Iron Man, more like 'lets whine about shit man'

Ok, so the title of this post is a little harsh but It's exactly what I thought when I made my way out of the cinema. Don't get me wrong it is still a wicked cool film but there was just a little bit too much talking for my liking and not enough fighting and lasers and fighting.

Anyone who knows me will know that I am basically a child when it comes to action/adventure/sci-fi/horror movies. Anything with aliens, monsters, lazers, explosions, fighting etc and I'm pretty much sold. Take a look at my post about Clash of the Titans, awful acting but it has Medusa, the kraken, giant scorpions and sorcerers made of fucking wood in it, what is there not to like?

Without ruining the storyline for you it basically follows on from Stark's shock announcement at the press conference in the last film, then progresses to an angry Russian dude and an absolute twat of billionaire trying to do away with Iron Man, standard superhero storyline.

But what's this? Stark has only gone and sold out and started nailing his secretary which leads to him actually falling in love with her. Now this I wouldn't usually have a problem with, but a disturbing proportion of the film is dedicated to Stark blundering his way through apologies about 'how he's feeling' about as coherently as a ketamine addicted mime which quite frankly annoyed me.

Iron Man should be about rocket propelled uppercuts and busting peoples chops with his palm laser not how to sort your girlfriend out if you're disgustingly rich with no people skills. When the fight scenes did come however they were pretty cool especially when War Machine started throwing down but I felt there was too much time spent flying around evading rockets rather than actually fighting which looked good, but left me wanting more.

Uber geeks will probably be nursing a semi during the talks between Nick Fury from SHIELD and Stark, because of the rumored Avengers film being released. I just hope the Avengers isn't everyone sat round talking about feelings and having big group crying sessions with each other when it could be the brawlfest of the century if done properly.

Stark should probably take some pointers from Stallone and the rest of the Expendables, I'll be the only one crying in that film because it will be so gloriously masculine I literally wont be able to handle it.

Louis Leterrier is in my brain.

So yesterday I saw Clash of the Titans which is without a doubt, my personal film event of the year.

I adore the original 1981 version and watched it religiously as a child with my Dad. Ray Harryhausens creations blew my mind and although it may look laughable compared to todays Avataresque standards I feel his monsters have a timeless look about them.

So when I discovered it was under going a remake I pretty much lost my mind with excitement. I've watched every trailer available in the run up to the films release date and I even purchased Jason and the Argonauts - the original 1963 version - to satisfy my unquenchable lust for colossal monsters generally being a nuisance in ancient Greece.

Now the reason I think Mr Leterrier is in my brain is because for me, he did everything I would have done in his position. During the conversational scenes I found myself thinking, 'that was a very short conversation, have I missed something'. For exmple I'm pretty sure there's one scene where Perseus is arguing that he is not a Demi-god capable of smashing the Krakens grill, he is in fact, just a lowly fisherman. This is usually where there is a ridiculous 'finding your inner hero' montage that annoys me to monsterless tears. However I was pleasently surprised to see that all it takes is for one person to say to Perseus; 'No, your are not just a man', and off he goes, to get involved.

I actually complained as I walked out then I thought, 'wait, he has done exactly what I would have done given the chance to make a decent monster film'. He cut the bullshit dialogue to just what you needed to know allowing the monster scenes to come around quicker which to be honest is what these films are about.

The best stories in Greek mythology aren't called 'Perseus talks about maybe slaying the Kraken because he is riddled with self doubt'. They are about men slaying monsters, adventuring, and annoying the gods.

If there are any girls reading this don't worry, like all good Greek tales there is a love interest thrown in and I've heard Perseus looks pretty good too. So it's not all combat and shouting.

I was genuinely impressed with the film but I wont tell you my favourite bits because I will end up spoiling all of the monster and battle scenes for you, but I will say the Kraken is particularly impressive and is a far cry from Harryhausens 1981 interpretation.

So yea, If you like monsters, Gods, beautiful women, fighting and watching two people fall in love, go and see it. If you don't, you probably need to get better taste.

Oh and one more thing, Liam Neeson is Zeus! ZEUS!! What more do you want?

Insomnia, It's the televisions fault

Ok, so this isn't really journalism related but it is something that has been bothering me for a while.

Lately I've been finding it incredibly difficult to just fall asleep at a reasonable time, however I have no trouble in the mornings or afternoons. I thought it may just be a student thing like becoming a borderline alcoholic or forming an iron stomach from eating too much undercooked food. However I do have my own theory.

Television. Daytime TV is beyond bad, programs such as Come Dine with Me and Jeremy Kyle makes me want to cry. Don't even get me started on soaps such as Neighbors, Hollyoaks and Home and Away, I would do terrible things to the people responsible for such piss soaked atrocities.

Due to this reason (and having very little deadlines) I've found myself sleeping through most of the day and finally feeling awake at about 4pm, disgusting I know. This has lead to me not feeling tired until about 3 and i don't know how many of you stay up that late but there is some seriously good television on if you are prepared to commit.

Occasionally if you wait long enough you can catch obscure foreign horror films, beautiful Japanese animation and some really pointless TV shows. BBC 3 is particularly good for the latter with shows featuring middle-aged mums dressing like Thai prostitutes just to embarrass their daughters or shows about teenage girls wearing so much make-up and revealing clothes it makes you question your faith in humanity. Don't get me wrong I'm a pretty liberal guy but some of these girls are really pushing it.

Trouble is all of this TV is so easy to watch and you find yourself getting too engrossed in the seedy underworld of late night television. I just want a total overhaul where the skull-numbingly boring day time TV is shown late at night and the strange slightly scary programs are shown at a normal time.

This is a ridiculous thing to propose and to be honest I am the perfect target market for these types of shows; a student who stays up way too late. Until I graduate and join the real world I may as well enjoy it and make the most of it until tragic afternoon and evening television becomes my life when I'm old and rubbish.

Maybe I could pass this off as an opinion piece, probably not.

I HATE MISSING GIGS!!!!

I know now, more than ever, that I want to be a music journalist. Why? Because I'm meant to be going to see one of my favorite bands tonight, Architects. Give them a listen; http://www.myspace.com/architectsuk

It's no-ones fault I'm not going, sadly just lack of money all round. Unfortunately I hastily bought a ticket before anyone else, and the gig sold out. This meant that even if I wanted people to come with me, they couldn't.

So now I've spent the day sulking and being miserable, because I haven't been to a good gig in ages and I've been excited about this for weeks. What's making it even worse is that every time I sign in to facebook or twitter, Architects are ranting about how "awesome" the tour has been so far and how 'syked' they are for tonight.

I hate missing out on things in general, but this is particularly annoying me because it's been so long. I remember in my gap year when I had total disposable income, and going to gigs was a twice-monthly event sometimes. It was at a gig that I decided to study music journalism, because I was stood there thinking "wouldn't it be rad if I got paid for this, wait, I can!".

But, for tonight, I'm just going to have to man up, forget about how furiously amazing the gig would have been, and look forward to the festival season in the Summer.

I'm also missing out on buying some sweet merch, particularly the 'combat whale' t-shirt - probably the best concept for a t-shirt I've ever seen.
http://architects.bigcartel.com/product/combat-whale-shirt-new
Check that out, that's what I'm missing, bollocks.

So why am I doing Journalism?

This morning my class and I were invited to a screening of the film Starsuckers. The film is mainly trying to highlight the vice-like grip the media has over us all and how they maintain it. I really enjoyed it and I thoroughly recommend it to everyone taking a media course, although don't be prepared to feel excellent about yourself when the credits roll up.

As I've mentioned the film itself is very good, however it did solidify a long standing opinion I have, tabloids suck.

Sometimes I am even embarrassed to mention to people that I study journalism because everyone has this view of the tabloid journalist as a bit of a filth monger. Im not going to lie, this is true. One part of the film consisted of calls being made to the Bizarre desk at the sun, its celebrity obsessed section. They were calling in answer to the 'have you got stories?' adverts. they basically told the sun that Sarah Harding from Girls Aloud was moving house (which was true) they then went on to say they knew one of the removal men (not true). They then told the reporter that Sarah had many books on Astrology and Quantum Physics.

They totally bought it, splashed it all over the celebrity section in the next edition, and then it was free to roam around the media sphere for all to see. What a disgrace, not even checking the simplest of stories or even trying to get a small quote to validate the story.

The filmmakers duped the papers twice more and got paid for each story, so to all my uni friends, if your skint fabricate a slightly believable story and you could get your hands on £600!

This isn't even the worst aspect about tabloid papers. It is against the law to buy or use private medical documents in stories, even I know this. The filmmakers rang around all the major papers claiming to have medical documents concerning celebrities and what plastic surgery they have received. Most papers turned the offer down sticking to PCC (Press Complaints Comission) rules. However some tabloids took the bait and said they would be interested in using them.

As if Journalism doesn't have a bad enough reputation these fucking jokers are making it worse. This is the reason I'm sometimes ashamed to admit I am a trainee Journalist. Don't get me wrong they aren't all bad but when they do fuck up, they do it in style.

This is precisely why I want to be a magazine journalist, preferably music. I literally don't know anyone who wants to work for a tabloid on my course and with good reason!

I do apologise for the rant just a bit of an eye opener thats all. I suppose its people like me studying Journalism at University to try and erase the bad image of the press and clean up all the shit they've left for us.

Looks like we have a lot of work to do.

First taste of freelancing

So the other day my brother who works in the games industry informed me of a truly excellent freelancing opportunity. To rewrite and produce copy for Eurogamer, a well established computer games magazine. Score! I thought and quickly contacted who I needed to.

Unofortunately when I recieved my instructions a wave of panic swept over me. The instructions in the email were long and riddled with mistakes, I read the email a good 5 times and I still didn't really understand what i was meant to be doing. I felt truly stupid, horribly under prepared and overwhelmed.

I finally mustered enough courage to email my potential employer back pleading for clearer instructions. All I could see in my head was this image of her reading the email, laughing and never contacting me again. Fortunately to my surprise she was very understanding and gave me the instructions I needed.

However my problems did not end there. when you write for any sort of established publication, be it a glossy magazine or constructing copy for a leaflet, the same questions and doubt enter my mind, Is my writing good enough?

I found myself writing sentences 3 to 4 times until I was satisfied with them and what made the situation worse is that my target audience is 8 to 12 year olds. Kids have incredibly low attetnion spans and pretty much everything in the world seems more intersting to them than sitting down and reading. This only made things worse, after a year and a half of writing academic writing and learning to make sentences 3 times longer than they should be I had to strip away everything I have learned.

It's taken me 2 weeks to finish it but I will not send it away before its been under the professional scrutiny of my lecturers. It was this event that spurred me on to take this whole blogging business a bit more seriously, hopefully the more I write the better I will get.

So yeah freelancing, testing times.