FIGHT FANS FIGHT TO BE FANS

It's coming. It's happening. It's finally here. Yippee. What has me so elated? The first big UFC mixed martial arts fighting event is coming to Toronto this Saturday. So not just yippee. Yippee motherfucker.
Collette and I are very excited, we've been waiting for this for a long time. But my excitement is tempered by a fair amount of disgust as well. And no, not disgust at the notion of two adult men hammering the bejeesus out of each other, that's the exciting part.

I enjoy this sport, as does Collette and I can appreciate for the fighter's skill, their conviction, their determination and the sheer competition of it all. But from the entire ticket buying process up to today, I am building a fairly acidic level of disgust for the organization that owns the fights, the UFC

Myself and many others had issues with how the tickets were sold. I acknowledge that this was a much anticipated event and I knew what it was going to sell out. This knowledge drove me join the UFC Fight Club for the opportunity to pre-purchase tickets, before the general public. We all know what happened. Something like 44,000 tickets sold out in minutes. When they opened up the rest of the Rogers Centre seatings opened up for sail, those went just as fast

Now let's reflect upon the fact that being a Fight Club member is not any kind of honorary talent. You pay for that privilege. All things said and done I paid over 100 bucks. Just for the opportunity to purchase seats far from where I would have wanted, in about 5 seconds after they went on sale. I still don't know where all those tickets to went so fast.

Today there was another incident that had me wondering. Today were the official weigh in's for the fight tomorrow. This is something that has evolved from some half naked guys standing on scales so that their official weight can be recorded to a full bore media event with the anticipation of said half naked guys trading punches ..

Well, it was free, so I decided to go. And with my oh so expensive Fight Club membership, I would get in earlier than the regular public. Now let's talk about "free" for a moment. When I go to Ricoh stadium it was clear from the already huge lineup that pretty much all the seats, certainly all the good seats would be going to the Fight Club members. People who paid to attend this free event.

Just like the fight itself

Of course I brought cameras. I brought Collette's Nikon and I brought my handycam. Now I know for the fight no audio-video recording devices will be allowed, fair enough but nowhere on my Weigh In "free" ticket that I had printed out beforehand did it make mention of this. Nor did it mention something about the lens on the Nikon being "too big"

I was told I could check my cameras. At a stadium filled with thousands of people and cared for by teenagers who's lack of energy only matched their lack of experience. Are you fucking kidding me? That is thousands of dollars worth of gear. That little piece of paper you give me in return is just not going to cover a mistake is it. "It's a professional camera" they told me. Well it could be used by a pro but it's not a Hasselblad, it's not even the highest end Nikon DSLR by a long shot .. you can't just automatically call it a pro camera

And sorry, I am not checking it. So I went home. Was I a spoiled brat? That's Collette's baby. Sorry, I'll stomp my feet, cross my arms and hold my breath before I turn it over to strangers

I am curious to find out how many members of the public got in to this event This free event. Where first seating went to people who paid a hundered bucks

I am looking forward to the fights tomorrow, I want to concentrate on that action but I am getting a very bad taste in my mouth about the UFC.

I'm a fan not a fighter. But I'll fight for my right to be that fan

WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING NOW

Sometimes I am not the world's smartest guy

But I usually think that I am

I often bite off more than I can chew. But it falls into my beard and I enjoy it later. Ewww.

I'm embarking on a new little adventure and me being me, I thought that warranted creating a new blog.

I will still be on this blog, pleasing my millions of adoring fans all over the world .. whoa, what kind of mushrooms did I use in that stir fry ...

Anyway here it is You've been warned

SOMETIMES IT'S TOO EASY PART TWO

Just watching the news crawl on TV and I saw this headline under the General News banner:

BASEBALL PLAYER CAUGHT STEALING

Well that was a dumb ass move on the player in question but seriously, this makes the news? I mean, it wasn't on the Sports section ...

Oh wait, not that kind of stealing .. he was shoplifting ...

Irony is our friend, kids

Easy, easy

THE POINT (BLANK) OF GOING "FASTER"

This weekend we watched the movie Faster on DVD. It is ostensibly an action movie, directed by George Tillman, scripted by Tony & Joe Gaton and starring Dwayne Johnson, the former professional wrestler formerly known as The Rock
I expected a typical Dwayne Johnson low budget action movie but what I got was something different; something lean, stripped down, focussed and a bit old school. Faster is a vengeance story and the opening sequences come at you hard and unadorned and makes no mistake that you are in for a ride with the gigantic Rock and his vintage American muscle car
Most action movies today become totally involved with huge set pieces driven by CGI effects where men can dance on moving helicopter rotors and cars fly through the air with balletic artistry. Faster is helped by its low budget and its director's vision; this is a very low tech movie and it is very stripped down. It reminded me of the action movies of the seventies and my first thought was that Charles Bronson in his prime could very well have played Johnson's nameless character.
But that fact that we never learn the name of Johnson's character got me to thinking. As did the intensity of his vengeance drive and his almost worldless interaction with his victims. Not Charles Bronson, but Lee Marvin in John Boorman's masterpiece Point Blank.
Point Blank was originally released in 1967 and I don't think that it was an instant success but over the years it has achieved a cult like status. It is, indeed, a very good movie. Like Faster it's a story of vengeance, it features Lee Marvin tearing around and through Los Angeles in his single minded quest, much like The Rock in Faster.

SPOILER ALERT: I want to compare the two movies and in order to do so I'll be mentioning plot points from both so now you have been warned .. stop whining.

No, really, stop whining. You're staining your shirt.

Both movies feature a lead character who has come back from the dead to avenge a wrong done to him and a family member. Both films revolve around a job, a heist pulled by a pair of brothers and the scum bags who double cross them. Marvin and his brother are betrayed by a corporation-like criminal syndicate; Johnson and his brother are double crossed by a gang led by a crooked cop. In both movies, the brother's wife plays a role. In both movies the brother is killed and our hero is almost killed, his enemies believe he is dead but oh shit, here he comes back from the dead, more sullen and more deadly than ever.

Both Johnson and Marvin go about their solemn task of taking names and kicking ass with the aid of a huge Magnum revolver. In the 1967 film a Magnum six shooter was something not often seen; in the 2010 movie it gives the film an almost nostalgic feel. This seems to be entirely deliberate; all the other characters in the movie are armed to the teeth with semi and fully automatic weapons, The Rock is the only one who uses the old school revolver. And while another major character transports himself in sleek, futuristic foreign sports car, our nameless hero roars around in his 1970 SS Chevelle.

But Faster is not a remake of Point Blank. Boorman's movie was almost an exercise in nihilism. The Lost Angeles that Marvin inhabits is stark and clean and lifeless, his hot blooded reborn-thru-vengeance character shoves his way through featureless office buildings and the villains are all white guys in suits.
Johnson's world is more mutlticultural and it's grimier, the bad guys sweat, they plead, they have weaknesses. Johnson's character eventually comes to display emotion whereas I never remember Marvin actually doing. In Point Blank, Marvin is pursued by a hit man, a minor character who is smugly professional. Johnson, too, is pursued by a hit man but this character is more integral to the story.

In general, the characters in Faster are more fleshed out than in Point Blank. Some of the villains are propelled by motivations that actually have us question The Rock's diesel engine of mass destruction. That never happens in Point Blank. Marvin moves through a souless world, it's villains are driven by profit and nothing else, his rage and his violence stand out so starkly we also question the validity of his quest. In Point Blank there is no hope for redemption. Faster delves as much into guilt as it does vengeance, it as much about human connections as it is destruction.

In Point Blank, Marvin is all about forward momentum, he never rolls over everyone in his path and never slows enough to understand the consequences thereof. In Faster, Johnson does take his foot off the gas and as he begins to coast, he may eventually park his blood spattered muscle car in Redemption.

HANNA: THE FAMILY THAT SLAYS TOGETHER ...

Hanna is a movie currently playing theatres, directed by Joe Wright and starring Saorise Ronan, Eric Bana and Cate Blancett. Perhaps you have read about it or seen the trailers. Hanna is an action movie concerning a teenager (Ronan) trained by her father (Bana) to battle a powerful and corrupt CIA agent (Blancet)
It is, indeed, that, but it is much more. Joe Wright is not an action movie director. His previous films include Pride & Prejudice, Atonement and The Soloist. So he brings some "art house" chops to the mix. Yet on paper, Hanna follows many conventions of action movies; chases, fight scenes, gun play, knife play .. and it dabbles in conventions we've seen before: A child raised in isolation to be a killing machine/survivalist by a covert government organization. As such, it reminds me of last year's Salt, starring Angelina Jolie
Salt was indeed a kick ass action movie but although we are informed of the main character's upbringing and shown flashbacks, most of the movie involves the adult Salt. Hanna focuses on the sixteen year old girl and that difference is significant, or more importantly, it is significant in the way that is handled by director Wright
Sometimes a movie is judged by its originality. Sometimes it is judged by the way it handles pre established concepts. I've seen the story of the child raised in isolation and then unleashed on the world .. but Wright is not afraid to give that idea strength here but concentrating as much on Hanna's journey of self discovery as he does on her quest for justice.
Sometimes Wright gets a bit lost in his own art house sensibilities but what pulls him out of his hand held camera mire is the remarkable performance by Ronan. As an actor, she can do as much with a drawn mouth and a languid stare as with a contrived monologue. She is the centre of the movie and she holds it extremely well; you believe her when she smiles with a delight at her discovery of music and you believe her when she is kicking ass

It is not surprising that Wright can handle these scenes of Hanna's self discovery but the man also brings a lot to the action movie plate as well. If the plot devices of Hanna are a bit cliche, so are some of the action scenes but this is where Wright's hand held, documentary style asthetic serves him well. I have seen many fight/chase scenes among shipping containers before (The Transporter comes to mind) but Wright makes his exciting and suspenseful and fresh. Rapid MTV style editing has become a staple of action movies but Wright uses one masterful long hand held shot to turn a fight in an underground location, between Eric Bana and multiple assailants, into something fairly breath taking
Bana is pretty much dead centre perfect in this movie. He's displayed his acting chops before but with this film he proves that he is more than capable of carrying an action movie on his own, especially since he obviously does many of his own fighting stunts. More importantly he is able to establish his relationship with Ronan with a minimum of dialouge and with almost no obvious emoting.
Hanna is not at all dialogue heavy. Much of the movie depends upon camerwork, editing, the strength of silent acting and an absolutely powerful score by the Chemical Brothers. Some of the scenes have an almost idyllic tone, occasionally this verges on directorial self indulgence but just when I was sure Hanna was about to sing We Are The World, some bad guy would come along and she would have to help him have a very very bad day
Another area where Hanna threatens to tumble into the dark hole of movie cliche is Cate Blancet's character. It gives nothing away to say that is the bad guy. And boy, is she. I was never really a big fan of this actor until the recent Robin Hood where she became one of my favorite Maid Marion's. She is good here but her character is not quite as well fleshed out as everyone else and although she occasionally conveys a chilling methodical coldness, she can come close to munching on the scenery
Hanna may be an action movie for those not normally a fan of action movies. Or more correctly, it may be an action movies for those, like myself, who are weary of over the top CGI enpowered, absolutely unbelievable and illogical action set pieces where cars fly through the air like Chinese acrobats, missiles slice easily through entire apartment buildings and heroes can leap off 4,000 foot waterfalls while making a thermonuclear device out of a tin of tuna fish and a bendy straw. That is not the case here, the stunts are performed by real people, think Ronin or the Bourne movies. There is a bit of a seventies feel to this movie, from the hand held camera work to the European locations to the lighting direction. Hanna can get your pulse racing. But every now and then it can also engage your emotions.
At the heart of Hanna is a contemplation of the concept of a family. Wright is not afraid to delve into this idea and this is one of the thing, along with Ronan's remarkable performance, that gives the ass kickery as much emotional as it does physical impact

VIKING THE LONG COLD FIRE: BOOK REVIEW

So, Vikings. Me like Vikings. Or at least the cinematic/fiction versions of Vikings. I don't why that inspired me to sound like a cave man but I never question these inspirations, I just ignore them.

Vikings The Long Cold Fire is a graphic novel. More correctly, the hardcover trade edition that compiles the first "season" of these comics, published last year.

Vikings are popular subject matter for graphic novels. I am a huge fan of the Northlander series of books written by Brian Vaughn and illustrated by a variety of artists. I discovered these books a couple of years ago; the Viking theme was immediately attractive to me and I was impressed how Vaughn used that archetype to tell tales of revenge, redemption and quests that were inner as much as they were exterior.
Vikings share similar themes but is more visceral, more immediate and more .. well .. graphic
Written by Ivan Brandon and illustrated my Nic Klein, Vikings tells the story of two brothers, Finn and Egil, two young men who take "viking" that is the art of pillaging and looting, very seriously. As the story opens they are not good men. They are violent, arrogant, they revel in the power they possess, that power being a lack of morality that permits them to go to any means .. usually violent means .. to achieve their ends.
Their own father cautions them that their recklessness can only lead to tragedy. And of course it does. Personal tragedy for the brothers, and tragedy for those they encounter, including a beautiful and strong young woman, the daughter or a king who in his youth was perhaps as reckless and violent as the brothers.
This is heady stuff. Much like Northlanders, this is a story of redemption but is it a redemption that has come too late. There is a lot going on here, there are layers of story and back stories for each character but it all happens as if in a blood tinged rush, barreling at you, almost overwhelming.
This is, of course, a graphic novel and the writer and artist use that medium to their great advantage. The story is told entirely through the art and through dialogue; there is no narration, no third or even first person exposition boxes, there are only word balloons and images.
What this means is that we are never formally introduced to the characters, they are just there and we have to figure out who they are. It is a bit off putting but it serves the story well, you feel as if you have just been dropped into the story and being a story filled with violence and rage, it keeps you on your toes.
Nic Klein's art work is spectacular. The trade edition of the collection is a huge hardcover and it does the work justice. Klein mixes a variety of styles and techniques, not only from page to page but sometimes from panel to panel. From almost impressionist oil paintings to line art to a contemporary graphic style, you are once again kept a bit off kilter which gives reading this book an almost physical feel. One of the things I love about graphic novels is that they have a cinematic quality and Vikings has that, often using nothing but panels to advance the story, like the frames of a film. But this book, through Klein's art work and the very structure of it, really gives you a sense of action or more properly that you are in the action
The story does not end with this collection. Because this was just the first season of the comic, we are left with a cliff hanger. But what makes me want to read more is just not some plot hook but because the artists have done an impressive job of creating and developing characters that I am interested in following. I am fond of stories of redemption, of growth and I have a feeling that that growth will be hard earned in this Viking world .. but I hope the brothers make it.

SOURCE CODE & THE ESCAPIST: TWO MOVIES, MULTIPLE REALITIES, NO WAITING

This post was to be a review of the movie Source Code, currently in theatres, perhaps you have seen the ads on TV or read about it. Source Code is a science fiction popcorn movie, heavy on concept, but starring Jake Gyllenhal, an actor know for more "serious" work so I was intrigued.

But a funny happened on my way to the movie review.

Well, it was more like a movie happened on my way to the movie review. That movie was The Escapist, a decidely non science fiction British film starring Brian Cox and available on DVD.

On the surface, these are two very different movies. As stated, Source Code is a popcorn movie and a pretty good one, a high concept science fiction movie in the guise of an action thriller. There are many explosions (or one explosion repeated over and over) fist fights, chases etc. There is terrorist to catch, time running out and thousands of lives on the line.

The Escapist is a jail break movie. A very good jail break movie. It is a film filled with tension and action but it is not an action movie. It is a movie about desperate men doing desperate things, it is a movie about redemption hand difficult to achieve that that may be.

What these two disparate movies have in common are structure and pacing.

Source Code is very much about structure, to the point that it plays a huge role in the plot. It is a movie who's premise is that when a person dies, they maintain 8 minutes of awareness even after death; a super secret military project has learned how to exploit that 8 minutes, by inserting the hero (who's name is Colter Stevens, which couldn't be more "comic book") into a dead person's source code so he can catch a terrorist who has planted a bomb on a commuter train. The train has already blown up, but they need to find the bad guy before he plants another bomb, a dirty bomb. Colter has that 8 minutes to do the job but here's the catch: If superhero Colter doesn't find the bomb before it explodes again, no worries .. they will just restart the source code and he goes back to the beginning of the 8 minutes to try again. Thusly he relives that time frame over and over again, he can fail, because he will never actually die.

It's like the movie Groundhog Day ... but with explosions.

The story of Source Code is inherantly non linear. The story of The Escapist is quite linear. Man is in prison for a long time. He has a daughter on the outside who he has not seen since she was a little girl. Now she is an adult and a junkie and her health is in peril. Man decides he needs to escape to rescue his little girl. Man recruits fellow prisoners and hatches a plot.

But this story is told in anything but a linear fashion. There is ample use of flashbacks, or perhaps flash forwards, oblique cuts etc. We are experiencing the escape at the same time we are experiencing the events leading up to it

It's all about structure. Director Rupert Wyatt uses story structure to tell the story as much as he uses script. Source Code's story is all about temporal structure; our characters live their life in an 8 minute loop while they also live a life outside that loop .. or do they. We are told that the source code creates an alternate reality and in Phillip K Dick fashion we begin to question which reality is which. Source Code does this in a sci fi premise but The Escapist uses editing to create a sense of variable realities. There is no dubious science behind it, we are just given the opportunity to question what we are seeing.

This is even more Phillip K Dick

In the end, it comes down to two films, in albeit very different ways, that want us to question the reality of what we are seeing. Source Code is no Inception, it is clearly more intended to be popcorn fare but good acting and tight editing help us leap over some of the obvious plot faults to be able to appreciate the original premise

The Escapist is something different. There are things here to think about; men in custody create alternate realities as a way of staying sane and it redemption possible for someone, just because they really really want it ..

There have been quite a few movies recently that challenge our concept reality. Of course, the viewing of a film in itself is an exercise in an alternate reality. There is no bomb on the train, there is no train, there are no men wandering the sewers of London trying to escaped their own personal Hell.

Yet, if it's all done properly, for a couple of hours, we think that indeed there is.