Notes On A Film: Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince

I'm a fan of the Harry Potter books and film (see these links for proof, so apologies for the slipshod nature of these notes), so the sixth film in the franchise is going to be aimed for me, despite any noble intentions the film-makers might have about making the film accessible for everyone. I also think that this film has more resonance for people who are intimately familiar with the books and films, getting more out of the small moments that make up this film, instead of the normal plot-heavy stories that have preceded this latest instalment.

One of the pleasures of this series is the adult actors, who have been brilliantly casting and give good performances in small roles. Alan Rickman is brilliant as usual as Snape, except for the flat and awkward delivery of ‘I’m the Half-Blood Prince’ line at the end of the film. Michael Gambon is finally good as Dumbledore, getting the whimsy and the tough and the smart; it’s a tough role that I don't think he had got quite right in the previous three films. Jim Broadbent is good fun as Professor Slughorn (I was hoping for a reunion between the Spanish Infanta [Miriam Margolyes, also Professor Sprout] and her interpreter (Don Speekenglish) from The Blackadder episode, The Queen of Spain’s Beard – I’m just amused at Oscar-winner Broadbent doing a silly Spanish accent, ‘Yes, my love, my love’; however, Sprout doesn't make an appearance, so my dream went unfulfilled), coming in as a new chap in the ensemble but fitting in smoothly.

The film is streamlined from the book – the Slughorn memory is changed to having no mention of the Horcrux, which gives a purpose to getting the memory and a revelation for when this is achieved, giving dramatic impetus for film rather than just confirming Dumbledore’s theory as in the book; Malfoy’s plot is shown throughout the film, setting up a ticking clock, rather than having it as a vague plot happening in the background in the book; this also means that the film eliminates Dobby and Kreacher, and there is only a little bit of quidditch. But they've got a lot to cram in, especially as they are more interested in the emotional connections of the various characters.

The younger actors have to do a lot more acting than normal, and it's at this point that the producers must think how lucky they got with young cast growing up – Ginny and Draco in particular. Daniel Radcliffe is hilarious in the Felix Felicis ‘happy’ scenes but his serious stuff isn’t so good (the scene where he gets the memory from Slughorn should have been him being more magnetically charming; the forcing Dumbledore to drink the potion should have been more emotional), but it's similar with the younger stars (except Emma Watson, who is good at both); Rupert Grint is hilarious when he's under the love potion, but mopey for all the rest. This has an effect on the interactions: in the film, Ron is the comic relief, which works well; unfortunately, it makes him look like a bit of a prick. His only redeeming feature is his loyalty to Harry, which makes Hermione’s affection for him completely unwarranted.

The film works if you know the characters; otherwise, it is ordinary teenagers and their emotions, with a bit of special FX, which must have been quite a hard sell. However, I really enjoyed it because I’m familiar with characters and story and enjoy seeing it move along, seeing the characters interact and play off each other. Anyway, the sixth book is a large info dump and a lot of set up for the final book, so turning it into an emotionally narrative motion picture was always going to be difficult.

I really enjoyed the little moments that were added to make the development of relationships more cinematic (instead of taking its time in the book), such as when Harry is dropped off at the Burrows and the interplay between him, Ginny, Hermione and Ron; Harry and Ron discussing ‘nice skin’; Hermione talking about the smells in the love potion; Harry and Ginny eating mince pies. Other changes to facilitate the film I'm not so sure about: the attack on The Burrows is not in book and doesn’t really serve any purpose as far as I can see, and loses some internal logic because of that. I'm also not sure about the famous talking point, where Harry Potter immobilised in book at the big scene, but here he doesn't interfere with the action because Snape tells him not to; this changes the tone of this scene in the Tower, and I still haven't decided which I prefer.

An aside: if Dumbledore doesn’t know about the Horcrux in the film, why did he go looking for the ring? (The story of the ring is not really explained in the film, so maybe they didn't care.)

David Yates does fine in the director's chair (the opening shot of Death Eaters flying over London is great) but he’s not as good with the young actors, especially if you compare their acting with the more natural and believable work in Prisoner of Azkaban under the direction of Alfonso Cuaron, and he still doesn’t provide the background magic (again, compare with Cuaron's work); I understand that the films are getting darker and it’s not about the magic, but the element should always be there in non-distracting form. However, he keeps control of the film and brings it home.

Finally, a fan's silly snipe: the only thing I would have liked that wasn't in the film was Fawkes’ lament. They showed him flying away, but I would have liked an attempt at his song of mourning, although it happens in the book in a section that is excised completely from the film, so perhaps it would have been difficult anyway.

My final verdict is slightly biased (aren't they all?): this is not a great film, especially for people coming new to the film (but how many people are there like that?), but it is very enjoyable for fans, and I'm one of those. It's warm, moving, detailed, interesting and fun to watch the characters interacting.

Rating: DAVE

[See here for my film rating system]

Notes On A Film: Adventureland

As an evocation of America in the 1980s, Adventureland is an emotive recreation of that time; as a film, it feels like a piece of wish fulfilment from writer/director Greg Mottola. This imbalance means that, despite it being a very good film, I can't completely warm to its many charms.

James (Jesse Eisenberg) has just graduated with a degree in comparative literature and looking forward to a trip around Europe. However, this dream falls through and he has to find a summer job. The only option is to work at Adventureland, a local amusement park in his home town, getting a position in the games area. Among the oddball collection of people who work there, he also meets Emily (Kristen Stewart), a pretty young girl who saves him from getting stabbed while working at the park. What follows is a coming of age tale for the geeky and socially awkward James, but with a bit more resonance than that summary would suggest.

The feel for the '80s is perfect – I was getting flashbacks to my time as a teenager then, even though I was in the UK, and it asks the important question: why was Rock Me Amadeus by Falco so prevalent back then? There are some really nice performances by the supporting cast, including Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, and Ryan Reynolds puts in a nice turn as the park's repair technician and a part-time musician who claims to have jammed with Lou Reed – the character comes across as charming but is actually quite shallow and unpleasant, but Reynolds sells it.

The two leads are very good: Eisenberg does nerdy and uncomfortable very well, and Stewart plays the innocent-looking but world-weary beauty with charm and ease. The main problem I have is that Eisenberg's character is supposed to be Catholic but he's one of the most Jewish-looking young men on screen at the moment – there are times when it feels like he's channelling Woody Allen – and Stewart's character is supposed to be Jewish, only she doesn't look very Jewish to me. It's the sort of thing that niggles me throughout, preventing me from fully engaging in the story. The other problem is as mentioned in the first paragraph: because Stewart is so pretty and Eisenberg is so gormless and not attractive, I can't believe their interaction can work at all, especially as she is the chaser (just look at the way she is looking at Eisenberg in the poster); it makes the film feel like a fantasy of how Mottola wants to remember the time he worked at an amusement park, rather than just a story about that time. I'm not saying that semi-autobiographical tales have to be factual, but this disparity between the two lead characters was just too much for me to digest. Apart from that, I did enjoy the dialogue and the characters and the genuine warmth with which Mottola infused the film.

Rating: VID

[See here for my film rating system]

Notes On A Film: (500) Days Of Summer

‘The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Especially you Jenny Beckman.
Bitch.’

Any film that starts with something as funny as that introductory text is going to be a winner in my books. (500) Days of Summer is one of my favourite films of 2009, and it was a joy from start to finish, and anyone who disagrees doesn't know what they are talking about.

(500) Days of Summer is a film about the 500 days of the relationship of Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel), from beginning to sad end, but told in a fractured manner, flipping back and forth in the time line to examine how it started, how it progressed and how it ended all at the same time. It's the analysis of a romance that didn't work, as remembered by the man, jumbled about to compare moments.

This is not a romcom, but it does have romance and comedy – there are beautiful moments in the middle of heartache, and there are some really funny pieces in there as well. The morning after sleeping with Summer, Tom is so happy he bursts into a song and dance routine (the director, Marc Webb, making his feature debut, used to do pop videos) that everyone walking in the street with him joins in with, even cartoon birds – it's delightful, and it represents the emotion perfectly. It has a brilliant last line (and a great look to camera) that leaves you grinning, exactly the right sensation to have leaving a cinema.

Even though the relationship between the two characters starts via a shared love of The Smiths, the film tries for a timeless quality – Tom's clothes are rather old-fashioned, in a quaint way, as he wears a cardigan with a studenty shirt and tie, harking back to a different era. Deschanel doesn't feel like a contemporary beauty – she's nothing like the identikit blonde girl that is prominent today, with her big blue eyes and elfin features. She also plays the ideal girl for Tom, ethereal and different, but she never feels completely whole as a character, which I think is deliberate – we are being told about her from Tom's point of view, which is a fantasy of how perfect she is without understanding her completely.

As would be expected from somebody who has directed a lot of pop videos, the film has a great soundtrack (and I'm not a great fan of a lot of the music used in general), capturing the moments and tones of the scenes perfectly. The two leads are perfect, with Gordon-Levitt on particularly fine form. The script, obviously based on real life, sparkles with great lines and lovely moments, and the film charmed me senseless. I get the same smile on my face when I recall the movie as I had when I left the cinema, and I can't wait to watch it again (and again) when I buy it on DVD.

Rating: DAVE/DAVID

[See here for my film rating system]

Notes On A Film: Funny People

What is it with Judd Apatow and long comedy films? The 40-Year-Old Virgin was just under 2 hours, Knocked Up was just over 2 hours, and Funny People is nearly 150 minutes – doesn’t he know when to stop, or is he overcompensating? It’s too much time for a comedy film – I remember John Cleese saying that, when making the Monty Python films, they noticed that the test audiences would simply stop laughing around the 90-minute mark, even though the remaining material was funny, as if they had reached a saturation point. I think he may have a point …

I have to confess to mixed feelings towards Apatow’s work; there is some really funny stuff in there but the film as a whole never feels more than just ‘good’. I don’t know if it’s the love of improvisation – letting his actors keep going in a scene, trying to outdo each other instead of making the point and moving on – or the way that the films themselves feel like they keep on going past their natural endpoints. And I don’t get the huge love for Knocked Up, which at best is merely well rounded as a film, but feels completely false as a premise: attractive women gets pregnant by unattractive, overweight, aimless stoner on a one-night stand and then keeps the baby and stays with said loser. I know that Apatow believes it reflects his relationship with his wife, Aimee Mann, but it’s not the same thing at all, no matter how hard they try to persuade us. And there is something about the intonation of Seth Rogen’s delivery (no pun intended) that gets really tiring and irksome after a short while – the nasal whine grates on my ear.

So why did I go to see Funny People? Well, it sounded like it was more interesting – a famous comedian and film star (Adam Sandler as George Simmons) discovers he has terminal cancer and reappraises his life, with the help of Ira Wright (Rogen), an aspiring but unsuccessful stand-up. And the reappraisal of life and the inside look at the world of stand-up is interesting and funny (there’s a real feel of being an insider to this part of the film, and it’s interesting to note that Apatow and Sandler were roommates before becoming famous – there is even home video at the beginning of the film of Sandler doing prank calls from this time that Apatow filmed).

But then Apatow tries to cram everything into one film, and we have the pointless asides of Ira’s flatmates (Jason Schwartzman finding some success as the lead in a bog-standard sitcom, Jonah Hill’s jealousy of Ira’s luck) and then the final third of the film where George tries to reignite romance with an old flame (Mann), who is married with children to a loud and brash Australian (Eric Bana, who is wasted here). This section drags on and doesn’t really lead anywhere, making it seem even more pointless. This bloated nature suggests that this was two films crammed into one – either alone might have worked better.

It’s not all bad – there is a scene with well-known comedians (there are quite a few people appearing in this film as themselves) sitting around talking about life and cracking jokes that just made me smile due to the warmth and naturalness to it; I would love to see a film just about comedy and comedians and their lives. This film is almost there at times.

Rating: VID

[See here for my film rating system]

Notes On A Film: Inglourious Basterds

Oh, Quentin Tarantino, how you seem to frustrate me. Despite the critical acclaim, the box office and the Academy Award nominations, I feel somewhat differently towards Inglourious Basterds. And it's not just the spelling.

There are really good things in this film and some really annoying things. The combination and the length of the film – two and a half hours! One hundred and fifty-three minutes of this – make the frustration so agonising. The first scene alone feels so long – twenty minutes of set-up. I know that Tarantino is known for having his characters talk and talk, but this felt ridiculous. The scene in the basement bar is another example; the end part of the scene is great stuff, but it takes so long to get there, with lots of talking and talking and talking. The ending of that scene is amazing, and I understand why talk was needed to set it up, but it didn't make it more enjoyable.

I don't want to seem completely negative; there were good things. The guaranteed Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actor, Christoph Waltz, is amazing as Colonel Hans Landa, the Jew Hunter – he is smart, scary, creepy, electric, mercurial, powerful, and thoroughly deserving of all the awards. There are other actors who did well – Diane Kreuger does a German actress and double agent; Michael Fassbender is really good as Lt Archie Hicox, the film critic who speaks perfect German, channelling the spirit of George Sanders (interestingly, the role was originally earmarked for Simon Pegg, who had to pull out due to scheduling conflicts; I think Pegg is brilliant, but I can't imagine him doing the role the same justice as Fassbender). I also rather liked Brad Pitt as Lt Aldo Raine, but that brings me to another annoyance – the film was set up as a group of Jewish Nazi-hunting soldiers on a mission to kill Nazis behind enemy lines, but that's less than half the film; I felt slightly cheated.

Also, when did 'Na-zee', with a short 'a', become the way of pronouncing it? We always said 'Nah-zi', with a long 'a' – did I miss a memo or something? It really irritated me. And the idea that all Germans were Nazis is something that bugs me – yes, the Nazi party controlled the war effort, but not all Germans who fought were Nazis; it seems like a rewriting of history. But, then, that's what this film is all about – the history of the second world war as imagined by Tarantino, something that makes me uncomfortable. This is probably an over-reaction but, to me, it undermines the sacrifices of those people who fought in the war, suggesting that everything would've been fine, just as long as we killed Hitler in a cinema. This fantasy might amuse some, especially Tarantino, but it felt cheap.

I drifted back into negativity again, didn't I? I can't help it – when I was watching the film, I could feel the audience not being sure how to feel about it. There was nervous laughter at the attempted jokes, there was shifting in seats as people got bored and realised the film wasn't what they expected. Then there was Tarantino's nepotism in the form of Eli Roth – yes, he might look the part of Donny 'The Bear Jew' Donnovitz, but that flies out of the window when he starts talking. Again, this was a role for another actor – in this case, Adam Sandler, who I could definitely believe in the role. Then there was the fetishistic glee with which Tarantino showed the strangulation of a woman – apparently, it was his hands, rather than Walz's – which was meant to be shocking and disturbing but I just found rather creepy. Sorry, distracted again.

Back to good things – Tarantino can shoot a good scene: his films always look really good, even when they are boring (Death Proof, I mean you). There's something about the way he frames a shot that is quite beautiful. And, even though I thought the film was too long, he does love the spoken word and I admire that, especially in the current climate of CGI-led blockbusters. Tarantino has a very specific vision of his world of cinema and I'm glad he sticks to his guns, even if I don't enjoy it as much as I used to. I don't begrudge Tarantino his success with this film, but I found Inglourious Basterds a frustrating cinematic experience, consisting of some great cinema but also annoying self-indulgence and a film that was too long for its own good. The most impressive aspect is that this was successful American film that was mostly in foreign languages – half the dialogue was in German or French, with a smattering of Italian.

Rating: VID

[See here for my film rating system]

Notes On A Film – GI Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

Yes, I saw the French gangster film Mesrine: Killer Instinct one week and then GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra the next week. I believe the phrase is ‘that’s how I roll’. The classy quotation is from Walt Whitman: ‘Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.’ I am eclectic. (Or perhaps I like films with colons in the title.)

For male fans of genre of a certain age, GI Joe was their entry drug into the world of comics. When the GI Joe action figures were relaunched in the early 1980s, they were supported by a cartoon and a comic book series (which was actually advertised on television during the show, and regarded rather well for a promotional tie-in), meaning a lot of Americans got their first taste of four-colour print action through the colourful adventures of the elite American military outfit, most of which were written by one author, Larry Hama. I am not one of those people – I don’t think the show was aired in the UK, and to me GI Joe was always ‘the American Action Man thing’. I feel I should share this before sharing my thoughts on the film.

The main reaction I had while watching the film was: ‘I can’t believe the GI Joe cartoon/comic is held in such high esteem by fans if this film is based on actual events in them’. I know people can go to extreme lengths to defend the goofier elements of the geek objects of desire, but this was just silly. The good guy Duke (Channing Tatum) was engaged to the bad girl The Baroness (Sienna Miller), who was the sister of super bad guy who would become Cobra Commander (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who was also best friends with Duke before seemingly dying on a mission with Duke, even though he was 'the science guy'. Seriously? I had to start Googling this stuff to discover the truth (and I really think I wasted some of my life reading about the history of GI Joe), but it turns out this is an invention of the filmmakers, who make some very odd choices and bizarre decisions in making an action film into something boring and silly-in-a-bad-way.

I’m not going to go into detail of the plot – for entertaining discussions of the ‘story’, I would direct you towards Flapjacks’ post at MightyGodKing and this hilarious FAQ at Topless Robot – because I don’t want to insult your intelligence. Just know that you have poor Christopher Eccleston (I thought he’d learned his lesson after Gone In 60 Seconds: don’t be the bad guy in a rubbish American movie) as Destro with nanobite weapons and illogical plans to terrorise the world by destroying world capitals, starting with Paris, and the GI Joes not exactly stopping him but getting in the way and trusting billion-dollar technology (the ‘super-suits’) to new recruits to their supposedly elite organisation, even though one of the said recruits (Marlon Wayans as Ripcord, playing ‘comic relief’) doesn’t actual qualify through the testing process. It’s a real mess – the ‘super-suits’ are so ludicrous that, even though they are touted as amazing, they are not used for the rest of the film, even though they would presumably be useful in the big battles at the end of the film.

The bombastic, slapdash action on the screen is as loud, pointless and vapid as most Stephen Sommers films, but I was constantly distracted by odd things. Why does Snake Eyes’ mask have lips? Why does Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (perhaps most famous now as Mr Eko in Lost) have a ridiculous and fake-sounding London accent when he was born and raised in London? What is Gordon-Levitt doing in this film? Admittedly he’s having fun with a silly role, but is that enough? Why does Brendan Fraser cameo very briefly as a sergeant training GI Joes, other than as a favour to Sommers for all that Mummy money? (It’s a Mummy cast mini-reunion, of sorts –Arnold Vosloo and Kevin O’Connor also show up.) Is Channing Tatum a charisma vacuum? This guy is the lead for your hoped-for franchise, and he’s a mannequin, not showing any emotion or discernible star power. And was I the only person who kept wondering when Sienna Miller’s brown wig was going to drop off in the middle of an action piece? In the flashbacks to her happy days as Duke’s fiancée, she is her natural blonde self, making the wig even more apparent. Oh, and making her a bad guy through the villain using the nanotechnology to make her bad? That’s just weak – ‘no, we’ve can’t have a woman as a bad guy, making an independent choice about her life; she really wants to be a happily married Stepford wife’.

I think that’s exhausted my over-reaction to this film – it’s a silly, loud, aimless piece of nonsense that doesn’t quite reach the ‘so bad it’s good’ entertainment levels. I remain a GI Joe sceptic.

Rating: DA

[See here for my film rating system]

Notes On A Film - Mesrine: Killer Instinct

(After a week of catching up on comics, it's time to catch up on films I saw in the cinema; seeing as I'm only into August, I've got a lot to get through.)

There are times I can be picky about completely small things. The title of the film translates the French title (Mesrine: L'instinct de mort) to Killer Instinct, rather than the more accurate and appropriate ‘The instinct for death’ – the title character doesn’t have an instinct for killing, per se, but he does have an instinct for death, which is a subtle difference but an important one.

I had never heard of Jacques Mesrine before this film, but he’s something of a well-known gangster figure in France, hence a two-part biopic for him, of which this is the first. However, having watched the first part and learnt something of him, I had no desire to see the second part and learn anything more about him. It’s not as if I don’t know how it ends – the first film begins with a nicely shot opening scene, with split screens showing slightly different views of the action, where Mesrine is killed in his car in a Paris street (by a special hit squad of police). But I didn’t care to see the rest of his story, despite the excellent acting from Vincent Cassel as the lead character.

Actually, the first thing to appear on the screen is some introductory text to remind you that you are watching a French film: instead of simply saying this is a film based on his life and his own books he wrote in prison but there might be some dramatic licence, you get a load of pretentious waffle that adds up to the same thing, including the line ‘no film can truly capture the essence of a single man or the complexity of the human condition’. Those wacky French ...

The film is a pretty straightforward account of Mesrine’s life after he comes out of the army and drifts into a world of crime and then tutelage under a crime figure played by Gerard Depardieu, looking suitably grizzled. However, it’s not quite a hagiography, as it shows him leaving his wife for the life of crime by sticking a gun in her mouth, and it shows him being quite useless as a gangster. He has to escape to Canada after robbing some casinos, where he ends up committing an abortive kidnapping that sees him arrested and placed in a brutal prison. He escapes from the prison but in a particularly haphazard attempt, which is where this film ended.

The film is well directed but the main character seems so unsympathetic and amateur that it’s hard to fathom that he would be regarded as a Robin Hood character – the second film covers his continual courting of the press and the addiction he had to that celebrity – and why I didn’t have the urge to see the rest of the film. The one outstanding aspect of the film is Cassel: he has always been an interesting actor – I will never forget seeing him in La Haine – and he is very good here. He isn’t afraid of the ugliness of the character and yet still be so charming: there is a hint of the famous roguishness when he pretends to be a police officer arriving at the scene of the crime where he is the one who has just robbed the place but got caught by the owner returning home unexpectedly. Apart from that, I failed to see what was so appealing about Mesrine.

Rating: VID

[See here for my film rating system]

Scalped: The Gravel In Your Guts and High Lonesome

Scalped #19–24 and #25–29 by Jason Aaron and RM Guera and various artists

I've mentioned before how much I enjoy Scalped, although 'enjoyed' isn't perhaps the accurate term for the complexity of emotions produced by reading this excellent comic book series – the intensity and power and the inevitability (as Ed Brubaker describes it in his introduction) can be depressing but in a good way, in the tradition of noir. It is also vivid, richly detailed, powerful and extremely good. Every time I get a new trade, I have to read it a few times just to absorb it all because it is so good and because you want to relive those amazing moments again.

The fourth trade, The Gravel In Your Guts, has some heartbreaking moments as we witness the descent of both Dash Bad Horse and Carol, as they come so close to recognising that they might have something special but their pasts and their current courses get in the way. The rest of the book focusses on Chief Red Crow and his past and his current problems with Mr Brass and the Hmongs (who provided the money for him to get the casino built) – Scalped is so rich, it has a wealth of fascinating characters whose stories deserve telling.

The only slight issue I have with the book is that RM Guerra is the perfect artist for the Scalped, which means that any other artist unfortunately comes up short (in my unsophisticated artistic eyes). Davide Furno is a good artist but his art style – a very Vertigo style – just feels slightly off and the characters don't look quite as they should. That's completely illogical, but I never said I always have to make sense. The same irrational reaction happens in Scalped: High Lonesome – Furno and Francesco Francavilla provide art for chapters focussing on Federal Agent Nitz and Diesel, respectively, but it just doesn't feel like Scalped if it isn't Guera.

Guera provides art for the bulk of the fifth book, and he does an amazing job: his has defined Scalped, so the characters look as they should, but he's a great storyteller and creates the gritty, moody, visceral and intensity of the world of Scalped with seeming ease. Scalped: High Lonesome is a turning point in the book because it reveals secrets about the back story, and Dash has a very lucky escape (in a particularly high-octane sequence, kinetic and exhilarating, and one of the benchmarks of Scalped and the Aaron/Guera combination) as well as a moment of clarity, leading to a game-changing final page.

This trade feels far too short – it's only five issues – and leaves you hungry for more. I haven't broken down and started buying the individual comic books, but it is always a close thing after I've finished reading each trade. Aaron is doing an amazing job on this book – his razor-sharp dialogue, his plotting, his characterisation and his feel for the grimy side of life are incredible, and Scalped is an amazing book.

TV: The Wire

It’s embarrassing to attempt writing about The Wire when my writing skills are as limited as they are, but I had put down some thoughts about this programme because I absolutely fucking loved it, and it definitely deserved all the attributes of ‘the best programme on television’.

I came to the series late: I don’t have FX, where it first showed here in the UK; I didn’t get the DVDs sight unseen; I waited until it was shown in concentrated form on BBC2, filling up the PVR and hoping nothing went wrong with the recording. But the only problems this created was avoiding any spoilers, and hoping it would live up to the hype. It did.

The first season was about a police unit investigating drug-related crime in West Baltimore, but it was also about the actual drug dealers themselves, making them into people rather than generic bad guys for our good guys to arrest – you got to know Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell, Bodie as human beings. The show was detailed, it was full of characters that you had to remember by name, there was no ‘Previously, in The Wire …’, and there was no real star (Dominic West as Jimmy McNulty could be seen to be the nominal lead, but that’s a stretch); it was an ensemble cast where, for the first time, I didn’t know which name corresponded with which character – this was a real boon for the series, because the ensemble of television actors really became their characters.

The first season was really good, but then The Wire changed track completely by making the second season about the Baltimore docks and the crime that went on there under the control of the union leader, Frank Sobotka, just to keep the docks working and his men in a job; the bizarre thing was that the investigation of this was instigated by the petty jealousy of police commander Valchek, who was pissed off that Sobotka had paid for a new window at the local church and got it in a prominent position. It gave a whole new side to Baltimore and the police and the way things worked, and was a really brave thing to do for a show that hadn’t done great in the ratings. And, of course, it was really good.

The third season expanded the breadth of what the show was examining: the creation of ‘Hamsterdam’ by Major Colvin as an attempt to control drug-related crime and the numbers he had to present to his bosses on a monthly basis; the political world was introduced as we followed the mayoral aspirations of Tommy Carcetti; the introduction of Marlo Stansfield, moving into the territory left over when Avon Barksdale was imprisoned; as well as seeing ‘the life’ from the other side when Dennis ‘Cutty’ Wise tried to go straight after a long stretch in prison. And, naturally, the show was really good.

The fourth season is widely acknowledged to be the best series of The Wire, and it’s difficult to argue otherwise. The scope and emotional power of the stories in this season were incredible, and the team creating this were at the height of their powers. The main focus was the school system, as one of the detectives from the earlier seasons (‘Prez’ Pryzbylewski) had become a teacher after having to leave the police, and observing the attempts of the education system and the troubles it witnesses and the way kids are shaped by external forces produced some devastating television. The way that life and politics were playing into this, while the police continued in their jobs, was brought vividly onto the screen and highlighted what a complicated mess modern society inhabits.

The fifth season was always going to find it hard to match the highs of the fourth season, but it was still excellent; the trouble for me was seeing the ‘good guys’ we had come to admire doing terrible things in the name of justice that you just knew was going to end badly. You expected the drunken and philandering McNulty to fuck up, but not for ‘good po-lice’ Lester Freamon to help with McNulty’s ridiculously ill-thought-out plan to get funding for the Major Crimes Unit. The ramifications of his act on the city, on the now mayor Carcetti, fellow officers and on the people working at The Baltimore Sun newspaper (a big focus of this season) were huge, and we got to see it all.

To creator David Simon (author and former police reporter for The Baltimore Sun) and Ed Burns (former homicide detective), and the many fine writers who worked on the show: I want to thank you for The Wire. It was brilliant, it was powerful, it was emotional and it was magnificent. It ended beautifully in that final episode, leaving me sad that it was over but emotionally satisfied. Thanks for the characters I grew to know and love, even the ones you were supposed to hate: McNulty, Bunk Moreland, Kima Greggs, Cedric Daniels, Jay Landesman, Lester Freamon, Prez, Carver, Herc, Burrell, Rawls, Avon, Stringer, D’Angelo, Bodie, Wee-Bey, Omar, Bubbles, Proposition Joe, Slim Charles, Chris Partlow, Snoop, Cheese, Nicky Sobotka, Ziggy, Clarence Royce, Clay ‘Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-it’ Davis, Maurice Levy, Rhonda Pearlman, Michael, Dukie, Namond and Gus Haynes, to name a few. And thanks for having something to say about the world while entertaining us and making us think.

Comics I Bought 29 October 2009

Five-week months with lots of comics shouldn't be allowed – too many comic books. I thought things would wind down in a fifth week, because I thought books would be scheduled for specific weeks in a month. Looks like I was wrong.

Ambush Bug: Year None #7
The previous issue in this six-issue mini-series was issue #5 and came out in December 2008. The reasons for issue #6 never being published, and the delay for the final issue, are still unexplained. So how does the final issue wrap things up if it isn't the original version? Well, it still knows funny, as the cover suggests, as does the title: 'Whatever Happened To Ambush Bug: Year None #6?' The art is provided mostly by Baltazar and Franco, which is cartoony but with some weight, which adds to the surreal story as a nameless character investigates what happens to the missing issue. Importantly, it's very funny, with lots of digs at everybody and everything at DC. It was certainly the best issue of the series, so perhaps adversity provided impetus.

Astro City: Astra Special #2
In which we see Astra showing her boyfriend what her life is like in the cosmic scheme of things and what it means, before a betrayal I didn't see coming. This was a really good issue (I still don't like Brent Anderson's art), capturing everything I love about Astro City in these two specials which I haven't felt from the books during the Dark Age saga, even though I've been mostly enjoying it. I look forward to Kurt Busiek coming back to this sort of material in the future.

Detective Comics #858
In which we start the origin story for Kate Kane, and discover she was a twin and the terrible turn of events when Kate, her twin and mother are kidnapped. The story is solid, but the art is amazing, with JH Williams doing two distinct styles for the 'twenty years ago' material and the modern stuff. He continues to impress with every issue. The Question Second Feature sees a resolution to the people trafficking story – because this is a comic book, we get a happy ending to a grim concept, but we need that in entertainment to make up for the harsh reality.

Fantastic Four #572 (and belatedly Fantastic Four #570 and #571)
I was aware of Jonathan Hickman's work through blog reading – I haven't read The Nightly News or Pax Romana yet, but I must get round to it after reading these books because they must be great because this is awesome. I was persuaded to try this book via Chris Sims' unbridled enthusiasm for it on the War Rocket Ajax podcast, and I'm glad I did. This is, strictly speaking, a Reed Richards story and not a Fantastic Four story but that can be forgiven when it's such a cracker – it's a bit strange to choose a solo tale for the first story of a new writer but Hickman showed he could write the Fantastic Four as a family in the Dark Reign mini-series, so he gets the leeway to try something focussing on the most interesting character in the group. Having Reed Richards meeting other Reed Richards from the multiverse is a fantastic concept and Hickman runs with it and tells an emotional story along with it. These three issues put a bold stamp of authority from a new writer and I'm glad to be along for the ride. A quick note about the art from Dale Eaglesham: he's a good artist and he handles the cosmic and family stuff; however, I must join the throng who said he draws Reed far too muscularly – I know he can stretch but not like that.

Ignition City #5
In which we get a conclusion, of sort, to this five-issue mini-series, as Mary Raven gets to avenge the death of her father, the space hero Rock Raven, in Ignition City. There is 'gun-fucking', exploding bodies, and a huge reveal about the reason behind Ignition City. After what I thought was a clunky first issue, this series turned into a real cracker and I'd love for Ellis to return to this world and tell more stories; he described it 'Flash Gordon meets Deadwood' and he was right and hints at how much he loved doing it.

X-Factor #50
We finally reach issue 50 and the end of the seemingly never-ending story that Peter David has been telling for the best part of a year. In that respect, I'm happy that we have a resolution; however, it seemed the entire point of the story was to explain Layla, which rather annoyed me. I'm sure David thought it was clever, creating the loop back to the beginning of X-Factor #1 (this volume, at least), but I preferred Layla without an explanation for why 'she knows stuff'. And she now has a different power as well. It didn't work for me, and I hope that we can move on from it quickly. In fact, I preferred the preview of the next issue of the renumbered X-Factor – it was very funny and seemed to have a more enjoyable story to it. I'm so ungrateful, aren't I?

Comics I Bought 22 October 2009

Trying to fit a five-week month into a week of writing was ambitious on my part – I'm glad there are only a few things to talk about for this week. Excuse me if it's not as coherent as normal (ha!)

Ex Machina #46
Ex Machina is one of those comic books, like Fables, where I worry that I'm repeating myself when I talk about it: Vaughan is a good writer, Harris a good artist, I enjoy the story and the characters, and I think it's really good. I like the mix of politics and action, and I'm enjoying the book as it reaches its conclusion, which I'm not sure will end happily for everyone involved.

Noir Vol 1
Anthologies: a mix of the good and the bad. I bought the book for the new Kane story by Paul Grist (I think Kane is brilliant, so any new material is a must) and the Criminal story by Brubaker and Phillips, and I wasn't disappointed. There were some other nice parts to this black and white collection of noir-themed stories: I enjoyed the David Lapham story (I haven't read any Stray Bullets for my sins), the art by Hugo Petrus reminded me of an early Adam Hughes, and the Rick Geary story. The other stories, which were not bad, I did not connect with as much, which left me with my usual anthology blues. However, the thing that annoyed me was the prose story in the book – this is a collection of comic book stories; if it's the written word, then it should be in a short-story collection, not a comic book anthology. Do I sound like a grumpy old man?

Spider-Woman #2 (and belatedly Spider-Woman #1)
I didn't buy the first issue of Spider-Woman, despite being a big fan of Bendis and Maleev's run on Daredevil, because I incorrectly thought it was going to be $3.99 for all issues, instead of just the first issue – I've made a policy of not buying continuing series at that price unless it's a 'second feature' book to justify the price. When I learned of my misconception, I bought the two issues at the same time, hence this explanation.

The other oddity to this issue is the fact that I had already read it in the 'motion' comic form. Personally, I don't think the motion comic is the future of comic books because it's neither one thing nor the other, but I did enjoy it and the voice work. Similarly, I liked this book; Bendis has his quirks but he has a great feel for noir books and I really like the concept for the book: Jessica Drew is now an Agent of SWORD, running down the remaining Skrulls (towards whom she feels quite a lot of anger and resentment). And I like Maleev's art, moody and atmospheric and its photo-realistic feel. It's early days for the book yet, but the first two issues have me sufficiently interested to continue reading the series, which I hope gets the chance because a superhero comic book starring a female lead is unfortunately not something that traditionally does well in the marketplace.

Comics I Bought 15 October 2009

I'm not sure if I need some sort of introductory sentence or paragraph here; it feels like I should have something before jumping straight into the notes. Like this, for example.

Fables #89
This issue, while still enjoyable and moving the story along, feels the closest to filling out a story arc for the trade paperback I've read from Willingham. Not a lot happens and we get small bits for different characters, even though it's all done with the usual elan of Willingham and Buckingham. However, the best part is Bufkin, our heroic flying monkey, as he takes charge of the remains of creatures left in the business office and tricks a djinn back into his bottle. As The Mirror puts it, when asked of Bufkin's powers by Baba Yaga: 'He reads. He reads everything.'

Liberty Comics #2
Anthology charity comics are immune to commentary because it would be ungracious to say anything uncomplimentary. The intention is noble and the artists provide their services for free, so that's all that matters. There is some very nice art in this from the likes of Ben Templesmith, Stuart Immonen, Paul Grist and especially Jim Lee, illustrating a Neil Gaiman story called A Hundred Words. I'll leave it at that, and say that you should have bought this book as a way to donate to CBLDF.

The Unwritten #6
After the story about Rudyard Kipling last issue, this issue finds us back with Tommy Taylor being transferred to Donostia Prison in the town of Roncevaux, France, where The Song of Roland happened. There's a lot going on in this book: someone is communicating with Lizzie Hexam through books and she gets herself arrested for murder so she can help Tommy; Tommy, I mean Tom, relates the story of the massacre at Roncevaux, and seems to be channelling the spirit of ... someone; the governor of the prison reads Tommy Taylor stories to his kids, who really believe them; and someone visits Tom in prison. This is a really good book, and I hope it is the new breakout book for Vertigo because it deserves it. I can't wait to see where this goes.

Comics I Bought 8 October 2009

Eight comics? In one week? It's almost as if they want me to keep buying more and more comic books ... I don't know how Chris Sims did it, even when he was working in a comic book shop. I'll try to keep this brief.

Batman and Robin #5
A lovely Frank Quitely cover. Some very ugly Philip Tan art in places. But an interesting Grant Morrison story, with some lovely lines: 'Backstory. Not interested.' I enjoy the way that Morrison packs his current books with information to speed the story along – a lot happens in this issue, which would have been served better by a more capable artist.

The Boys #35
Darick Robertson back on art duties. Garth Ennis telling the 'origin' story of Mother's Milk. This is more like it. After Herogasm last week, this reminds me why I read The Boys. This is really good: Ennis tells a great story, and it's an interesting one at that. The connection to Voight-American, his father, the days in the army, meeting Butcher (and Mallory, whose face is kept in the shadows; the promise of his story is also mentioned). Good stuff.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #29
Things I don't want to read Buffy for: non-powered slayers fighting men in tanks or with guns. I hope this silly diversion ends soon because it's really rather boring. The only positive was a dialogue exchange that reminded me of the old days: Buffy - 'I need your big secret weapon.' Xander – 'Well, that sounds like a come-on if ever I heard one. Erm. Sorry. Joking in the facing of death. I do that. It used to amuse you.'

Chronicles of Wormwood: The Last Battle #1
I wish I didn't have the wraparound cover – an ugly thing. I rather enjoyed the first Chronicles of Wormwood series, but I never thought that it would warrant further stories. The one-off special wasn't that special, and neither is this so far. Ennis throws in some fun bits, but it's less mature than some of his other work and doesn't gel together very well. A case of wait and see with this, although it's interesting to see Oscar Jiminez on art duties – I haven't seen his work in a long time.

Criminal: The Sinners #1
Brubaker and Phillips, back on Criminal – life is good. Incognito was great, Criminal is great – all other commentary is redundant. This is sublime stuff, and the story of Tracy Lawless working as 'the worst hitman in the world' for Mr Hyde looks like it's going to be a doozy.

Doom Patrol #3
The double feature continues to work for me: Giffen has a really good handle on the characters in Doom Patrol – the banter between Cliff, Larry and Rita zings and tells of years of knowing each other – and he has some nice insight into Rita's ex-husband, Steve, aka Mento, who wears a silly purple helmet when he's using his mental powers because he doesn't want people to know he can use his powers all the time. And the Metal Men second feature is still as charming as ever, with the delightfully expressive art of Kevin Maguire being the highlight.

Planetary #27
It may have taken its sweet time turning up (to quote the book itself: 'We thought it'd be funnier if I waited. Sorry.'), but it was worth it: I loved this. It may not add to the story, being effectively an extended epilogue, but it was great to see Warren Ellis writing and John Cassaday drawing the Planetary team again. And that's a fantastic cover, as always. Seeing that most of the story is conversation about time travel theory and uncertainty principles and other gobbledegook, it's a powerful and emotional tale that brought a huge smile to my face.

War Heroes #3
A year between issues two and three of a six-issue series? That's taking the piss, even for a glorified movie pitch. At least the reason I buy this comic is still there: the marvelous art of Tony Harris. This issue is a squad of American soldiers being taken apart by a super-powered Arab, and it looks amazing. It doesn't make up for the wait, though ...

Comics I Bought 1 October 2009

Time to catch up with another month of comic books from the past as if I only got them yesterday. It's a little confusing, but bear with me.

Astro City: Astra Special #1
I really like the magazine cover design for this comic, but I don't think it makes for a good comic book cover on the racks: it's very busy, full of text and it subdues the central image. I'm conflicted. I still don't like Brent Anderson's style (his people dancing in the first few pages are just awful) but he is the Astro City artist, so I can't imagine anyone else doing it. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the story, a classic case of superheroes seen from the perspective of the ordinary person: Astra, daughter of a member of the First Family and a member of the Monstro City royal family, has graduated from college and is celebrating with her closest friends, including her boyfriend. She meets with various members of her family and superhero friends, and we have a front seat for these glimpses of this world; it feels exactly what Astro City is supposed to be all about, and it's such a relief after the seemingly never-ending Dark Age saga.

Herogasm #5
My opinion on Herogasm oscillates: on one hand, there are cheap jokes at the expense of superheroes and comic book awards; on the other hand, there is the sense of a writer moving pawns into place and telling a story through dialogue (the conversation in hotel bar), where even I don't get the full sense of what is happening when the Homelander stops his speech at an important juncture when he sees who has popped his head round the door. I'm conflicted, as I said before. The art doesn't help – the McCrea/Burns combination is serviceable and competent, but the style seems at odds with the sensibility Ennis is striving for (or maybe I just miss Darick Robertson).

Usagi Yojimbo #123
Now this is a great issue of a great comic book series. Usagi happens upon a swordsman killing some samurai, only to meet a former vassal of Lord Mifune (Usagi's lord). The man is still trying to avenge the death of Mifune at the hands of Lord Hikiji after all this time, and believes it will happen now that Usagi has arrived. But Usagi is conflicted because he follows a different path and obeys his lord's order not to commit seppuku after his death. This is a powerful story about the quest for revenge, and Stan Sakai conveys it with his usual skill and artistry.

X-Factor #49
This issue sees Peter David address the issue of Shatterstar and Rictor's relationship, with Guido questioning Rictor's sexuality and why he never mentioned it. It may seem a little obvious, but I think it's quite a valid discussion for the characters, and David throws in some jokes along the way ('Good idea. Save it for the miniseries.') The issue is filled with conversations rather than action, as Cyclops and Dr Doom chat, and Layla and Jamie, making this feel like filler until issue 50. Admittedly, the material isn't without value, but it still seems like padding. I still haven't warmed to Valentine De Landro's art, which can be inconsistent at time, so it doesn't make for a completely satisfactory issue.

Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Box TPB

Astonishing X-Men #25–30 and Ghost Boxes #1 & 2 by Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi

For someone who is supposed to dislike 'pervert suit' comic books, Ellis can write an excellent superhero story. Ghost Box is no exception: starting with a murder mystery, it leads to pre-stages of invasions from parallel dimensions and mutants with the mutant gene on different chromosomes and someone engineering new mutants with triploid chromosomes. All of this happens organically within the context of an X-Men story, with the characters acting within the parameters of their natural limits and using the history of X-Men (Forge is perhaps a natural choice for Ellis, what with Forge's engineering and body modification) while revealing new things within the Marvel universe (the Chinese location of Tian; Chaparanga, 'where spaceships go to die').

The other thing that Ellis does effortlessly is to include the character bits and humorous banter that are essential part to an entertaining story – his dialogue is funny, clever and also revealing of character. His Emma Frost is particularly perfect, and steals most of the best lines. And it's nice to see some of his choice phrases and expressions being allowed to find their way into a mainstream Marvel comic book ('Xenophiliac experimentation partner' was my favourite).

Bianchi provides covers and art for the main story and it looks great. I love the style and the composition – some of the panels are works of art, and the characters look something special (if a little artistically exaggerated – the costume Storm wears looks particularly improbable and uncomfortable). However, the storytelling flow and panel transition can seem a little harsh and ungainly at times, disrupting the flow sometimes; it's not a deal breaker, but when the pages look so beautiful, you expect perfection.

The supplemental stories in the extra issues (which caused such a fuss at the time, when the sixteen pages of actual story had been advertised to contain more and cost $3.99 – I'm so glad I waited for the trade) are tales from parallel worlds where the invasion plan resulted differently, telling alternative versions of the X-Men with different artists (Alan Davis and Adi Granov do especially good work). As a complete package, this is a really enjoyable and entertaining collection of great superhero comic books.

From A Library – Superman: Brainiac

Action Comics #866–870 and Superman: New Krypton Special #1 by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank

I really enjoyed the previous storyline (Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes) by the same creative team, so I had to give this a try. It's a very enjoyable story, although not as good as the LSH arc. As the title of the book suggests, it's Superman meeting Brainiac – the real Brainiac (suggesting that all previous stories with Brainiac were not so real, something of a slur to previous writers). I'm not a Superman fan so I'm not affected by the portrayal of Brainiac, but it seems a little presumptuous of Johns to say his is the definitive version. This story says that Brainiac is a long-lived, super-intelligent and powerful destroyer of worlds, going round the universe collecting samples of a culture (such as the bottle city of Kandor) and absorbing the collective knowledge and attributes of the civilisation, before destroying it. He has been dormant while sending out probes looking for the last Kryptonian – Superman. And now he's found him ...

Before the action starts, there is some character stuff as time is devoted to life at The Daily Planet. There is some good comedy here (Clark not looking at Cat's enhanced cleavage), which is sold by Frank's art, channelling the spirit of Christopher Reeve in some panels – the hunched body stance, the smile on Clark's face, the look of concern, the subtle physical change when he becomes Superman). Johns is a good plotter with a strong sense of what he wants, but there are times when his dialogue is so 'on the nose' it's rather painful – people don't express their feelings so bluntly and clearly in real life, and Johns has forgotten that he's supposed to show, not tell. Frank does the better job – he draws great action, but he's great with characterisation and people; even though he likes to draw beautiful women, he has the excuse with Cat but he draws Supergirl as an ordinary teenage girl (no sluttiness here, unlike other cheaper artists).

The only trouble I have with the story is that Johns spends a lot of time building the threat of Brainiac, but then Superman is able to beat him with relative ease (after setbacks) and keep him down afterwards. It seems imbalanced, as if he was trying to rush through the story to get to the emotional heart: the death of Pa Kent from a heart attack. You can tell this is going to happen from the father/son exchange in the middle of the book (if you saw it in a film, the audience would be shouting out 'He's going to die'), and it feels slight and impermanent. Maybe it's just me, a comic book cynic of old, but it didn't feel as powerful as they wanted it to be.

Notes On A Film: Transformers 2

I'm not even going to dignify this film with its full title. This movie is over-long, full of overly loud explosions, vacant characters following the 'story' from one pretty location to the next, racist stereotype robots, Transformer testicles (something I never thought I would see), terrible attempts at humour, far too many Transformers and a disregard for narrative structure. It's not as bad as people made it out to be – it's far too easy to slag off Michael Bay – but it's not very good either.

The gruelling thing is that this film just keeps going and going, with a interminable plot that doesn't care if it makes sense or not, but at the same time trying to be over-complicated to justify the concept that a sequel must outdo the first film. The original movie was enjoyable even though it had a silly plot, with stupid turns and only a passing relationship with story mechanics, but the sequel makes it look like a work of art in comparison. It's two and a half hours long, including time for a 'wacky' section at college as Sam (Shia LeBoeuf) moves into his dorm room, 'emotional moments' between Sam and Mikaela (Megan Fox), and more travelogues than a James Bond film. You just want it all to end. I mean, how hard is it to have an exciting film with transforming robots? The first sequence has its moments, with giant metallic machines beating the crap out of each other, but this is just a momentary blip. When the film does have action, it tries to outdo the first film by having so many robots in the scene that you can't tell what's going on.

When your bum is getting numb, waiting for something decent to happen, you latch on to anything that seems halfway interesting: John Turturro is always good value, even in nonsense like this; an ancient robot, disguised in the Smithsonian, has an English accent and acts cranky, saying things like 'bugger' and 'arse'; and ... that's about it. The robots and transformation still look good, but Bay can't keep his camera still for long enough to enjoy these moments. I wonder if he wakes up from his dreams because he's vomiting from dizziness as his mental camera flies around like fly on drugs?

The other thing Bay should stop doing is humour: he has the sensibility of a particularly juvenile and sex-obsessed teenage boy, and it's painful when he puts jokes in (such as the dangling metal balls between a Transformer's legs). It's embarrassing, and he should have a comedy editor with the power to say 'No' on all future films.

In summary: I really don't know why I saw this film, I'm sorry I added to its box office, and you should avoid this film.

Rating: DA

[See here for my film rating system]

Notes On A Film: The Proposal

My girlfriend doesn’t understand why I watch romcoms, what with me being a chap and all (not that I watch or like every romcom; I enjoy the good ones, but can watch the bad ones as well). Even though the romcom is a total fallacy based on the chemical explosion that is the beginning of a romance (and not the rest of the many years of a real relationship), there’s something about that magical moment that cinema does very well.

As for The Proposal, it’s not a great romcom. However, what it does have is two good leads who are very good at what they do. I like Sandra Bullock, as do most reviewers, who also have the same question as me: why can’t she be in better films? She has a thoroughly likeable screen presence (and she can act – see Crash for that, or rather don’t see Crash because it’s a bit preachy) and she makes it very easy to empathise with her character and like her. And she’s good at comedy, which is important. Ryan Reynolds is a charismatic chap, he’s very handsome, and he exudes charm on screen, something evident in the first film I ever saw him in (Van Wilder: Party Liaison). He can also act (The Nines is a very good film, in which he plays three different characters) and can do comedy with ease. And they are why I saw this film.

The Proposal is a classic romcom set-up, of having the two leads in positions where there is no chance of romance but circumstance compels them together and they find feelings for each other. But the comedy isn’t very strong – there are some good lines, such as the ‘It’s morning’ gag – but there’s a lot of weak stuff, like Bullock doing an expressive dance with the grandmother, or the cheap silliness of local handyman being the male stripper in the bar. The romance isn’t particularly believable (although kudos for mocking the ‘race to the airport to declare love’ denouement of many romcoms) but the two leads sell the film, sparking off each other when given the opportunity (and physically sparking off each other in one scene where they bump into each other naked; Reynolds is in great shape, but Bullock looks fantastic for someone in her forties) and they make you want them to be together.

I accidentally saw this on preview night in the cinema (which at least meant there weren’t any adverts), so I saw this with an audience of mostly women who seemed to enjoy The Proposal (it was Bullock’s highest earning film for ten years); however, it’s not a classic that’s going to stand the test of ages. There were some good bits, and I was happy for the fact that it has an older woman/younger man relationship that’s believable (Bullock is ten years older than Reynolds), and any film that has a romantic bonding moment over the rap song It Takes Two by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock can’t be all bad.

Rating: VID

[See here for my film rating system]

Comics I Bought 24 September 2009

A month of comics in three days? Some sort of personal record for me. I might even get up to date at this rate. After the two-week pile up of yesterday, only two comics for this week – talk about imbalance.

Detective Comics #857
Ah, JH Williams, how can I praise thee? Let me count the ways ... It's getting boring to say the same thing: Williams' art is absolutely phenomenal on this book. His styles, his page and panel designs (I particularly love the double-page spread with Kate and Alice fighting each other, as the central figures combine like a playing card), his action scenes are all outstanding – I hope that other artists look at his work and are shocked into trying harder in their work. The story sees the end of Alice's plan and Batwoman saving the day, but the art overshadows it all. In The Question, we see a cliffhanger and an indication of the extremes of those who traffick people and their attitude to human live. It's good stuff, but is outshone by the main feature.

No Hero #7
Well, that was all rather brutal and ugly, wasn't it? I mean, the highly detailed art by Juan Jose Ryp is very impressive, although it too has a brutality and ugliness to it, but that's to do with the content. The story seems to be a two-finger salute to the superhero concept – Warren Ellis is known to not be a fan of the superhero genre and its dominance of the Anglophone comic book market, but this seems harsh even for him. The story of our protagonist, Carver, is now revealed as being a seriously disturbed man unleashed by an international effort of people who wanted to bring down Carrick, the creator of FX7. And, of course, this leads to the world going to hell after Carver kills Carrick (and then himself), because there is nobody as a deterrent anymore – which seems to be Ellis' tenet about superheroes: if you allow them to do what they do, then they are the ultimate force for control. It doesn't make for enjoyable reading – I'm not sure if I want to go back to re-read the series again to see how it holds up.

Comics I Bought 17 September 2009

Two weeks' haul this week because I was in a foreign country on 10 September, so quite a handful of books to get through, done in chronological order.

Doom Patrol #2
Second issue in and Doom Patrol continues to intrigue. Keith Giffen is doing something a little different with the standard superhero comic book, with an interesting approach to doing a 'supervillain'. And he does his own dialogue rather well, especially with the different voices in the book. Matt Clark has a nice line to his work, slightly angular and sharp but still mainstream superhero work, in a good way. But then the 'Second Feature' comes along: Metal Men is blissful superhero sitcom stuff, with silly dialogue and beautiful art from Kevin Maguire. Why wasn't this given its own full comic?

The Unwritten #5
A complete change in tone and story from Mike Carey and Peter Gross for this issue after the first four-issue story but it really sets things up in this world of fiction and reality and the connection. This issue is about Rudyard Kipling and his induction into a secret faction that is using writers to advance their own aims ... This just breathes and leaps off the page, feeling as if the history of the author has been used without the slightest change to make it fit the story of The Unwritten. This book has really got something special about it – please let it keep going.

Batman and Robin #4
I'm not going to jump on the 'Philip Tan's art is bad' bandwagon, because it's not terrible, but I couldn't really get the sense of what was happening in those first few pages. Of course he's going to look worse off immediately after Frank Quitely, but it's the darkness of the art that is the biggest contrast to Quitely's light and breezy style. Still, this issue doesn't have quite the same feel as the first three issues, as Morrison brings back an appropriate villain for the story of Dick Grayson as Batman. It's a bit dark, with only little bits of humour to lighten up the mood. I'll wait and see what happens with the next issue.

Ex Machina #45
I'm really going to miss Ex Machina when it finishes. Where else can we get superhero action and discussion about the politics of abortion? And Tony Harris produces some really nice panel designs for some of the conversation pages in the middle. A great combination. And a great last line: 'I'm going to kill everyone on the planet'.

Fables #88
I might be repeating myself when I talk about Fables but, when Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham are on duty, Fables is just really good. Willingham constantly keeps me interested and entertained with the story and Buckingham provides the perfect art for the world of Fables. I particularly loved the sequence with Frau Totenkinder, as she begins her plans for her travels away from the world of Fables – really good.

X-Factor #48
This issue feels like filler material – the story doesn't progress very much. There are some nice jokes, as expected in a Peter David comic – but it's dragging out the story. We get to see Tryp in the future, and we see some fighting, but nothing tangible happens in the events of the current storyline, and with a final page suggesting we're going to get a flashback next issue to fill us in with even more story that is supposed to be important enough for us to know. Roll on, issue 50.

Comics I Bought 4 September 2009

I have been remiss in catching up on my weekly comic book purchases – I'll never get back to being up to date if I don't start doing at least two of this a week (as well as all the films I saw in the cinema). So, let's do this.

The Boys #34
Underneath a great cover from Darick Robertson, this issue of The Boys doesn't have the usual impact of a Garth Ennis comic. This is the conclusion of the latest arc, where the Boys take care of Stormfront (with the aid of Vas, the Russian), in typical gruesome fashion, and The Female wakes up from her coma. The only interesting line in the whole book was Butcher's 'I s'pose we could always tell him who we are' to Mother's Milk, hinting at backstory, but that's it. Even Carlos Ezquerra's art seems lacklustre. This is not a good issue of The Boys.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #28
The name of Jane Espenson on a Buffy television episode was usually a good sign (having written or co-written over twenty episodes); however, that is not the case when it comes to the comic books. This issue demonstrates intimate knowledge of the Buffy universe, but it doesn't display the flair of the series or the capacity to entertain as a comic. Apart from the reveal of Xander kissing Dawn (and the identity of the cat), there isn't anything of particular interest in this book. Also, Georges Jeanty seems to be losing his touch with the likeness of the characters. This is not a good issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8.

Incognito #6
This is a good issue of Incognito, which has been a very good comic book. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are a great team, and this has been a fun pulp noir meets superheroes story. We learn the origin of our protagonist, Zack Overkill, and we see a lot of violence and death (but drawn well by Phillips). The story leaves open the possibility of more adventures in this universe, and I've got no problem with that. I've really enjoyed this, as a palate cleansing burst of 'lighter' material after the excellent but downbeat Criminal, so the guys can feel free to alternate between the two for as long as they want.

From A Library – Batman: The Man Who Laughs

Batman: The Man Who Laughs (Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke) and Detective Comics #784–786 (Ed Brubaker and Patrick Zircher)

This is a very strange collection – The Man Who Laughs is a one-off special, and is interesting and well executed, with a good story about the early Joker getting revenge on the people he blames for how he became the Joker. I didn't think I would enjoy yet another Joker story – the character is so overused in the Batman comic books, and it's embarrassing seeing authors having to tie themselves in knots to stop somebody killing the Joker for being a mass-murdering psychopath – but this avoids that trap by making it about the Joker specifically, and Brubaker has a good angle on the story, which is supposed to be the in-continuity first meeting between Batman and the Joker. Brubaker's noir narration is exactly right for this sort of story and Mahnke's excellent art, all crunchy toughness and detailed line, is perfectly suited to hard-boiled Batman crime action and the darkness of Gotham City [as I said before in my thoughts on Batman: Under The Hood], because he can do mood and action but humour as well.

However, the very good story that is The Man Who Laughs is collected with a lesser tale, both in terms of quality and importance to the character of Batman. The other story is a three-issue arc of Detective Comics called 'Made of Wood' and it doesn't have much going for it – it's about a murder linked back to Gotham City of old and to Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, who used to work out of Gotham City. There is some nice detective stuff thrown into the story (Brubaker knows his way around detective fiction after all this time) but it's not particularly engaging; the only bit that stuck in my head was having Jim Gordon doing taijiquan (aka t'ai chi ch'uan, if you prefer the Wades–Giles spelling to the pinyin) to help his recovery, even if Zircher doesn't draw it very well. Zircher's art, although it's not terrible by any means, is rather ordinary compared with Mahnke's, especially if you place it side by side. In addition to the seriously ugly Tim Sale covers to the three issues, you have a rather bizarre trade paperback: one good story, one uninteresting story.

From A Library: The Graveyard Book

By Neil Gaiman

There's a quote on the front of the book – 'The best book Neil Gaiman has ever written' Diana Wynne Jones – and she may have a point. Gaiman has written some great comic books, excellent short stories (as well as not so good ones) and some very good books (I liked Neverwhere, I loved American Gods, but I didn't like Anansi Boys) but this is a very good book indeed. For me, a good book should be a good story told well in the voice of the author; this has it all.

The story is charming: Nobody Owens, known as Bod, is a perfectly normal boy except for the fact that he lives in a graveyard, and was raised and educated by ghosts, and has a guardian who is neither alive nor dead (it's never stated outright what Silas is, but the implication is quite clear).

Each chapter sees Bod at a different age and his adventures: meeting a live girl and visiting the oldest grave in the graveyard; gong through a ghoul gate; the Danse Macabre; meeting a witch ghost and going to school; meeting the man who killed his family (which led to Bod being adopted by the graveyard). This is all told in Gaiman's distinct, clean, modern yet old-fashioned prose style (I didn't like Anansi Boys because it read like an impression of Douglas Adams' style, rather than Gaiman's own voice). Gaiman also has a point to the story, about living life, facing up to reality, being true to yourself and about growing up.

If I was sufficiently well read, I would point out the similarities to Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, but I'm not, so I can't. Anyway, you don't need me to tell you that ...

There are lovely touches in the book, such as the quotes for the tombstones, but my favourite is that Nobody Owens is a play on words from the Traditional Nursery Rhyme quoted at the front of the book, which ends 'who nobody owns'. When I got this book from the library, it was logged as 'Young Adult', which made me jealous: we never got such good books written for us when I was that age ...

Notes On A Film: Moon

In the realms of ‘they don’t make them like they used to’, this independent sci-fi film seems to prove that by looking exactly like something out of the 1970s – to me, its production design looks like an updated version of Space: 1999 (although they were channelling more high brow stuff, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Silent Running and Solaris). However, I think this is the point – it’s avoiding the CGI flash and B-film spectacle that has become the norm for current movies, and setting itself as a film from the era where they used sci-fi to tell a good story about humanity.

The film is directed and co-written (based on his story) by Duncan Jones (who, for completeness sake, has to be identified as David Bowie’s son, Zowie) and it is an astonishingly assured feature-length debut. There is a confidence and unfussiness to his direction, a belief in the strength of his story, and the desire to tell that story as well as possible. He also allows humour; the song used for the alarm clock is The One And Only, which is very germane.

Sam Rockwell is Sam Bell, an employee of Lunar Industries, working alone on a Moon base extracting helium-3 from the surface of the Moon to supply Earth with nearly all its power needs (the film is set in an unspecified future). He is near the end of a three-year contract, having left his wife pregnant back on Earth to earn the money (a communications failure means he can’t speak to her live, and has to rely on old transmissions for reassurance), and he is all alone at the mostly self-sufficient station except for a robotic assistant called GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey). He is starting to hallucinate, which leads to disaster when he crashes a harvesting machine, waking up back at the base under the watchful eye of GERTY. But paranoia leads to a discovery that changes everything …

I don’t want to go into too much detail about the plot because part of the experience is watching it unfold. The incident that turns the film isn’t hard to work out, but it’s also not the most important part of the film either. What could be a film about the greed and depravity of corporations or man’s self-destruction is instead a film that becomes an expression of the power of man’s humanity, the desire to be free, the nature of death, of sacrifice and compassion. It is a remarkable film, all the more knowing it was made on a low budget ($5 million).

Although Jones is deserving of a lot of the kudos, it is Rockwell who really makes the film. Without giving too much away, his performances are amazing – distinct and identifiable aspects of the same character, completely carrying the whole film because he is the only actor on screen for most of the running time. I know there has been a lot of Nerd Army anger about the omission of an Academy Award nomination for Rockwell for Best Actor (including an online petition and a Twitter hashtag, among others), and this is usually to do with the Academy’s ignorance and fear of genre pieces, but in this case the ire is accurate – Rockwell is fantastic and deserving of recognition in this role.

Rating: DAVE

[See here for my film rating system]

Books: My Dead Body

I've really enjoyed the Joe Pitt cycle of books by Charlie Huston (see these four previous reviews), so I was really looking forward to the final book, My Dead Body (even if the title doesn't suggest a happy outcome). I was not disappointed. It was fantastic and a perfect ending for the series.

This book is the culmination of the story of Joe Pitt, the rogue vampire in Manhattan who manages to find himself in the middle of all the troubles in his world: the different vampire clans, zombies, a potential cure, the source of blood for the Coalition, the vampires off the island and in Harlem, among many others. I should warn you: there is no way you should try to read this book if you haven't read the previous four novels (I read a review in SFX magazine that complained about reading My Dead Body without having read the previous books; talk about completely missing the point); you wouldn't watch the last season of Lost, for example, without having enjoyed the previous seasons.

In this story, Pitt finds himself to returning to world he left after the end of the fourth book (after his actions at the end forced him underground). The case he takes on leads him to interact with all the characters he has encountered over the course of the series: Terry, Hurley, Lydia and the Society; Predo of the Coalition; Digga of the Hood; The Count and the Enclave; Amanda Horde and her 'cure'; and of course, Evie, his girlfriend. And things get messy ...

Huston has created a visceral and believably grimy world for characters to inhabit – Manhattan is an important element to the books – and his prose style is a joy to read. The hard-boiled dialogue and narration, the characters, the violence, the feel of Manhattan, and the romantic element that flowed through the books (yes, really) all come together to make something new and thoroughly gripping and entertaining. I have loved the series and I loved the final book, which was as good as I hoped. If you like noir with a supernatural twist, I recommend you go out and buy all five books, because you won't be disappointed.