Rather than reviewing stuff, as I usually do, I have to comment on a comment.

Recently, I posted an old review of mine for a film called Londinium. Today, I was notified of a comment left about that post. It said:

Hey man, thanks for taking the time to bash my work. Love your site as well. All’s good.

Live clean

Mike Binder

mikebinder.net
Thefreebird.com

I’m still quite dumbfounded about it. Someone posted a comment to my blog … Seriously, it is rather bizarre. Now, I don’t know if this is genuine (the two sites exist: one is Mike Binder’s official site, the other a promo for a DVD of a film Binder wrote/directed/starred in from 2001), but I can’t imagine that someone of his stature would Google himself and then reply to a (rather scathing, I have to admit) review on someone’s blog. It seems quite strange, to say the least.

The other alternative is that it is a rather elaborate, well-researched hoax. It’s quite easy to set up an anonymous Blogger profile for the purposes of commenting on people’s blogs, but why bother? It’s a very small joke with not much pay off.

If it is the real Mike Binder, I can’t quite see the point of it. However, it made me think about the power of words in a review. I stand by what I said, but I never thought that the creator of a theatrically released movie would ever see my review of his film. I try to write my reviews to be fairly even-handed, putting my thoughts across in a reasoned and (hopefully) articulate manner so that I am not misunderstood, bearing in mind that nobody goes out of their way to produce something bad. They are still human beings, and deserve to be treated with respect.

So, Mr Binder, if it is you, thank you for taking the time to leave a comment, and best wishes for the future.

Still, it could have been worse. A post of mine about British television comedy, of which I am quite proud, received the terse and to the point comment from Anonymous:

You fucking dick

You’ve got to admire the economy of phrasing.

In a different vein, but still in the world of film and leaving me a little gobsmacked, I learn that The Dark Is Rising film trailer is online. As I commented in Clandestine Chum Jim Roeg of Double Articulation’s post about the reading material of his youth, I loved The Dark Is Rising cycle of books. They were the first books I remember REALLY enjoying reading when I was given them as a teenager. They either filtered my preference for genre reading, or were perfectly in sync with what I wanted to read. Whichever, they had a deep impact on my reading psyche and I have a huge affection for them to this day.

To learn that the second book in the series, also called The Dark Is Rising, has been turned into a film was something of a shock. I either never knew or I had blanked that from my mind. It makes perfect sense based on the success of The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and the upcoming His Dark Materials films: here is a series (i.e. a franchise) of books about mythology/folklore/fantasy, written by a British author, and specifically aimed at a teenage audience (read: key demographic for movie executives).

However, from viewing the trailer, I wonder if they know what they are doing with the source material.

Despite being adapted by John Hodge, of Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, 28 Days Later, The Beach fame, the film seems to be bizarrely updated to modern day America with more of an emphasis on the SFX action of the piece than the story. As Empire says, to take the narrative away from the country from which it takes its mythology seems a particularly odd choice, which I can’t see being justified other than a solely American-centric approach to the material. This seems quite sad, and doesn’t inspire hope for the film.

And, what is Christopher Eccleston doing in this film? It really doesn’t seem like him – perhaps he was similarly affected by the source material when he was younger?

I will no doubt see this film (although unlikely in the cinema), just because it is The Dark Is Rising, but it will be hard to separate the dispassionate critic from the fan of the books. Just as long as I don’t turn into one of those Transformers fans who were screaming at Michael Bay before the film came out about all the changes he made …