Archive for February, 2008

Garfield minus Garfield

February 28, 2008

This is very amusing.

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb.

Earth tremor felt across England!

February 27, 2008

Details here. Epicentre was apparently Hull, it measured 4.7. I’m in North London and at around 1am my bedroom started shaking!

Very strange experience, and now I can’t sleep. Great…

The Bourne Misadventure?

February 26, 2008

I love the Bourne films; they’ve done wonders for my opinion of Matt Damon and are quite rare for an action film: great set pieces with a thoughtful storyline.

The trilogy, I use the term because that’s how I view the story, explores Jason Bourne’s attempt to find out who he is but also why he is. It’s a constant struggle, with every answer opening up a bigger question. The third film, last summers blockbuster The Bourne Ultimatum, was well placed to be the end of the story but three Oscars and a ton of money made means talk of yet another sequel.

I think it’s a bad idea. I know film appreciation means very little in the face of rational economics but the story and the character are best served as they stand in the three films. The only way I could see this working would be to set it before the trilogy but even then it’d lose much of its human dimension (the search for who he is) because he was little more than a emotionless killing machine with no interest beyond his mission.

Bourne works because it’s about a journey from one place to another, about redemption and finding new life out of the bad of the old. To add another film furthering this idea would label it and undermine the earlier films. To do a prequel would, for me, detract from those films.

Bourne again? No thanks!

Wii will, Wii will, Mod You!

February 26, 2008

Good piece on other uses for your Wii.

The Verve were right…

February 26, 2008

…the drugs don’t work.