Blog - Jason F.C. Clarke

The Descent

Posted under Blog, Movies, Reviews on August 28th, 2006 by JFCC

Note: I wrote this review on spec for a local newspaper, but to my knowledge it wasn’t published, so I thought I’d just toss it up here. Enjoy…

The television ad campaign for The Descent claim the film is “from the people who brought you Saw and Hostel,” two sadistic horror films that focus on human torture. The ads do an injustice both to fans of those films (who may not enjoy this one) and people who don’t like those films (and just might like The Descent).

The Descent is an old-fashioned monster movie with a modern horror film sensibility. It was released in Great Britain over a year ago (and is already out on DVD over there), but did so well in the UK that “the people who brought you Saw and Hostel” decided to buy the North American distribution rights and give it a theatrical release here–an honor not accorded to Marshall’s previous film, Dog Soldiers (2002), one of the better werewolf movies out there.
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“Gotham by Gaslight” Batman action figure

Posted under Blog, Comics, Reviews, Toys on August 25th, 2006 by JFCC

Though on occasion I’ve gone through a period of interest in comic books, I wouldn’t classify myself as a superhero fan. I do love Hellboy, but I don’t really consider him a superhero per se. At times I’ve enjoyed reading the X-Men and whatnot, but if there’s a superhero I really appreciate, it’s Batman.

There are countless Batman stories out there, and toy company DC Direct (DCD) has worked hard to give us a figure from each one of them. But one of my favorite Batman stories is Gotham by Gaslight (1989), the first Elseworlds story (the brand was applied retroactively). Gaslight places the Batman story in the late Victorian era, with Batman tracking Jack the Ripper, who’s now running loose in Gotham.
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Wikipedia question

Posted under Blog on August 25th, 2006 by JFCC

I have a question for everyone: when using Wikipedia, who among you simply types “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/” into the address bar with a word or two after the backslash to go directly to an article (for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Red_Sox), rather than going to the main Wikipedia page and doing a search (or using Google)?

I’ve been doing the former for ages and am wondering if anyone else does.

Hematophagous

Posted under Blog, Red Sox on August 24th, 2006 by JFCC

Dan Shaughnessy has some advice for Red Sox fans.

Some might look at all of the above and have negative thoughts. Not me. I have seen the light. I am buying the plan. This isn’t about this year. Never was. The Sox are planning on being great in 2007 and even better in 2008. Let those foolish New Yorkers delude themselves into thinking that the future is now. We know better. We watch the Red Sox.

I can’t understand how such a relentlessly negative person has been able to profit so much from said attitude. Is his “popularity” (assuming it exists) due to some sort of latent masochism on the part of Red Sox fans? The man created the so-called “Curse of the Bambino” and profited from it for twenty years. His columns come fast and furious when the Sox are having trouble—more than a dozen so far in August—whereas in July he wrote two pieces on the Sox, from what I could find (both were warnings that the Sox weren’t really doing that well and that, regular as death and taxes, the Yankees would soon reassert their dominance). Maybe he was on vacation in July, I don’t know. But he sure made himself available when the Sox started having trouble. He’s like one of those guys in Harvard Square with “The End is Near” boards depicting a fiery apocalypse.
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Snakes on a Plane

Posted under Blog, Movies on August 21st, 2006 by JFCC

Well, I saw Snakes on a Plane yesterday. It was a solid B-movie—a combination of Speed, Anaconda and Passenger 57, and probably more fun than all three combined. Was it worth all that ironic Internet hype? Not really, and its box office showing (a modest $14 million) reflects that.

Snakes‘s mediocre box office take is yet another example of just how small and unrepresentative of the real world the blogosophere is. Clearly, the Internet community does not give the slightest indication of the situation on the ground. People with the time, money and inclination to write or read a blog or discuss topics at length online do not represent a very good cross-section of America.

That said, I think the execs who produced Snakes knew that they had a second-tier flick on their hands and that going along with the hype couldn’t hurt. In the end, it probably netted them an extra $1.4 million in preview night tickets. Of course, for the Snakes fans the film was always secondary, and I suspect it will sink very quickly.

But the filmmakers did do about as much as they could with the concept. You get to see snakes biting every conceivable body part (yes, every one). You get a gratuitous Mile High Club scene. You get Samuel L. Jackson swearing and generally being Samuel L. Jackson. And you’ll happily forget all about the film ten minutes after leaving the theater.

Rock Star: Storm

Posted under Blog, Music on August 16th, 2006 by JFCC

DG suckered me into watching Rock Star: INXS last year. In my defense, it was interesting to see a show on prime time where live rock was played on a weekly basis; plus, they used a lot of music from the era during which my music tastes ossified (1991-95). But while the show was interesting, I wasn’t much interested in the outcome because I wasn’t an INXS fan.

This season seemed a little more interesting; rather than an established band with an established sound, they were creating a new band with Tommy Lee of Motley Crue, Jason Newstead (formerly of Metallica), and Gilby Clarke (apparently formerly of Guns ‘N Roses). I found this a bit more interesting since there was at least some possibility I might be interested in listening to this band’s CD.

Initially, the only contestant that interested me was Dilana. I picked her to win very early on. I remember the blondes—Jill, Jenny and Storm—blurred together originally. I was all about Dilana.
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A Game of Thrones

Posted under Blog on August 9th, 2006 by JFCC

Like most people, I use the same restroom at work every day. It becomes a refuge where you are safe from the demands of middle management, or that guy in the cube next to you who’s been talking loudly to his realtor for the last hour and yet your supervisor doesn’t seem to notice, but let you try and make one personal call and—

But I digress. Getting back to the point, you tend to get pretty familiar with that restroom. Sometimes you get so familiar with it, you can actually track the appearance of new graffiti.

There’s a graffito (that’s the singular of “graffiti,” apparently) in my restroom that I’ve watched grow over the last couple of weeks. It’s an interesting process. Stephen King has already written a short story about restroom graffiti—I can’t remember the title off the top of my head—so rather than fictionalize it, I thought I’d chronicle its epic story (because I know that you, dear reader, would like nothing better than to read a lengthy account of restroom vandalism).
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Astonishing stories

Posted under Blog, Books on August 7th, 2006 by JFCC

I finally got around to reading McSweeney’s Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories last week. I’d read the first volume, McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasure of Thrilling Tales. Both books begin with a well-written defense of genre fiction by Michael Chabon (of Kavalier & Clay fame). Chabon argues that the “revelatory short story” and literary fiction as a whole constitute a genre as much as science fiction, fantasy, or horror. The essays are well-argued and both enjoyable and satisfying to read.
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Singer answers the Lois pregnancy question

Posted under Blog, Comics, Movies on August 4th, 2006 by JFCC

Newsarama managed to ask Bryan Singer the $10K question: since Clark erased Lois’s memory of sleeping together in Superman II, does she not know how she got pregnant? Here’s Singer’s response:

NRAMA: After he gave up his powers in Superman II, Lois and Superman slept together. I’m going to assume that that’s when he got her pregnant…

BS: Possibly.

NRAMA: Then he gives her the kiss, which made her forget that they even slept together. Was the pregnancy a mystery for her?

BS: I ignored that part. I just assumed she remembered sleeping with him.

So there you go. Just ignore that part! But wait—does that mean Lois knows Clark is Superman? I guess you should ignore that too.

The rest of the interview is primarily Singer stating his opinion that poor marketing is the reason for Superman Returns‘s relatively unimpressive box office numbers.

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