Have seen the Constantine trailer. Still got both my eyes.

I was persuaded to watch the trailer last night by pandoras_closet, despite the screaming of my self-preservation instinct.

I still don't believe in the movie. The problem is not that Keanu is bad. The problem is that he is completely unconvincing. He's the wrong colour, skin and hair and eyes alike. He looks too clean. He dresses wrong (I don't remember seeing anything that qualified as The Coat). He sounds wrong, naturally. He didn't even look like he knew what to do with his cigarette! It was completely impossible to believe that the guy I was looking at was in any way representative of, or even related to, the Right King of All Bastards. You might as well cast Tom Felton as Othello and expect me to believe I was looking at the Moor of Venice.

If you're going to cast an American in the part, and move the story to the States, at least have the decency to translate the atmosphere, too. America can't match the sense of Ancient Dreadfulness that hangs over Constantine's Britain; we shouldn't even try. But the sense of corrosive, pervasive promise-gone-to-rot that can be found in your finer film noir and hardboiled detective stories might just be our analogue. Find an actor who's suited to the part, not someone who got an honourary award for best action movie star at the World Stunt Awards. (I have nothing against action or stunt work, but it's not exactly the same thing as what John does, now is it.) Get a decent writer. Lock the director down in front of The Maltese Falcon and Touch of Evil and things like that for a fortnight or two. Then let them do it. Translate it properly into the American milieu and it might have a chance.

But don't ask me to believe in Keanu, because it can't be done.

A foolish little thing to be proud of:

I went into the comic book store today after getting my first photographic driver's license in almost ten years. Fell into a discussion with the guy there, and I mentioned that I'd seen the Constantine trailer. After some discussion of why I did not rip out my eyeballs, he suddenly pointed at me.

"You know- you're the only person I know who pronounces it right."
I'd pronounced the syllable as 'tine', like the tines of a fork, rather than like the first syllable of 'teenager'. I don't know where I picked that up from, since I seem to remember the nuns using 'teen' for the last syllable of the name of the emperor who legalised Christianity. "Force of habit," I said.
"I wouldn't know that except that a few months ago I read a very early Swamp Thing, and John corrected Swamp Thing's pronunciation of his name," said the comic book store guy. "From Constanteen to Constantine."

For some reason, I was inordinately pleased to have got it right.

New user icon.

May switch it out of the default position after a while, but for now, that's me and one of the baby gators I got to see while I was in Florida. He (or she, the guy didn't say) was adorable.

He's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-ack...

I got Dave Grishin approved again at Metro: Toronto by Night.

I feel much better.