Three Strikes: Week 36

Kee-rist. I'm 31. Where does the time go?

I introduced Mum and Dad to the exemplary Bem Brasil in Manchester's Northern Quarter on Tuesday. Great dining. The Brazilian steakhouse serves the finest cut of beef, sausage, prawns, chicken and hot cinnamon-coated pineapple. The parents aren't big meat eaters, but the fish platter they ordered went down a treat.

I went back in 2010 and loved it. It's still the best restaurant I've been to.

No personal bests at the gym this week: just a lot of endurance work.

Reading and Cycling: Take 2

This week: more endurance work blending working out with literature, seemingly the two staple themes of this ridiculous blog.

Last week I went for burnout by cycling for as long as possible, with as few breaks as possible. I did this whilst reading Dom Joly’s The Dark Tourist.

This time, to avoid the eventuality of burning out and finding my legs seizing up on me, I decided to read in bursts with intervals of sit-ups. I figured an anthology of short stories would be the best type of book to go for, so I could break for stomach work between each story. I picked out Don’t Look Now and Other Stories by Daphne DuMaurier. Printed in 1971, the collection was a success and the titular story soon turned into one of the scariest films ever made.

Don’t Look Now

An effective horror featuring a couple holidaying in Venice whilst coming to terms with their grief. It seems Nicholas Roeg stuck quite faithfully to the original text for his 1973 movie interpretation, with the odd adjustment for visual effect.

Reading time: 1hr 22.

Not After Midnight

An interesting holiday-set mythical murder mystery with a good twist in the tail.

Reading time: 1hr 32.

A Borderline Case

A woman is inducted into an Irish terror faction. With a terrified lead character and supporting villains altering photographs, it’s an interesting 1950s predecessor to Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama. Also appearing in the story is a woman called Dr. Dray, who is an actual medical practitioner, not the weed-smoking founder of Gangster Rap.

Reading time: 2hr 5.

Way of the Cross

Four people go on a double date in Jerusalem, resulting in dental mishaps, fallouts and loss of faith. If I read it right. Very strange.

Reading time: 2hr 15.

The Breakthrough

An electrical contractor is sent up to Scotland to investigate some unusual behaviour at a science lab. A predecessor to The Exorcist and Poltergiest, with a British slant. It features the most amateur science lab known to man, with dogs roaming through the kitchen whilst a paranormal-ologist assesses a potentially possessed teenage girl. Again, very strange.

Reading time: 1hr 7 mins.

Reading and cycling requires using your body and your brain at the same time. At the risk of typecasting myself, I found multitasking hard. I had to slow my reading speed down a lot, reread parts and sip copious amounts of water. I started the warmup at around 11am, and finished the last story at 8.47pm, just before the gym shut. I’d had a big carb breakfast first thing, but no food until after I'd left the gym. The breaks allowed me to rest my legs, letting them cool and giving my strength more longevity.

As for the book: the language was flowery and dated, but the stories were engaging and unusual, even to this day.

Three Strikes: Week 35

Went out for my birthday last night. Great night with the gang, although a) the heavens opened for the second year on the trot, soaking us all, b) taxi companies let my mates down and c) they couldn't get into Spinningfields Alchemist as it was full by the time they got there. So we dived in a taxi and hit Deansgate.

The rain didn't scare anyone off- the queues for taxis were long and the Deansgate bars were busy too.

Alchemist played good deep house and was populated by fine women, on the whole. No complaints. The Moon Under the Water is the same as it always has been- a chilled-out chain pub, good for a catchup and starting point for a night out. After this we hit Portland Street's Orchid Lounge karaoke bar, thus getting drenched further, and on arrival the DJ didn't just not let us sing, he didn't even acknowledge me- too busy “working” on his decks. The glowing flourescent poof seats that change colours every few minutes are worth going for alone, though. I turned down a line of cocaine from some chav in the gents' room.

Gym: 1hr cross trainer up 0.13km on the previous record. Feeling very strong with this.

Reading and cycling

How long can one pedal for non-stop? I decided to find out today, so I hit the gym with a copy of Dom Joly's The Dark Tourist. The creator/star of the Trigger Happy TV series and staff journalist for the independent newspaper decided to venture into the dodgiest and least-appealing enclaves of the world for his holiday trips, and returned with some strange tales of boozing in Iran and being turfed out of the Dallas Book Depository Sixth-Floor Museum.

I have tried reading and cycling a few times in the past, starting with the shortest book in the “to read” pile at the time- the Human Traffic screenplay. 

Over the course of a month, I tried the project a few times, upping the size of the book and, hence, the length of the time spent on the bike. By the time I'd got up to Cormac McCarthy's The Road, I was taking lunch and evening meal breaks, returning each time to the gym to pedal more.

The problem with doing this is that the moment you eat, you're back to burning food again. You don't touch the fat you're supposed to be burning off. So this time I decided to cycle for as long as I could without stopping.

15 min cycling

15 min break for a phone call

2hr cycling

After this, my legs had seized up. I was a 3^rd the way into the book. Multitasking sure does slow down your brain. Eventually you're just too tired to concentrate any more.

By the way, I got this book signed in Manchester a few years ago. Check it out.

Good book. A little too self-obsessed and Joly isn't as funny in writing as he is on screen, but an entertaining read so far.

And as for cycling, next time I might break it up with other exercises and see if I last longer.

Personal Best Vs Finishing Line

Over on Actualise the Impossible, blogger Sam Davies is writing about lifestyle design, self-improvement and confidence. Packed full of ideas for overcoming fears and laiden with interesting anecdotes from his own experiences, it's well worth a look. Check it out.

One particular post that struck a chord with me was this one from June, “The Finish Line Vs Personal Best”, where he compares two methods of attaining goals.

“Personal Best” involves working on a project until it's done, no matter how long it takes. If you want to see your screenplay made into a film, for example, it could take years. After a month you might have gotten feedback on a draft, rewritten it and sought feedback a second time. If you're lucky you'll have found a film-maker who's expressed an interest, but to get potential contributors to read a finished script you could be waiting 6 months or more to get any interest at all.

This kind of project is a great structure if you know exactly where you want to end up.

“Finish Line” involves setting an arbitrary deadline for your project. For instance, let's again use screenwriting as an example. Earlier this year I wanted to find out as much as I could about this area of the TV and Film industries. I also wanted to develop some of my own screenplay ideas. As I had more than one written project on the go, and I was looking for information about the profession, AND I didn't exactly know where it was going to lead to, I set a deadline a month away. I could then investigate as much as possible, without being so sucked in that I neglected other written projects like this blog.

If you're a regular reader you'll have noticed I section off a lot of my challenges by months. A month working on erotica. A month using Twitter hashtags. 

I've automatically worked to a deadline to investigate a subject without getting too sucked in. Having said that, perhaps sometimes a task CAN be finished if enough time is spent on it. Maybe I could have got those erotica stories and poems published by now if I'd have cracked on to the bitter end. Perhaps that should be an upcoming Personal Best project.

From now on, any projects I do on this blog will be either Personal Best projects or Finishing Line projects. I've got a few ideas in the pipeline for both types. Stay tuned for more...

P.s. the picture, in case you were asleep last summer, is of four-time paralympic-gold-winning wheelchair racer David Weir, who passed all the finishing lines before his competitors at the 2012 London Paralympics.

Month-Long Movie Marathon

Pic courtesy wallyg, Flickr. The Manhattan Bridge, seen from the same spot used in the filming (and subsequently the poster) of Once Upon a Time in America.

I went back to my teen days this month and geeked out by staying in watching copious amounts of films. I was getting tired of everyone I know saying “I can't believe you haven't seen that film!” So I did something about it. I also made a few notes while I was watching them, so that when it came to writing this post I could recap.

Here's the line-up:

Once Upon a Time in America with DVD commentary.

Watched this before a few times, but was desperate to figure this film out. After reading the plot on Wikipedia and this Q and A, I think the penny has dropped. Absolutely incredible movie.

Anchorman

Clichéd comedy about rivalling TV news presenters. Funny in places. Predictable. Think Austin Powers on CNN.

Training Day

Brilliant cop drama. Well plotted. Rookie character was a little too frail to have realistically been accepted onto the Force though.

Stepbrothers

Mates rave about this tale of two kidults brought together by their ageing parents' marriage. It's funny, but still pretty formulaic.

Batman Begins

Interesting to see the creation of this well-known superhero. Unfortunately, it was laden with unrealistic fight scenes and an unconvincingly weak-spirited mayor (Harvey Dent, played by Gary Oldman). Over-long. Unbelievable that no citizen of Gotham stopped to think, who's got the money for all these cars and gadgets?! Who's the only millionaire here?

The Dark Knight

Same. Fun but unimpressive.

This video says it all.

The Dark Knight Rises

Further Gothic hokum. Again, this video strips the movie bare and exposes it for the charade it is:

Michael Caine, as Alfred, predictably steals the show in all three.

Bloodsport

An early Van Damme movie about a deadly martial arts tournament. An Enter the Dragon remake for the following decade. (Both films feature bodybuilder / Martial artist Bolo Yeung.) Fun, but an awful script. “The triads- they are like the Mafia...” As well as featuring the Muscles from Brussels in one of his earliest films, a young Forrest Whittaker also flexed his acting muscles. A few questions re the plot: Why would you get away with assaulting a police officer? And why, in the middle of a bare-knuckle, no-holds-barred martial arts fight, would you change your stance- on your opponent's suggestion?! Weirder still- this is a true story based on the exploits of martial artist Frank Dux. It'd be interesting to see how much is true.

Zombie Strippers

NOW we're talking. This no-budget schlock-comedy features a troop of marines sent into a strip joint to combat an outbreak of zombies. Exactly as cheesy as it sounds. There's a scene in which an eastern-European girl uses the phrase “boys with toys”, which is very reminiscent of a line from Tomorrow Never Dies, a line also delivered by an Eastern European female character. The movie is probably a metaphor for the average clientele of a strip club. Was hoping it would be funnier, mind.

Story of O

“Erotic” story. Female photographer “O”, an young ambitious bimbo struggling for money (despite having silicone implants) dreams of making a book of her photos. She needs funding. Pervy rich aristocratic bloke (with a typically posh English accent- quickly defined as the protagonist's nemesis) offers money if she has a steamy S&M session with him. Silly girl ends up being abused repeatedly.

Characters praise O’s mediocre photos, like they’re the best thing to happen to the print media industry since Chinese wood block printing. Terrible music, editing, script, acting- just a wreck of a movie. Fans of 50 shades (i.e. morons) may like it.

Ju-On- The Grudge 2

This is the Japanese original sequel to the American franchise. Yes, they were Japanese movies first, just like The Ring, Dark Water and Infernal Affairs (The Departed). Japanese horrors are usually brilliantly effective, But this one fell way below the benchmark. Plot too brisk. No build-up of suspense. Terrible acting. Too many “why”s. As in, “Why would that happen, realistically?” Incredibly confusing edits.

No Retreat: No Surrender

Karate Kid remake with less charisma. The Mr Mayage figure is the ghost of Bruce Lee, and is played by a bloke who doesn’t look anything like him. DVD sleeve, featuring a young Van Damme, is misleading- The Muscles from Brussels is the bad guy and gets minimal screen time. Worst Van Damme movie ever. Worse than Black Eagle, in which VD also plays the baddie. Laiden with cringey moments, including the stereotypical black teenage sidekick with awful rapping “skills”. The wreck of a script is botched further by the terrible editing.

No Retreat: No Surrender 2

It gets weirder still: This one starts not in a city in the US, but in Vietnam. Vietnamese characters get no subtitles until around ten minutes into the film, by which time you’ll have no fucking idea what’s going on. One particular scene wins the award for featuring the most unconvincing crocodile in cinematic history. Another wins the award for weirdest barbeque, featuring white buddhist monks in US army fatigues dancing around an emaciated pig corpse on some kind of square spit. One of the worst films I’ve ever seen.

No Retreat: No Surrender 3

“Gold Coast Florida… That’s in the USA alright.”

Oh God. Make it stop. Who PAYS for this shit? Who scripts it? Who gave the green light for this diabolical mess?! Poor print quality. Bad acting. And why do bad guys attack the hero one at a time just to get sequentially beaten up? Why not gang up and trounce the guy?

Source Code

NOW we’re talking. Comatose pilot can “jump” into situations from one reality to another using his mind, on behalf of the US military. His job: find a bomber on a train that will blow up on entry into a city. The bombing scenario can be repeatedly reenacted, through the source code, meaning he can be “killed” an infinite number of times- as many as it takes to save the people. Think Die Hard meets Groundhog Day. It’s also reminiscent of an episode of SF comedy series Red Dwarf, called “The End”, in which the characters are all killed in an explosion only to find themselves plugged into a virtual reality simulator.

Source Code is a complex, brilliant, inventive and engaging mind-fuck.

The Raven

Edgar Allen Poe is a talented but devisive author, whose violent stories are loved and reviled in equal measures. His popularity takes a nose-dive, however, when somebody starts committing murders in homage to his tales. Think Basic Instinct in the 1800s, from the perspective of the writer. It’s also reminiscient of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel Lunar Park. Despite a familiar premise it’s an exciting story. Thumbs up.

Zero Dark Thirty

Dramatisation of the hunt for Bin Laden, resulting in his assassination. It portrays the “official” story, appropriately brushing over Bin Laden’s CIA-trained past and with no mention of conspiracy theories, like “he’s been dead for years”, or “America is hiding him”. Despite this, it’s totally convincing, long but never tiresome, and always gripping even when you know what’s going to happen. What makes it interesting is the inclusion of events at the time that you might have heard about on the news. The characters meet at the Karachi Marriot. Does this sound familiar? If it does, you’ll find out why.

Immense. Watch this movie.

Dredd

A surprisingly violent but impressive reinvention of the 2000AD comic strip. Dredd is partnered with a young female rookie to show her the ropes. With Megacity One being a violent hell-hole she’d be screwed normally, but she has one defense mechanism- she’s psychic. Her predictions help the pair when they’re locked into a Bronx-esqe housing complex. A little unconvincing that Judge Dredd’s Lawgiver gun can carry so many bullets, and the soundtrack included terrible 80s guitar riffs. Also unconvincing was the- interestingly female- nemesis. What was her semi-English accent about? Regardless, great fun and a massive improvement on the cheese-fest Stallone ’95 version.

Well. I didn’t get anywhere near as many films watched as I wanted, but needs must. The weather has been brilliant and I didn’t want to miss the minute amount of sun we get in this country. The films I did watch were, on the whole, well worth watching.

Manchester Comic Con

I hit Manchester Comic Con on Saturday with Tom. The event, held at Manchester G-Mex- sorry, Manchester Central, was a celebration of comics, movies and video games. The serious fans are mostly in their late teens who spend all their part-time wages on their costumes, which- despite being good quality- can only be identified by a handful of in-the-know comic geeks.

radio-muffled voice “What are you doing, sir? Get down. Hands above your head.”

And the highlight of the event? The DeLorean.

 

The guy playing Doc was incredibly stressed out and avoided getting his picture taken. My guess was that he was a bitter petrolhead, a DeLorean enthusiast paid to look after the car on the day, and paid to look like an ageing scientist, who was annoyed that such a fascinating car - and company-  is only known by most people due to the exposure from the Back to the Future franchise.

I was hoping there would be a few Aliens Vs Predator graphic novels to pick up, or something similar, but most of the lit wasn't to my taste. I did, however, manage to pick up a few souveniers:

Although a good experience, it was- expectedly- an incredibly nerdy event populated largely by people dressed as comic characters that I didn't recognise. “Celebs” in attendence were so niche that I didn't recognise their names or their faces.

It was no San Diego Comic Con in terms of cultural, recognizeable icons. Or at least I thought: I didn't spot Warwick Davies from Willow and Star Wars who was in attendance.

A good laugh though.