Posts from October 2008

31
Oct 08

Quantum Of Solace 7 (as the poster says): An Appreciation

• FT • 10 comments • 446 views

Here is a review from FT’s Bond-o-o-phile Magnus Anderson:

Quantum of Solace 7 is GREAT! It had plenty that I liked in Casino Royale, the weight and heft and sense of consequence. But it was better paced – I thought CR dealt with the card game well and it needed a final set piece, but they slowed and lengthened the movie. This is swifter and slighter.

However if you were not a fan of the last one you almost certainly will not be one of Quantum Of Solace 7 either. It’s an unrepentant sequel, and the story is never recapped despite being central. In fact, so much of the ballast comes from CR – the root of Bond’s mood particularly, but also the mesh of unresolved semi-betrayals – that I can imagine that in its absence QoS would seem like something of a chase to the finish. Albeit, I think, still an entertaining one.

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30
Oct 08

Zot! 1987-1991 by Scott McCloud

• The Brown Wedge • • Post a comment • 191 views

I mentioned this in one entry in my Beginner’s Guide series, and rereading it now in this big collection, I think I may have undersold it a little. This volume collects all McCloud’s B&W Zot!s: it therefore omits the first 10 colour issues, a two-parter with a guest artist (to give McCloud time for his honeymoon), and some very funny stick-figure addenda strips by Matt Feazel. It started as a charming superhero adventure series, one that felt more like Astro Boy than any US series. Zot is the top superhero on an alternate-Earth, a utopian pick-and-mix blend of the history of SF. Zot flies with jet boots and has a ray gun, but his greatest assets are his unshakeable confidence and total optimism. It’s smart and bright, with the best use of speed-lines since Infantino’s heyday, and has some terrific villains – 9-Jack-9 in particular is magnificent, looking like no one else ever, unbeatable and very sinister. McCloud has demonstrated his deep formal understanding of comics in a series of book-length comic analyses since then, so it’s unsurprising how beautifully executed, despite the odd moment of clumsiness in some of the draughtsmanship. These are some of the most delightful and entertaining comics you’ll find this side of Osamu Tezuka*.

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29
Oct 08

What Is The 38th Best Song Of All Time Then?

• FT • 10 comments • 548 views

Its not Punka by Kenickie. As demonstrated here, the massed meh of FT writing staff proves it. So instead intrepid reader suggested five worthy replacements for number 38. And you have until the end of November 4th to decide whcih one should have the place of the 38th best single of all time. And it gives those of use who are not involved in the US elections something JUST AS IMPORTANT to vote on.

Vote often, vote early.

Which Of These Should Be The 38th Freaky Trigger Best Single Of All Time And Is Thus Better Than Punka by Kenickie

  • BALTIMORA - Tarzan Boy 33%
  • THE SUGARCUBES - Birthday 23%
  • THE CHIFFONS - Sweet Talkin' Guy 19%
  • THE FOUR TOPS - Baby I Need Your Loving 15%
  • SPACEHOG - In The Meantime 9%

Total Voters: 78

Poll closes: 5 Nov 2008 @ 00:00

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THE JAM – “Going Underground”/”Dreams Of Children”

• FT + Popular • • 92 comments • 5,595 views

#454, 22nd March 1980

Straight in at number one: the public gets what the public wants. “Going Underground”’s arrival at the top is an example of the charts acting justly for once – steady and remarkable improvement from the scrappy punk hand-me-downs of “The Modern World” rewarded. The Jam’s first number one was their best record to date, a distillation of wrath and excitement so potent that it single-handedly justifies the attention paid to Weller ever since. If someone could – even once – produce a record so thrill-powered, it would be irresponsible to take your eye off him, even when his gifts seemed to have calcified forever.

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A Bite of Stars, A Slug of Time, and Thou – Episode 16

• FT + Slug of Time Podcast • • 5 comments • 1,333 views

In the last episode of Series 2, Astrophysicist Michael Williams joins Mark Sinker and Elisha Sessions to talk about “The Forgotten Enemy”, written by Arthur C. Clarke in 1949. It’s about comfy isolation, radio static, and forces larger than oneself. Elisha reads the story at the front of the programme; music is “Speculative Reminiscing” by Low Res, “Permafrost” by Magazine, and “From My Window I Can See A Mountain in Snow” by Tisane feat. Kevin.

Produced by Elisha Sessions

28
Oct 08

The Top 100 Tracks Of All Time: 38. ?

• FT • • 13 comments • 902 views

Avid readers of Freaky Trigger will be aware that our intermittent at best feature, running down the “Top 100 Songs of all time as voted for in a pub in 2004”. And hopefully haven’t been holding their breath, because they’d be a Long Time Dead by now. Not a hint. So why have we been waiting for so long for this particualr entry. Why number 38?

Well let me show you behind the curtain. No, the list was not broken by Awesome Toys lesser known and not actually real (yet) Do The Fury Boogie. Instead the officially decided Number 38 sat there waiting to be written about. The usual writers looked at it and passed, not being particular fans. But that’s OK, we have an extended gang of people who would happily write about it, who must have voted for it. So we waited for them to write it. And it did not happen. Which can mean only one thing.

Punka – by Kenickie is not the thirty eighth best single of all time.

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eDgY!!: “every yuppie’s fantasy”

• FT • • 7 comments • 236 views

To celebrate our Popular feature reaching the 80s, here is an exciting NEW SERIES of Freaky Trigger posts where we look back at that decade through the lens of A Decade Of i-Deas: the encyclopaedia of the ’80s, published by i-D magazine in 1990. This is a fascinating book as it’s a great snapshot of a) what seemed to matter at the decade’s end and b) an early historical judgement on same. It gets things right as much as it gets things wrong: but in this FT series we’ll simply be printing excerpts and asking you, our readers, to identify who i-D are talking about. So without further ado, who’s THIS:

“Versed in Shakespeare, morose and obsessed with the past, she is every Yuppie’s fantasy – an intelligent female who can quote Sylvia Plath and appreciate the finer aesthetics of CD sound. Never-smiling and now 20 years old, she looks poised to become as big as her 60s mentors. Whether you like it or not, this is the new face of teenage Britain.”

Obviously if you have the book yourself, NO PEEKIN’.

27
Oct 08

FERN KINNEY – “Together We Are Beautiful”

• FT + Popular • • 51 comments • 4,830 views

#453, 15th March 1980

After “Atomic”, this is something of a let-down: a record about modesty that succeeds, modestly. I’m fond of “Together”, actually: there’s something refreshing about the candour of “I’ve been with better looking guys / You’ve been with prettier looking women”, and I like its rather tidy, bubbly take on disco. It’s a song that sets out to be sweet, and despite a somewhat cloying chorus it gets there. But ‘sweet’, in the middle of a landmark era for pop, isn’t really enough.

Pop Quiz – A Halloween Spine Tingler

• FT • / • 1 comment • 266 views

Woooo! Choose the three you are most afraid of:

  • Monsters (and super creeps) 49%
  • The Reaper 47%
  • (OR) I'm not scared! (Baby, I don't care) 35%
  • Thinking I could never live without you by my side (at first) 26%
  • A Black Planet 21%
  • Thunderbolts and lightning 19%
  • Kung-Fu Fighting 19%
  • The way you love me (like thunder, lightning) 16%

Total Voters: 43

Poll closes: 31 Oct 2008 @ 23:59

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26
Oct 08

end times watch: robocop on a unicorn ’08

• FT + The Brown Wedge • //// • 1 comment • 807 views

this has been fairly widely linked in the last few days, but as a journal of record of such matters…

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