General Thoughts #2

I'm not going to lie. This post will seem incredibly similar in structure to yesterday's (the term 'structure', of course, used loosely) in that it has no particular direction. Although I realise I could have just called yesterday's 'Lack of sleep & Guardians of the Galaxy', so in the end it did have something of a direction. It all works out in the end, eh? None of that today though, oh no. Today, we're going free form. If any fellow English Literature students are reading, think of this as the 'stream of consciousness' you learn about in modernism. Yeah that's right, I'm like James Joyce (I'm not).

I went to Asda today. Yeah, I knew it was Black Friday, but sometimes a man just needs kitchen towels and detergent gosh darn it. You think you know what you're going to get in a Black Friday Asda.

Exhibit A

To be honest it wasn't that bad, although in hindsight, I was there when most folks are probably at work. However, bulk buying headphones and chargers because they're on offer is just dumb. There's no other way to describe it. Sure, Black Friday is nice when you're picking up Christmas presents or looking for a certain item that otherwise would be like a months rent to you, but it causes more problems than it solves. For one thing, unless you are just looking for one or two things, you're going to spend more than you save, guaranteed. Sure, you got a TV, tablet, headphones and trainers for a percentage of the prices, but you still spent upwards of £500 on stuff which if you really thought about it (i.e. if it wasn't covered in SALE stickers and tags) would be a waste of money.

People have died during every recent Black Friday sale, as far as I know. Think about that concept. People have been killed while SHOPPING. Of all the places with inherent danger, where you could understand on a base level the possibility of someone dying, the shopping scenario shouldn't even be a consideration. Looking on a wider scale, I'm constantly battling the slightly worrying feeling that we have begun to abandon the element of humanity that lets us consider us other humans human. Yes, we see the same species, just as one monkey or ape sees another and comprehends their relation, but we seem to be losing or ignoring one of the characteristics that separates us from those more primitive animals; the ability to look at another human, acknowledge their humanity and understand and consider that they may have needs that in some situations, override our own.

I could say more, but that's probably enough to be getting on with. What I will say is that if you work in retail today, tomorrow or any day like these, find comfort in the knowledge that you are standing on the right side of a one-day splitting of humanity. On the one side, those who have lost sight of what matter, whose crippling addiction to the idea of 'having more stuff' has won over spending a nice weekend in peace. And on the other, you; you beautiful people, who deal with sea's of metaphorical human shit everyday without taking the entirely reasonable course of action of cutting through the swathes with a machete. You're great, you are.

Of course, if you do start to get down, remember this, Happy Gandalf believes in you:

Something I forgot to mention in my assessment of 'Guardians of the Galaxy' yesterday, was that it was possibly the first time I have loved every single song that appeared in a movie. Even Tarantino didn't get full marks in that department. I don't know what it is about songs of that era that I prefer, but I'll say this; if I had been born 20 years earlier, I'd be 20 years older now.

I have a question; I'll label it rhetorical if only to save embarrassment when no one answers it: should I be worried that I am completely unable to settle on any one particular career path. Everyone of my age and ilk that I speak to seems to have at least an inkling of a concept of a smidgen of an idea about where they'd like to be in five years. At this point, in five years my only hope is I'm not quite dead yet. Aspirations!

I'm worried I might be a hipster. I was first alerted to this in my final year of sixth form, when a friend and myself were accused of this identity. Honestly, I've always been bad at knowing what the new set of people is and how to identify them, as well as knowing what I'm supposed to be. Apparently hipsters wear old clothes (vintage), grow beards and crazy hair, ride bikes and hate anything mainstream. I tend to like old clothes (vintage), if I could grow a beard I would and my hair is crazy simply by design, unfortunately. I don't ride bikes too often anymore, but I don't tend to be into anything mainstream. So maybe I am a hipster. An accidental hipster. That's a book or a film or an album somewhere, surely.

I've never understood the opposition to 'the mainstream'. I'm certainly never going to fit in to the mainstream in the sense of what is considered by the majority to be 'good' or 'cool', but this sudden idea that something is rubbish the moment everyone likes it is just moronic. I could go deeper, and maybe one day I will, but for now I'll simply say this; if something has garnered enough attention and interest that it has grown widely popular, it is simply childish to suggest that it does not have some merit in its relative field. For example, I don't like Coldplay; I find their music formulaic and ultimately boring. But to suggest that they aren't worthy of their place because I personally don't like them doesn't make sense. Conversely, I also dislike Justin Bieber, Yes he has legions of fans, but if you were to group all the people who knew of him, and then separate them into simple sectors of 'like' and 'dislike', I can almost guarantee that the dislike group would be larger. I think that proves my point, I can't quite remember.

Finally, and as always, a very good day to you, Sir's and Madam's, until we meet again.

There is no point...

...to this post. Sorry, if you were expecting existentialism. I could do a post like that, but consider how rambling and confusing this blog is when the subject is comparatively simple, I'd rather not lead you down that rabbit hole. So as I said, there is no point to this post. No specific subject, no direction; we are wandering through the woods, ignoring those vague coloured symbols on wooden posts that suggest a special woodland walk for us to go on. Why post at all in that case? 'Cause I made a promise, dammit, and a Lannister always keeps his... debts. Ignore that. Onward!

Honestly, I can't think of anything worthy of a full post on its own. I've explained this problem before, and referenced it often. And it's probably been compounded recently. See, at the best of times my thought are a little...scattered (they don't call me 'Kinda Hazy' for nothing, AMIRITE! sorry), but something I also occasionally experience is an inability to sleep. I wouldn't quite call it insomnia, if only because I know people who definitely suffer from insomnia and my experience pales in comparison. Regardless, the fact is recently I'm not too far off nocturnal. Case and point, just yesterday/today/that vague early morning no-mans-land, I was still awake at half past 5 watching movies. Why watch movies instead of actually trying to sleep? Imagine those moments before you go sleep when you're just thinking things over, but that thinking goes on for 4 hours. It was either watch movies or get lost inside my own head and go properly insane. There's a picture I saw on Twitter of a woman sitting facing her pillow, and the back of her head is a plug, and the pillow is the socket which perfectly illustrates how that works.

Anyway, back to the point, I try to get up at a good time, so I end up running on maybe 3-4 hours sleep. Which is fine, honestly; not ideal I know, but I also know there are folks high up in the world who sleep that and less every day of their lives. But it does leave me a little off-kilter for the first third of the day. So today, I started slow and never really got up to speed. But here we are and here we are and here we go, as Status Quo said. Here's a link to that, in case somehow you haven't heard it and also because this is going to be insanely wordy otherwise.

Enjoy that, why don't you.

One of the movies I did finally watch last night/morning was Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), the most recent summer blockbuster in Marvel's quest to be the only thing anyone ever see's in the cinema. Ironically, I hadn't seen in the cinema when it came out. I know. I'm sorry. Calm down. That's a little strong, don't you think? Okay, fair enough.

In all honesty, I rarely see the big movies when they come out. I'm not sure why, and it's one of my many flaws and I'm probably not going to confront it any time soon. But I finally saw GotG (for the cool kids) and I thought it was fantastic. I'll preface this by saying I was a little drunk at the time, a factor which has been scientifically proven to increase enjoyment, no matter what you're doing. But still, this movie was great. I don't have any comic book knowledge generally; of course every nerdy kid is somewhat aware of characters like Batman, Superman, Iron Man etc, but Guardians of the Galaxy didn't even pop up on my radar until the internet exploded with Chris Pratt going super-hunk. Of course, having not seen it when it first came out, I was then smothered with information about the film, so I didn't come in completely clueless. Plus, I've never really been bothered about spoilers. I'm aware it still changes how I watch something, but for me, the construction that leads to the 'spoiler' is as enjoyable as the 'spoiler' itself. 

So I went in knowing where I was, but not where I was going. For those who haven't seen it, I'm going to mention some possible spoilery stuff, because frankly I don't care, so *SPOILER* it's been out for months now *SPOILER*. 

The movie starts with a very Up (2009) style 'break-your-heart-then-build-it-back-up' opening. Unfortunately, it's a little too short to properly grab your heart then smash it against a wall, but seeing a mother die of cancer as her son struggles with how to deal with it is tough no matter what. Then suddenly the kid runs outside and is beamed up in a spaceship, and we leap into the films present day, which is the future. This is somewhat explained right at the end, and I'm assuming the sequel(s) will expand on it, but in the moment it's so sudden and out of context as to be slightly more jarring than intriguing. The rest of the movie is a tremendous thrill ride of all the things you want from this kind of movie. I'm going to say "think Avengers (2012) but in space". Wait! Don't hunt me down just yet! Let me clarify. Avengers came out while we were still in the era of going deeper into the person behind the comic book character, most prevalent in the Dark Knight Trilogy (2005-2012) but also in Iron Man (2008-2013), which I think they tried to carry on in Avengers. They also understood that you can't go that deep when you've got six or so main characters, so the focus is on them bouncing off each other and comedy, which creates a weird hybrid of not quite one, not quite the other, not quite either. Don't get me wrong, Avengers was awesome, but there it is.

What 'Guardians' does is that, but better. It's definitely an action comedy, not an action thriller with comedy segments, and for a comic book movie, that seems to work much better. Pratt knows comedy (if you haven't seen Parks and Recreation, he is glorious) but can also be the serious (super) hero who gets you behind him. Saldana knows her space movies (Star Trek) and it's nice that while she and Pratt show some affection, she doesn't automatically slot into the 'love interest' role. Dave Bautista, who I know from my days as a WWE wrestling fan (yeah, I was that cool), is a revelation, at many points becoming your favourite character. If I hadn't known that Bradley Cooper *SPOILERY SPOILERS* was the voice of Rocket Raccoon, I might needed a trip to IMDb. Even just through his voice, he still gives you all the feels, and if Pixar/Disney/Dreamworks aren't already signing him up for their next project, they're naught but prize fools. And of course, who doesn't wholeheartedly love Groot (Vin Diesel)?

"I am Groot" Damn right you are.

 I'm not sure whether this is my favourite comic book movie yet; I still have soft spots for Downey's Iron Man and Batman, but it's all the way up there.

By the way, I've heard people argue that Iron Man and especially Batman aren't really super heroes because they don't actually have any powers. Bugger off, you people, that's stupid. Look at it this way. For many, super heroes represent how anyone can be a hero if they work hard and believe in themselves, and where is this idea more obvious than in two guys who could just sit back on their piles of money, but choose to use the talents they have (super-genius for Iron Man/Tony Stark, super-fitness and bravery for Batman/Bruce Wayne) to help people. That's more inspirational that being accidentally bitten by a spider and then going "Well, shit, I may as well use this for good." Sorry, Spiderman fans, that was a little flippant, but whatever.

So, there's that. Looking back at this post, I'm aware just how scattershot it is, but it's a good workout for my brain, so damn your eyes, gosh darn it! If you have an opinion of Guradians of the Galaxy, or anything at all, leave it in the comments, why dontcha? I'm off now to probably not sleep again. As always, a very good day to you, Sirs and Madams, until we meet again.

Jurassic World: Jurassic Wuh?

Holy shirt! Sorry, but I told you I would, and I did. Two days in a row, and still going strong. Slightly more structure to today's post ('slightly' being the operative word) and a proper discussion of film, which is something I'm pretty sure I promised in my first post and never fully delivered on. All happening now though, isn't it!? That's probably a bit premature, but can't we all just share in the excitement? No? Okay.

Yesterday (25/11/14 for posterity's sake) the trailer for 'Jurassic World', the fourth in the 'Jurassic' series, which began in 1993 (my birth year, jus' sayin', a lot of pretty good things came out that year (that sounds awful in that context, sorry)) was released online. Apparently it was 'two days early', from which we can assume that cinema-goers on the 27th would have seen the big screen version of the trailer. While 'two days early' makes it sound like an accidental leak, I'm inclined to believe that in the cynical world of Hollywood producers, nothing is accidental. In many ways it was a clever decision. On the internet, nothing will get shared and talked about more than something which isn't supposed to be there (allegedly). Indeed, as far as I can see, since the moment the video appeared the term 'Jurassic World' has been quite highly trending, and much discussion has been provoked. 

However, there is something to be said for trailers premiering in the pre-movie ad marathon we're subjected to at the cinema. Yes, the surprise of the video suddenly appearing was nice, but imagine if that surprise had been presented in surround sound widescreen intensity, especially for a big budget epic like this. The moment when the Mosasaurus (I googled) explodes out of the water to gobble up a f'n shark, while still eye-catching, would almost certainly be mind-blowing in a cinema setting.

Universal Pictures / YouTube Screen Shot

On top of that bowel-trembling image, there's the surprisingly obvious idea of just releasing the trailer online a day or two after it appears in theatres. In that case, you get the best of both worlds; the appetising high-def glorious experience of those who see it 'live', for whom images like the one above will surely stick in the mind for a while, and then added to that, the social media effect we've seen already. Admittedly, you might see a drop-off in the amount of tweets and sharing, but I suspect that that would be offset by the tweets of folks losing their shit having seen it in the cinema. Anyway, onto the actual film itself.

The official plot summary (via The Daily Telegraph) reads:

“22 years after the events of Jurassic Park, Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond. This new park is owned by the Patel Corporation. Owen, a member of Jurassic World’s on-site staff, conducts behavioural research on the Velociraptors. After many years, Jurassic World’s attendance rates begin to decline and a new attraction, created to re-spark visitor interest, gravely backfires.”

One of the most telling tweets I saw in the immediate fallout of the 'leak' was along the lines of "everything looked great until 1:21." For those unsure what occurs at 1:21 that is so heinous as to ruin the whole experience, it is the point in the trailer where we are introduced to the concept of the 'genetically modified hybrid'. Basically, a super dinosaur, and the new attraction that 'gravely backfires' mentioned above. On the one hand, I have no real issue with this. Some people seem to get too hung up on every single movie being 'believable' when sometimes its better just to look at it as a big, stupid action movie and have fun with it. On the other hand, when you've got a whole park, on land and in sea, of dinosaurs, it seems a bit lazy to have your main antagonist be a scientifically-engineered super dino. I understand that getting people to buy into a plot which bears a fair few similarities to the original films concept may seem difficult, but the park itself looks to be so futuristic and packed with new dino's that I get the sense I'm going to feel like I'm missing more than I'm seeing.

So why am I still so excited? Well, it's personal confession time, folks, so gather round. I don't consider myself to have many fears at all. Not out of a sense of arrogance or over-machoness, but just because I seem to be nonplussed by quite a lot of sights. We all scream a little at jump scares, but beyond that there's not much. However, for some reason, I have an issue with dinosaurs. I'm aware it makes no sense; they're extinct, and highly unlikely to come back (!?), and yet there it is. Shots like the one above, and the T-Rex in the first film, give me the heebee jeebees. I don't know where it comes from; someday I'll probably look into it, but for now I'm just going to enjoy the thrill and hide the fear. Again, I may have revealed to much of myself (not like that, officer!), so we'll get back to the movie.

In terms of casting, man of the moment Chris Pratt as our everyman hero 'Owen' seems a perfect fit in the same way he was perfect for Guardians of the Galaxy. Bryce Dallas Howard as the parks misguided scientist/ park runner who is responsible for the 'super-dino' is also a top choice, although one hopes that she maintains a certain air of action and authority, and doesn't just descend into screaming damsel-in-distress once the film really heats up. I like the homage/reference back to the first film with brand new 'kids-in-peril' Gray (Ty Simpkins, of Inception (2010)) and Zach (Nick Robinson, of The Kings of Summer (2013)) who will attempt to survive, and to stop the audience only caring about the ancient reptiles.

By the way, even with the building tension, and teeth-gnashing dinosaurs, the creepiest part of the trailer is right at the beginning, when Judy Greer, playing what I assume is the kids mum (although IMDb lists her simply as 'park visitor'), tells them that "if anything chases you, run." As a cryptic warning itself, it's unsettling enough, but add the fact that she whispers it, and I'm close to giving back my tickets and sticking with Disney World.

There's plenty of ridiculousness around, of course. The pseudo-science and historical dino-inaccuracies have already received a bit of a backlash, but that's nothing new in this franchise. What is new (and ridiculous) is Pratt's leather vest and the hilarious moment when he motorbikes along with a group of galloping Raptors.

The only question is: who will reach 88 miles an hour first?
Universal Pictures / YouTube Screen Shot

Most ridiculous though, is the lack of doctor cameos. Namely, Doctors Grant (Sam Neill), Sattler (Laura Dern), or Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). I get that you want to move on with the franchise, but could you not just have Alan Grant appear with a world-weary, confused expression to angrily proclaim the park a bad idea? And personally, I don't ever want to watch a film that doesn't include this:

 Those are my thoughts on the upcoming 'Jurassic World' film (scheduled for a 12 June 2015 release) but what are yours? Feel free to leave a comment. Personally I'm approaching this film cautiously, as you would a sleeping T-Rex, but who knows? It could surprise us all. As an eccentric Doctor once said, "Life...................... finds a way."

A very good day to you, Sirs and Madams, until we meet again. 

Christy Biscuits!

Mothers, something mumble something daughters! Having received literally zero letters, emails, pages, telegrams, press conferences, public announcements and Ancient Greece-style messengers, by no ones demand the Kinda Hazy Blog returns from the wilderness! Not so much fireworks, more a single party popper and crumpled party hat. 

Yeah, I'm doing this again. If there was anyone who religiously read each post, I must start by apologising for what has now been an eight month (!) absence. And in all honesty, only at maybe one or two points during that three quarters of a year have I even thought about writing something on here. Not that I haven't wanted to, but I just haven't thought of anything interesting enough to merit a full blog post. I think Twitter may have stunted me. Why save up all the little snippets on nonsense that appear in my head when I can fire them off in 140 character bullets that no one cares about? Anyway, in an ongoing campaign to get my shit together, I've decided to spend my free time doing something at least somewhat productive. Goodness knows how fruitful this endeavour will turn out (it's going quite so far, I think. No? Just me?), but I'm hoping to stick at it for as long as possible.

I don't actually have a direction with this post beyond it being something of a comeback, but I should probably explain the title. No, I haven't released a brand of Messiah based nibbles. No, I'm not seeing the eminent heiress of the wealthy and powerful Biscuit dynasty. No, I haven't (quite) lost my mind (yet). In actual fact, I remember reading somewhere that the best blogs have titles which immediately grab potential readers attentionseses, and what's more attention-grabbing that someone exclaiming "Christy Biscuits!" Not much, I'll say that.

So, to summarise, expect the same, but more of. The same. More of the same. Unless in the eight month gap 'the same' has become nothing. In which case expect something completely different from the same. But not different in terms of subject matter. Although I suppose their is no real particular subject in this blog. Expect things, I guess. Not just anything, though. Written things, about stuff. Like this. So more of the same. Wait. I've gone too deep. Where's DiCaprio? Unless we're too deep and I'm just going to keep washing up on a Japanese beach,

On a side note, I like to think he actually got back his kids at the end, if only because he gets battered in that film. You watch your wife lose her mind then kill herself, you're not allowed to ever see your kids and Michael Caine is your dad/step-dad, which is frankly impossible to live up to, even for Leo. Although personally, and as awful as it sounds, I might have stayed with Marion Cotillard in the dream world (I know that wouldn't technically possible, I'm just saying). This is mainly because they're not my kids, but also because she's a favourite of mine. A proper old-school Hollywood actress; classy, cool, capable and just enough danger to keep you on your toes.

Anyway, I've revealed too much. Main points: sorry for gap, Christy Biscuits, expect more, Marion Cotillard. And a very good day to you, Sirs and Madams, until we meet again.