If you like Kurosawa’s samurai movies, it’s a very good bet that you’ll like Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima’s comics - it’s the closest movie/comics match this side of Sin City, which is kind of cheating given Frank Miller’s involvement in the movie too.
Koike is as superb a craftsman as you’ll find writing comics anywhere. You get very substantial characters, thematic content, motif and strong stories. His knowledge of Japan’s history has immense breadth and depth - he gets at the motivations and circumstances of the times with genuine insight, as well as doing his research thoroughly. Best of all, he creates some extraordinary characters, and drives the story from them.
Kojima was a world class comic artist, immensely powerful and exciting - think of the battle climax of Seven Samurai. His work is gritty and flowing, fast and as muscular as it gets, with exceptional control of the very different pacing Japanese comics offer. He also provides great moments - there’s a shot of a pair of eyes in one Lone Wolf & Cub story that I’ll never forget. … read on …
“No score at the break - the mighty Brazil being held by Belgium.” We have the old problem here of commentators having stereotyped ideas fixed in their small brains before they have seen a team play. The best attempts and chances in that first half unquestionably went Belgium’s way. They continued to look the better side until a soft red card reduced Belgium to nine men, after which Brazil managed a goal. Belgium had another man sent off in what looked a crazy misjudgement by the ref, but there was still the sense of “mighty” Brazil hanging on, diving and wasting time, as the commentator admired Belgium’s plucky spirit, as if they were hopelessly outclassed but still fighting bravely. Brazil have never won the Olympic football competition, and it looks highly unlikely that this lacklustre team, even with Ronaldinho as one of their overage players, can change that.
So who looked good? Italy did outclass the opposition in a 3-0 win, but I can hardly assume that Honduras are especially high quality. Argentina look very strong, but the Ivory Coast gave them a good game in losing 2-1. Holland and Nigeria both looked pretty good in a 0-0 draw.
On a side issue, why do commentators keep using the phrase “he plays his football in [country]” when we are seeing international football? Is there more information, denotative or connotative, than “he plays in”? Would we think they meant something other than football, or that he plays someone else’s football there?
A brief dip into news territory for FT, as the web throws up this truly extraordinary story regarding the Californian budget negotiations. DON’T YAWN YET. It appears that Arnold Schwatzeneggar’s Republic’s have been unable to fix a budget for public spending and are running blind into the new session. The solution? Pay all state employees minimum wage until it is sorted out. Not only is this a truly bonkers idea (underpaying as an incentive - rarely works as a management strategy) but it appears to be impossible to implement. Because in other cost cutting news, they are still working on a payroll system which is programmed in COBOL - programming language TO GO of the 1970’s. … read on …
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I am not convinced The Love Guru is fundamentally any worse than any of the Austin Powers films. At least Myers only plays one character in it (two if you count a brief cameo as himself). But the difference is that while Austin Powers was a silly spoof of Bond and the literal swinging sixties the subject matter gave it architecture: it followed a spy film plot (albeit a silly one). The Love Guru is a parody of self help gurus – This is an easy target (which he does kind of miss even so), but the big problem is there are not really any guru/self help films to parody. This means Myers ends up plugging the saffron robed character into a rather dull sports movie. The Love Guru has very little forward momentum, which means it gets stuck on its bad jokes, lots of them, and you never really care what happens. (The film is even lazier than that, with cursory scrutiny you notice that the lead characters emotional arc of The Love Guru is almost identical to that in Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery - just replace a chastity belt for Powers missing Mojo.) … read on …
Isn’t the Olympic opening ceremony tomorrow? You know, 08/08/08 = money, money, money? (Actually the games start at 8.08pm, which suggests that the first track should be a cover of the Abba tune by 808 State). What I understand the term “Opening Ceremony” to mean is that it takes place before any of the sport starts. So why have the Women’s Football games already started? Yet more proof that the Olympics are rubbish, they can’t even start on time! Of course in the UK we have no interest in the football due to the pesky Scots not allowing us to field a Team GB football team - possibly on the correct assumption that no Scot is good enough to make the team. That said the suggestion of a home nation tournament in 2011 to select a GB team for 2012 I think could be quite good fun. But then it is football, they have their own World Cup and football has never really felt like an Olympic sport to me. Unlike, say, Hitler’s favorite sport Handball - which is as Olympic as they get (pointless silly foreign sport that no-one plays). … read on …
If you like Kurosawa’s samurai movies, it’s a very good bet that you’ll like Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima’s comics - it’s the closest movie/comics match this side of Sin City, which is kind of cheating given Frank Miller’s involvement in the movie too.
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