People, I don’t mind admitting that I had no idea what to write in this update. That is, until my eyes flitted over a bit of the internet containing the title WarGames: The Dead Code, MGM’s direct-to-DVD sequel (I still say DTV for “direct to video”, because I’m old) to John Badham’s 1983 inaccurate-computer-hacking-depicting Matthew Broderick fest WarGames. While the movie-going public is still squawking about the seemingly endless succession of filmic remakes, they have taken their eyes off of the occasionally madcap world of sequels, and it’s about time that we stand up and take notice.

There’s not much info about WarGames: The Dead Code beyond its spectral IMDB profile and its Wikipedia entry, which actually seems to be full of information that has come from nowhere in particular, but which appears suspiciously genuine. This is my first link to Wikipedia writing this blog, and I really don’t intend to make a habit of it.

The new WarGames title is one of a number of DTV titles being brought to you by MGM and like many sequels it appears to share little with the original beyond a name and a basic concept -something which comes up again and again when you read the list of titles MGM is unleashing on an unsuspecting world:

Legally Blondes - the adventures of Elle Woods‘ British twin cousins
Species: The Awakening - the fourth in the series in which a clone of Natasha Henstridge’s character is played by someone who looks a bit like Natasha Henstridge
Cutting Edge 3: Chasing the Dream - the second sequel to the 1992 ice skating/hockey rom-com

So more and more it looks like this might be the year I try to start enjoying going out to see films at the cinema again - something I’ve not enjoyed much for many years now, only really alleviated when seeing something incredibly good, like Son of Rambow, which I won’t waffle on about here other than to say it was marvellous, and manages to be relevant to this blog by being about the making of an unofficial sequel. Huzzah.

As for the MGM sequels above, at least they are official. It’s not so common now but there was a time, particularly in low budget European (mainly Italian) film circles, to find unrelated projects given cheeky titles in an attempt to sell them. One of my favourite examples of this is an Spanish alien sort-of-horror called Los Nuevos Extraterrestres (”The New Extraterrestrials”, also known to fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as Pod People) which, not content with having a big E and a big T on the poster also found itself occasionally saddled with (among others) the legally dubious title “The Return of E.T.”

For one more example, see also the irrepressible (and heavily pseudonymed) Joe D’Amato’s (as “David Hills”) Caligola: La storia mai raccontata which often finds itself titled Caligula II: The Untold Story in order to capitalise on the well known Tinto Brass epic Caligula, (especially in its alternate version, compiled by Playboy magazine’s Bob Guccione and featuring lots of hardcore sex scenes pasted into the finished product). D’Amato’s film, at least in certain prints, also contains much in the way of very, very naughty material. As a result, you’ll note a distinct reduction in links in this last couple of sentences!

All being said and done, though, it turns out that I actually quite like sequels, particularly of non-highbrow fare. I think people suspect that I’m being deliberately obtuse when extolling the virtues of Short Circuit 2, Shaft in Africa or Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, but I do genuinely enjoy them as much as, and in some cases more so, than the more highly regarded originals.

That Halloween film is the sixth in the series and is a real sticking point even for fans of the series (in its original and certainly its bootlegged “Producer’s Cut” form). And yet it’s probably the most interesting sequel outside of Halloween III: Season of the Witch (another fanbase divider with its own individual storyline unrelated to the other films).

If nothing else, it would seem to prove that the sequel audience doesn’t like surprises. The Saw movies (four films in as many years, the fifth in production, having been greenlit at the same time as the sixth) have learnt this and parts 2-4 (while nowhere near as good as the first) have so far retained a great consistency of tone and an incredibly coherent story arc. When these films finally finish you could probably watch them beginning to end and have it feel like a somewhat gory thriller whodunnit TV series with an amazing pilot episode.

If a sequel gets too interesting, as stated above, people walk away. Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is one of the weirdest mainstream films ever made, and its box office returns reflect this fact. This is a film that arguably could have done better business if the writers (Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, respectively the son of Richard Matheson and the son-in-law of John Cleese) had just concocted a more-of-the-same time travel romp instead of the heaven/hell, afterlife, robot doubles and robot doubles of the robot doubles, Martian scientist bothering, Grim Reaper toting fun bundle that the finished film is - but I for one am glad they didn’t.

What’s that? Rumoured DTV remake of Bill & Ted?

Well, hey - at least it isn’t a sequel!

Giant Drag- This Isn’t It: In the week that Annie Hardy asked fans to fund her making a new album (without a label), here is reason to reach deep into the pockets.

Les Savy Fav- Patty Lee: Thom bought their entire back catalogue when he was on holiday. “More people should do the same!”

Aerosmith-Crazy: We have no idea why Darren likes this video.

Lemonheads-It’s About Time: A great bit of early nineties Country Rock. Spotters badges for anyone who recognises who Evan Dando’s ladyfriend is in this video…

Portishead-Glory Box: We have been waiting a decade for new material, and “Third” finally arrives at the end of this month. Here is a classic.

NEU!- Hallogallo: In tribute to Klaus Dinger, who died this week, aged 61.

B-52’s- Private Idaho: REM aren’t the only Athens natives who have released a great new album this month. Here is an under appreciated classic (with a title Gus Van Sant borrowed for his own film of the same name)

Bonnie Prince Billy- Agnes, Queen of Sorrow: The king of alt-country!

The Pharcyde- Drop: A very cool song, and a very, very cool video.

Mclusky- She Will Only Bring You Happiness: A bit of a lost classic really.

The Wedding Present- Why Are You Being So Unreasonable Now: No reason really. Just that it is good.

We are now into the business end of the season where championships, European qualification, and relegation will be decided. In this week’s Football Texpertise, we investigate the history of Premiership relegation, and take a look at the teams fighting it out at the wrong end of the table this season.

It is often said that to guarantee you are playing Premiership football next season, you need to get 40 points over the course of a season. That target isn’t far off, as in every season since the start of the Premiership the team that has finished 4^th from the bottom has averaged a points tally of 40.5333 points (although if we only count the current format with 38 games, then the average for finishing 4^th bottom and staying up is 39.25 points).

Now if we look at the current bottom half of the table and the run in of the games still to play, here’s what we’ve got:

Fulham

Sunderland (H), Reading (A), Liverpool (H) , Man City (A), Birmingham (H), Portsmouth (A)

Bolton

Aston Villa (A), West Ham (H), Middlesbrough (A), Tottenham (A), Sunderland (H), Chelsea (A)

Birmingham

Wigan (A), Everton (H), Aston Villa (A), Liverpool (H), Fulham (A), Blackburn (H)

Wigan

Birmingham (H), Chelsea (A), Tottenham (H), Reading (H), Aston Villa (A), Man Utd (H)

Reading

Newcastle (A) , Fulham (H), Arsenal (A), Wigan (A), Tottenham (H), Derby (A)

Sunderland

Fulham (A), Man City (H), Newcastle (A), Middlesbrough (H), Bolton (A), Arsenal (H)

Middlesbrough

Man Utd (H), Tottenham (A), Bolton (H), Sunderland (A), Portsmouth (H), Man City (H)

Newcastle

Reading (H), Portsmouth (A), Sunderland (H), West Ham (A), Chelsea (H), Everton (A)

It becomes difficult to see where Fulham and Bolton are going to get the points they need to stay up, and sadly, it looks as though both of these teams will be joining Derby in the Championship next season. However, relegation great escapes are not unheard of…

4 teams have been 3^rd bottom of the league on March 1^st, and then gone on to survive, but they needed to gain an average of 18.75 points to survive from this position

3 teams have found themselves 2^nd bottom of the league on March 1^st and survived, and they needed an average of 19.667 points to survive from this position

3 teams have been rock bottom of the league on March 1^st and lived to tell about it, but they needed on average 19 points to do so. The teams managing this feat were Oldham, Southampton and West Brom.

Now on the first of March this year, Fulham had 19 points and Bolton who were sitting 16^th in the league had 25 points. After 5 games each, Fulham have picked up 5 points, while Bolton have picked up only 1 point, so neither team has been in the best form over the last month. As stated before, then, it is difficult to see them improving significantly enough to stay up this season, especially considering that their relegation rivals having been picking up more points over the same time period.

And in closing, spare a thought for Derby, who currently sit on 11 points and at this stage are playing only for pride as they try to beat Sunderland’s record-low Premiership points total of 15 . Considering that Derby still have to face Everton (A), Villa (H), West Ham (A), Arsenal (H), Blackburn (A) and Reading (H) in the remaining games of the season, that’s one unwanted record that may be falling this year!

Internet news sites such as the Huffington Post have long heralded the death of the American newspaper in the online era, and a thought-provoking piece in the New Yorker claims that its death knell is a-clanging as we speak. But unsurprisingly, its author, Eric Altman, is apprehensive about the implications of that prospect.

In Out of Print, Altman gives a thorough synopsis of the grim financial state of the Newspaper industry,

Lee Enterprises’ stock is down by three-quarters since it bought out the Pulitzer chain [...]. America’s most prized journalistic possessions are suddenly looking like corporate millstones. The New York Times Company has seen its stock decline by fifty-four per cent since the end of 2004, with much of the loss coming in the past year; in late February, an analyst at Deutsche Bank recommended that clients sell off their Times stock.

The dirge continues, with Altman noting that “Philip Meyer, in his book The Vanishing Newspaper (2004), predicts that the final copy of the final newspaper will appear on somebody’s doorstep one day in 2043.”

The flipside of this sobering trend is the ascent of online news sources, and in particular, the liberal counterpart of the ferociously right-wing Drudge Report:

The owners of the Huffington Post had discovered a formula that capitalized on the problems confronting newspapers in the Internet era, and they are convinced that they are ready to reinvent the American newspaper. “Early on, we saw that the key to this enterprise was not aping Drudge,” [Kenneth] Lerer recalls. “It was taking advantage of our community. And the key was to think of what we were doing through the community’s eyes.”

What are the implications for news reporting in the age of the blogger? Oddly enough, Altman reckons that it will constitute a form of regression rather than the inevitable progress so often trumpeted by blogging proselytisers - namely, that news sources will (and in many cases already do) resemble the partisan newspapers of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century America, renowned for their political and social campaigns, and their tradition of muck-raking.

Also intriguing are Altman’s investigation of two theories of the press in a democracy: one put forth by Walter Lippmann, and the other (largely formulated as a response) by the great American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey. The comparative model is helpful for considering the role of the press in public debate. Altman argues that Lipman’s conception of an “intelligence bureau” basically won in the end, and that the “objective” standards practised by leading American newspapers in the twentieth century closely match Lipman’s vision of an elite knowledge trust that evaluated events for public consumption and reaction. The Deweyan conception of a porous newspaper open to (and a stimulus for) public debate receded. However, Altman posits that a Deweyan backlash of sorts emerged in the right wing “shock jock” phenomenon of the 70s and 80s, and more recently, in the liberal wing of the blogosphere.

However, Altman is really focusing on national debate in American newspapers. And curiously, that’s not what truly excited Dewey. In an obscure 1920 article called “Americanism and Localism,” published in the famous literary journal The Dial, Dewey celebrated the local news, and complained that “the very style of the national news reminds one of his childhood text-book in history.” By comparison, the local news is treated “with chuckle and relish.” For Dewey, the American newspaper “is the only genuinely popular form of literature we have achieved [because it] hasn’t been ashamed of localism.” Why is this important? Well, I think that the concept of localism and community-based reporting has major implications for the blogging generation.

I’m butchering Altman’s piece by rendering it to these bitesized excepts and distillations (what can I say, I feel compelled collude with his points about the parasitic nature of bloggers…), but let’s flash forward to his conclusion:

Ever since James Franklin’s New England Courant started coming off the presses, the daily newspaper, more than any other medium, has provided the information that the nation needed if it was to be kept out of “the dark.” Just how an Internet-based news culture can spread the kind of “light” that is necessary to prevent terrible things, without the armies of reporters and photographers that newspapers have traditionally employed, is a question that even the most ardent democrat in John Dewey’s tradition may not wish to see answered.

I disagree. Altman seems blind to the light pumping out of the underpowered flashbulbs and video cams of the millions - the billions - of hand-held, pocket-sized devices wielded by people all around the world. We’re not only becoming our own reporters, but our own photojournalists and videographers, as online publishing gets easier and easier. This is a new phenomenon and it’s being driven by communities, organising in specific localities, and around specific interests, in towns and cities around the globe. I think that the notion of localised community action “writ large” online has the combined power to expose, and even prevent terrible things. Mobile phones and digital image & sound recorders may or may not be an instrument of democracy in the Deweyan sense - the signs are encouraging, but we don’t really know yet; however, the indications are, at the very least, that by allowing regular people to bear witness to events and broadcast them around the globe, these tools are the enemy of totalitarianism, which thrives in isolated information vaccuums.

The local digital militia is augmenting (and possibly replacing) the national “armies of reporters and photographers” around the world, and in the best Deweyan tradition, I want to see how that happens…

Perhaps the most intriguing piece of news that has been broken today is the exclusive story that the BBC have recorded footage of an incredible tribe of flying penguins. I am sure you will agree that this is a stunning piece of footage…

However, the thought that penguins could fly is nowhere near as significant as the discovery of a UFO over the Bristol Channel. It is even more extraordinary when you find that the UFO was not seen by eyewitnesses who have had one too many in the Dog and Duck, but by casual web surfers on Google Earth. Have The Sun made the most important scientific breakthrough of the day?

Not to be outdone, the Daily Record has the sad news that an experiment into crossing Pears and Oranges (to create a Porange) has been running into difficulties. Apparently, rowdy locals in the Braehead Shopping Centre (chosen because it has a glass roof, just like- you know- a greenhouse) near Glasgow have been stealing the fruit, which is said to have ten times the amount of Vitamin C as a regular orange, and has an edible peel.

In sports news, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal that the Premiership is looking at introducing a bonus point scheme from next season, in a bid to end 0-0 draws. It is all very complicated, but it does mean that teams can accumulate 27 points in two games. So this time next year you can look forward to Hull City challenging for the league, while also trying to claw back a 15 point gap in the relegation fight…

No such complications from the Daily Mirror, who have the exclusive breaking news that Wembley Arena will host the very first Greyhound Race… on ice. Cruel? Exploitative? Of course not! The dogs are fitted with special shoes you see, which means that they are perfectly adapted to the surface. Isn’t hockey more exciting on ice? And who wouldn’t like to see dogs hurtling into each other for sport? Communists, that’s who.