Kids TV, quantity over quality.

I'm getting older. I know this. I realised I had reached the threshold a few years ago when phrases started becoming more frequent in my vocabulary.

"Kids these days" "in my day" "back in the day" "when I was growing up we had..."

I became more and more aware of my dislike for new things and change. Which is quite weird as I like new things, especially gadgets. So I thought about comparing things between my childhood and my daughters (she is six.) I want to see if she has it better now or I had it better then.  But more of a comparison than competition.

Now let's get a little understanding here. Firstly, I had a pretty good childhood. My parents loved me, I was well looked after and I had friends. More than some people can say. This isn't about "woe is me." Secondly, I understand there will be major differences, she is a girl and I am a boy. There will be different types of toys and programmes, but I don't see that as a problem, as I will try to take that into consideration. Thirdly, and most honestly, I will be biased towards my own fond memories. The rose tinted glasses will be in evidence, as many things may not stand up now. However I am writing it, so tough.

Children’s TV is available 24/7 now, there is just too much!  It just doesn't feel special at all anymore.  Constant streams of repeats.  When I was at school it was much more limited, with a choice of C-ITV or CBBC between 3.10 and 5.30 on weekdays.  With a Saturday morning show, and some cartoons on a Sunday morning. 

Most of the younger children's programmes seem pretty similar to my era.  Start Something is like Play Away.  The cartoons seem to be a bit more educational, with aims of teaching friendship, team work and sharing.  I don't remember things like that when I was younger, but I'm sure they must have been in there.

Moving to slightly older and CBBC/CITV.  They would start with the younger programmes and getting older through the 2 hours. Short cartoons to begin, followed by a serial animated series (Mysterious Cities of Gold, Round the World with Willy Fog) on BBC.   With Newsround at about 5, followed by Blue Peter or a children's drama like Grange Hill or Round theTwist. All hosted by a man with a puppet gopher in a broom cupboard, reading out birthday cards, generally being silly and posting out song sheets. ITV had basically the same premise. With usually Looney Tunes starting things off, followed by a range of cartoons, He-Man, Thundercats, Dangermouse, and ending with something like Press Gang, or even better, Knightmare! The basic premise behind Knightmare was genius, 3/4 contestants went in to a virtual reality world of the dungeon, progressing down to reach the prize.  You could never see that now, and yet it was brilliant.  Both channels had art shows too.  I grew up with Hart Beat featuring Tony Hart and Morph, and on ITV they had the also fantastic Art Attack, which I am pleased to say Disney Junior has revived (although it's not the same without Neil Buchanan.)

Saturday mornings was the other mainstay of children's TV.  From The Multi-ColouredSwap Shop, to Saturday Superstore, where kids from around the country would phone up to swap toys they no longer wanted, for something they did. Then followed by Going Live and Live and Kicking.  On ITV you had, Tiswas, No.73, Get Fresh.  The Wide Awake Club was also on in the gap between Breakfast television and the morning magazine show. They all featured a range of celebrities with interviews including live phone-ins, cooking features, fun games and cartoons. I was always a BBC man on Saturday mornings, but quite often turned over for the cartoons on ITV too.

Lastly, we have the holidays. This is where they put more programming on for kids, mainly during the mornings.  I remember Wacaday being on on ITV.  This was hosted by the "brilliant" Timmy Mallett and quite often featured Transformers as the cartoon, I don't remember any other one on there. It also featured a game called Mallett's Mallet, a version of a word association game, but involving getting hit on the head by a foam mallet.  I don't recall any other programming on ITV during the holidays, mainly because I turned to BBC after that.  With programmes like Junior Kickstart and Why Don't You. This was a magazine style program designed to give you ideas of what to do, and where to go out and about.  Each week it would be hosted by a group of kids in a different part of the country.  They would also show some of the BFI kids films, and there would be other movie which I was gripped by, Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, and where my love of Sherlock Holmes came from.

I think children nowadays miss out on a lot of great programming, because it is there 24hours per day, I feel the quality in a lot of it lacks.  Having 20 episodes of Peppa Pig in a row, or access to Netflix and Amazon Prime, meaning they can series mash Go Diego Go and Dora the Explorer (with her bloody map and back pack) means that it feels less of a treat.  Although I try to restrict my daughters viewing time, and encourage her to play games and with her toys, I find it hard as it is easy entertainment.  Trying to encourage her to watch more movies and less constant repeats of the same shows we have seen 100 times.  

I'm not saying it's all bad, at all, but I do think there has been an overall drop off in quality over quantity.  Let me know in the comments what you think, what do you remember as your favourite programmes from your childhood, and leave links for YouTube videos of the themes for us to look at.  My list is by no means exhaustive, and it would be great to see what others watched too.

Facebook - A Social Experiment Gone Wrong!

I have had Facebook for many years now.  It started as a way of keeping in touch with people.  It seemed like a nice idea.  See how people I went to school with we're getting on, catch up with family and friends overseas.

Then it grew, it snowballed, Facebook took on a life of its own.  Now we have 'likes', 'groups', games and various assorted apps.  I came to realise, through a conversation with one of my friends, that it hated it.  I only really keep it for event organizing purposes.  I started looking at why my dislike had formed and grown.

It started with all the stupid crap I have to trawl through just to see a couple of status'.  How many times can I see a grumpy cat in the same photo, with some 'witty' writing above and below it?  How often will I see what used to be called 'chain letters', and then spam? "If you share this lucky dog turd with 10 of your friends your luck will change for 2 months, 4 days, 3 hours, 47 minutes!"  Yes some of you friends will think you are an idiot and hide all your updates, probably forever!  "Share this if you hate...insert terrible thing here!"  Homophobia, cancer, AIDS, animal cruelty, child abuse!  Who doesn't hate these things? No I'm not sharing your stupid whining about very basic issues.  Why don't they ever say, "if you don't hate cancer, why don't you just piss off!"  "Share this if you think soldiers should get paid more than footballers" maybe if the government wasn't run on our tax money they would, but then that would be a private army and they would be mercenaries, and not heroes.  Private individuals pay footballers to do a job in their team.  No one suggests Richard Branson and Alan Sugar are over paid, no one seems to have an issue of Hollywood throwing millions of dollars at making some movies for Will Smith and Tom Cruise to entertain us for 2 hours, so why always footballers?

Then there is the selfies, what the hell made this a cool phenomenon?  Badly taken pictures, usually of some girl making a face like a duck.  You're not sexy, you look like a duck!  If male ducks had Facebook they would probably be permanently hard, "Ooh, Daisy got boobs!"  But they don't, get over it, take some decent photos or maybe look normal and not like an idiot!

A few of my friends are very creative.  They share things they have done on Facebook with their 'friends'.  This will usually get five or six likes, maybe a comment or two.  This is something they have taken time and effort to do, maybe draw a picture, create a video, make a collection of amusing pictures or create a music track.  Why is there so little appreciation for effort that someone has put in, when a girl can make the mating face of a mallard and get 200 likes?

When did moaning about everyday life stop being a private thing?  What happened to personal issues?  People just seem to go on Facebook and constantly moan about the most menial things.  It's just a constant stream of, my car, my kids, my husband, my wife, my house, no money, no time, blah blah blah.  You have a roof over your head, food on the table, maybe if you spent less time on Facebook moaning and more time with you family your wife, husband, kids wouldn't be so annoying!  There are people dying of terrible incurable diseases, starving because they can't afford food, that don't have a roof over their heads, that have no basic clean water, think about them before you moan you self centred ignorant muppets!

My final Facebook issues come with my 'friends' list.  I genuinely have nothing against any of the people on my 'friends' list, I wish them all good health and a good life.  But how the hell have I got 180 friends?  I consider myself lucky to have about 10 close friends, with about 25/30 other friends.  Add to that about another 10/15 family members.  Where the hell are the other 135 people from?  This is mostly a list of people I have briefly met at some point, either worked with, or just met through someone else.  It's no wonder my news feed is clogged full of crap!

I won't get rid of Facebook as yet, it is a tool of modern society, yet I find more of my life is wasted looking at pointless rubbish that doesn't even really interest me.  I hope people understand my rant and don't take it personally, it is a generalisation and somewhat exaggerated, but if you do take offence, I'm sure you will post about it in some heartbroken update which I will, no doubt, just ignore while chuckling at stupid cat pictures.

Marvel Vs DC, Movies and TV?

Marvel and DC have done battle for many years, even on the silver screen.  Until recently the history is somewhat chequered.  

The first foray into film and TV was by DC. In 1951 Superman and the Mole Men was released in the cinema.  This was a pilot for an Adventures of Superman TV series.  Marvel's first efforts were on TV in 1977 with The Incredible Hulk and The Amazing Spider-Man TV series'.

But it wasn't until as recently as 2008 did either of them start work on a cohesive Cinematic Universe.  While DC were basking in the success of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, second of the Nolan Batman trilogy, Marvel sowed the seeds of a larger universe of movies with Iron Man.  A small clip, post credits hinted much, much more was to come.  

Unfortunately Marvel sold off the rights to many properties such as Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four and DaredevIl, although the rights to Daredevil have recently reverted back.  However this has meant that Marvel have been able to concentrate on a core number of characters.  Focussing initially on the Avengers 'big three', Iron Man, Captain America and Thor, Marvel have weaved a story and joined them into one universe. 

Now the ground work has been laid and the first phase is complete, the universe can start opening up to other characters, including the Cosmic Universe, with Guardians of the Galaxy.  They also have Agents of Shield, which although has a weak beginning, is intertwined into the universe. Plus the Netflix exclusive series of Daredevil through to Defenders on the way.

Personally I can only see an agreement with Fox and Sony working with Marvel being of benefit to them.  But this would take a lot of work, but I can see it happening.

So Marvel seem to have set their stall out, and are working hard to keep things together.  Now for DC. 

They seem to be struggling.  After coming out of two excellent Batman movies, they gave us something new, Green Lantern.  Rumoured to be the beginning of a DC Cinematic Universe, it stank, and it flopped. The DCCU stalled. 

While Dark Knight Rises concluded the Nolan trilogy, work started on Man of Steel, a Superman reboot.  Again rumour suggested that maybe they could right the wrongs of Green Lantern, and launch a Cinematic Universe, which Marvel was already launching the second phase of.  

Man of Steel hit, and although I felt it had many problems, it hit big.  A sequel was announced and it was one of the DC movies people wanted, Superman/Batman.  Arrow was launched, focussing on another member of the DC universe, Green Arrow.  Its first season gave a good account of itself.  Introducing several DCU characters, including Black Canary and Deathstroke, it moved on to a second season and introduced The Flash, another of the DCU big hitters, ready for his own series to be launched later this year.

Casting for Superman/Batman has already announced Wonder Woman as a character.  If the two series can keep going, a Justice League movie can only be a couple more years after.  However, they are very reliant on several things for this to happen.  Both series need to keep going, and possibly introduce a rebooted Green Lantern for his own series.  Also Superman/Batman has to be good...very good!  Because fanboys are already hammering the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman.  Both are apparently lined up for three movies each. 

I'm not going to judge until I see it, but after Man of Steel I don't hold much hope.  It's like Warner don't really get the characters they own.  They keep trying to ground them in reality, an alien who can fly, and Amazonian Princess, an alien power ring, a man who can run at the speed of sound.  They have a fear of going all out on the fantasy aspect of the fantasy characters.  This is the same studio who bought us 8 movies about a magic school and evil wizards trying to kill a boy!  Why do they keep getting stuck?

Their screenwriters just don't seem to get to grips with it.  Maybe they feel comic books are below them? David S. Goyer has written or cowritten many comic book movies now, and yet he is still very hit and miss.  Blade, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are great, Dark Knight Rises, Man Of Steel and Blade Trinity, not so much.  Maybe it is time to give someone else a go, although I admit it didn't work on Green Lantern.  Personally I think they should hand over control to the writers of the comic books.  Comic books that have lasted for 50/60/70 years, and then let the directors put it on the screen.  

I seem to bitch a lot about DC/Warner, but I'm not a hater. I have loved load of the comic books, many of them are among my favourites.  They just keep getting the movies wrong, and at a time when comic book movies are doing so well, it seems a shame not to get a great bunch of DC movies too.

D.C. Events, A Crisis of Infinite Characters! - Spoilers

So I decided that it was about time that I read Crisis on Infinite Earths.  I'm not sure how I have never got around to reading this before.

First, a little bit of history...

Crisis on Infinite Earths was written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by George Perez.  The 12 part maxi-series was designed to simplify 50 years of Multiverses, alternate Earth characters, and crossovers.  It did do exactly that, the post-Crisis DC was a much simpler place for many years.  This was the first major crossover event for D.C., and the second released after Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, although it was developed before hand and D.C. delayed the release to get it right.

I will admit I came into this with quite high expectations.  This was THE Event.  Between this and Secret Wars for Marvel, these launched the event driven comic world we now live in.

Unfortunately I found this story to be boring.  A lot of it didn't make any sense, the art work was cluttered and messy, the story over-complicated. Very basically, the D.C. universe was split many years ago into the Multiverse, and an antimatter version of it did the same.  Both matter and antimatter universes had a character called Monitor.  Antimatter Monitor worked out that if he destroyed the matter universe, he would get stronger. Matter Monitor works this out and tries to stop him by calling together many heroes from various universes in the Multiverse, with specific powers.  Are you bored yet? Exactly! Personally it comes across like a self indulgent mess.

The stem of the problem comes from the idea to include all the characters up to this point in D.C.'s history.  This just leaves panels too full, and characters with not a lot to do except look at each other, and say "Oh no, what can we do?"

What the story does do right is handle some of the deaths well.  As, I believe, the first time for major character deaths, they have genuine meaning and impact.  It does also resolve the Multiverse problem of too many intertwined universes and alternate characters.  However Sadly this isn't enough for me to enjoy this "classic" story.  I found it overly hard to read and not very satisfying to conclude.

Next up is Zero Hour: Crisis in Time.  This is practically the same story as Crisis on Infinite Earths, with time being eliminated instead of the Multiverse.  For me the story works a lot better than the original Crisis by being smaller, only 5 parts.  It is still confusing, and tries to include too many characters, but the time travel aspect of the story works a lot better for me.  Overall a better read than Crisis on Infinite Earths, but still not great.

Next will be Infinite Crisis.

Ben Affleck IS Batman?

OK, after mulling over it for a while, I have to say I am pleased with the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman. 

He should have no issue with playing Bruce Wayne, he has the chiseled look required for the role, and he can easily be the playboy.  As for Batman himself...I liked Daredevil Director's Cut.  It adds more to the movie.  Affleck was alright in it, working well with a script that was essentially not the great. 

Affleck has been great in some movies, Town, Argo, Chasing Amy, but he has been in some stinkers too.  I think he sometimes has a tendency to try too hard, like he feels the need to earn respect and overacts the roles.  If he can settle into the role, then I think he will do well.  He is also a good choice for moving forward with Batman movies, able to star, write and direct if he so chooses.

My biggest concern is still the writing by David S Goyer and the direction of Zak Snyder.  Man of Steel proved that neither of these guys get Superman, at all!  But Goyer has good Batman experience, working on the Dark Knight Trilogy with Christopher Nolan.  Hopefully Nolan can reign him in a bit, and we can get some balance between action and interaction.  Only time will tell.

What I thought of Pacific Rim.

I had no real expectations for Pacific Rim, so I think that may have helped it.  I had seen, but not read a couple of both good and poor reviews. 

Basic premise is simple, the world is being attacked by aliens from below the Pacific Ocean, and humans team up to build giant robots.  How could you go wrong with this you may say. Well Michael Bay managed to screw up giant robots fighting, so I guess anything is possible.

First of all, I thought the fight scenes were pretty well edited together. Lots of destruction, but you are made aware that protocols are in place to evacuate people and save lives. A lot of the time these could be scenes from a Godzilla movie.  Big action spots that only occasionally confuse the eye.  

The acting is mostly solid all the way through.  Edris Elba is on top form, as are the hero pilots of the robots.  However for me the movie has a Jar Jar, or rather a pair.  The two scientists, played by Charlie Day and Burn Gorman, are seemingly there for comedy entertainment as is the black marketeer played by Ron Perlman.  Their whole story is just stupid, and played for laughs.  My other issue is with the female lead, played by Rinko Kikuchi, has a major traumatic stress issue, and then suddenly it gets better.  This maybe due to the vote of confidence, or just written off as a "well sometimes the first time sucks" moment, but either way it is given short shrift.

My real issue with the film is, that it gets about halfway through and stops being a Japanese monster movie, and turns into Independence Day crossed with Armageddon. Complete with cheesy speech, and hero sacrifice, etc.

I enjoyed it, it was worth the money I paid, but it could have been better.  A bit more work on the second half would have improved it no end.  For me it gets 7/10 

D.C., Warner, and the permanent problem.

So after Marvel showed everyone how to make a comic book universe. And Christopher Nolan reinvented the comic book movie with the Batman trilogy, well the first two anyway.  And Kick Ass showed us that we can have adult comic book movies too (take note Marvel.). There was so much reinvigorated talk of a Justice League movie, and how it was going to all launch from Man of Steel.

Except, well, I just don't think it can happen.

The main problem is that, sorry DC, but a lot of your characters aren't very good.  

Lets look at the evidence here.  The Justice League, comprised of various members of the DC universe, but these tend to be the big seven.  Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and more often than not Martian Manhunter.

Superman - Ok, the icon, the ultimate hero. Self sacrifice, honour, truth, justice, the American way. Oh crap you blew it already.  This guy is probably the hardest to write for I would think, backed up by the fact that five out of ten of his top stories are all origin re-tellings.  He is too powerful, there is nothing on Earth that can stop him, except, conveniently placed lumps of Kryptonite.  He just killed his only equal, so you have to rely on guys more intelligent, Lex Luthor, and Brainiac, or out and out Gods.

Batman - The best character by far in the DC universe. Got two recent solid movies and will always be the best character they have, mainly because he would fit perfectly into the Marvel Universe, with almost no issue at all.

Wonder Woman - Amazon Goddess, sent out into the world by her mother to fight evil with a lasso of truth.  I know almost nothing about Wonder Woman, because every time I read any, I get bored and lose interest.  I'm not against strong female characters either.  A properly done Birds of Prey TV series could be fantastic.

The Flash - This guy has some really crappy villains, but he does have an arch nemesis with the same super speed powers, but his name is Professor Zoom.  Yes really.  Although I have enjoyed, quite a few Flash stories, I am just not sure if he could hold his own movie.  That being said, the TV series wasn't bad, but people expect so much more nowadays than the simple cop show premise of a TV series.

Green Lantern - Ok they screwed up the movie for this.  Mindless cheesy rubbish, probably the worst superhero movie since Batman And Robin.  And yet, it did show small glimmers of hope.  With some decent writing maybe, just maybe, they could make this work.  Great background, great stories.  Yes and GL movie is gonna be loaded with CGI, because his imagination is his power. But you could also have some fun with it too.  For me this works slightly better than Man of Steel, because it is pure fantasy, and doesn't pretend otherwise.  The cheesy writing in places is awful though and destroys any real get up and go.

Aquaman - This guy can't even keep his own comic book series going.  Fine if they are at sea, but otherwise just a fish out of water (sorry.)

Martian Manhunter - Along with Aquaman, cannot keep a series going, often replaced in the Justice League by Hawkman (don't ask, just think of Prince Vultan from Flash Gordon, but less shouty.)

Less than half of these can hold a solo movie together.  Unless you dispense with origins and go straight for the Justice League movie (you can't put five origins in a movie, it would just be dull) then you would have to launch them over a few years, and they just aren't strong enough characters for people to give a monkeys. 

Now, let's be honest here.  Not all of these guys need to hold a solo movie.  Black Widow and Hawkeye are both B list, but fitted into the movie nicely.  You don't need an Aquaman or Martian Manhunter movie to introduce these guys.  You could get away with a quick profile by Batman or Superman while deciding to add them to the team.

But you still have the problem that these are all massive fantasy characters, from a huge fantasy universe, and Warner Bros are just too scared to go all out with this.  All the Marvel characters so far fit into an almost real universe.  This is intelligent selection on Marvel's part.  I don't believe they would of had the same success had Phase One started with Rocket Raccoon and a Howard the Duck reboot.  But now they have the success, they can take a risk with "the Avengers in space", so to speak, with Guardians of the Galaxy.

Maybe I am wrong on all this, and maybe Warner just need to get comic book guys, writing comic book movies.  Maybe there is a great DC Phase One, with great Man of Steel 2, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and The Flash movies.  Maybe in 4 years, a Justice League movie will hit our screens and impact like The Avengers did.  But if I am honest I can't even see it getting that far.