The Good. The Bad. The Weird.

Dir: Ji-Woon Kim

The Good. The Bad. The Weird. is a Korean remake of Sergio Leone's famous 'The good, the bad and the ugly'. It is set some time in late 1930's Manchuria.

The Bad. The Good.

The Weird (who is introduced as a thief with few scruples) single handedly robs several Japanese dignitaries on a train. In doing so he acquires a mysterious map and thwarts the plans of The Bad (a psycho assassin crime lord) whose own train robbery occurs immediately there after, and who is after said map. Chaos ensues as the Weird makes good his escape and The Good (a stone faced bounty hunter) reveals himself and opens fire on The Bad. They have names of course, but I'm not good at remembering Korean names alas.

The story unfolds as The Weird, and his brother try to figure out what the map is about. They decide it is a treasure map but before they act on it, they get half of Manchuria on their necks as criminal gangs, bandits, The Bad, the Good and half the Japanese army come hunting for them.

Naturally, The Weird takes the map and heads off to find the treasure.

This is a strange film, and I really want to like it but I have to be honest. The camera work, art direction and general style just don't live up to Sergio Leone. The plot is thinner than my wallet and the set designs were too monotonous. At one point in the film The Weird puts on a pair of sun glasses and they looked like he bought them from a cheap contemporary street vendor. There are a lot of details that give the film an over all cheap quality. Unfortunately.

What does work is Song Kang-ho's portrayal of The Weird, and the huge brass balls it took to make this film at all. I have to take my hat off to Ji-Woon Kim for just making this film at all and while its not perfect, nor even close, it is an adventure film set in 1930's Machuria and thats good enough for me.

Rocketman characters

I currently have no more than about three hours every day to devote to my own devices. I know that most adult human beings in the western world will not think this is at all strange, but for me, its a new and some what curious development. I was told that having a job, and children would make for very little time and that I'd be too tired to do anything once the kids were put to bed. This has not proven to be the case and although my output has been severely reduced, it has not been curtailed entirely. Quite the opposite in fact. I find the less time I have the more concentrated I become, and although I have now put aside Rocketman until after my current deadline at work, and my summer holiday which starts on the 18th of this month, I do have a few individual finished figures to display.

North African characters, all by Artizan.

The figure on the left is apparently modelled on the Guardian of the Holy Grail from the film 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'.

The centre figure is a French Legionaire type which will be used in RM5, as Dominique Lavarre, Second in command of the pirate ship Le Mollusc.
The figure on the right appears to modelled on the character of Benny, from the film, 'The Mummy'.

..

The figure on the left is by Copplestone and was used as Moros, the villain of the RM4 games.
The centre figure is a Black Tree German officer which I have adapted, and will use in RM5 as Captain Wangai of the pirate ship Le Mollusc.
The figure to the right is another from Artizan's Thrilling Tales range and appears to be modelled on Che Guvarra, though I shall not be using it as such as he doesn't make an appearance in Rocketman.

Le Mollusc is an old French tramp steamer, long since fallen into decay and disrepute. Abandoned by her original owners in Indochine, then bought, sold and gambled from owner to owner she is now currently the property of a motley band, the dregs of the south seas, a crew of smugglers, pirates and mercenaries commanded by the enigmatic Captain Wangai. Le Mollusc is armed. Her primary armament is a single French 75mm main gun mounted in the bow. She also carries a twin .50 cal battery which can be employed as an anti-aircraft battery. The ships sides and super structure give +2 effective cover.

The model is made of card, and painted with acrylic paint. It measures 73cm in length, 20cm wide and roughly 20cm tall. The superstructure comes apart to reveal some internal rooms but the hull is closed. As is apparent from a close inspection of the image, the model is still a work in progress, but only details remain and the model is good to go, except for one missing staircase and some internal walls.

More to follow.

Are friends electric?

Todays musical inspiration.

I am feeling under the weather today so I need some appropriate music to liven me up. Yesterday I had a growing feeling of nausea, and I slept very badly during the night, with horrible claustrophic dreams and a pains in my sides. Today I have a headache and I'm sweating, but a few more TREO head ache pills might just see might right as the day progresses.

Interesting aircraft: Lockheed P38 'Lightning'

Glacier girl

Its time for another favourite aircraft, and here is a real beauty, one of my all time favourite flying machines; the incomparable Lockheed P38 Lightning.

The Lightning is a fantastic machine, a super performance long range fighter, years ahead of its time, with two engines to give it an abundance of power and a top speed of 580 kmh at altitude, making it faster than the P51 Mustang.

When I say this aircraft was ahead of its time, I mean that literally. Where as the Mustang was a child of the war, born of immediate neccesity, the Lightning was designed in 1937 and there is some kind of irony in debates which pit the Mustang against the Spitfire when asking which was the best fighter of the second world war. Neither was. The best fighter in my opinon was the P38 and it proved this many times over. It was the longest serving US fighter of the war, the only one to see service for every day of the conflict. It was the first US aircraft to shoot down a Japanese aircraft and a German and it was the aircraft flown by America's top two aces of the war; Richard Ira Bong and Thomas McGuire.

The reasons why the P38 was so good are multiple, but perhaps most obvious is the planform which allowed for great power and maneuverability, very few other aircraft employed the twin boom configeration and none were front line fighters, except perhaps the Northrop P61 Black Widow (another outstanding aircraft). Another reason for P38 supremacy was its weaponry. Both the weapons and the pilot sat in the central nacelle, which meant the pilot was sitting in line with four Browning .50 machine guns and a 37mm auto-cannon. Later they replaced the latter with a 20mm auton-cannon, but the effect was much the same; all its weapons clustered in a central firing position meant the P38 could hit targets at twice the range of a conventional fighter because the pilot didn't have to bother about converging fields of fire. Furthermore having the heavy weaponry clustered into a tight firing line meant when the P38 hit its target, it had a tendency to chew through it like a chain saw. With hindsight, its not hard to draw a parrallel with the main gun of an A10, the effect must have been similar, especially as P38's were often used for attacking ground targets. Add to this, ten 127mm High Velocity Aircraft Rockets (when fired in salvo these had the same capacity for destruction as a cruisers broadside) and the P38 is nothing if not a menace (and I haven't even mentioned the 1,800kg internal payload).

The reason why I love this aircraft is not just its high performance and reputation, but mostly its shape. I've always liked twin engined aircraft, but this one is something special. It looks like it was built for more than just high speed. It has the sort of graceful brutality that reminds me of 1960's muscle cars. The Lightning is a smooth, streamlined air combat predator and it can kill anything it meets with incomparable ease. The fact that its bigger than most contemporary fighters just makes it look all that much more menacing.

P38 Lightning in the foreground with a P51 Mustang and a P47 Thunderbolt

Down he went... heh heh...

The video in its entirety can be seen here; 1 2 3 4 5 though it shoud be noted this documentry is actually about dogfighting in the Vietnam war.

Artist of the Month: Mark Lagüe

Mark Lagüe is my current addiction, so naturally, he gets to be my featured artist this month. A Canadian who specialises in loose oils, Lagüe is obviously all about light, but its his style which I love. I am not good at loosening up so I strive to combine my own pedantic accuracy with this kind of impressionism, and I'm always on the look out for artists who've managed to combine a messy application of their medium, with a near photographic line. The last person I saw as good as this was Craig Mullins, and that was a good while ago now.

Too some degree, Lagüe is repetative but I think this is probably because of the nature of his work. He lives on the procedes of selling his paintings and his prices are pretty moderate if you ask me. In order to make enough money to live on, he must have a constant flow of orders, and in order to do this, he sticks to what sells. In his case this appears to be mostly urban street scenes, featuring plenty of yellow taxi's. Trawling through his site can be a bit tedious as a consequence, but its worth it when you come across pictures like the one below. Almost mundane in its subject, its a wealth of abstract colour, light and texture. I like it so much I have it as my desck top image at work!


Lagüe's figurative work mirrors his other images. They effortlessly combine abstract brush strokes with the interplay of light and form, allowing the eye of the observor to do all the tedious work when dark shadows or hard highlights swallow the details. To do that as Lagüe does, is not easy. Regard the legs of the girls below and consider how easily their lower limbs might lose form but for a few subtle highlights. I am inspired to the degree where I want to pick up oils again. They really are the best medium for a painter!

World domination. The same old dream.

Dr No's reactor room. Note the reddish brown.

There are subtle tricks you can play in composition to give a desired impression of an imbalance, and one of these is to have a crooked second frame within the frame of a picture. Note that any given picture forms a natural frame by its own edge, in the case of cinema, this is the edge of the screen. In early James Bond movies, the set design often displays this desire to create an impression of an imbalance, to lend an air of danger to the evil antagonist. Early Bond villains have a tendency to live in secret bases, whose ceilings are crooked, thus framing them in a sense of danger. They are usually furnished with polished steel, rock, concrete and some minimalist wooden panelling to further the cold blooded effect. If there is any leather, its usually the same tone of reddish brown as the wooden panels. It all works quite well though, your not in any doubt as to the kind of man your dealing with. No matter where you put the camera, the audience see's the effect, even if they are not aware of it.

Dr No's reception chamber. Note the shadow furthering the effect of the ceiling, and lending a visual que to the tarantula which will shortly be making an appearance. The Bond films were not the only ones to use this kind of composition. Hitchcock, amongst others, was very fond of it, and used it to even greater effect. I'm not sure what the big hole in the ceiling is meant to do, except perhaps to give a sense of claustrophobia

Goldfinger. Fatter, jovial and more inclined towards wooden panelling, so a lot more reddish browns, but the ceiling is still crooked, with slanting support struts to complete the crooked second frame effect.

Another big hole in the ceiling. Is it a symbolic eye, or are we trapped at the bottom of a pit?

Thunderball. Most of this film takes place underwater or on ships, but theres just enough room to slip in a crooked ceiling.

You only live twice. Now the good guys also have crooked ceilings in their secret bases, and naturally they also favour the cold concrete and metallic look.

Greens were not popular with the villains of the 1960's.

Diamonds are forever. Blofelds crib demonstrating what a cold hearted fruit cake he really is.

Live and let die. A new Bond and a new era. As the 1970's get going and anti establishment sentiments begin to filter into the script writing, the crooked ceilings get relagated to the corridors, and later disapear entirely from the villains hide away. The cold rock and concrete colour scheme remains though.

The Man with the Golden Gun lives in a 'normal' polished steel, rock and concrete hide away, that is to say he has no crooked ceiling at all (only a few slanting support struts in his personal power station). Instead its the British themselves who have become suspect for here the crooked framing has gone beserk, but the secret base in question is an MI6 outpost, concealed inside a ship wreck in Hong Kong harbour. Is it just a coincidence, or was some one making a statement about Britain's crown colony?




Britain continues to be suspect in The Spy who Loved me. Here is a room meant to be in Faslane submarine base, compete with crooked ceiling, polished steel, concrete and some reddish brown furnishings. Its interesting to note that during this period, Bond himself got progressively sillier.

In Moonraker, the crooked ceilings return with a vengence. The evil antagonist of this film, one Huge Drax is nothing short of a Hitleresque businessman megalomaniac, and the set design pulls out all the stops to make sure the audience gets the vibe. Drax's headquarters has a hundred or so screens set above the room in such a manner as to give all his minions a crick in the neck. With screens come colours, but green is still avoided.

No potted plants in this corridor!

Drax's steel and stone conference room which, naturally as he is deranged, doubles as a rocket exhaust chamber. Note the mysterious big hole in the ceiling motif has also made a come back.

The last gasp for the crooked ceiling came with Goldeneye. The Bond franchise tried to recapture something it had lost; Tina Turner provided the big sound theme song, Pierce Brosnan provided a more confident and popular Bond, and the set designer brought back the crooked ceiling in the villain's secret lair.

It might have worked too. Goldeneye is often quoted as one of the best Bond films, along side Dr No, Goldfinger and Thunderball.

2:22am

No reason

Hot! Hot! Hot!

ITS FUCKING HOT!!!! 28C in the shade, touching 40 in direct sunlight, and I've been cycling to work every morning. Luckily I love the heat, so thats not s'bad. Whats bad is the heat means I can't stop sweating when I get there. Its not easy painting illustrations when you have sweat constantly running off your arms. I'm hoping to persuade my boss to fork out the cash for a wacom board, but no luck so far.

Life is very good at the moment. On Tuesday I got 5,000 kroner back from taxes and I immediately spent 2,000 on figures, books and other little goodies for myself, then yesterday, as Thursday was Mette's birthday, we walked about the city and looked for a suitable present. I had thought of shoes, but we ended up buying a bottle of Mette's favourite perfume (by Issey Miyake) and a bikini for when we go on holiday to the beach with Mette's family. Nothing fancy this year, just a week relaxing on a Danish beach and playing in the sea with Spud and the Snoos.

Spud is what I'm currently calling Magne, because he looks like a spud.

Now nod your head to this;



edited to add;

And then in sixty seconds, the glassy heat was replaced with a torrential downpour!

Terminator Salvation

What steriods did to me

Dir: McG

And so we finally reach the post apocolypse war with Skynet and surprise surprise, its something of a let down. Not enough to ruin the film, but enough to leave me slightly disapointed. There were a few scenes of ruin and devastation, with a few HK's and early model terminators plodding about spraying everything with miniguns like ammunition doesn't ever run out (does any one in Hollywood have any idea how much ammunition those things use?) but this was quickly replaced by deserts, abandoned factory interiors and lots of rusty chains.

I like rust, and I love old factory interiors, but I like desolated city scapes much better, and what I loath, is lots of people in pseudo military garb clustered around a radio listening to 'the voice of the resistance'. Terminator Salvation failed because it was too close to The Matrix sequels. Too 'staged' to be convincing.

Some people have complained about the acting, and others the story, especially the ending. I didn't mind the ending as it fit in with the pre established character of Marcus, and I thought Marcus was well played by Sam Worthington, I especially liked the moment when Moon Bloodgood's character shot him and despair overwhelmed him. His reaction was underplayed, but very effective. I think that was my favourite moment of the film, and the only part where the horrors of the story made any impact on me (either I've seen too many films or whom ever wrote the story didn't do a good job).

As I watched Sam Worthington on the screen, I considered if in ten years or so he'd make a good Philip Marlowe, with a moustache and some appropriate period clothing, I think he just might. First though, we have to see him star in James Cameron's upcoming film 'Avatar' (and boy am I looking forward to that one!) and as Perseus in the 'Clash of the Titans' remake.

As for the story behind 'Terminator Salvation', I thought it was okay, but some what unambitious. There were a lot of special effects, but these couldn't hide how thread-bare the narrative was. There was also a lot missing, but I assume this is because time travel, super terminators and what not are as yet further down the time line. John Connor survived termination yet again though, so I guess we'll have a fifth film in a few years time, and maybe then we'll see more post-apocolypse furniture and less Matrix style cliché.


I doubt it though.

Melt

Todays musical inspiration whilst I work comes from good old Gary Numan