Sunday 14 June 2015

Holy Crap, I'm a Writer with April o'Neil

I've been writing for as long as I can remember; my first "book" entitled "The Boy Who Wanted to be an Under the Sea Animal" was a crayon-written tale illustrated with photographs I had taken with my Fisher Price camera when I was about five years old, and earned me five stars on the classroom star-chart. Indeed, one might say it's my only award-winning piece to date.

Since then, prior to actually studying the art of storytelling at university, my tweenage self dabbled in crafting crudely-told Goosebumps rip-offs on my mum's old typewriter, and doodling an anthology comic book called "Monsters and Mysteries", which is probably yellowing somewhere in my mother's lift.

After leaving uni, I had my hopes of becoming a television writer somewhat dashed by the BBC when my supernatural comedy drama "Hole", about a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf living in a flat in South Wales, was rejected by the Writers' Room, only for a hauntingly similar series by the name of "Being Human" coming to our screens approximately a year later. Coincidence? Plagiarism more like dear Beeb!

Over the last few years, I've spent much of my time juggling various different blogs; Silver Screen Lining was essentially my online journal of my time in Japan, littered with the occasional review, whilst The Forest of Nostalgia was a brief foray into childhood memories.

And then came this tirade.

The Inner Monoblog began as something of a Facebook joke. I went through a stage of randomly quoting different characters or actors in my statuses, and then continuing to use their voice as that day's inner monologue. After a while, the statuses became longer, maintaining by the topic of the particular voice, and eventually I decided to launch the blog. Three years on, and although I don't get round to a daily blog anymore, it's still going strong. So thanks for continual readership and whatnot!

About a week ago, however, something amazing finally happened in my perpetual pursuit of becoming a professional writer - I got a professional writing gig!

Years of mindless waffling have finally paid off, and now I am officially on the writing team for Vulture Hound Magazine (www.vulturehound.co.uk)! Sure, the pay is... Well... Let's say "minimal" for sake of argument, but it's a much-welcomed step in the right direction.

So, to let you know, dear reader, The Inner Monoblog will, of course, be continuing, but don't expect quite so many updates from this end, as my evenings are now spent watching a plethora of both wonderful and terrible films (rarely any in between!) and then scribbling my thoughts down for my editor Mr Dickinson.

Wish me luck, and go check out Vulture Hound!!


Sunday 7 June 2015

A Load of Poop with Bree Olson

Cinema is a strange and wonderful thing. An artistic medium allowing directors from all walks of life to share their stories with the world, to induce feelings of love, of happiness, or to provoke outrage or even disgust.

Unfortunately this is an outrage and disgust post.

Though, not necessarily on my behalf. 

Now, I don't know quite what it says about me, and I'm sure there will be many out there judging me for this, but i have something of a warped interest in the rather cult genre of horror films known as "gorno". This usually surprises people (indeed, when I think about it,  it rather surprises me actually...), especially considering my much more open adoration for the works of a Mr Walt Disney, along with pretty much anything Nickleodeon has to offer, but I think somehow it roots back to my childhood obsession with cheesy horror flicks. This in turn, being a Noughties teen, turned into meta-slasher, before finally evolving into a morbid interest in just how far the boundaries of shock can be pushed.

This has led me to watch a plethora of delights over the last few years, from Asian extreme flicks such as the censors' favourites Grotesque and the Guinea Pig series (not as cute as it sounds) to the oh so very happy-go-lucky A Serbian Film.

As such, I had been rather curiously looking forward to Tom Six's third and final instalment in his Human Centipede trilogy, which has crawled sneakily onto the Internet at some point in the last week or so. Having sat through and, shall we say "appreciated" the first two films, I was intrigued to see how Mr Six could possibly trump the schlock and shock of the genuinely unsettling second film.

Turns out, he simply couldn't. 

There's some genuinely smart stuff on display here, most notably the film-within-a-film-within-a-film concept, which is sadly undermined by having characters from the "within" films playing completely different characters in the film itself (that said, if you were going for a meta mind-f*ck Mr Six, that's possibly the most confusing sentence I've ever tried writing). Indeed, as Dieter Laser, who so wonderfully played the doctor in the first film, prances around in his role as the prison warden, screaming every line in his over-annunciated German accent, you have to wonder if Six recast him simply for the meta value. In fact, his performance is so utterly grating, it will have any audience member wanting to sew his annoying mouth into the centipede themselves by the halfway point of the film.

There's a certain level of disbelief in this final instalment (not helped at all by Laser's campy performance) in that to a certain degree, the first two films seemed rooted in realism; we could somehow believe that somewhere in the woods an insane man could be cooking up this plan, or that a social outcast might try and copy what he had seen in a horror film, but to suggest that a group of medical professionals would go along with the idea of a prison accountant simply because he had watched a couple of DVDs is utterly absurd. Plus by this point, we all know that the "100% medically accurate" line is utter grubbiness, so why try and fob this one off as the most realistic when in fact it is the most utterly far-fetched.

Then we have the "gore", and it's at this point I genuinely start to worry that I have become desensitised to on-screen violence. The film was, quite simply, dull as dishwater. There was nothing that we had not seen before, and the "500 man centipede" that Six has been so boastful about, is no more than the very same CGI image seen in the trailer. The prison setting means that we do not empathise as much with the "segments" of the centipede; indeed, in Six's rather misguided attempt at political satire, he does make us momentarily think that this might indeed be the solution to the prison system, though the punishment for those on death row is certainly rather squeam-inducing.

Overall, I'm not quite sure what Six was aiming for here; it's not scary enough to be a horror movie, it's not schlocky enough to satisfy the gore-hounds, and it's not quite political enough to be he allegory he seems to be going for. In the end, we're left with a pretty mediocre B-movie featuring an over the top German and a retired porn star.

Well, actually, Miss Olson kind of made it all worthwhile...






Monday 1 June 2015

Secret Gaming with Lara Croft

I've always loved video games. Some of my earliest memories are of going round friends' houses to play on Cool Spot (a wonderful interactive ad for 7up for those who don't remember) before getting the long awaited Megadrive for my sixth birthday, allowing me to take part in the ever-heated debate over who was better; Sonic or Mario. 

Sonic, obviously.

My Megadrive saw me through my childhood (along with the first gen GameBoy in all its gargantuan glory which was my stalwart companion on many a long car journey), before finally giving up the ghost during a Mortal Kombat II marathon sometime before my eleventh birthday. It was with a heavy heart that the classic black controllers were retired to the loft, where I believe they still reside, and quite surreptitiously replaced with the console which would go on to shape my gaming life for the next two decades.

The Sony Playstation was, upon its release, a breakthrough in gaming technology. Looking back, it seems basic, almost primitive, and when we consider the triangular graphics of the first Tomb Raider game, it's amazing to think how far we've come in the last twenty years, now producing games that are often so realistic that vertigo can be induced simply by swinging the camera view over a cliff top.

Indeed, it's Miss Croft's buxom adventures that have played the main role in my gaming career. Having played through each and every game in the franchise from beginning to end, with the recent "reboot" in all its beautifully rendered glory very much helping to keep my mind away from the harshness of reality during my first few months back from Japan, the Tomb Raider series has probably clocked up far too many hours of my adolescence that should perhaps have been spent on more worthwhile pursuits such as going out and having real adventures rather than playing God to a digital avatar.

Its epic mix of puzzle and adventure (and of course a certain perky protagonist) has led the Tomb Raider series to earn a very special place in my heart, and although some games have not held up as strongly against others (Chronicles and Underworld are no match for the likes of TR3 and the reboot... And I still maintain the Angel of Darkness is, despite the general hatred, one of the most enjoyable entries in the franchise), every one has added something new and memorable to the mythology. And cost me many, many hours of my life.

I'd like to say that such wastefulness of time is the reason I've yet to buy a PS4, but the sad truth is (aside from my decrepit bank balance) that I'm waiting until the next Croftian adventure comes out until I part ways with however many hundreds of pounds the darn console costs. Any other games I happen to buy will be nothing more than a bonus, and on the positive side, the PS4 will probably be a heck of a lot cheaper in a year of so's time. The other problem is that my better half (ironically hailing from the land of Sony and NamCo), hates home gaming, and gets in enough of a twist about my iPad gaming time without bringing a console into the mix. That said, I've already informed her quite firmly that when Rise of the Tomb Raider hits the shelves, she will be playing second fiddle and ensuring I have a constant supply of Cheetos for a good couple of weeks.

Until then, however, I guess that Relic Run, Lara's blatant Temple Run ripoff will have to keep me occupied. Either that or I go and buy the Angelina Jolie box set...