Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises

This review will be spoiler-free so read away!

The Dark Knight Rises is out this week and I thought I’d share my thoughts on the film. Let’s start out with the basics. The film takes place 8 years after the end of the last film. Batman has been in hiding ever since taking the fall for Harvey Dent's crimes but with the appearance of Bane, and with Gotham under threat once more, it's time for the Dark Knight to return again. But is Batman prepared for an enemy more powerful than any he has yet faced.

Before getting into specifics I'll start out by saying the film was really, really good. All the characters were handled well and given time to breath. The fight choreography and big set-pieces were well crafted, and light on the CGI as most of Christopher Nolan's stuff is. 

The whole scale of the film was incredibly large, with Bane's attack on Gotham city being so well carried out, it strikes before anyone can really do anything to prevent it, especially a Batman who has been in hiding for 8 years. 

The film also deals with the theme fear once again, through Bruce Wayne's indecisiveness, and this inaction being responsible for some of the events that occur in the film. Although the fear aspect isn't as heavily pushed as it was in Batman Begins, it still plays a large role in proceedings.

Tom Hardy as Bane was a complete monster, so brutal, and despite most of his face being covered, his expressiveness through his eyes alone is very impressive. The mid-film fight between Batman and Bane is incredibly well put together, and completely sold by Tom Hardy’s immense physical stature.

Anne Hathaway was great as Selina Kyle. She played it brilliantly as a manipulator, usually only looking out for herself, and playing others against each other. Catwoman (though I don’t think she’s ever directly called this) was incredibly well handled in the film I thought.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt was great, and his character's story was such a welcome inclusion in the film. He seemed like a bit of an amalgam of certain characters from the Batman mythos, but a great inclusion after all.

And of course, Michael Caine as Alfred is once again fantastic, stealing almost every scene he appears in, and delivering some of the emotional backbone to the film.

I haven't decided yet where the film lies in relation to The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight has loomed as one of my favourite films, which hasn't diminished upon repeat viewings, and only time will tell if this film will stand up to the same viewings. I am definitely looking forward to seeing it again, though, and I'd recommend everyone reading go see the film.

All I can really say is, Christopher Nolan has struck magic once again.

A Superhero RPG for PC

Apologies for the lack of updates for the last couple of weeks, but I've been pretty busy for the last while and here's why:

I'm making a game! Yep, a bona fide computer game. It's an old-school style rpg game but unlike all those old-school rpg games this isn't about fighting trolls and dragons, no this is all about superheroes!

Now of course, making a game isn't easy, which is why I want to be able to dedicate time to it and to make it as good as I possibly can. To aid me with this I have started a fundraiser on indiegogo.com/knightsRPG. Please, check it out if you have a minute to spare. The aim of this is really to provide me with the means to be able to concentrate on making the game to the best of my ability.

For those who have used crowdfunding sites in the past, you may be thinking "Indiegogo? Why doesn't he just use Kickstarter? Everyone and their cat seems to have heard of that place!"

Well to be honest, I would have liked to have used Kickstarter too. It's a well-known thing at the moment, and videogame funding seems to do well over there. The only problem is, you have to have a bank account in the USA to be able to use it, and as I'm from Ireland and currently living in Australia, that didn't seem like it was going to happen. And so I went for the second largest site out there, indiegogo!

I'm very excited about all this and I have the game all mapped out, along with some fun things I'd like to implement based on what funding I get for the game. So do me a favour if you can and head over to indiegogo.com/knightsRPG and check out the game, and if you really want, drop me a couple of pennies, and I'd be very grateful.

Thanks and see ya soon,

James

Why is naming characters so hard?

It seems like a such a simple thing to do, and yet, whenever I start writing something new one of the stumbling blocks I invariably have is deciding the names of characters, from the major ones to the minors. In many of my stories the character names have changed multiple times, just because I felt a certain name didn’t suit well enough.

But why is this? What makes a name a “good” name? And does it really matter? I know that when I read books I don’t really place much importance in a character’s name, it’s just what they are called. And yet when I write myself, I find something pushing me to find just the right name for a character. I can’t think of many examples of ‘good’ names of characters, only bad ones (for example, calling a character Hope, whether that character saves the day, or is symbolically killed at some point, it feels a bit obvious doesn’t it?).

New Dark Knight Rises Trailer

The newest trailer for The Dark Knight Rises is out now, and all it's doing is make me want to watch this film more and more. I'm double happy because the film is out here in Australia a day before it is back home in Ireland. (I think that's the real reason I came over here :D ) If you haven't clicked on the video above to watch yet, then why the hell not?

Film Review: The Avengers

Marvel’s latest big-screen blockbuster is hitting screens worldwide at the moment and I was fortunate enough to get a chance to see it yesterday. For those who don’t know, this is what Marvel’s last few films (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Incredible Hulk) have been building up to. We’ve been introduced to all these characters in what have mostly been very good films(the last Hulk film wasn’t as good as the others but certainly not as bad as Ang Lee’s Hulk, but then again, not much is).

Going in as I did having watched all those films (and having read comics about them for the last few years too), it’s hard to tell whether you need much knowledge of the characters beforehand, but it seems the film  assumes you at least have a rough knowledge of them (and if you’ve successfully managed to avoid hearing at least the most basic details about the characters from their last few films, then chances are this won’t be the film you’re looking for anyway).

The basic premise of the film is that this group of superheroes (consisting of Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye & Black Widow) has to unite to face a greater force than any of them could handle individually. It’s a pretty basic premise, and overall the plot is pretty straightforward, but with an ensemble cast like this, that’s pretty much necessary. Not to say that this hurts the film either, it simply leaves lots of space for the films real strength to show through, the character interaction.

Book Review: The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

After watching the Hunger Games film a couple of weeks ago, I decided I’d give the 3 books a read. I wanted to find out more about what would happen in the world of Panem. So what did I think of them overall? Somewhere between “Meh” and disappointment.

The first book was good. The changes they made between the book and the film seemed like logical ones, especially considering the first person narrative of the book. Overall I’d say the changes made in the film were for the better, giving a much larger view of the impacts of Katniss’ actions in the games and things happening around her than is possible to show in the book. The book is however much more detailed and brutal than the film is but I have to say I probably enjoyed the first book on roughly the same level as the film.

The Magic of Unplanned Writing

I've been writing on and off for a long time, lots of little stories, stories that were never finished, and stories that are still tucked away as ideas in a secret folder (I say secret but not exactly well hidden. It just sits on my desktop, tempting me away from whatever I'm currently working on). When these ideas strike is always exciting, and the impulse is always to chase these ideas and see where they lead.

The problem with chasing these stories in the past has been that whatever I was then working on would inevitably get lost in the wayside. I've gotten a hell of a lot better about it though, which has resulted in me getting a lot further into the novel I'm currently working on, and some of these ideas for other stories have fed back into the novel so it's all good (Of course it's also meant my ideas folder has been filling up a lot quicker, but hopefully that'll come in handy later!).

But anyway, one thing I've discovered through getting so far in my current book is how much fun the unplanned things can be. As the characters begin to develop and grow they start to fill in the story much more than I planned. Certain elements of my story have been dropped as I've written more and found out that the characters, as they've grown and become more developed, don't want to do some of the things I want to (they're like unruly children that way). There's been many occasions where what I've intended to happen in a given scene has completely changed while writing it.

Film Review: The Hunger Games

It was a sunny afternoon yesterday and I went to see The Hunger Games. I'd read a few reviews and heard some positive things about the film. I managed to avoid hearing too many actual details before seeing it, knowing only the basics of the plot, and not having read the books.

For anyone out there who hasn't heard about the film (and I'd be surprised. It seems to have done quite well for itself...) takes place in some unspecified future date and revolves around the fictional North American country Panem, which features and central seemingly advanced city called The Capitol, and surrounded by 12 poorer districts. After a failed uprising by the districts 74 years ago, the capitol punishes the districts by once a year selecting one boy and one girl from each district, aged between 12-18, to participate in The Hunger Games, where each "tribute" (as they are called) is forced to fight to the death, with the victor bringing prestige and benefits to their district, and a life of relative ease for themselves. The main thrust of the story revolves around the character of Katniss Everdeen, a young girl from District 12, as her younger sister is selected for the games at the beginning of the film, and Katniss offers to take her place.

Kindle Publishing: A Journey of Discovery (Part 2)

So in Part 1, (over here) I discussed what it was like getting my story ready to put it up for sale. Now let's discuss what happened afterwards.

As I said before, I put it up with no intentions of advertising the book in any way. I didn't really expect anyone to buy it at all because of this, so I was surprised in the first week that it actually managed to sell 5 copies. Doesn't sound like much (and at a royalty of 35c for each book, it really wasn't :D )but it was still entertaining to see.

Kindle Publishing: A Journey of Discovery (Part 1)

So about a month and a half ago I decided I would have a go at seeing how the whole ebook publishing thing works on Amazon.com. I read a couple of things on the Internet about it but quickly decided the best way to go about it would be to dive in myself and just see how it all works. 

Of course first of all I needed something to publish. I was (and still am) trying to focus all my creative time and energies into the book I'm writing at the moment so I didn't really want to wait to finish that in order to try and publish (it might take a while...). I then decided the best course of action would be to use a short story I had lying around from the creative writing course I did last year. It's a bit of a zombie story and I figured they're pretty popular these days, and it would suit my purposes nicely.

I swear this blog isn't dead really...

Hello again!

Wow, almost a month without an update. It all started out so promising...

No excuses really, I just haven't had much time to write. The work I've been doing has recently moved further away so I now have an hour travel before I start work, and an hour travel back afterwards. Between that and working some slightly longer days, it's been pretty tiring for the last few weeks. It's been a struggle to write anything in the evenings when I get home, because when you factor in dinner, showering, preparing lunch for the next day, and just general tiredness it's hard to get motivated to do much, so the huge amount of productivity I had during December and January has diminished somewhat. What little time I have had to write has been spent working on the novel, rather than keeping this place up to date.

On the plus side though, it's looking like as of the end of this week, I'll be back to working somewhere a lot nearer to here than I have been, so hopefully wont have to keep getting up at 5 a.m. (Seriously, what straight-thinking person thought it was a good idea to invent a 5 AM ?).

But enough of that, it's time to get back to business around here. I will post again soon, probably about an interesting experiment I ran with Kindle publishing and an old short story.

Long days and pleasant nights,

James.

Past, Present & Future

So I guess I should give a little more detail about myself, if anyone is ever going to have any interest in this here place.

I am a guy in my mid-twenties (let's not get too specific here...) from south-east Ireland (Top of the morning to ya, Ooh, me lucky charms, ya feckin’ eejit, whatever other common Irish phrase you can think of…).  I’m currently travelling through Australia for a year on a working holiday visa, exploring new places and generally getting away from the horrible unemployment back at home. 

At the moment I’m working towards qualifying for a second year’s visa over here which involves doing 88 days of regional work(i.e. manual labour in the back arse of nowhere). I’m a little worried that once I hit 88 I’ll travel back in time but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. The work I’m doing for my time is swede harvesting.  It’s hard physical work but on the plus side it’s getting me more in shape, building some muscle and losing some weight.

One of the things I’m really enjoying about the work though, is that gives me time to think. It doesn’t exactly involve mental gymnastics or anything, so when I come home in the evening I write (most days at least. Sometimes I sleep). This has been great for me. I’ve gotten a lot of progress done on my book in the last month.

Ideally I will have fulfilled my quota of days in April (as long as it doesn’t get rained off too much) and that point I intend to do some more travelling along the east coast of Australia for a month or so. This will be followed by another few months of work (hopefully not involving manual labour) in order to fund some travels in south-east Asia and then home for Christmas.

This rough plan has given me a pretty tangible deadline to deal with. I want to have the first draft of my book completed by the time I finish my regional work. After this the time travelling (I mean time spent travelling, but I’m not ruling out the whole hitting 88 thing) should be about the right length of time to let the story rest in the back of my head. I might try and write some short stories while travelling to keep up the writing process, or maybe start expanding on one of the other pieces I have some ideas for. Then once I start the next period of working I can return to the book with fresher eyes and begin the process of wincing at the terrible stuff I had thought I was happy with and rewriting and editing the story.

So that’s the plan for the book. So what’s this blog all about, then?

Well it’s mostly a record of my thoughts as I write. Ideally it will give some insight into how I write and the quirks about writing that interest. Mainly this will be about the process of writing, rather than specifics about my current work. That may change though once I start on the whole submission process!

Of course, I’m sure over time the blog may grow and change, but it will always be about writing. And me. Also I can’t promise the occasional tidbit about monkeys won’t crop up.

You’ve been forewarned.

I’ll be back soon, but in the meantime, feel free to leave some comments below, above, or however the hell this blog thing works.

Long days and pleasant nights,

James.

Beginnings

Hello and welcome to my blog. This is the place where I will do my best to document the process of writing my book, the progress I make with it, and hopefully one day the process of getting it published. I can always dream can't I?

I have a few ideas for stuff I'd like to discuss about the writing process, which I intend to delve into as time goes by, both the good and bad aspects of it. Of course, this will have to take second place to actually writing the book itself, but I feel it may be good to relax and have an extra outlet so that all my writing isn't solely fixated on the world and characters I'm currently constructing.

Anyway, this is just my introduction to the world of blogging, I'll return soon with some more details about where i currently am in the novel, where I am in the world, and just some general info about me.

Long days and pleasant nights.

James