Spawn

Last night I was watching the 1997 film Spawn, directed by Mark A. Z. Dippe, and based on the comic book created by Todd McFarlane. The story revolves around Al Simmons (played by Michael Jai White) who works as an assassin for a covert agency of the US government. Howver, Simmons is betrayed by his boss (Martin Sheen) and murdered. Due to his life as an assassin, Simmons goes to Hell and encounters the demon Malebolgia who offers Simmons the opportunity to return to Earth and visit his wife (Theresa Randle) and take revenge on his killers, in return for Simmons becoming a leader of Hell's armies. Simmons accepts and returns to Earth five years after his death as a scarred, costumed super-powered creature called Spawn. Spawn is constantly plagued by an annoying demonic Clown (John Leguizamo) who tries to persuade Spawn to obey Hell's orders, while a mystical old man, Cogliostro (Nicol Williamson) tries to persuade Spawn to join the forces of good. The movie suffers from the fact that it never really seems to know exactly what it wants to be (with elements of action thriller, horror, superhero movie and family drama). It also has points where the action of the film stops dead for the characters to give a monologue explaining the story, which tends to sound kind of fake, in particular because it tends to be stuff the other characters would already know. The computer-animated special effects also look really badly dated by today's standards. It really tries to capture the dark, violent and bizarre look and feel of the comics but never manages it. The original comics are really good.

I started writing a new story last night, this one is a kind of pure fantasy story.

It was another very dull day at work today. The work pretty much ran out during the afternoon so I ended up spending the last half hour reading my work notes and listening to my iPod.

One weird thing was that last night I took off my watch and put it on my bedside table like always and when I woke up it was in my bed at my feet. I don't know how it got there. Weird.