Model Citizen

This rant is a bit different because it involves two films I actually like.

First we have the groundbreaking piece of originality that is Jumanji directed by Joe Johnston.

In this film we see a young Alan Parrish, due to be sent away to boarding school, just rowed with his Dad, bullied at school, find a strange boardgame at a local construction site. No questions are asked about the makers of the game, where it first came from (though the film starts with the game being buried by two boys in an earlier generation).
As the game is played, strange things start to happen, the world of Jumanji seeps into the real world causing chaos and mayhem wherever it spreads too.
The film was incredible. A very fresh idea, a great performance from all the cast led by Robin Williams. Some groundbreaking effects from ILM. A truly stunning performance for 1995.



Now we jump ahead 10 years to 2005.
Another excellent film Zathura....but how on earth dod this get made?
Imagine the sales pitch from now Director Jon Favreau to the film company:

Sony Pictures:Hi Jon, how you doing and what have you got for us?
Jon Favreau: I've got a great story from Chris Van Allsburg!
SP: Hey, is'nt that the guy that wrote Jumanji? What's this one all about?
JF: Well, it's about these two boys...
SP: Oh' great, another family movie, tell us more.
JF: Anyway, these two boys are left in a big old house and find an old boardgame.
SP: Uh, yeah.
JF: So they start playing it and the game kind of comes to life.
SP: Uh?
JF: Now it all turns to chaos, we have loads of effects and if the boys can finish the game it will all go back to normal.
SP: ........?



Do you see where I'm coming from? How on earth did they manage to make the same film twice from the same writer? I do like both films, and glad they're in my collection, but realisticly how on earth did this happen?

I wrote this for a competition over at AV Talk asking:
You are allowed one shot (or one post) where in your own words you will write about what is in your opinion 'the greatest single inovation we've seen in A/V (audio, video or both) in the last 10 years and why it has had the impact you mention'

My answer:

DVD.

So much in life these days is like having a first beer after a hard days work. You pull back the tab or prize open the cap, hear the whoosh of the gas escaping, then take that first refreshing mouthful. And that's the trouble, the second swig never seems to match up to the first, and the rest of the liquid is just that, liquid.
It's very hard for something to keep that "first taste" experience, but looking back over the last 10 years there's really only one contender.

Dateline 1997. I'm working at a printers in Laindon, Essex, when a new job comes in. It's a flyer to advertise a new magazine coming out called DVD Review. It's going to be printed in metallic blue and has Pierce Brosnan on it in a scene from Goldeneye. I've started to hear a lot about this new DVD technology, Digital Video Disc it stands for then, later to be changed to Digital Versatile Disc, it's going to have film on it that's so much better than your old VHS cassettes. It will have stunning moving menu's that you can click on to get trailers, behind the scenes footage, hidden extras. There will be different soundtracks that can be changed at the touch of a button, some will have the director and cast talking about the movie. There will be an angle button that you can press to watch the same scene from a different view. This new DVD technology sounds awesome!



I do some hunting on the Internet and find that Pioneer have got some players coming soon. There's a very special DV 717, which I am destined to acquire at a later time, but Pioneer have bought out "The Beast"! it's the 909, it can play DVD's, VCD's, LD and just about anything else you can throw at it. It costs me £900. I buy this as I know I can start picking up all those old Laser Discs that people dont want anymore now that DVD is here, and I do. This new DVD technology has a price though, and I now have to buy a new amp that can take a fiber optic connection. I have to buy more speakers and a sub woofer, but the local shop Woolfmans helps me out and soon I have a basic home cinema.



Then it's time to finally buy a DVD. There's not that many to choose from when I visit my local supermarket (no online shops yet for me). There's Face Off, a "flipper" disc that has the movie spread on both sides of the disc, but I go for Contact a Jodie Foster film.
When I get home and play it the "first taste" is incredible. We're in space, there's radio waves playing all around the living room. Then the radio waves get older and older and slowly the sound starts diminishing from the rear speakers, then it's just stereo, then it's just mono and then we are in the eye of a small girl as our trip through space finishes.
I stop. I am literally stunned by what I've just seen. I'm sitting in a room surrounded by shelves of VHS tapes thinking, all this has to go and be replaced, because from this point on anything other than this wonderful new technology is going to be a poor second.
The next few months that follow in Essex, there's a running joke about me on commission with Pioneer due to the amount of DVD players my friends and workmates buy after seeing what I've seen. Contact get's played over and over, the car chase from Ronin, another favourite, has the room rumbling with the sound of impact from DeNiro's rocket launcher, even sample discs showing future titles get played again and again and still the first taste is as good now as it was then.

10 years on I'm still watching DVD's that make my jaw drop. The look of Appleseed, the quality of LOTR, the menu's of The Italian Job and Terminator 2.
It's been a superb 10 years for the home cinema enthusiast and the joy that is DVD.

I read a lot.
I read on average about 25 novels a year, and that's just at work.
I dont get that much time at home to read because of the kids, but when I do I usually read Graphic Novels. I love Frank Miller and Allan Moore, two writers I grew up with, but recently I've been trying to finish my collection of the Los Bros Hernandez Love & Rockets series.



Love & Rockets



It's a set of 20 books, and so far I'm up to 9 with 10 and 11 on order with Amazon.

Anyway, as started I read a lot. I've read the complete works of John leCarre, who was a bit depressing for me in the end, I can only remember one or two of his books even coming close to happy endings. Frederick Forsyth, who is called "The Master Storyteller" and for good reason. Tolkien, well what can you say about him? What i will say though is I read Lord Of The Rings again recently and realised the films were so good they are the nearest experience to a book I've come across. I've read Sci-Fi too, with Douglas Adams, Frank Herbert and Isaac Asimov. i've also read biographies, with Michael Caine's "What's It All About" being my favourite.
Crime, I read Ian Rankin's Rebus novels and also Elizabeth George's Lynley series. I wrote to George after seeing one of the BBC's dramatisations. I thought it was so poor I told her I was trying to forget it....for my troubles she sent me a signed photo!
recently I visited Hay-On-Wye, the book town, and yes, every other shop is a book shop!? Whilst I was there I picked up an almost complete Tom Clancy collection.
Tom Clancy



I'd started reading the Jack Ryan novels, though I really enjoyed the John Clarke book too.



Jack Ryan is the character from the films "Hunt For Red October", "Patriot games", "Clear & Present Danger" and "Sum Of All Fears". All excellent films, but read the books for the real thrill.

Whilst reading these books I started to think about Ryans wife Caroline, a prominent eye surgeon. I read about how she did'nt drink coffee as it could give slight tremors to the hands which were no good in her line of work, and also a great tip for artisits wanting a steady hand, I also read about the satisfaction of working on a patient and seeing there face when they realised they could see again....and that got me thinking.

My wife Nicky has been wearing glasses ever since we met 17 years ago. She's worried a lot over the years about the state of her eyes, and weather they're getting worse or not. Anyway, on the sly i started looking into Laser Eye Surgery.

Optical Express

It stated it started at around £395 per eye, and you could have a free consultation at one of there many clinics around the country. Anyway I finally talked the idea through with Nicky and even though she was very worried about it all she agreed to go to our nearest clinic in Cardiff. First thing, price, apparently the worse your eyes, the higher the price, so the starting price doubled for Nicky to £795 per eye.
Then there's a choice of treatments.



The best way I can think of to describe what they do is this. Imagine your eye as a ball, if you wear glasses your eye is probably slightly out of shape, say, like an egg. What they do is put the shape back again. There are 3 ways to do this. The first is to actually cut a slice off the eye to make it the right shape....sounds guesome, but for the same price Nicky could have LasTek where there's no cutting involved but basically they remould the shape. Other than that there's a really expensive treatment called WavTek which only benefits some people who dont get 20/20 vision with LasTek, it also can give better night vision.
I'm writing all this because as Nicky started to look into all this there seemed to be two types of people. The first was the ignorant who all seemed to have an opinion based on something they'd heard from somewhere, and that was it's supposed to be bad that! The second was the person who had had it done or knew someone who had, and there response was unanimous, why did'nt I get it done sooner!

So, after the consultation I told Nicky to go for it and I'd pay (there go all my savings for Wonderfest next year), but this had to be done. So off to Birmingham which was the nearest clinic to be able to do the operation in half term.
I got to say when Nicky was through it did sound a bit guesome what they did, but as each eye only took about 1 min to do I figure 2 mins hardship for a lifetime of sight is'nt a bad swap. Anyway, as soon as the operation was finished Nicky asked for her glasses, only to be told they'd been put away, it was then that she realised she could see, better than she could with them on! And her eyesight is supposed to now improve over the coming week.
So, if you are even contemplating this sort of treatment, I'd go for a free consultation. Yes, someone will touch your eye, yes it will hurt, but no it only lasts seconds and your eyes will get better.