the knight is darkest before the dawn

So after months of excitement on my part, to the point of waiting for the crushing disappointment, I can hereby confirm that The Dark Knight pretty much took the bar, set it above arms reach and then blew the **** out of it, as far as any of the genres it touches are concerned.

Heath was good. Heath was very, very good. But Heath was only one of a large cast, all on equal footing. I'm not one for spoilers so I'll be careful, but Eckhart's character study finally banishes the demons of Joel Schumacher's version of Harvey Dent with an arch that, even if you know anything about Batman is still crushing; Gyllenhaal amends for Katie Holmes, the weakest part of Begins; Gary Oldman does good guy and pulls it off again; hell, I'll say it (little spoiler): even Cillian Murphy's back for a cameo to atone for the crap way he was dispatched previously.

Yeah, so Ledger will get nominated for an Actor Oscar. As a whole it's hard to know whether he actually merits it, but for his first 30 seconds of screen time alone you would give it to him. And he is creepy as hell.

But Bale is his match. For anyone who's ever been lucky enough to read Alan Moore's The Killing Joke will recognise some of the dynamic between the Bat and his greatest foe, though of course the narratives are poles apart. One of the great victories of this film is it succeeds where Iron Man, for instance, would have liked to: we get time among the violence and fast-paced narrative to actually get inside the psyche of just about every major player. This is about as close to a character study as a comic book movie is going to get; not in the sense of Peter Parker's torment, or Wolverine's haunted past; but seeing what really cracks them up without 45 minutes of opening exegesis required. Instead, in looks and reactions, Jonathan Nolan has managed to write and tie together believe strands in an unbelievable universe, and his brother has done a very tidy job of bringing them to life.

Of course, there's always a flaw... sonar? Really? I know he's a bat, but.... come on.

oh, cuil

Hip new search engine Cuil launched today, and I was intrigued. It looks nice, I thought. Kinda like the search engine version of Flock - personally, I'm not big on chunky and cute, but damn it if it isn't appealing all the same.

Pity, then, that it runs about as well as a recently blinded fish. How do I test this sort of thing? Search for information about myself, of course. Now, maybe I've got too used to the monstrous Google index, whereby you just whack in random words and out come the highest associations. My first experience of search engines, back in the pre-Google days, was with the now utterly hopeless AltaVista; but, in a shadowy form the service that made it obsolete, it was based on web directory and so the graduation to googling wasn't too much of a shock (unlike the horrors of Lycos and Ask - phrasing your search as question is a little annoying after a while when all you want to find is... well, what do men want (more than a visit from The Rock?) Come on, I was a teenager. (Obviously, as an incredibly employable NQT and media professional, those days are several partitioned hard drives behind me now.)

Cuil can find nothing. I can't work out what the system is it is working on. It looks nice, but nice won't get you anywhere. It's a lot like my MySkip experience. If you can't get your head around it in thirty seconds, the kids move on.

Thankfully, Rory Cellan-Jones has already torn it a new one on the dot.life blog. But still try it: and if you can, work out what it's smoking...

...maybe we can get it out on the streets in Belfast and use it to slow the spides down when they're legging it from the scene of an ASBO. "Wasn't me officer, it was the tosser in the baseball cap who looks like he's sprinting through tar..."

"Cheers, son. You know, that reminds me of a search engine I was using earlier..."

falling slowly (in bullet time)

Can't believe in hindsight that it's taken me a couple of years to finally go out and pick up the truly outstanding Max Payne 2: The Fall Of Max Payne". True, it's probably because, after spending several weeks tussling, puzzling, and mostly shooting my way through the awesome initial game, it froze on the penultimate level and became an object of great angst and pain. This should not reflect on the game as a whole, of course, because both are mind-blowingly good.

There are very few games that you will look at and be able to say, "This is why I want such-and-such a console." The few that spring to mind have been the Grand Theft Auto series for the PS2, Halo (if you like that sort of thing - not particularly fussed myself, too easy to survive when your life automatically regenerates, ya wusses... want you mummy to complete it for you, too?) , Super Monkey Ball for the GameCube (ok, joking a little there.) I honestly think the two Max Payne outings should be right up there at the front of Playstation's achievements. Why?

It's not the fluid gameplay. It's not the beauty of curving through the air, dodging bullets and returning in style. It's not the brilliant puzzles (which don't need to resort to extremes like Tomb Raider used to... how to kill a T-Rex with a shotgun, anyone?*). It's not even the sheer range of innovative structures brought to what should really be a straight-forward third person shooter.

It's the story. Currently being turned in a Mark Wahlberg vehicle (who to be fair, was probably the only option to play "tortured cop", after Thomas Jane stalled at The Punisher (I didn't hyperlink that one cause you don't want to know how bad it was). Borrowing from every film noir technique ever dreamt up from the 1930's forward, via David Lynch's back catalogue, this is storytelling at it's absolute best. Anyone who has ever sat through the marathon cut scenes in the PS2 Metal Gear Solid games can testify, even the best storyline can be killed if not told in the right way. Payne's saga is so gripping that even though most of the cut scenes are told in narrated graphic novels, you will hang on every single line. It would be criminal not to.

And the gameplay reflects it. The most striking thing about the first game was the nightmare sequences. For the uninitiated, the premise of the game is the murder by mobsters of Payne's family, and his subsequent quest to banish the memories. At least three or four times, the active gameplay returns to Payne's nightmarish memories, warped and haunted, of the scene, and you as the player actually play through his dreams...

The same happened to me today. Sixth chapter of the second game, you walk around an abandoned, warped but terrifying theme park fun house. This sequence does not contribute to moving the story in any way. There are no enemies, no gun battles, nothing necessary other than get to the other side to meet a contact. But the number of times I found myself whacking the bullet time button, diving out of the way, shooting at a cardboard cut-out that had just appeared, and most of all, jumped out of my skin... you become totally immersed in Payne's world, to the point of understanding how the character is haunted. It's an effect most modern filmmakers don't even bother trying any more.

Do yourself a favour. You can get both games preowned for a fiver. Do it now. NOW, dammit.


* In case you never worked it out, I tried sliding underneath him when he stood still and blasted him in the chest with the shotgun. But you got to have huge cajones to try it, amigo... cause everyone knows what happens if you get stuck at the mouth...

do as i do (but not as i say)

In reference to my previous post...
English teachers lead from the front, y'all!

living at home: one year on

I have to get out of here.

loyal orders

Particularly considering what the last post is about, some might be forgiven for thinking I've finally caved and picked a side of the great Northern Irish divide. You think wrongly - this is just to celebrate the prominence of one Sir Graeme Smyth, politico extraordinaire, one-time chief whip, now secretary of the Young Unionists (dirtbags), deputy whatever of Knockloughrim Sons of Sam (scumbags), and of course founder and lifetime chair of the Graeme Smyth Drinking Club...

Also dug up some 'dirt' on him from back in the day here. Graeme once tried to order at the KFC drive-in through a closed window. Wunderbar.

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On other notes, began recording a cold open for this year's Camp Radio podcasts, which will be all available online from the AYW website at the start of August. All of Camp Media is being broadcast daily online this year, which is exciting. However, what started as an idea for a 30 second sketch is turning into a full blown radio play, with El Bobbo (found his HFCP too!) providing most of the voice talent. I don't often publicly declare these things, but it will honestly be one of the funniest things you will hear this year, even if you know nothing or care nothing about Camp... and in four hours we only got the first six minutes recorded. It's gonna be epic...

which god? i'll tell you what...

As an English teacher, one of my preferred methods of torture (whenever you really don't like the little buggers in front of you - not my words, Ruth, but Sue Cowley's, and she's an expert!) is getting them to do the classic "write a letter to the editor of a local newspaper to comment on..." However, after hearing this story about comments made by our Deputy First Minister (and my MP) yesterday on the wireless, I somehow felt compelled to get out my electronic quill and fire one off to the Telegraph.

For more on the stats I refer to, check out the BBC's Mark Devenport's blog.

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Which God? It's Irrelevant, Martin

Whilst no fan of Iris Robinson (or her party), I am more than a little discouraged by the wave of negativity that has crashed down on her following her comments (July 17th) about "God's laws" being upheld by our governing factions. I don't wish to argue in favour of theocracy, nor do I disagree that "church and state" should remain separate entities - our country is among those that can prove that argument beyond a shadow of a doubt.

However, I was left a little bemused, in particular, by the Deputy First Minister's strong reaction, mostly because it appears to demonstrate either his ignorance or a case of a 'misspeak'. His repost was based on the question, "Which God" does Mrs Robinson refer to? Surely, in our well-rounded society, Mr McGuinness reckons, we should be considering the religious beliefs, not just of the Prebyter or Catholic, but of the minorities as well - which may consider their God different from that of the Strangford MP? He must have failed to check the context within which her remarks came out.

Martin, there might be a need for appreciating variations in belief, but you will go a very, very long way before you find any faith that supports abortion. And in a country where at the last census a little over 86% claim to be Christian, it is surely natural that a devolved government which wishes to function with the concerns of the people at heart should therefore concede that when it comes to big issues like abortion, their constituents' beliefs might play a part.

I also take issue with Eamonn McCann's retort, as noted by Victoria O'Hara in her article (July 18th). "...When somebody says they are guided in politics by God, they can't be a democrat..." As a fully-function God-botherer, and a complete centrist, I beg to differ. As apparently (though perhaps not in the same way!) do the people of Northern Ireland, who supported the moderator of a conservative church as their First Minister.

If Mr McCann wishes to express his opinions, that is up to him, but to so frequently enforce them by sniping at the codes of others is probably a key factor in why he is so entertaining, but so unelectable.

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I sound so conservative! The in-law's will be proud...

bouncing ahead

Obviously, all the people you went to school with will no doubt go on to do much better than you - it's a law of nature. Organised a praise band for an all-age service a couple of months back at the church where Gary works. (The original "Grand Poobah", and star/presenter of the quasi-legendary dumbass series, someday coming to a youtube channel near you once it gets digitised...)

It therefore put a great smile on a my face, when reading an article about the following month's service, to note:

The bouncy Jungle Slide took centre stage as the youth worker, Gary Brown, supervised both children and adults.

Mr Bigtime! Apologies, Gazza.

wind your windows up

This side story on the BBC News website highlights something we were very conscious of, but thankfully never encountered whilst in Sao Paulo. In the beginning, when the snibs snapped down automatically and everyone said, "keep your windows up at junctions" it kind of felt like being in Belfast about fifteen years ago! But, of course, it's a million times worse.

recorded at my expense

Just realised the irony of finally sitting down and watching Neil Jordan's Michael Collins on the eleventh night... once again, Alan Rickman is amazing in full-on bastard mode as Dev, and that justifies the whole endeavour (Irish bastard, German bastard, wizard bastard, outlaw-bashing bastard... is there no level of bastardy he can't achieve? Apart from Love, Actually obviously... and he still nearly managed it!)

Few (especially notable) ropey moments: Julia Roberts clearly speaking with an American accent; all the outdoor scenes being shot on the one street (bar GPO and Four Courts, obviously); them managing to shoehorn in just about every single (future, at the time!) Ballykissangel cast member, but inexplicably exclude the magnificent acting talents of Liam and Donal!; complete fiction for the last twenty minutes (other than, obviously, Collins was shot in Cork - the county is right!). All these things and more are enhanced when you watch it with your mother, and she happens to be an irish woman with a Masters in History from TCD who teaches this stuff at all three Key Stages... so you get an extra commentary track with all the sly comments and observations. Though as the second bottle of red was opened, this did make way to comments in tandem with my opening paragraph (but aimed at actual Dev more than Rickman-being-Dev...).

There was, however, also the relation of a pretty horrific anecdote I hadn't heard before, about one of the Catholic workers from her mother's homestead being taken out by the black-and-tans, stood against the wall outside the chapel, and shot as an example - his house was picked at random. Even Alan might have shirked at that.

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Should really be in bed by now, but after a very long day I had one of those cider-and-kitkat-induced moments of inspiration, and wrote the lyrics for a melody line that's been bugging me for the last week. It's not a bad song in itself, but it does have one frightening aspect - more folk/rocky music. Emo is becoming a distant shadow, perhaps... maybe not yet.

Trying to work out if it would be legal to hold a (small) gig in our hayshed. Hell, it's big enough and we've got enough power sources... you'd have to bring your own bottle, though. Watch this space.

name dropping

What the Helen of Troy is THAT... that boy Craig has gone done it again, using my good name without permission and soiling my reputation... only messing. He's done a very tidy (albeit Windows-based) job on the continually broadening new AYW site. Maybe this crazy Camp Media Idea might work after all...

...no, I still have typed up anything about Brasil. Sod off. I have to go to the dentist's today...

our (weekly) bread

Back from three mad weeks in Sao Paulo, Brasil last night. Will write about that at length in the future, but for now would like to direct your viewing towards an interesting article I just stumbled across on the BBC. How Sunday School shaped Britain is interesting reading; it's remarkably positive, and even I with my mixed Sunday School upbringing (very twee, little theological enlightenment, but lots of basic Bible knowledge) am slightly bemused. But it's good reading, all the same.

Still unemployed. Maybe more on that later too.