commafruit.co.uk. welcome.

I read the book of The War of the Worlds last year since they were giving it away free with the Guardian, but felt no real compulsion to see the film until the chance came around recently.

While the book seemed fantastic, the film just seems farcical. Between the cheesy special effects and the unbelievable characters, this movie served only to annoy me. By trying to tie in a “modern dysfunctional family” story, the sci-fi story is missing*, and replaced with, nothing. So many features of the tale told in the film were simply implausible (ignoring that the plot itself deals with an alien invasion) – so, Tom Cruise has the only car? And there are just a couple of guns? Even the vague Donnie Darko reference couldn’t save this disgrace. H.G. Wells would’ve cried.

*indeed, all the worthwhile science fiction elements seem to be missing.

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Yes, eventually I’ve read it. And yes, enjoyed it very much.

That’s all.

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A beautifully animated, superbly witty musical fairy tale. The story hardly matters, it’s the vivid and lively characters who really excite, and the graphics & music which create the atmosphere. Add to this some snappy dialogue backed by great voice acting (when Emily requests to be taken to the land of the living, she recieves the reply “But why do you want to go up there, when people are dying to get down here?”), and the view is enchanted.

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I used to lap up Raymond Chandler books when I was younger, then just suddenly went off them: the whole “gritty” style, including all the film noir business, no longer appealed. Step forward Walter Mosley.
Mosley’s characters, in particular the lead, “Easy” Rawlins, are just as gritty and down to earth as Chandler’s ever were. Easy stalks through his world with caution, and he would be well advised to – there is something to trip him up at every step, and the mystery he is called to investigate is as dangerous for him as it is enthralling for the reader. I really enjoyed reading this, and intend to look out for more from the author (the advantage of coming in late - Devil In A Blue Dress dates from 1990 – is that you often have a body of work to catch up with; in this case Mosley has written an array of books in similar style.)

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Typical “new blog” trick: I haven’t updated in a month. This little break was planned, it’s just the break went on for longer than I’d planned. It’s been a busy month, many exams at uni, moving out of my old house, finding a new place (in a different town), end of year parties etc… Anyway, there are a few things I still have to write about, so this is a quick way of getting myself back into posting. Soon to come: new photographs, books (might lump these all together in one entry), couple of new recipes, Last.fm, kottke.org, maybe some talk about web development/design – what this site was supposed to be for – finally?

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