Episode 1236: A Hollywood Film Proclaiming The Evils Of Capitalism?

Went to see In Time at the WSC, and in keeping with yesterday's theme of potentially missing the whole point of a Hollywood product, I'm going to say it's rather obvious that this film is a damning critique of capitalism, no? The central science fiction conceit, in which time replaces money as currency, is brilliant, being in that tradition of science fiction that takes an element of contemporary society, magnifies or distorts it in some way, and then trains its eye on the ramifications of that. That said, the actual dialogue of the film is way too clunky, and seriously, Olivia Wilde, yet another fairly insignificant role in yet another film? For someone so attractive, you sure are having a hard time cementing your leap to leading lady status. I'd have liked more about the whole economic system operating in the film's world, and I did find it a bit hard to believe that we'd developed genetic engineering to make everyone stop ageing at 25, yet the rest of our technology seemed not much more advanced than it is now, which didn't make much sense since there were characters in the film that'd been alive for more than half a century. On a happier note, The Vampire Diaries! At the moment, I'm with those fans who think there should be an Originals spinoff. Surely between them, the Mikaelson family has enough angst and divergent perspectives to propel a show.

Episode 1235: Immortals Is A Profoundly Pessimistic Film

So I went to see Immortals at the WSC (it was beginning to snow when I came out), and isn't it such a profoundly pessimistic film, at least insofar as what it says about human nature? The film basically sets out to demonstrate Mao's point that power comes from the barrel of a gun, or in this case, from the tip of a sword. When Cassander insists on negotiating with Hyperion, he is rewarded instead with violence (and eventually, death), the very violence that he sought to avoid. Granted, Cassander clearly wasn't intended to be portrayed in a flattering light in the film, but the message underlying his failure and Theseus's subsequent triumph over Hyperion remains one concerning the logic of force-as-power. Also, let's not forget Zeus's final conversation with Acamas at the very end of the film, which blatantly shows how the logic of violence is perpetuated from one generation to the next. Don't worry though, I didn't completely miss what presumably was Hollywood's intention for the film. I appreciate the copious amounts of CGI and aestheticised violence, masking the utter paucity of the plot, which managed to make even less sense than that of Clash Of The Titans. I also found it very funny that Henry Cavill's teeth are quite crooked, especially for someone who's obviously being groomed to join the ranks of a new generation of Hollywood leading men.

Episode 1234: I'll Say It Now, The River Is Probably Going To Flop...

Didn't get around to writing more of the story today, but I think I should still be fine. The question now is, of course, do I go and see Immortals at the WSC for free tomorrow evening, and In Time the following? Currently watching the double-episode premiere of The River, which is turning out to be quite tiresome, and I'm only 10 minutes in. The problem is that it's filmed documentary-style, so think The Blair Witch Project and yes, weird stuff is supposed to start happening soon, or so the reviews tell me. It's only airing an eight-episode first season, so I guess I'll stick it out because I'm sure I'll end up liking the paranormal stuff just enough to look past the filming style. I'm also betting it'll be axed though, which is a shame because it means no more Paul Blackthorne on TV again, whom I really liked on The Dresden Files, and then again on The Gates. (Seriously, it's like that guy just can't catch a break because his shows keep getting cancelled after one season.) Actually, I can't understand why anyone at ABC thought this show would survive on network TV. It's the wrong kind of genre fare at the moment, at the very least. The River feels more like it belongs on FX, rubbing shoulders with American Horror Story.

Episode 1233: Surprisingly, Today Work Trumped Play

Today's been a surprisingly disappoint day in terms of TV. Alcatraz has fallen prey, for me anyway, to the Lost curse of promising a compelling mystery that it can't ultimately deliver on. It's not good that I'm making that pronouncement after just five episodes. How I Met Your Mother aired an episode that was conceptually clever, but that also seemed to lack real heart in terms of the storytelling. 2 Broke Girls continued to trade in easy punchlines, even as the overall plot of the season seems to be quickly going nowhere. The Lying Game just needs to put me out of my misery by connecting all the dots of its mysteries before I lose interest entirely, although I'm very appreciate of Allie Gonino's singing on the show. (She's in a band called The Good Mad, which is a brilliant name.) Gossip Girl lamely revealed that Georgina was not in fact the real Gossip Girl, said reveal being so lame that I don't even care if it might be a huge spoiler to people because technically, it's no longer the case now, is it? The quarrel between Dan and Blair in this episode has been a long time coming, but it seems to have had no lasting consequences, so boo to lazy writing. Wasn't bowled over by this week's Pretty Little Liars either, oddly enough, not even with the game-changing reveal for Spencer.

So weirdly enough, the highlight of today's shows was actually the latest episode of House, a show that I am happy to concede is past its prime, but which I selfishly want more of because it could basically be retitled The Hugh Laurie Show. (It would've been the pilot of Smash, which officially premiered on TV yesterday, but which I'd already seen a few weeks ago because it aired online in advance of the TV premiere.) Nice to see Chase being given an interesting story arc, as lately it feels like he's just there to provide continuity with the show's early days and to call House out on his bullshit because the other team members are still too green to have worked out what makes House tick. Work-wise, I'm more than 50% done for the story, but now the real challenge begins, since previously, a lot of what I've done has been to write short snippets to sew together the bits of the story I workshopped last term. I reckon I'll be fine though, since what I've now got to write is the first encounter between Pandora and Adam, which Leila Rasheed specifically pointed out at the end of last term as something that really needed to be written out if I were to go any further with the stuff I'd workshopped.

Episode 1232: Steady On...

Have managed to incorporate half of the material left out of the revised version of the Prologue into Chapter 1, which brings my word count past 2500, i.e. I'm 25% done. The remainder is going into Chapter 2, which will require more substantial rewriting than Chapter 1 did, largely because there's just more story logic in it that needs fixing, which in turn looks like it's going to necessitate altering the focus of the chapter. In a nutshell, less conspiracy theory and more teenage angst. The conspiracy angle probably still has to be kept in order to fill my targeted chapter word count (approximately 1500), as well as advance the plot further in preparation for when the two main characters meet in the next two chapters. (Yeah, narrating in the first person means I can get double mileage out of a plot point like that.) With any luck, that will bring me all the way up to my required word count of 8000 for the story proper, and then I can start on my commentary, which should be a breeze because this time, I'm not really going to pretend there was any sort of serious academic reason behind the writing. Usually, I do have specific ideas I'm trying to work out in my portfolios, and if there aren't, I try to retroactively come up with something, but this time, I'm just going to go with something more relaxed and literally dwell on all the difficulties I encountered in actually writing the story and how I had to painstakingly revise it to work through these problems. Plus it's just cool to write a science fiction story, even if it's not very rigorous science fiction.

Episode 1231: Writing Breakthrough!

Currently wondering if I can get away with writing a prologue to my story that's worded in the language of the 'adult reader', although the story as a whole is ostensibly for ages 15/16. It's there to sketch in enough background that the teenaged characters don't have to spout clunky exposition in the first person later, and it's also framed as being 'found' material from a digital archive. I'm fairly positive it should be okay, and for what it's worth, Microsoft Word indicates the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of the prologue is 9.6, which converts to about the right age. In any case, it seems that I've finally made a breakthrough in getting a move on with the story. Have just over 1000 words, and if I keep up the pace for the rest of the week, which isn't impossible since churning out 1000+ words of fiction isn't the same thing as scrounging for 1000+ words of an academic essay, I should have no problem meeting the deadline without incurring undue stress. The next 1000 words or so is already written anyway, so it's just a matter of revising it to incorporate some of the material that was in the original version of the prologue that I workshopped.

Episode 1230: Cheek By Jowl's 'Tis Pity She's A Whore

Was going to go to Kat's birthday party in spite of the increasingly heavy snow, but after waiting at the bus stop nearest to Heronbank for over half an hour, having narrowly missed the U2 and with not a single 12 travelling in the direction of Leamington all the time that I was waiting, I gave up and trudged back to my room to not write my children's story. Earlier in the afternoon, I caught Cheek by Jowl's production of John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, which confirmed them in my mind as one of the most exciting theatre companies I've encountered. I did find the dialogue difficult to follow initially, which I think was partly due to my unfamiliarity with Ford's play (hence not being able to anticipate and fill in the blanks myself) and partly due to rushed line delivery from some of the actors. I also initially had reservations about the girlishness of Lydia Wilson's Annabella, especially because Suzanne Burden's Hippolita was such a strong (and hilarious) presence on the stage, but by the end, I was won over because I thought it helped make sense of why she would repent of her incestuous behaviour. I like the fact that the props were all really contemporary, including the wall being plastered with The Vampire Diaries and True Blood posters (although I spotted Breakfast At Tiffany's too). Some people might find it weird that the language of the dialogue wasn't modernised, but the juxtaposition kind of worked for me. Thought it was interesting they took out the character of Richardetto, Hippolita's husband, and changed the ending of the play slightly, so that Jack Gordon's Giovanni isn't shown to die. Instead, there's this spooky moment where Annabella steps forth from the wings, clambers over the dead body of her father, and reaches a hand towards her heart that Giovanni has been holding, the lights fading off just as she's about to make contact. There was also a lot of nudity, which seems to be a Cheek by Jowl thing, if this and last year's Russian production of The Tempest are anything to go by.

Episode 1229: Contagion

I swear the advertisements and trailers before the actual film screening for the WSC never used to be this long. Anyway, after seeing an advertisement for Lana Del Rey's album that used 'Born To Die' as the backing track, I've decided that if someone stripped out her singing and replaced it with some synth-type instrumentation, I'd actually quite like the song. I'm not terribly bothered anymore by the whole question of whether or not she's 'authentic' because I realise that's sort of moot in the music industry today. The way she sings really annoys me though. Also discovered that next week, when I really need to be writing my children's story, the WSC also happens to be screening a film I want to see almost every other night! So I finally saw Contagion and I loved it. It's like an updated Outbreak with more realistic science and less overblown military theatrics. What's not to love? I have to say that for about five minutes after the film ended, I was slightly paranoid about all the door handles I had to touch just to get out of the building, and after Kate Winslet's character mentioned that the average person touches their face a few thousand times each day, I've been extremely self-conscious every time I do it. Currently trying to write at least a sentence to kickstart my children's story again. Might just give up and go read a book, to be honest...

Episode 1228: Merlion Cento

Just composed a cento using the anthology I'm writing my dissertation on. You have to admit that's a pretty unusual form of procrastination. I've formatted it as a prose poem to send around the EN911 seminar group, since I think the procedural logic behind it and that final step of taking out the line breaks are what turn it into a hybrid form of writing. Even if no one else ends up agreeing, I still think the end result's pretty cool. It's interesting how going forwards and backwards through the anthology produces different effects, although coincidentally, applying my own rule of first line from first poem, second from second, and so forth, I occasionally wound up having to incorporate the line in both the 'forward' and 'backward' stanzas. It would be hilarious if I could stick this cento somewhere into my dissertation. Maybe if I make some point about how the Merlion as a subject is approaching exhaustion? Not sure that it necessarily is, although my argument that as a liminal figure it must ultimately work its way into a kind of obsolescence as the Singaporean identity continues to develop and mature, would seem to suggest otherwise. Eventually anyway.

Episode 1227: Stupid Room Light...

Met Nick for coffee after doing Kidz Klub stuff. Was meant to do another DR@W experiment at 2.30 pm, but the previous session before mine was already running late, and to bring the schedule back on track, I was paid just for showing up. Who says there's no such thing as free money? So I caught up with Nick again, but we still couldn't have drinks at The Terrace Bar because it didn't open until around 4 pm. Got baguettes from the Bread Oven and just chatted instead. I was going to aim to get a lot of work done today, but the light in the doorway of my room is on the fritz, so it's driving me crazy. I wonder why the two lights in the room can't be turned on and off independently. I suppose it saves a bit on the wiring? I've reported the fault, so hopefully it gets repaired by tomorrow, although I hope the porter doesn't come by really early in the morning. Haven't been able to have a lie-in since my one-off bout of insomnia on Sunday night, so although I've been getting more or less my usual amount of sleep since then, I'd really like one day to just sleep till noon, and Thursday's my best bet before the weekend. So I think instead of doing some reading and writing, I'm just going to do the first half and call it a night.