Lend your ear or be destroyed… Game of Thrones special
“It’s hard to put a leash on a dog once you’ve put a crown on its head.”
It is lines like this which help to explain why Game of Thrones is so good. I often find that films/TV can ruin good books (*cough* the ending of Harry Potter *cough*), but I have no hesitation in saying that George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series has been done justice by HBO.
The scripts are sharp, the acting superb, the locations and costumes stunning.
So, in homage to the first two series of Thrones and in celebration of the third series being just around the corner (1 April for the UK), I am doing a themed show. I have spent quite a bit of time putting this together, but really Ramin Djawadi’s soundtrack could run the show itself.
Yes, from the now iconic main theme to moments of high drama, disaster and triumph, the music of Thrones is another crucial part of the show’s success.
How will my show work? I will be taking you on a whistle-stop tour of series one and two (i.e. I won’t spoil things for anyone who hasn’t read the later books), pointing out my favourite moments – i.e. Joffrey being slapped – and also some aspects of the plot that frustrate me – i.e. Robb being an idiot.
That will, naturally, be interspersed with music. Some of it from the soundtrack, the rest from other artists. Yep, tenuous links time.
Those tenuous links will – I hope – be made up for my use of Bruce Springsteen, Elvis, Queen, Take That and other such people wot are good at music.
I’m beyond excited for this. I hope you are too. It’ll be on http://www.standrewsradio.com (and the STAR app, hey hey) tomorrow, 2-4 PM.
Escaping the rain
Things are not quite as they should be.
My favourite team at the Euros – the Netherlands – have been humiliated, my pub quiz team just can’t quite get the win I/they desire, I’m not permitted to see the Queen because I don’t have tartan trousers, my summer is proving catastrophically unproductive and… other things. Which I wouldn’t tell you about even if you had a single drop of interest, which is unlikely.
At least the rain/monsoon season has subsided. For now.
I say my summer has been unproductive. It is mainly true. I have not started researching my dissertation, nor begun learning shorthand/Italian, nor made decisions about cars or phones.
What have I done? Well, I have dreamt up some new ideas for Old Browne Shoe. There will be an 80s feature. That’s about as far as it goes for now.
My main ‘productive’ thrust, if you like, has been reading. Specifically, reading A Song of Ice and Fire.
When things are not quite as they should be – sport, rain, the Queen, etc – I tend to get either angry or moody. Neither is helpful. So the alternative is: to escape.
Most keen readers claim they can do this with any book. It depends on your imagination I suppose. Mine is sorely lacking, so the ideal is for someone to create a fictional universe for me to wrap myself up in.
That is exactly what George R. R. Martin did with A Song of Ice and Fire, an epic fantasy series that very few (myself included) had heard of until HBO’s Game of Thrones came along last year.
I like history, and daring adventures, and tales of military glory and disaster, and scheming statesmen. Martin’s novels have all of these things, which may explain why I have read the first three books in about three weeks.
Hence I have been to some extent immersed in this fictional land of crowns and swords and dragons and wolves, wandering around the Portrait Gallery (in Edinburgh, if you were wondering) and working out which portraits might look like which character (Room 1 has a good candidate for Tywin Lannister by the way). What a truly sad individual I am.
But hey, this mediaeval world of Martin’s is far more enrapturing than 21st-century Scotland, thus I have my escape. However, in this fictional land too trouble has surfaced.
I find myself almost a third of the way through A Storm of Swords Part 2: Blood and Gold and my feelings are mixed. It is very good, better than ASoS Part 1 – because far more important things happen – but Martin has only gone and butchered (literally) my favourite character. I had a fair idea it was coming, but that didn’t make the chapter any easier to read.
Without giving too much away, I doubt I have felt such hatred for a fictional character as I did for old Lord Walder Frey on completing said chapter.
And don’t take this the wrong way, but if you have the misfortune to have the surname Frey/Frei, you are one treacherous son of a bitch.
Anyway, that’s you pretty much up to date with where I am, as in I’m not in real life at all. And given some free advertising to a fantasy fiction author. But honestly, these books are brilliant.
I should probably make some more effort to be productive, gain actual experience that will help me in later life or go somewh- HEY GUYS, POTTERMORE SORTED ME INTO RAVENCLAW!!! RESULT!!
Game of Avengers
I watched some good stuff this week. Rewarding myself for doing an exam by watching The Boat That Rocked counts as a very good decision. But I’m not going to write about that. Instead, here’s a couple of reviews on Game of Thrones and Avengers Assemble.
Photo: incredible-hulk-library.com
(Obviously I can’t actually review them, as I don’t really know what I’m talking about, but I’m going to give my personal take on them anyway.)
Game of Thrones – ‘A Man Without Honor’
Honour. Honour. Anyway, there were several men without honour in this week’s episode. We started off with Theon, who is gradually starting to rival Joffrey for cruellest bastard in the series. Brann and his companions escaped from the captured Winterfell, and Theon spends this entire episode looking for them, showing vindictiveness in dealing with the people of Winterfell, his own men and anyone who crossed his path. To be fair to him, he doesn’t get his wang out at all, which makes a change.
Jaime is his usual dishonorable self. He sneers at everyone and anyone, does his best to look dashing despite being covered in poo and mud and murders another Lannister in an attempt to escape. He does – unlike Theon – manage to pull off being a bastard without being a massive tosser at the same time. I hope to see him get his comeuppance, but not urgently. He remains a decent character and good bad guy.
Jon Snow, north of the Wall, shows too much honour if anything. He lets the ginger Wilding Ygritte tease him about his lack of lady action instead of cutting her pretty little head off. Allowing himself to be distracted by her talk of sex and freedom, Snow stupidly gets himself captured by her Wilding friends. Snow joke.
In Qarth, Daenerys is still stroppy about her stolen dragons. We again meet the mysterious woman with honeycomb on her face, and Daenerys is in mortal peril when the creepy men with bald heads and purple lips turn nasty. It all makes for rather confusing and frustrating viewing.
The best bits, as they so often do, take place in King’s Landing. Sansa wets the bed with red and now we can look forward to the prospect of Joffrey attempting to bring more brats of his ilk into the world. The best line, as it often does, belongs to Tyrion. Referring to Joffrey, he says: “It’s hard to put a leash on a dog once you’ve put a crown on its head.” Wonderful stuff from easily the series’ best character.
All in all, another gripping episode, which left me willing next week’s instalment to come round more quickly. One more thing: the ending is rather shocking/disgusting, so don’t watch it while having your lunch.
Avengers Assemble
Most people I know who have seen this film have been raving about it. It was good, yes – wonderfully entertaining, very funny in parts and the end showdown was brilliant – but it also had its flaws. Much like most films, then.
Essentially, a bad guy (Loki) has got a terrible weapon that he can use to cause untold damage to the world. So a group of misfit heroes come together to stop him via explosions and epic fight scenes.
So far, so Expendables. But do not fear, Avengers Assemble actually has a plot. Not the best plot, admittedly, but a plot. Which already sets it above several films of the explosions-and-fighting genre.
What are my issues with it? One problem is the techno babble. I have not seen Thor or Captain America, so much of the talk about the Tesseract, also known as ‘wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff’, went over my head, as did pretty much anything said by Dr Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) in his geeky scientific form. Fortunately the worst section of dialogue for techno babble was balanced out by the first barrage of comedic insults thrown by the various Avengers at each other.
Problem number two. It is somewhat overlong. The fact is, Loki has this glowing cube thing that can let a monstrous army into the world and ravage Manhattan. Yet he spends the best part of 90 minutes distracting the Avengers on their Cloudbase-like (it was very Captain Scarlet) aircraft carrier plane thing by trying (and eventually succeeding) to psych them out. Once the film got down to the six heroes versus the alien horde, it was mightily good.
The final problem. Not really a problem, so much, but I kept expecting Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury) to pull out a purple lightsaber and tell Loki to “Eat Force!”, and was constantly disappointed. That says a lot more about me than it does the film.
Anyway, what were the good bits? There were lots. First, the snappy one-liners, especially those coming from Robert Downey Jr (Tony Stark/Iron Man). The film’s best parts tended to include a dash of humour, whether it was Captain America understanding a popular cultural reference or the Hulk hitting Thor in the chops.
Two, it didn’t descend into pointless romance. There were some edgy moments between the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), but nothing too gooey. The action took precedence. “Uh, but it wasn’t, like, deep and meaningful, yeah,” you may complain. It wasn’t trying to be, rather it left the ‘deep and meaningful’ stuff to the likes of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. The characters focused on kicking alien ass instead. The film set itself up to entertain, making you laugh and wowing you with the action sequences, and it did that.
Finally, the Hulk. Just wow. As the film ramped up the tempo towards an epic finale, the angry green giant came into his own. He jumped around, smashed stuff, roared, smashed baddies, hit Thor, and smashed some more stuff and baddies. And he did it with such vigour. Honestly, if I could channel all my anger into saving the world…
That’s not even to mention the best ten seconds of the film. Spoiler alert, if you’re worried… Loki spouts some demi-god superiority crap, then Hulk smashes him off the floor. Several times. Simultaneously epic and hilarious. It ranks as one of my favourite movie moments, although not quite at the very top.
As you ask (let’s just pretend you did), this is my favourite movie moment ever. You go T-Rex.
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