actor in British TV series Spooks, once involved in a candid black and white photoshoot reminiscent of vintage pinups

Ava Gardner, actress of the golden age of cinema, and supposed one true love of Frank Sinatra, portrayed by Kate Beckinsale in the Martin Scorsese film The Aviator

Pikmin, Nintendo Gamecube game, recently re-mastered for the Nintendo Wii console

Some of the links are a little tenuous, but you get the idea. The click-wheel on a mouse is a dangerous thing, for it opens new tabs of opportunity.

Until next time…