I've just had a really lousy week - in agony from Thursday night onwards. I was having difficulty walking and beginning to wonder whether I was ever going to walk anywhere again.
Seriously.
By Tuesday things started to get slowly better - in the afternoon I walked to the post box on my own although it was slow and painful and I was using two sticks.
In the evening I drove into Slough so that we could see 'Dr Strange' - as I wrote before I'd been fascinated with this Marvel Comic character when I was a kid in the 1960's, as you can see here;
http://helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/strange-tales.html
I really didn't want to miss this and we even saw it on the big screen.
I should say that I don't like CGI normally, I gripe about it a lot. Dr Strange was always going to be full of computer generated effects, so it was going to have to work hard for me.
Dr Steven Strange is a gifted, arrogant, irritating neurosurgeon; basically a really annoying know-it-all.
He's also not very good at interpersonal skills.
In the end, however, he ends up crashing his super car and wrecking his hands for ever. No more complex surgery for him.
Devastated, he looks for a cure and after the most that advanced medical science can offer has failed, he explores the world of alternative therapies - a journey that takes him to Nepal and a secretive magic sect.
Much more than that I can't really say except that it was a great moment when he was united with his cloak and he ended up saving the world in a very amusing way.
Along the trail there are more than a few laughs and a fine performance by Tilda Swinton as 'The Ancient One'.
Benedict Cumberbatch does OK as the Doctor who has to learn from scratch how to pass through different dimensions and multiple universes to fight evil.
Oh, and there was a funny librarian - that's a first. And for the first time the CGI actually added something to the film.
I must admit that I tried and failed to get a Dr Strange poster from the cinema but I was far too mature and serious to actually buy a Doctor Strange magic drinks glass myself - that would have been very childish indeed.
Although as we were leaving I found one that someone had discarded. It would have been untidy to just leave it lying there outside the cinema.
It's luminous and very mystical.
Look, it's glowing!
Eerie.
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
I dug out one of my old comics - who can resist an advertisement for 'X - Ray Spexs';
You have no idea how I longed for this 'Polaris Nuclear Sub' and it was only $6-95!
But even I knew it was too good to be true and anyway, they wouldn't deliver it all the way to England.
Marvel and DC comics would sometimes lurk in a corner of a newsagents - where they had been persuaded to take a bundle on trial. You could never get them in sequence so you never had a full story but what a world!
My Mum bought me these comics when I was very young - it was something my Dad didn't approve of and he put a stop to it.
But I still have a small and very tattered pile of Marvel and DC comics.....and even though I haven't looked at them for ages I can still remember all the stories.
They were electrifying - nothing like our tame and boring comics here - this was another world, an alternative universe.
This surge of nostalgia came about because Hollywood is working its way through all the characters from the old comics and it has now reached "Dr Strange", perhaps the weirdest of them all.
Bizarrely, I had a single copy of 'Strange Tales' when I was a kid and here it is;
At the beginning, Marvel put a variety of stories in the comic, later 'Dr Strange' had it all to himself.
'Dr Strange (Master of the Mystic Arts)' was comic art taken to the ultimate level;
He moved from our world by day to fighting battles against evil in another dimension by night.
At the age of 8 or 9, this was amazing stuff - it opened the doors of my perception.
The pages are faded now and I'm really glad that the great Stan Lee's long forgotten character will have a new CGI life in the movies.
Looking forward to seeing it!
I couldn't resist posting part of this ad from the back pages - models of sportsmen to assemble in the comfort of your own bedroom;
Ooooooh!
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
We went to see 'The Fantastic Four' but I wasn't that impressed. I think the first three quarters were pretty good, the last a bit predictable.
Among the list of credits which was about as long as I have ever seen; Phillip Glass provided some of the music (space age modern classical electronica) and the great Stan Lee was executive producer.
If I really had to rate it I would say it was better than Terminator Genesys but far behind Ant-Man.
I suppose that's all down to how you use CGI - Ant-Man used it cleverly while Terminator and The Fantastic Four just kept throwing in more and more for the sake of it.
I was remembering how my Mum used to buy me DC and Marvel comics when I was young - until my Dad stopped me having them.
Back in those days, there was a colour cover and some colour inside pages but often there were black and white ones too. When I see old comics, they seem tame and often very poor....compared to today's Graphic Novels, Manga and CGI.
And I suppose what was so great about them, even though technically they weren't that good, is that people like Stan Lee were opening up the doors of our imaginations.
Now we are really looking forward to this;
I can't say that NWA was really my kind of stuff but in the early 1990's it's fair to say that my working life revolved around it - because it meant so much to the people I was representing.
We saw the trailers and it's looking really good.
I'm guessing my review will be a mixture of good and bad and I'm worried that the 'Hollywood Biopic' is going to gloss over some of the negatives.
But hey!
This is going to be a great film.
The main problem is that Robyn wants to see it in an empty cinema, preferably at 10 00 am while I'd like to see it at midnight with a wild audience.
We're going to have to work that one out, somehow.
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
In the afternoon, I had to go to the post office and after, we went for a walk. As we crossed over the village green, I stopped to have a look at the cricket square and then, rather thoughtfully, suggested to Robyn; "You know, we could go to see 'Ant-man' tonight?"
Robyn started to have convulsions, laughing. I caught it too - so bad I had to stagger over to a tree stump to hold myself up.
We were almost paralysed, and I know a thing or two about that.
How ridiculous.
By the time evening came tumbleweed was blowing through our heads.
There was nothing on the TV and it was supersaver Tuesday, after all.
We set off for The Empire Cinema, Slough. Perhaps Ant-Man wouldn't be so bad after all?
We made it, even after I got the urge to park way up at the top of the multi-storey car park and then I forgot my ticket and had to go all the way back.
Terminator Genesys?
It wasn't that great last week - convoluted, unbelievable story and a silly misuse of CGI.
"Hey, the focus groups don't think much of the movie....boost up the CGI!".
Ant-Man was so different. Unlike Jurassic World they took time to build up the characters so you actually gave a $%?@ what happened to them.
There was a good cast - actually really good. Even Michael Douglas (who I can't stand) was used well.
There was a story. No, really.
And it was funny. By which I mean it made us laugh in a witty way.
It was a lot of fun and over far too quickly.
So unless you are a complete Arnie fan or have a real need for dinosaurs, I would head on down to see Ant-Man instead.
Good old Marvel comics.
Can't wait for the 'Fantastic Four'....in a couple of weeks.
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
