The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century #1: 1910

by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill

How late is this discussion of a comic book? It somehow got lost in the pile, which is why it's taken so long to get around to it, but I think that I'd deliberately forgotten it because I hadn't enjoyed it and didn't want to say that I didn't enjoy an Alan Moore comic book.

I've really enjoyed The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, even The Black Dossier, so I was looking forward to Moore and O'Neill enjoying creative freedom at Top Shelf. This is is the first instalment of a three-part story called Century; the League comprises Mina Harker, Allan Quartermain, Orlando (presently in male form), Raffles the gentleman thief, and Carnacki. However, this incarnation seems to be rather ineffectual, which interrupts the enjoyment of the book; the team bicker and run around after prophecies and accomplish nothing. The only light is found in Orlando, who is hilarious. The other thrust to the story is Janni, daughter of Captain Nemo, who doesn't want to take her father's place as he nears death and escapes to London. To accompany this, there is a chorus of characters from The Threepenny Opera – at least, this is what I am led to believe; I have no idea, not being familiar with the works of Bertholt Brecht. Sometimes music can work in a comic book, although it is difficult, but I think it needs to be something with which everyone is familiar; so, for me, this really doesn't work.

The story is pretty grim, with a depressing ending and the feeling that we've only seen glimpses of what the story will be about. It left me unsatisfied, despite some good parts. O'Neill does a good job, if you can handle his oddly angular style, with some fun cameos hidden among the backgrounds; I liked Norton, 'The Prisoner of London', even if he did speak gibberish; and the action was exciting stuff. But, even after rereading it to write about it, I didn't feel any connection to the story or the characters or the end product, something I can't remember ever happening before with a writer whose body of work has meant so much to me.

TV: Thoughts On Steve Moffat's Doctor Who

I’ve mentioned before that, although I had enjoyed the Russell T Davies-led revival of Doctor Who, I thought it could be rather self-indulgent and seemed to rely on a lot of people dying for the Doctor, which isn’t the happiest note to strike in a family-friendly programme. I've also said how much I was looking forward to the Steve Moffat Doctor Who, so I thought I should collate my feelings about his first series into a single post. In short, I really loved it.

The indicator of how much I was entertained was when it ended and I thought, ‘That was over too soon’. Thirteen episodes seemed to fly by, and the empty sensation of not having a Doctor Who episode on a Saturday evening was very noticeable. I’m not saying that every episode was a classic, but there were some absolute corkers in the mix and the entire storyline of the series as a whole was just flat out great Doctor Who, especially when you could see that Moffat had planned not only the entire series as one big storyline but also a multi-season storyline about why Amy Pond went through what she did and the reason behind it.

From the start of the series, the confidence, intelligence, humour, excitement and quality were all in place (although Victory Of The Daleks was the weakest episode and shown quite early, seemingly existing so that the Doctor could interact with Winston Churchill and to hear a Dalek voice say, ‘Would you care for some tea?’). The other interesting aspect was that, as Moffat had put it, Doctor Who could be any sort of television. A flat-sharing sitcom? The Lodger. Psychological drama? Amy’s Choice. An emotional dedication to one of the greatest painters in the world, who killed himself before realising the world recognised his genius? Vincent And The Doctor (the ending did cause me to well up). Of course, there was still big sci-fi spectacle, and it did it well – the two 2-parters from Moffat, one of which was his own Aliens (The Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone) to his earlier Alien (the brilliant Blink), and the finale (The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang) were really, really good (and I liked the allusion to Alan Moore’s ‘This is an imaginary story. Aren’t they all?’ with the Doctor’s ‘We’re all stories in the end.’)

The other thing that I thought Moffat brought to the series was humour and lightness – he has said that he sees Doctor Who as fairy tales and, although they can have death in them, there was a lot less needless death in this series than in the Davies era, and it meant something when it did. But the jokes were also great; Doctor Who was really funny, something I enjoyed immensely, especially in a show with lots of ‘timey-wimey’ stuff. I was also glad for the return of River Song – the wonderful interplay of Alex Kingston’s character with everybody but especially the Doctor was a pure delight, and she couldn’t appear enough for my liking.

Which brings us to the Doctor himself: with the weight of a nation on his shoulders, Matt Smith waltzed into the role, made it his own INSTANTLY and never looked back. Even though I don’t like his hair, he played the character with dazzling aplomb: his performance encompassed hyper-intelligent, compassionate, courageous, funny and entertaining, and it made you understand why Moffat cast him in the first place. He was helped by Karen Gillan as the feisty Amy Pond, an interesting companion for the Doctor (although she could occasionally veer on to the side of irritating), and the great cast of people who now line up to play roles in Doctor Who: this season saw the likes of Olivia Coleman, Sophie Okonedo, Bill Paterson, Iain Glen, Toby Jones, Bill Nighy, even James Corden wasn't as annoying as he usually is, such is the power of Doctor Who. Even the level of writers seems to have been elevated, with Richard Curtis writing Vincent And The Doctor.

But it is Steve Moffat to whom all my praise and gratitude are aimed: he had a difficult job taking over after four successful series from Davies, but he stuck to his guns on what he wanted to do and how he was going to do it. He made interesting choices and constructed stories that were not only good but hung together well, so that both the old-school sci-fi fans and the newer family fans could enjoy them equally. Thank you, Steve Moffat; I eagerly await the next series.

Welcome To Tranquility TPBs

Welcome To Tranquility Books One and Two, collecting issues #1–12 by Gail Simone and Neil Googe

I picked up these two trade paperbacks in the Gosh! half-price sale, but even then they were rather expensive – the full price for a single trade would have been £14.50 ($20), which is a lot for six comics. Fortunately, the quality of the story and art mean that I think I got myself a bargain.

The Tranquility of the title is a fictional town in California (the book is set within the Wildstorm universe) that is a place for retired superheroes and supervillains (and their families) – this is a brilliant setting for a comic book series, because it allows Simone to play with so many different aspects of the genre, from the present day to all the different sorts of comics in the past, as well as playing on heritage and history of characters that are familiar without being copies. Simone also creates a wonderful collection of fascinating characters, with perhaps the best of them the star of the show: Sheriff 'Tommy' Lindo, a smart young black woman, the granddaughter of the superhero Black Glider, who has to deal with the murder of Mr Articulate (which starts the plot of the book rolling), with a camera crew in tow. The story involves the secret of Tranquility, the effects of the past and things gone wrong, and it is really well constructed. It is also warm and funny, with some great dialogue ('Remember banter, Maximum Man? It's all Brit-speak and violent one-liners now.') and some really nice evocations of older comics and Saturday cartoons (I would love to see The Tranquiliteens!).

The story continues into the second book with something that affects the whole town, but also includes lots of back-up stories executed in the style of older comics (with some cool guest artists, such as Jason Pearson and ChrisCross). The art in the bulk of the books is provided by Googe, who does a really good job – I like his angular style, with a cartoony line and an individuality to all his characters that is refreshing in comic books. Also, he does an amazing job with the different art styles for the various historical pieces that are dotted throughout the book, giving a real sense of texture to the world that Simone has created: the Minxy Millions strip, the Maxi Mature Illustrated Album, even the Pink Bunny calendar or the trading stamp club book pages. It fills and enriches the story, almost giving it a three-dimensionality that makes the book even better.

I really liked this book; I'm very partial to books that are based in the superhero comics but then use that as a stepping stone for different stories, with the superpowered characters dressed in (relatively) normal clothes and the superhero element is just background and texture. In this book, the abilities are such a natural part of the world that it's not important, which is an aspect I enjoyed. Simone has done a great job of creating a very interesting book, making it clever, intimate, exciting, sexy, funny and absorbing, and I'm glad the book is getting another chance with a new mini-series, because this a great little book with a lot of potential (even if 'Tranquility' is spelled wrong – what is the trouble with American English and double-ells?).

Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4: Not A Review

I love the Lego games and I love the Harry Potter books and films, so I knew in advance that I was going to love Lego Harry Potter Years 1–4. And it didn’t disappoint. If you enjoy the films and enjoy the cuteness and humour that Travellers Tales bring to their execution of a fun game, you will pass the time very happily indeed.

The game is based on the first four films (specifically the films and the way they move through the stories, and not the books, although there are some book-specific references – the Sphinx in the maze of the Triwizard Cup doesn’t appear in the films but is present in the game, and Rita Skeeter can turn into a beetle), splitting each film into different levels with six sections for each. The really good aspect to this is that there is a real synthesis of game and story: in a game, you have to learn the techniques before you can use them, and the structure of the stories involves progressing through school lessons, meaning a natural way to pick up new spells. This means that you start with a basic spell that disrupts items so you can pick up Lego studs, but you have to wait until your first lesson before you learn Wingardium Leviosa, the basic levitating spell that recognises elements to be moved with a purple glow around them. This is another aspect where the magic of Harry Potter blends more naturally with the world of the Lego games: building items you need to solve a puzzle or progress in a game is more understandable when magic is involved; having Indiana Jones or Han Solo or Batman physically building objects is rather silly, if endearing.

The story games progress through aspects of the plot, with ‘in between’ sections providing more room for game mechanics. For example, the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup is not a huge section in the film, but is a whole section in the game, wondering around the area, saving wizards, putting out fires, saving Weasleys and fighting Death Eaters. The further you progress, the more you acquire that will help in the game: Harry gets the Invisibility Cloak, Hermione gets Crookshanks in the third year when Ron loses Scabbers (small animals can be controlled to move through pipes – you can even unlock Neville with Trevor the toad), Expelliarmus is acquired in the second year, Ron and Hermione learn Ridikulus in the third year while Harry learns Expecto Patronum, and it is only in the fourth year that you final learn Reducto, which will blast metal and thus unlock many more secrets.

It is the secrets that really open up the game: having unlocked Free Play by completing each level, you can go in as different characters (a recommendation: unlock a character who uses Dark Magic early on in proceedings, because there are lots of sections that require this, where objects have a red glow around them) and need the full range of spells to complete the game successfully. There is a lot to do: there are Students In Peril to free (you get nice music when you help them in the game, and a rousing cheer when it is noted at the end of the level), 167 (!) characters to unlock (they really do include everyone from the film, even the Masons from the second film, who don’t even get to speak, although there are many differently clothed versions of the main characters and other significant players), the four pieces of the Hogwarts crest to find in each level and random gold bricks to locate.

In addition to the game levels, there is the whole of Hogwarts to explore – it is a huge expansive level in its own right, and a delight. In the game sections, you are guided to each level by Nearly Headless Nick, but you can roam about to all parts of the grounds (with the exception of the Room of Requirement, which is only discovered in the fifth year), discovering sections and unlocking characters, while there are some nice moments in the background – in a quadrangle where you have to unlock a few things, Professor Moody transforms Draco Malfoy into a ferret before Professor McGonagall reverses the spell. You can go to the Owlery (where you can unlock Cho Chang, which is appropriate for the film version), the lake, the classrooms, the toilets, the headmaster’s office, all of the House common rooms (which have several rooms within them) when you have unlocked characters from each House – there are even sections that are unexpected, such as a basement under Professor Flitwick’s classroom, or what looks like the classroom for Muggle Studies. There are also sections where you enter the same classroom at different times of the day or night, and there is a very clever use of the Timeturner (which Hermione picks up in the third year) to transport you to a secret area by sending you back in time in the same area.

The charm of the game lies in the details – apart from the cheeky cut scenes that play around with the story and characters in an affectionate way, there is the cuteness of a baby dragon, the adorable way in which you can transform Professor Lupin into a werewolf (with accompanying howl), the attacking spells you can use on just about anyone (except the ever-vigilant Professor Moody) that increase the size of people’s head or reduce it or cause their hair to turn ginger or into some flowers, an unlockable version of Moaning Myrtle in a swimsuit, or playing xylophones to a dragon to send it to sleep. Just the fact that outside Hogwarts it is raining most of the time is a nice touch. Another charming element is the use of music and sound effects from the film: the main themes accompany all sections, and it’s extremely pleasing to produce a patronus and hear the same satisfying noise before it hits a Dementor. There is also fun when you play different characters, with specific talents: Dumbledore can get in any room in Hogwarts or Lupin as a werewolf can both dig and is very strong.

With all the positives to the game, there is a negative: it is perhaps the most glitch game I’ve ever played. Apart from the many times when the game would freeze in the middle of a level, thus losing all the work, there are little glitches throughout, like the Red Brick Detector pointing down a stairway that is impossible to actually reach and turns out to be incorrect anyway, or when characters walk past Mandrakes that have been potted but move slowly as if they are still making a noise (Mandrakes screeching is used to smash glass in the game, but you can unlock the ability to change the screeching to singing, which is much more beautiful). I don't know if it's a glitch, but levitating Lego bricks to create things to jump up or across sections was really annoying, not finding the correct piece to move or not locking into place correctly, and proved extremely frustrating. The worst glitch involves the basement under Flitwick’s classroom – the first time we played, it didn’t recognise the attempted exit, which would see you jump high back into the classroom above and the door close, and so it kept throwing us back down into the basement, repeating it over and over again until it finally recognised what we were doing. Very annoying.

Fortunately, the glitches are not sufficient to overcome the enjoyment of this game. The Bonus levels you unlock through the game are very similar to the equally silly Bonus levels unlocked in the second Indiana Jones Lego game, and seem equally out of place here; and the final bonus level where you are Voldemort and a Death Eater destroying Lego London seems a really bizarre choice for the last memory of the game. However, this game is such infectious fun that we started playing it all over again almost immediately. Doing Lego magic in Hogwarts, the Forbidden Forest, the Burrows, Diagon and Knockturn Alleys, blowing up stuff, making objects fly around in a flurry of magic, using Polyjuice Potion to turn into a character you’ve unlocked – who wouldn’t want to do that all again?

Some Recent Television Shows That I Quite Liked

Being a collection of quick thoughts concerning some programmes I’ve watched using legal means and without paid-for cable/satellite channels.

Warehouse 13
Virgin recently showed the (appropriately) 13 episodes of the first season of this fun little series, which can be seen as The X-Files with humour: a male Secret Service agent who gets ‘vibes’ and a female Secret Service agent who is more by the book are sequestered to a secret government agency who track down dangerous supernatural objects and house them in Warehouse 13 (basically, the place from the end of Raiders Of The Lost Ark). In charge of Warehouse 13 is Artie (Saul Rubinek), who has a past that impacts on the story, and he also sends our two agents on their assignments and providing them with Intel during their missions. There is a lightness and sense of fun to proceedings, although there is an element of danger to the missions, with an overall arc of a rogue agent of Warehouse 13, who was Artie’s partner, but it’s more about the characters, which makes it more enjoyable. The first season ended on a huge cliffhanger, so I was very glad that SyFy renewed the show for a second season, even though I don’t know when I will actually see it.

Justified
Created by Graham Yost (screenwriter of Speed, Broken Arrow and Hard Rain, among other things) from a short story by Elmore Leonard, Justified is about Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), a US Marshall who is reassigned to the Eastern Kentucky hill country where he grew up after killing a fugitive in Miami in a ‘justified’ shooting. Back in his home area, he comes into contact with his ex-wife, an old flame (who has killed her husband because of the beatings he gave her) and his best friend (Walton Goggins, playing an intelligent but psychopathic redneck), who now robs banks and anything else. Givens is effectively a sheriff from the 19th century in a modern setting, and it’s a very intriguing premise for the show, watching him dispense justice in an old-fashioned way but having to deal with the modern repercussions of these actions. Olyphant is really good in the lead role, a handsome, soft-spoken, smart but highly principled man out of time, and he anchors the whole show yet still manages to make wearing a cowboy hat look good in a modern setting. The only qualm I have with the show is that they didn’t kill off his best friend when Givens had to shoot him from about six feet away, with a bullet to the chest missing the heart but allowing for Goggin’s character to survive to become a troublesome thorn throughout the series; it felt wrong somehow, and is only a minor complaint in an otherwise enjoyable and gripping series. It has also made me glad that I only drove through Kentucky when I lived in the US and never stopped, because they make it look like a scary place ...

Rev
Even though I am a lapsed Catholic and therefore find organised religion innately humorous, I didn’t think there would be much mileage in a sitcom about a reverend, especially after the popularity of The Vicar Of Dibley had soaked up all church comedy for the mainstream. I was glad to be proven wrong – Rev is a very good sitcom that finds lots to provide laughs. The Rev in question is Adam Smallbone (Tom Hollander, who co-created the show), an Anglican vicar from Suffolk who has been given a church in Shoreditch, London; he has a slightly annoying junior vicar to deal with, a media-savvy archdeacon patronising him on a regular basis, a small congregation and a rundown church and no funds. He also has a loving solicitor wife (Olivia Coleman) and a dedication to his duty that doesn’t come across as excessively pious or outdated. It’s a nice balance, especially mixing it with topical storylines – the first episode had a sudden influx of local parishioners because they wanted to get their children into the church school because of a recent good report (‘On your knees, avoid the fees’). The acting is good, and the show has attracted a good cast, even the one-off performances, such as Hugh Bonneville as Adam’s college friend who has become a famous and much-loved vicar on television and radio. Hollander does a very good job of holding it all together, and it’s good to see him in a lead role that makes best use of his talents. The other important factor is that the show is very funny – they haven’t forgotten that, apart from having an interesting premise, the point of a sitcom is to make people laugh. Clever jokes, silly jokes, dirty jokes, funny jokes – they are all there, making Rev an enjoyable sitcom. Thanks, BBC2.

Do I Care About San Diego Comic-Con?

Another Comic-Con has come and gone, and the internet pauses to have a bit of a breather, after running around posting images and talking about teaser footage and reporting on panels. And, another San Diego Comic-Con has happened without me being there; so am I bitter? No, and yes, but mostly no.

SDCC is the nerd equivalent of Mecca, so there is a small part of me that wants to attend for the badge of honour. However, I wish I could have attended several years ago (back when I actually lived in the US for a few years), back when it was smaller and not just a big advert for the big studio films. I'm not denying progress, but the only news now is the film news – Empire magazine, even The Guardian, send people to report back on the big events, which equals Hollywood blockbusters. There used to be a geek connection, but even that seems to have lapsed – what geek factor could Salt, an action thriller starring Angelina Jolie, claim to possess?

The main news seemed to be focussed away from comic books themselves – even Marvel seemed more interested in the cartoons and the films, with the biggest news being the cast of The Avengers on the same stage. Any comic book news had to be linked to films where possible, with Marvel talking about Captain America comics because of the coming film. The big companies tend not to make big announcements to do with comics at SDCC. Or perhaps I'm being biased ...

I've been to UK-based conventions, and enjoyed the panels about comics and meeting the people who create them; I would love to go to San Diego primarily because of Artists' Alley, and get sketches from the big names but mostly to meet Stan Sakai (who doesn't seem to come to the UK, as yet) and tell him how much I love Usagi Yojimbo before asking him for a sketch. I know there are other conventions that are more centred on comic books, but San Diego still has that mythical appeal to it, the special convention that everyone knew about, before EVERYONE now knows about it. I don't have a bucket list, but I'd like to visit SDCC one time ...

Still, there are many good things about SDCC, and one of them is the Eisners, the comic book industry awards; awards may involve politics and industry-savvy, but I'm glad they exist and I was happy to see the selection of awards this year. Chew winning Best New Series was wonderful news, and it was good to see awards for Ed Brubaker (Best Writer), JH Williams (Best Penciller, Best Cover Artist), Jill Thompson (Best Painter) and Tom Spurgeon for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism. I thought the awards overall were good choices, and it made me happy that some part of SDCC still clings on to the idea of celebrating comic books.

Will I ever go to SDCC? It's unlikely, but it's nice to know that it's out there.

Dynamo 5: Post-Nuclear Family TPB

Dynamo 5 #1–7 by Jay Faerber and Mahmud A Asrar

I'm not sure why I bought this trade paperback – I hadn't read anything by Faerber before, let alone own any of his work. I think there were several factors behind the decision: Greg Burgas was a big advocate of Dynamo 5 and Faerber's other creator-owned work, Noble Causes; I'm keen to try new things and support creator-owned series; and it helped that it was cheap, something that Faerber did to help people try the series.

The concept for the book is intriguing: Captain Dynamo, superhero and protector of Tower City, has died. His widow, Maddie Warner, discovers among his things a little black book of the many women with whom he was unfaithful; deciding that the city needs protection, she seeks out the women who had children, children who may have inherited powers from their father. She gathers them and exposes them to the same radiation that gave Captain Dynamo his powers, thus unlocking their powers. Together, these half-siblings are the newest heroes on the block, Dynamo 5, unaware that Maddie Warner is more than just a Lois Lane-alike – she's an agent of F.L.A.G., as revealed in the last pages in the first series. That's a good opening for a comic book.

The team is an interesting mix of types: Hector Chang, a geeky kid who gets the powers of laser vision; Bridget Flynn is a gothy NYU film graduate who works in a cinema, develops super-strength; Olivia 'Livvie' Lewis, a driven black girl at Georgetown University, daughter of a high-priced DC lawyer, who gains the power of flight; Spencer Bridges, a sexually promiscuous black man who grew up in foster homes, who gets shape-shifting; and Gage Reinhart, a big white jock from Texas, who would rather be tackling in school American football games, but gets telepathy. There is a lot of potential for interaction and character development, and Faerber does a good job with them – they feel natural and the dialogue has a very light touch to it, with humour and warmth. Faerber has a very strong grasp on the world he has created and the characters that populate it, and he's set up an engrossing dynamic (if you'll pardon the pun).

Asrar is not an artist I've come across before, but it's clear he's got the skills for mainstream superhero comic books. He draws exciting action and his storytelling abilities are good, with very good panel transition choices. He tends to draw a little on the sexy side, and he draws Hector too athletically in spandex even though he's supposed to be the geeky one; his faces are good at expression but can sometimes be inconsistently drawn. He's definitely one of the draws on the book in addition to the story itself.

When I first read this, I thought that it was good but there wasn't enough to continue to reading more. However, in reading this again for the purposes of collecting my thoughts, I found that I was wrong in my assessment – there is a plenty here and I want to read more. This collection is a solid superhero comic book, and Faerber and Asrar have done a cracking job.

Reminiscing On The Karate Kid (The Original)

They will soon be releasing the remake of The Karate Kid in this country, which meant that they showed the original version on television. I thought I should capture some thoughts on it after revisiting it because I have a huge soft spot for it – the film came out at the perfect time for a teenage boy who loved martial arts, and the story of a white boy being trained by an aged Japanese karate expert struck a very deep chord.

The Karate Kid is a film of the '80s – the cheesy pop music, the bouffant hair, the silliness of the romantic element to the storyline; these aspects of the movie are cringe-worthy to watch. If the film could excise these parts, it would be such a better experience. When the film is good, it is the scenes between Ralph Macchio as Daniel and Pat Morita as Mr Miyagi (who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, something that amazes me still). There is no cheesy pop music, there is chemistry between the two actors and Morita even makes Macchio look like he can act.

Ignoring the sub-Romeo and Juliet romance between Macchio and Elizabeth Shue, the film is a text book example of the wushu staple: an old teacher trains a young upstart, with the added twist of training him first without him knowing it, in the infamous 'wax on, wax off' sequences. The scene where Morita shows Macchio that he's actually been training all along, showing him that the movements are karate blocks, is the best scene in the film, full of surprise and emotion. Most scenes with Morita in them are enjoyable – he plays the role seriously but with humour, even if the faux Japanese accent and imperfect English seems odd after his character has supposedly spent the past 40 years in America.

The film ends on an improbable high – Macchio wins the All-Valley Karate Championship, not only when all the other competitors are demonstrably better than he is, but also with a damage knee – which is also tainted by the awful cheesiness of the one-note bad guys showing remorse: the Cobra Kai student told to cripple Macchio practically falls on him to apologise to him for doing it, and William Zabka as main villain Johnny congratulates Macchio on winning against him, handing him the trophy in a particularly naff attempt to demonstrate the 'respect' Macchio has won (which is more important than the trophy). It's a particularly cheesy ending for an otherwise enjoyable film. I'm not saying it's the greatest, but there is a certain charm to it, which is why it has entered the public consciousness and stayed there for so long (and why it had three sequels and a remake).

Watching it for other aspects now bring up other details: how was Macchio able to enter the tournament on the day, with no qualified school? Where did the organisers find the print of the Miyagi patch symbol for the scoreboard, when it had only just been put on his gi? Did Macchio's character go to school at all while he was training? Did the Cobra Kai actually learn karate in their lessons, or did they just stand around listening to the wonderfully over-the-top Martin Kove as the brutal instructor shouting about showing no mercy and getting them to repeat what he was saying to them? Why are lots of rich people standing in a line to laugh at Macchio covered in Bolognese sauce (in his white shirt and white trousers)? It's quite bizarre, and is almost enough to distract you from the awful non-karate scenes. If it had just been the karate and montage stuff, it would have been fine. Another note: seeing Pat E Johnson as the referee in the fights – he's also listed as fight instructor and choreographer for the film – looking exactly the same as he did when I first saw him in Enter The Dragon, with the same bushy moustache.

I can't be objective about this film – it is too close to me to deserve a rating. I was a big fan of kung fu films before it, but it got even worse after it. I started training in karate not long after (although my knees eventually decided that they didn't like karate). I'm sure I even started to wear sleeveless t-shirts because of the film (although the less said about that the better). But it did solidify the dream: being taught martial arts by a native master, something that I have now achieved – I study Chen-style taijiquan under a genuine Chinese master (and three-time former national champion), who is the nicest man in the world that could also kill me with his finger. It's exactly like Mr Miyagi said: it's not the pupil, it's the teacher. Thanks for everything, The Karate Kid.

Memory: An Englishman Watching A Live American Football Game

[An old memory, from my time living in America, as I tried to capture my experience of going to an American football match, having only watched it on television.]

Sunday, 15 September 2002. Indianapolis, Indiana. I have a ticket to see the Miami Dolphins take on the Indianapolis Colts at the RCA Dome, kick-off at noon. There is a nice symmetry to the fixture, as I have been here in Indy for nearly two years, and the first team I used to root for were the Dolphins, so I will be happy whoever wins, as long as it is a good game.

There is a nice vibe heading into the game. I think the Dome holds about 50,000 people, which is rather a lot of folks to be descending on downtown Indy, so the police are out in force to keep control of traffic, especially on Capitol Avenue. Loads of people walking down the street, nearly all dressed in a blue Colts shirt (with either Manning, James or Harrington as the name on the back – Manning is the quarterback, James is the running back and Harrington the wide receiver, who feature in many of the plays I will see today), shouting and cheering and being good natured. There are Miami fans dotted about, which I didn't expect, but people move from state to state, so I should have thought of that. There is no antagonism towards them, as would be the norm between soccer fans, so this is rather nice. The atmosphere reminds me of walking to Highbury or Wembley for big games, the buzz of anticipation.

The venue itself is huge, and the number of vendors selling junk food and junk merchandise is staggering. I somehow avoid them. I also avoid being in the stadium when they play the national anthem (I am pointing the pink pistol at the porcelain firing range) for which I am glad. When I walk up the steps into the arena proper, it is a cool reveal, and I discover that my seat is better than I thought. I am in the corner, admittedly (the ticket was only $55) but I am 15 rows up, quite close to the action, on the Colts side of the field. (There are so many people participating, from players to subs to coaches to assistants to waterboys, they need an entire side of a field for all them.) The only thing is that the seat is so narrow. I hit my wide hips sitting down, and barely have enough room to leave my arms anywhere comfortable. The guy to my left is trying eat nachos, but I have no idea how he is doing it without getting him or me covered in fake plastic cheese sauce-like substance. This is incongruous, as eating vast quantities of crap is apparently part and parcel of the watching live sport event, but it seems impossible to accomplish in seating designed for children.

The game starts almost promptly (television cameras, everywhere around the field and up in the stands, remind you that TV is keeping the schedule here) and the atmosphere is cool. Cheering the home side unreservedly while booing the opposition. The game itself is quite difficult to watch live and at this position in the arena; seeing around twenty men explode in motion and end the play within three seconds is something not designed to be witnessed easily in front of 50,000 people without the aid of 123 cameras and action replay. (Not that the replay is working correctly, as the choice of plays deserving the honour of replay are seemingly chosen at random.) If it wasn't for the cameras, we wouldn't have a clue what is going on sometimes. I can now see why my theory about American sports being better suited to the big screen rather than watching it live, compared to soccer, is valid; the nature of the game in its present form is perfectly suited to television rather than stadium viewing. It is disconcerting not being able to see the play again from several different angles and in slow motion to understand what happened and who did what to whom.

At least we have cheerleaders to distract us. There are around 20 of them, and they split up into 4 groups and go to each corner of the stadium to cheer to that part of the crowd. They rotate at each quarter, so we can see which one is the hottest, erm, I mean, to divide their time equally among the fans. They all have long hair, which can be moved about dramatically in their, admittedly quite simplified, routines. For the first half, they wear skirts, but change to shorts and what look like bras that have had sleeves added to them for the second half, for no particular reason. Both halves they wear cowboy (or is that cowgirl?) boots, because we are the Colts, I suppose, as well as natural colour tights, which look horrid, and detract from the inherent sexiness of athletic, nubile women with long legs and dazzling white teeth dancing around and showing their bums. I feel sorry for them, because when they are not doing their cheerleader thing, they have to stand with their hands (in their pom-poms) on their kidneys, their elbows out wide, and one leg is straight while the forward leg is slightly bent at the knee. It looks very stupid, in my opinion. Actually, the worst case of embarrassment is when they do their big routine in between quarters, when they all get together again to do their stuff, but have to suffer the indignation of an Austin Powers impersonator doing a bad Austin Powers thing in between and around them as part of the show. Very sad. Maybe this is to show that it's for the kids or something. Actually, I've just remembered worse: having to stand there while an advert for the Colts Cheerleaders Calendar is shown on the large screens at each end of the Dome. Glossy pictures of them in bikinis and stupid poses flash on the screen while they must be cowering in shame on the inside.

Postscript: I can't remember much else from the game now, and it was only from using the vast power of the internet that I know that Miami beat Indianapolis 21–13, something I neglected to record in my original piece; I can't tell you if it was a good or bad game. However, I did enjoy the experience.

Book From A Library: Devil In A Blue Dress

By Walter Mosley

I remember seeing, and enjoying, the film adaptation of this book when it first came out; among a cast that included Denzel Washington as Ezekiel ‘Easy’ Rawlins, Jennifer Beals as Daphne Monet and Tom Sizemore as DeWitt Albright, I remember it particularly for the first time I’d seen Don Cheadle, playing the violent and unhinged Raymond ‘Mouse’ Alexander with raw power. So I was particularly happy to see the book in my library, and that I was the first person to borrow the new edition.

I was hooked on the book by the first line: ‘I was surprised to see a white man walk in Joppy’s bar.’ The style is obviously derived from Raymond Chandler and other hardboiled/noir influences, but it also has the unique selling point of talking about LA in the 1940s from the perspective of a black man, and Mosley has the perfect authorial voice. What’s amazing is that this was his first published book, but the confidence and distinctness of the prose is so strong from the start.

Easy Rawlins has lost his job at a factory because of his pride and integrity, so he accepts the offer of work that comes through his friend, Joppy, who owns a local bar, because Rawlins has a small house and a mortgage to pay. The job is to work for a large but dangerous white gentleman called DeWitt Albright to look for a girl, Daphne Monet, who likes to frequent black bars, where Albright can’t easily go. Of course, things don’t go as smoothly as Easy would like, and soon people he knows are turning up murdered and he is being arrested by the police for questioning (something that distinguishes the character from the white perspective of, say, Phillip Marlowe – a black man in police custody at the time was automatically guilty).

Easy is an intriguing and complex character: a soldier who served in the Second World War, he has integrity, an affinity for private investigating despite no training or experience, and an understanding of the way the world worked for black men, but he has demons as well, such as ghosts from his youth in Houston, a ‘voice’ that talks to him when things get tough, and his psychopathically violent friend from the old days, Mouse. The combination makes for a great protagonist for the series of books that Mosley has written, and it’s all here from the start.

I really enjoyed this book, and will look out for the rest of the series; if the other books are as good as this one, then I’ll be happy. The only qualm I had was that the book felt as if it ended rather abruptly, with things tied up too quickly; I don’t know if this is a genuine reaction, or if it’s just a side effect of enjoying the book and not wanting it to end.

Old Notes On Some Films I Watched

[Continuing a theme, here are some old notes on films I watched and wrote about and then promptly forgot about instead of posting them on the blog. However, these were just films I watched on television, rather than on DVD. It's almost completely different.]

Jude

An adaptation of Thomas Hardy novel (Jude The Obscure), directed by Michael Winterbottom. Christopher Eccleston is Jude, a man from a poor family who wants to go to college to better himself, so reads Latin in his spare time. He is tricked into marriage to Rachel Griffiths only for her to run off to Australia. So he works as an engraver in a big town, where he meets with his cousin (Kate Winslet). They fall in love but don’t marry because she is a proto-feminist. They have children but people won’t let them lodge due to not being married. His ex-wife reappears with Jude’s son, and gets him to take him back. Life is grim, so the first son kills the other two children and then himself. This sends Winslet potty and she goes off with another man so she can be respectable, even though she still loves Jude. This is a well-made film but it is incredibly depressing and grim; it leaves you feeling as if you’ll never be happy again.

Rating: DA

********************

Code 46

Another Michael Winterbottom film. Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton star in an interesting idea of a film: set in the near future, people need a special insurance to go anywhere, and Code 46 is a ban on people with similar genetic identity from having kids. The are some nice touches that flesh out this world (such as the lingua franca including bits of Spanish and Chinese) and it is beautifully realised using current locations (I’m sure I recognised Canary Wharf tube stations), but the love story is the main drive and it feels a little weak, despite the excellency of the actors. (I thought is odd that the director felt it necessary to show us Morton’s recently shaved pudenda in the love scene.) An interesting if unsatisfactory experiment.

Rating: DVD

********************

Central Station

An odd little story from Walter Salles, director of The Motorcycle Diaries. Set in Brazil, it sees an old woman (a former teacher) who makes a living writing letters for people who can’t write but she never sends them, blaming the post if anybody comes back to her. She writes a letter for a mother to the father of her son, who is then run over by a bus (after changing the contents of the letter). The old woman then sells the boy to a couple who she thinks will get him adopted to foreign families, bus she has a change of heart and decides to take the boy back to his father (and to escape the person she sold the boy to). So the film becomes  a strange road movie (with a very authentic feeling, which could be why he got The Motorcycle Diaries job). However, it’s not particularly engaging – it ends with her leaving the boy with the now-dead father’s other sons – and you are only left with the odd beauty of Brazil via the roads to stick in the memory.

Rating: DA

********************

You, Me and Everyone We Know

This is a typical US indie film – that same quality of film stock and lighting and ‘ordinary’ locations, mixed with an abundance of quirkiness – which comes out of Sundance on a regular basis. Written, directed and starring a video artist, it is to be expected that the film is a little disjointed. It starts well, introducing the various characters; however, the oddity piles up to a disproportional level and the ending doesn’t even pretend to give any sort of satisfying resolutions to the narratives, which leaves you admiring the ability of the creator but hoping you never see it again.

Rating: DA

********************

Hideous Kinky

An adaptation of a memoir about a woman (played by Kate Winslet) who takes her kids to live in Morocco in the early 1970s. I only watched this because I think that Winslet is a great actress; otherwise, it was not worth watching – the selfishness of the central character deprives empathy and then the film peters out at the end, with the mum taking her kids back to UK after a road trip. Really dull.

Rating: D

********************

Love, Honour and Obey

Juvenile rubbish with actors playing at gangsters (badly) and the people involved (Jude Law, Ray Winstone, Johnny Lee Miller, Sean Pertwee) should be embarrassed at being involved. The ONLY reason to watch is a scene in which Denise Van Outen deep throats a cucumber.

Rating: D (only because I don't do a zero rating)

[Explanation of my updated film rating system]

Old Notes On DVDs: Part 5

[Yes, I'm still talking about films I saw on DVD a long time ago, wrote about and then forgot to post on my blog, but I'm now doing that very thing.]

The Queen

This is a television movie, pure and simple, but it is well done and has a strong performance from Helen Mirren – but Oscar worthy? I’m not sure. I think that the US still has a fascination for the royal family that exceeds their understanding of it, which distorted the appreciation of this performance.

The film is about the reaction of Queen Elizabeth II and family in response to the death of Diana, the former Princess of Wales, and the ridiculous mass hysteria and outpouring of emotion the public displayed. This was in contrast to the lack of anything from Buckingham Palace, because they were brought up to grieve in private. It was perhaps only due to the intervention of the then prime minister Tony Blair (an excellent Michael Sheen) that they were able to turn around the negative press and bring the royals into the 20th century.

The fascinating behind-the-scenes stuff of the royal life and their interaction with normal people (Tony and Cherie being told, ‘It’s “ma’am” as in “ham”, not “ma’am” as in “farm”’) is what makes the film enjoyable to watch; however, although well acted and well written, it never completely escapes its television origins.

Rating: DVD

*********************

Snakes on a Plane

This film is Exhibit A in the case for a good title not producing a good film. After the internet hype, this is a very average film (not that it could live up to all the buzz). Sam Jackson doesn’t care – he always comes out well from anything he is in – and I can see why a fun-loving guy would want to do this film, but it is a B-movie trifle.

The set-up is ludicrous – to kill a witness being escorted back to the mainland by Sam and his partner, a Hawaiian gang puts snakes in the cargo that will be released in the middle of the flight and be attracted/incensed by the chemicals put on the lei that people are wearing. Snakes. On a plane. Ta-da.

And so we have it: effectively, an animal documentary show in the form of a disaster movie. Because that is what the film becomes: I realised about halfway through that I’m just watching a snake attack programme in fictional form. You’re just waiting for the next different snake to come along and wonder in what form it will bite somebody. It stops being a film and ends up a catalogue of snake strikes.

Sam says THE line (you know the one I mean; you can tell they filmed it afterwards) and the film ends satisfactorily (well, except for people who died of snake bite poisoning of course), but it will always be remembered for the internet campaign that had no effect than for the film itself.

Rating: DVD

[Explanation of my updated film rating system]

Old Notes On DVDs: Part 4

[Because nobody demanded it: even more old notes on fairly old films I watched on DVD a while ago, wrote things about and then forgot to post them before.]

The Holiday

The most impressive aspect to this film is the fact that Jude Law, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet and Jack Black appear in this very average romcom. There is nothing in it to attract the attention of this calibre of stars. Diaz is a workaholic movie trailer editor, rich but with no life. Winslet is a harassed journalist in London who loves a man who announces his engagement to another woman in the newspaper office. Even though she is a lowly member of the fourth estate, she has a picture-perfect cottage in Surrey. She and Diaz put their homes on exchange websites and pick each others’ homes to swap for two weeks. Which is completely implausible, but it is a film and we need a plot initiator.

Diaz does bewilderment at rural England and Winslet does awe at Los Angeles and Diaz’s mansion. Law is Winslet’s brother, who turns up at the cottage drunk and gets romantic with Diaz. Meanwhile, Winslet connects with Black in an empty LA. Blah, blah, blah, happily ever after. The only moving and interesting part of the film is a subplot. Winslet accidentally interacts with a lonely old scriptwriter and gets him to attend an event being held in his honour that he doesn’t want to attend; he is a grumpy old codger and doesn’t believe that anyone would be interested in him. It is a lovely moment when he finally sees the audience waiting for him and give him a standing ovation.

Interestingly, the scriptwriter is played by Eli Wallach, who also played a scriptwriter, in an episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – is he being typecast?

This film is a bit of fluff with actors who are above the material but need to do a friendly, mainstream film for the money and the necessary box office clout in order to keep making films. Diaz does dippy, Winslet is down to earth, Law is smug and Black is boyish enthusiasm; I can only think that they were all in a room saying, ‘Well, I’ll do it if you do it …’

Rating: DA

********************

Domino

Directed by Tony Scott, written by Richard ‘Donnie Darko’ Kelly and starring Keira ‘The Chin’ Knightley, this film is based (very loosely) on the real life of a posh English girl who became a bounty hunter in LA. Domino was the daughter of the film star Laurence Harvey (from the original The Manchurian Candidate) who went to proper schools but decided she didn’t like it; she had been a model for a while, but ends up working for Mickey Rourke and with Edgar Ramirez taking down criminals. The problem is that the idea is better than the actual film – the small documentary about her on the DVD (she died before the film came out) is more interesting (also, the real-life Choco, played by the definitely not ugly Ramirez, was a very unattractive man indeed). You can almost imagine the excitement of the film execs when trying to get the film made: ‘Sexy woman shooting guns!’, ‘And it’s true!’ Tony Scott is a very good visual director, and he uses lots of different techniques to show the craziness of the world, but the fractured time structure of the story doesn’t really work, the reality show sub-plot is silly (even if Christopher Walken is in it). Knightley is too posh, even for the character, Rourke is too plastic, there are too many recognisable people (Delroy Lindo, Lucy Liu, Mena Suvari, Jacqueline Bisset, Macy Gray – how did they all get persuaded to do this?) to distract you, and the story isn’t particularly engaging (which could be why they put in the love story, allowing Knightley to expose her small breasts in a brainless action film). A bit of a mess.

Rating: DA

********************

Eragon

I know this was a book written by a teenager but did the film need to be written by one as well? Coming across as a fantasy version of Star Wars (young boy discovers a destiny, is tutored by a bearded old man, rescues a feisty princess, fights an evil wizard and his vicious henchman in a final spectacular battle), there is really no redeeming feature to this movie. Instead, you sit and stare dumbfounded, wondering why Oscar winner Jeremy Irons, BAFTA winner Robert Carlyle, Oscar nominee John Malkovitch and Oscar winner Rachel Weisz (at least she doesn’t have to appear on screen, being the voice of the dragon) agreed to appear in the film. Irons comes off worse – you’d think he would have learnt his lesson after Dungeons & Dragons. Is it just the money? Or is it ‘for my kids’ excuse? It certainly wasn’t the script. The young actor playing the lead is unfortunately on the wooden side, and the film flops from one supposed set piece to the next, with no sense of passion or reason – it certainly is a film directed by a man who was only a special FX bloke before. Depressing.

Rating: D

[Explanation of my updated film rating system]

Old Notes On DVDs: Part 3

[Seems like I've got even more of these old DVD reviews than I thought, so apologies for discussing films that are not really relevant.]

The Simpsons Movie

The only question to be answered about this film – was it worth the wait? As Homer says at the beginning of the film, why pay to see something you can see for free? It’s difficult to come to a Simpsons movie fresh when the television series has been part of the cultural landscape for so long. Would fans want to watch a film as much as a good episode of the show?

The film tries hard to escape the confines of the small screen – the scope of the story is bigger and the camera moves more fluidly and cinematically – but there is still the feel of television hovering over it. There is even a joke about it – at the end of the second act (which feels like the end of the second episode) has a caption come up: ‘TO BE CONTINUED’ only to be followed by ‘IMMEDIATELY’.

The film is big – Homer causes the polluted lake to go into meltdown, which causes Springfield to be sealed within a dome. The town wants to lynch him, but he and the family escape to Alaska for a new life. Except the EPA wants to destroy Springfield, and only the Simpsons can save the day …

The Simpsons Movie is extremely funny in places, especially when it’s not having to concentrate on the plot or the character arcs – the beauty of the naked Bart skateboarding scene, where exquisite timing of the hiding of his genitals is made even funnier by the hedge which has been strategically cut to reveal his family jewels for the rest of his trip. The screen is packed with jokes (the ‘Binge Responsibly’ sign on the Duff blimp; the bar in Alaska is Eski Moe’s) and there is a wonderful cameo from Tom Hanks, but the film never completely breaks free from the boundaries of its television origins.

Rating: DVD

********************

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

Uma Thurman, Luke Wilson, Eddie Izzard, Anna Faris – it is so sad to see these people in this film, especially when you see that Ivan Reitman has lost any comedic touch he once had. Izzard continues his amazing streak of bad film choices. Wilson, who loses all his charm and talent when he makes a film that is just paying rent, starts a relationship with Thurman after helping her after her handbag is snatched. The fling doesn’t last long after Thurman reveals she is Go-Girl, a superheroine who got her powers from a meteorite. (Her archenemy is Izzard, her former best friend in school until the meteor powers made her beautiful and popular, and so he is out for revenge.) Thurman becomes a nut-job ex, stalking Wilson and throwing a shark into his apartment (which is creative if nothing else). Meanwhile, Wilson has fallen for Farris, playing the best-friend-he-works-with-who-is-beautiful-funny-and-obviously-loves-him role, which annoys Thurman even more. Things come to a head when Izzard gets Wilson to help him to remove Thurman’s powers, which then gets shared with Farris and Thurman in an unfunny climax. Izzard realises he still loves Thurman and so everyone pairs off. Sigh. This is perfect evidence that high concept doesn’t equal a good film. This flops from one part to the next with little charm or passion. There are few laughs and the lack of interest means that all concerned will want to forget this film as quickly as you will.

Rating: DA

********************

Hellboy: Sword of Storms

This is an enjoyable animated film that doesn’t follow the Hellboy canon but comes up with a new story, a small tale from his background. There is a nice diversion into Japanese folklore. The format allows a little more action and fighting, which is one of the joys of animation. The visual style is not based on Mignola’s art styles, but an animation artist’s interpretation. It’s okay but it doesn’t feel like Hellboy. The voice cast is from the films, which is nice continuity, but it’s a slight story, with little weight; however, it’s always good to see more Hellboy, which works well in the animated format, but it’s not a film-worthy story.

Rating: DVD

[See here for my updated film rating system]

Old Notes On DVDs: Part 2

[Being further notes I wrote a long time ago but never posted for some reason.]

Die Hard v4.0

This film is essentially the same concept as the earlier films: a terrorist distraction tactic to disguise a large robbery. Not that we want originality in our franchises or anything …

Bruce Willis looks very old in this film, which makes the stunts look even more ridiculous: when he survives being on top of a jet that spins before crashing, we’re not talking reality here.

After hassling the guy hitting on his estranged daughter, Willis is asked to pick up a suspect for the FBI: Justin Long, a computer geek for hire. He and others have been working on security code for an unknown source; the others have been killed by the same people with bombs in their computers, the best way for killing young computer hackers. Willis saves him before his bomb goes off – the bad guys come in with guns: and we’re off!

The criminal behind it all (Timothy Olyphant) is a former top computer bod for the government who was dumped when he showed them how insecure their computer systems are. He has created a ‘firesale’ (everything must go) by hacking into and destroying the computers that run everything – phones, traffic, television, power supplies – but ultimately it is a front for stealing money.

So now Bruce has a funny sidekick (Long does nerdy computer guy well) and they chase and fight the bad guys. Olyphant doesn’t really exude the required menace, but it must be tough to be compared with Alan Rickman. For some reason, he has a sexy Asian female lover/henchwoman, who doesn’t serve any real purpose other than fighting Brucey and getting killed so that Bruce can taunt Olyphant, which angers him so much that he kidnaps Bruce’s daughter to make it ‘personal’.

This is an average action film – Len Wiseman does a competent job (better than expected after the Underworld films) but this is nothing exceptional. He does film an odd choice, where a jeep goes down a lift shaft, which is something I haven’t seen before, but then he’ll film strange things like the aforementioned jet scene and driving a car into a helicopter. The film also lives in the shadow of the first film (there is an Agent Johnson reference) and mentioning the history of John McClane. But it doesn’t compare, obviously, not even with the lesser second and third films; it’s just a modern version of the idea but worse because they diluted it down for PG13 consumption, thus losing a vital component of the enjoyment.

And, for the first time, I felt sorry Kevin Smith – I know he’s a big Willis fan and nobody would say no to an extended cameo in a Die Hard film, but this was a good performance from Smith, even if he just does a good job of basically being himself, hand gesticulations and all. He is also looking very fat in this film – I hope he didn’t do a De Niro to play the stereotype of an overweight internet nerd living in his mother’s basement …

Rating: DVD

[See here for my updated film rating system]

Old Notes On DVDs: Part 1

[I'm a bit tired, so luckily I found some old stuff I wrote a while ago about some films I saw on DVD that I can post instead of something new.]

The Science of Sleep

This was weird – Michel Gondry writes and directs Gael Garcia Bernal as a Mexican guy who comes to France after the death of his father because his mother has a job for him and wants him near. However, it is only a menial production job for low-rent calendars, not the creative job he’d been promised (he is an artist/inventor with a strange sensibility). His creativeness is seen most of all in his dreams – he runs them like a television station, focussing on his life and interaction with people. It is here that Gondry lets his brain free, shooting in a casual, almost nouvelle vogue style, which captures the spontaneity and immediacy of dreams. His life is complicated by his next-door neighbour – he fancies her friend but thinks she likes him but they connect as friends, sharing the strangeness he brings into the world (like his time machine that works only one second into the past or future).

The film has a very strange feel to it – Bernal is Mexican, speaking Spanish and English, as well as some bad French, and people switch between English and French all the time. The quirkiness of the dreams is contrasted with the tedium of the working world, which is matched by the way the story weaves around (without the narrative construction of Charlie Kaufmann, the story is as messy as life is). This is aided by the naturalness of the filming, and by Michele Gainsbourg, who is such an unusual presence in the film, haunting and unaffected.

The film doesn’t follow any sort of three-act structure; it ends with Bernal supposedly off to Mexico but he falls asleep on Gainsbourg’s bed as she strokes his hair, without any normal romantic resolution. Visually, this is a very interesting film, especially in the dream sequences, but it isn’t a great narrative.

Rating: DVD

********************

The Last Kiss

The appeal of Zach Braff caused me to pick this up, even though I had no idea about it, but even his charm can only go so far in this remake of the Italian film, L'Ultimo Bacio. He is a young man in love, getting married to a beautiful woman but he is still doubtful about being old and a husband. A younger girl, Mischa Barton, comes onto him very strong, basically offering it on a plate for the sake of the plot. He, being a man, accepts after a little hand-wringing. the fiancée finds out and she throws him out. He realises he is in love with her, so he stays on her porch in the rain all night because he’s showing he’s not going anywhere. The film ends with her letting him in the door but at least it stops there, leaving the result in some doubt, which is about the only part of the film that has some interest to it. It is quite poor, unbelievable and pointless; it might have worked as an Italian film, but the greatness of the characters’ lives doesn’t generate any sympathy for the plight of the main character, and the American attitude to adulterous liaisons (They Are Bad!) means that the film portrays him as a weak, bad man. I think I’ll stick to watching Braff in films that he writes and directs.

Rating: DA

********************

A Scanner Darkly

Philip K Dick must have been very messed up – this book is held to be the apotheosis of his output and his meditations on identity and paranoia and free will and drugs, and it would suggest he had a weird time (especially as he said that it was semi-autobiographical). Keanu Reeves is a narcotics cop, using a Smart Suit to completely disguise him when working undercover, which he is doing to investigate Substance D, the most addictive drug on the market. What he does not realise is that he is investigating himself – it seems to be a side-effect of the drug.

The film mostly hangs out with him and his ‘no touch’ girlfriend (Winona Ryder) and ‘friends’ (Robert Downey Jr and Woody Harrelson), who hang out his home. Director Linklater brings his Slacker vibe, as they sit around talking rubbish and being driven by paranoia. Things come to a head when Reeves is so messed up by the drug (which he shouldn’t actually be taking) that he needs to go into rehab at the place that some suspect is actually making the drug in the first place, and the point behind the film is revealed.

The use of rotoscope to animate the digitally filmed movie makes the visuals more surreal and distorted, creating the perfect atmosphere for the drug-induced paranoia and distortion; it is a great choice, especially for the look of the Smart Suit – I wonder how actors feel about their performances being warped in this way? You spend most of the film wondering what the hell is going on, much like the characters – this might explain why they basically explain the plot of the film in the last few minutes, with an optimistic if not complete resolution. An interesting experiment.

Rating: DVD

[See here for my updated film rating system]

Theatre: As It Occurs To Me Season 2 Episode 8

Richard Herring's As It Occurs To Me (shortened to AIOTM) is an impressive undertaking: Herring writes an entirely new 60-minute sketch show each week, rehearses it with the cast (Emma Kennedy, Dan Tetsell and Christian Reilly on guitar) twice on the day and they perform it live on Monday night, which is recorded and released as a free unedited podcast the next day. You've got to hand it to him for putting his money where his mouth is and just doing this; even though it might have started as a failed pitch to BBC radio, but it has evolved into something else entirely. Free from the constraints of corporate interference, it allows the show to be sweary and filthy and obscene. And it's all the better for it.

I had listened to the first series without actually going to the live performance, so I made a special effort to attend this series to give some money back for all the free entertainment provided, and it seemed best to go for the last show in the season, at the Bloomsbury Theatre on 5 July. Bizarrely, I hadn't listened to any of season 2 AIOTM before seeing the final show; however, the running jokes didn't interfere with the enjoyment.

Herring provides a full show – the first half was a preview of his Edinburgh show, Christ On A Bike, an update of an old show that is a funny and intelligent discussion of his disagreement of things in the bible. It was a good show, even if it isn't completely finished yet, with some big laughs and a well-reasoned argument; all Herring has to do is calm down on the shouty section where he has a go at the error in the first sections of the New Testament, and he'll do fine.

After an interval (where the queues for the men's toilets was larger than the women's toilets, such is the ratio of gender in the fans who attend these shows), the live performance of AIOTM went ahead, including all cock-ups and digressions. It was fun to watch the show being performed, seeing the actors playing the lines instead of just hearing them; Emma Kennedy was particularly funny, especially the physicality of her SuBo character (and she slightly counters for Herring's worrying trend towards misogyny). The show does have a tendency towards recurring gags (Tiny Andrew Collings has become a huge part of the script), which can hinder the casual listener, but it was a lot of fun and it was a hoot seeing the cast making each other laugh, and seeing them happy when a sketch worked well. The audience certainly enjoyed it, but they were slightly biased fans (my long-suffering girlfriend went with me but didn't have quite the same reaction, which only makes me love her more for putting up with me dragging her to stuff like this) – the feeling in the theatre was of warmth and enjoyment and almost community. I can certainly recommend the sensation, and seeing AIOTM live was definitely worth it.

Exhibition: Rude Britannia British Comic Art

I can't remember the last time I went to Tate Britain, or why I went there (although I do remember seeing David Walliams at the same exhibition; it's funny the things you remember), so it was nice to visit it again. Rude Britannia: British Comic Art, brought to people's attention by the fact that Harry Hill was a guest curator of the exhibition and a nice piece on The Culture Show, is about British satirical art from the 1600s to the present day.

The exhibit is contained in six rooms, including Politics, Social Satire, Bawdy and Absurd (the latter a collection of surreal items curated by Harry Hill, the funniest being the anvil hanging from a rope with a fake candle underneath the rope as you enter, something done by Hill himself). It tries to cover the full scope in a roughly chronological order, starting with the father of satirical art, Hogarth (works here include the famous Gin's Lane and Rake's Progress), and finishing up with modern proponents such as Gerald Scarfe, Steve Bell and the Spitting Image team (seeing a life-size puppet of Margaret Thatcher, with those big bulging eyes, was really quite scary, even after all this time).

I don't know if the exhibition is a success – I don't think that it covers everything, trying to include as wide a selection as possible but spreading too thin. And there are some very strange inclusions: a recutting of scenes from Carry On Up The Khyber, overdubbed with two Gujarati men talking about obscene sex acts; video of a woman in her back garden, eating a banana with a fork and knife; a badly drawn bearded man's face, with the word 'HA' written many times beneath it; a large fat suit with no head. It is rather odd, but perhaps that's the point.

There is a lot to admire in the exhibit. There is the massive painting, The Worship of Bacchus, by George Cruikshank, a work satirising the deleterious effect of alcohol on British society. It's a huge work, made up of many different sections and levels, and needs annotating by Steve Bell from Cruikshank's own notes. There are some huge comic book pages of Viz strips, specially done for the exhibition, mocking those who visit art galleries – there are accompanying strips of Roger Mellie explaining the Hogarth pieces, which are necessary for the gap of history, and I found these more amusing than a lot of the exhibition. There are also individual little pieces that made me smile and were worth seeing, but I didn't leave the museum feeling completely satisfied by what I had seen; however, it was at least interesting.

Comics I Bought 29 April 2010

The final week of comics for April means I'm getting closer to my goal (well, one of my goals) of being up to date on my four-colour periodical purchases. I know this is a little odd, but it's what I have to do.

Fantastic Four #578
Another issue of Fantastic Four leaves me flat. It's like the original notes for the story before Hickman could turn it into the complete script, with minimal dialogue and explanation. It may look pretty – Eaglesham draws a lovely comic book – but I'm not feeling this at all. It's not bad but it's not interesting and not enjoyable, and it would have to be an INCREDIBLE pay-off to make it worth all this.

Stumptown #3
'Girl, you've got the worst luck I've ever seen.' This is a good book – Rucka and Southworth deliver an entertaining comic book that is a section in a larger story but delivers satisfying narrative thrills along the way. Our protagonist Dex is a smart person – she is shown working things out and making connections with the barest amount of information – but things don't always work out smoothly for her, and you feel for her and the pain she feels doing her job. I'm really enjoying this book, with sharp dialogue and perfectly styled art.

Usagi Yojimbo #128
A complete story in a single issue? How old-fashioned ... A demon monster attacks in the middle of the night in the small home of a family who have taken Usagi for the night – except it is all a dream, warning against eating too many sweets too fast before bedtime. Remember that, kids, because I don't want to see Usagi die again ... This also includes a picture puzzle on the back cover, squeezing even more entertainment into a wonderful package. Thank you, Stan Sakai.

Comics I Bought 22 April 2010

Another week of comics, which included Avengers vs Atlas #4 (but I'll be talking about Agents of Atlas at a later stage, so that will have to wait). Soon, I'll be up to date. Soon.

Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #2
'Now that's what I call a funeral.' The gods choose mortal champions to fight their battle when Apollo decides to stop Athena; the mortals end up changing the rules, but what else to you expect when Amadeus Cho is involved? Clever, funny, hopeful (Hercules isn't in the Land of the Dead), enjoyable – it's a shame that this book can't sustain an ongoing series without having to revert to specials and mini-series. Even the back-up story is good, as Venus and Namora discover the hospital for children of monsters that Herc set up. Why aren't more people buying this book?

Joe The Barbarian #4
Grant Morrison has fun with this fantasy series, such as 'EEE equals Magic times the speed of all likelihood squared' and the order who have taken a vow of cowardice, and mixing the real world with the fantasy world (such as the place called Yalway). But it's Sean Murphy who is the star of the series, creating an eerie quality to the 'normal' reality and an extra-real nature to the fantasy world, and making this a a great little mini-series.

X-Factor #204
Peter David has fun with the reader by starting out with some soldiers killing X-Factor, but which turns out to be a simulation, only to end the issue with the same soldiers actually killing Madrox, Rictor and Longshot. Great cliffhanger. Throw in some jokes and good dialogue, and the art is getting better: Valentine De Landro's pencils are improving the longer he works on the title, settling into the noir mood and the facial expressions necessary for the comedy.

Comics I Bought 15 April 2010

Time for some more rambling thoughts on comic books I purchased several months ago for reasons that seem to elude me at this precise moment in time. I think it's the heat ...

Fables #94
I'm definitely repeating myself when it comes to Fables: Bill Willingham writes a good story (Pinocchio trying to beat up the Blue Fairy for what she did to him, Sheriff Beast making a deal that sets up a plot for down the line, Mister Dark is still being evil, a potential coup is being considered, and Rose Red is about to hear the story of her life) and Mark Buckingham draws this book perfectly. It is a good book and it is consistently enjoyable. This issue is no different.

Powers #4
This is more like Powers: conversation and characterisation (Erika Broglia confessing to killing Z, Walker and Billy Mace catching up, the Daring Eagles making a decision in 1953, Walker remember past events). The dialogue is organic, the art is strong, and the story continues – an ending of sorts, but without complete resolution. Bendis and Oeming are back on track after last issue's dip in quality.

The Unwritten #12
A break from the main story this issue, with a look at a story world a bit like Winnie The Pooh, but through the point of view a thief called Pauly Bruckner, who has been put into this world as a rabbit (called Mr Bun) when he tried to steal a map from Wilson Taylor, author of the Tommy Taylor novels and father of our protagonist. The juxtaposition of the cute world (drawn in a lovely style by Kurt Higgins and Zelda Devon) with the hilariously foul-mouthed human-as-rabbit is great and funny, and the issue speaks of deeper levels to the complexity of the world that Mike Carey and Peter Gross are creating with this comic book. Another good issue.

Comics I Bought 8 April 2010

Week 2 of April comics, and we have five to talk about, so let's get to it.

Batman and Robin #11
Dick Grayson being attacked by a Robin being controlled by his mother through his spine, 99 Fiends attacking in a graveyard, mysteries under Wayne Manor, and Sexton doesn't seem to be who he appears to be (although Damian chancing on it because of his fake English accent is one of those things that don't work very well in comic books); this and some very good art from Andy Clarke make for a good comic.

The Boys #41
I'm still not sure about the easy jokes at the expense of the Legion of Super-Heroes analogues and the evil Metamorpho, but Ennis is still able to keep me interested in this book – Hughie's relationship with Annie, Mother's Milk finding out stuff about Butcher, the background details when Hughie saves Black Hole: he really is very good at this. Plus, Darick Robertson is drawing the book, which means that everything is just about right for The Boys.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #34
'Them F#©%ing (Plus the True History of the Universe)' is the name of this issue and it sums things up without necessarily explaining things. It can't be too sexy with rating level the book is aiming at, and reading the rest of it as Giles tries to give a reason for what is going on is quite nonsensical; it makes for a strange comic. Still, at least Buffy and Angel have themselves a nice time shagging all around the world ...

SHIELD #1
It might seem an unusual choice to buy a Jonathan Hickman comic book when I've started wavering on my enjoyment of his Fantastic Four run, but at least it is apparent that this book is about the big idea straight away instead of having to build up to is very, very slowly. The concept: there has been a society calling themselves The Shield protecting the world from the known and the unknown since Imhotep fought off a Brood invasion in 2620 BC (which was pretty cool). A Celestial in China in 114 AD, Leonardo Da Vinci in 1495 building a device to help him fly to the sun, Galileo seeing off Galactus in 1582: this is the way to grab attention. We are introduced to this via a young man called Leonid being taken to The Immortal City under Rome in 1953, where he meets the High Council of the Shield. We also meet his father, who was apparently dead, Agents Richards and Stark, and Leonardo Da Vinci seemingly in the 1950s. This is a good comic. And the art is simply gorgeous – Dustin Weaver draws stunningly good art; it's beautiful and I can't wait to see more.

Turf #1
Reading US-based sites talking about this book was fun to see them have no idea about Jonathan Ross; honestly, he is quite famous here in the UK. We've always known that he was interested in his comic books (his money has bought him lots of Silver Age Marvel books, and I used to buy my comics from a comic shop he and Paul Gambaccini used to own in Soho), so it was interesting to see him turn to writing one, especially when he isn't known for writing anything creative previously. It is an interesting mix of genres: gangsters in 1929 New York, vampires, and a cameo from aliens. Talk about throwing everything into the pot. There is a lot going on and Ross uses a lot of words to tell all the story – a LOT of words; I love John Workman's lettering but his skills are worked hard in this book (and he does have slightly large letters). The shame of it is that it covers up Tommy Lee Edwards' lovely art; speech balloons and narrative captions are splattered all over page after page of his moody, gorgeous artwork. Still, this is a good start and is intriguing enough to bring me back for more.

Comics I Bought 1 April 2010

Back in time, although not as far back as the film reviews from my student days of the past week: comic books I purchased back in April of this year, as I provide my limited thoughts on them in a strange quest to document my consumption of entertainment and try to get up to date.

Astro City: The Dark Age Book Four #3
I said it before about this series: I admire the craft of Kurt Busiek, although not the art of Brent Anderson, but I've given up caring about the Royal brothers. I'll keep buying Astro City, but I'm looking forward to the shorter stories that will happen again soon.

Detective Comics #863
I've enjoyed the official introduction of Kate Kane as Batwoman to the DCU in the hands of Greg Rucka and JH Williams, but this issue will be my last. Jock was a good replacement for Williams – different but talented – but Rucka decided he didn't want to work for DC any more, which is a decision I respect, and the Question Second Feature wasn't enough to keep me buying the book. This issue sees a conclusion to the three-issue storyline, with some nice parallels between the Batman and Batwoman plots (and nice art influenced from 1970s detective dramas), so at least I got to see how it ended. It wasn't the best Rucka I've read, but it was still solid; I look forward to his independent work in the future.

Fantastic Four #577
I'm still not sure about Jonathan Hickman's direction with the Fantastic Four. This is a long game he's playing, so the individual chapters can be slow. This issue moves at a languid pace, albeit told with beautiful art from Dale Eaglesham (Hickman gives him time to show off his style), which basically involves the idea of the Inhumans and their Kree-created alien cousins (this is new to me, but it was nice to see the Kymellians from the Power Pack comic in this book, along with the Badoon, Centaurians and Dire Wraiths) coming together and apparently deciding to live on Earth. But it takes a long time coming to this final page. I'm still curious, but I'm cautious.

Usagi Yojimbo #127
How does Stan Sakai keep doing it? This is yet another excellent story of the ronin rabbit, as Usagi crosses the path of a loyal retainer following his master's last order: 'Recover the sword.' It is a story of honour and betrayal and redemption, with sword-fighting and the start of a friendship. It is told with skill and economy and, unlike Fantastic Four #577, you get a complete story in a single issue.

Book: Thanks For Nothing By Jack Dee

I first saw Jack Dee live in the small bar at the top of the Union Building of the University of Bristol over 20 years ago, with a small handful of other people. The few of us who were there enjoyed his wonderfully deadpan style, so it was no surprise when he got his own television programme on Channel 4 some years later. Seeing him before he became famous caused a connection with me that has never been broken – I was impressed by my stoic reaction when I saw him out cycling with his kids on a nearby common (although he did have that expression on his face that said, 'Please don't recognise me, I'm with my family'). Therefore, I was interested to read about the formative years of his life.

This is not an autobiography in the strictest sense: Dee doesn't tell the story of his life, but instead tells anecdotes that happened at various points in his past (if you can see the difference). He mixes amusing rants with modern life, which he tentatively links with whatever topic he's about to relate, with the moments from his life. This is very similar to Frank Skinner's autobiography, but Skinner is a better writer of prose and he deliberately split the chapters up to keep them separate – Dee flits about with no real road map, only really getting into talking about his life in the second half of the book. Also, he doesn't talk about the times on the road as a comedian working up to having his own show – he stops at the moment when an agent offers to be his agent, which would mean he stops doing the open mic slots and would start the university gigs that would mean he became a paid comedian.

Another aspect that is odd is that Dee almost tells everything but not quite. He is very honest about being a rather useless student at school, ending up being a waiter in various London restaurants, and how he became an alcoholic almost accidentally (but mostly because he was depressed because he wasn't doing what made him happy). However, he doesn't talk about his recovery with AA, admittedly for the genuine reason that people are not supposed to talk about it because the second 'A' stands for 'Anonymous' and that is an important part of the process (he disagrees with those people who have outed themselves publicly; he was outed by other people, but doesn't want to talk about it). He talks about being depressed in a way to suggest that there will be more specifics but it's more a general thing that is seemingly cured by becoming a comedian in a vague sense.

The book is funny in that Jack Dee way – his sardonic rants about life, his bleak view of the world, and his absurd perspective – and you can tell that it is Dee who wrote the book because it sounds so like his voice. But you are left unsatisfied, even though the narrative has a resolution, because you can't help but feel there was so much more he could have talked about if he hadn't been distracted with asides about modern life.

Retro Film Reviews: Primary Colours

[The final trip down memory lane, because this is the last film review I did for the student newspaper. This was published on 24 June 1998 – another gap of several months between this and the previous review. I wish I could remember why I was so infrequently used – the review editor probably assuaged me with 'trying to use as many people as possible' arguments, but I don't recall the details at all. This last review was also the first to include a star rating – this was given three stars out of five – which marked a change for the newspaper; I don't think it was because my reviews can be so wishy-washy, but the star rating made it easier to see what I thought of the film.]

John Travolta, overweight and greying, is governor Jack Stanton, a doughnut-chomping, womanising, quick-tempered politician with skeletons climbing out of every closet, including a tampered police record and women accusing him of adultery. His wife, Susan (a perfectly accented Emma Thompson), is a no-nonsense lawyer determined to make him president who refuses to believe the scandals.

If this description makes you think of Bill and Hilary Clinton, then you wouldn't be too far from the mark. Based on the novel of the same name, Primary Colours is a 'completely fictitious' account of the presidential campaign of a governor of an unnamed southern state, and the allegations that constantly hamper his attempt to become president.

We witness the story through the eyes of their new campaign manager, Henry Burton, an idealistic young black man, desperate to find something to believe in. The film unfolds around him and his discovery of the real world of politics, as we see the way a governor runs for office and the people who are part of the frenzy.

Adrian Lester, a young British actor, does a fine job of playing the film's pivoting character, standing up admirably to the two excellent leads, and the supporting cast are all on top form, from Billy Bob Thornton's troublesome political strategist to Kathy Bates' fiercely loyal campaign trouble-shooter.

Mike Nichols directs with aplomb, not distracting a strong story with too many showy cinematic flourishes. With an overly long and dragging last act, it is hard to see what appeal such a film would have in this country, but Primary Colours is an intelligent and well-made look at politics in the US, and an alternative to the traditional brainless blockbuster.

Retro Film Review: Good Will Hunting

[Another film review written for my student newspaper, this time from 6 March 1998. A quick note to explain the first sentence: Felix was and presumably still is the student paper of Imperial College, one of the top universities in the UK, and known originally for the more technical sciences and having a heavily male, and nerdy, student body.

I'm not quite sure why there was such a gap between film reviews for the paper – I don't think I'd done a bad job of the previous four, which were published in October and November of 1997, and the film editor liked my reviews because he didn't have to edit them, unlike the ones he got from other reviewers. I'm sure I kept asking for more reviews, but I have never been a pushy chap, so that didn't help. After such a gap, I'm surprised that I was given another chance.

I was glad for the chance – Good Will Hunting is one of my favourite films (it is a large list, to be honest), and it was a great experience watching it with stoic film critics while being moved to tears at the scene where Williams tells Damon, 'It's not your fault.' Well, that's my excuse for such an effusive review.]

A film about a tough but charismatic genius with problems, trying to fit in at one of the best technical colleges in the country might seem a familiar theme to readers of Felix. Fortunately, it is set in the more picturesque Boston, and the people in the film are far prettier, too.

Newcomer Matt Damon (who co-wrote the screenplay with best friend and co-star Ben Affleck) is Will Hunting, angry young man, but one blessed with a photographic memory and the ability to instantly solve complex mathematics problems. However, Will prefers menial jobs, drinking with his best mate Chuckie (Affleck) and getting into trouble. When he is staring at a jail sentence, his only way out is offered by a maths professor, providing he hones his talent and visit a college academic/therapist (Robin Williams). It is the sessions with the therapist, and the flourishing of a relationship with a student at MIT (Minnie Driver), that holds the key to Will's survival.

This is a quite superb movie. The screenplay, although written by youngsters, is warm, funny, intelligent and poignant. The acting is excellent, from the young talent to the season veterans, with Williams reminding the audience why he has been previously nominated three times for an Oscar. Gus Van Sant keeps the film personal without getting overly sentimental, letting the actors do their work and the script weave its magic. If you are not moved by this film then you had better check your pulse.

Retro Film Review: Face/Off

[Another of my film reviews for my student newspaper, this time from 7 November 1997. I remember that I begged the film editor to review this film when it came out, because I was a big fan of John Woo's Hong Kong films. It was apparently tough to get a preview screening, because it was distributed by Buena Vista, who were tough on allowing 'unofficial' critics in. I also remember going to see this in Soho Square, in a private screening room that was the size of a normal cinema; I giggled like a loon through the over-the-top sequences, as the more sober critics watched in silence. I was a little effusive in my praise, to say the least, and I'm not particularly happy with the end result, but I stand by my positive review, which would equate to a DAVID on my film rating system.]

Face/Off may have a strange title, but it is one of the best action films you will see this year. FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) is out to get psychopathic terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage), who murdered his son. Troy is captured but in a coma, meaning Archer must become Troy via cosmetic surgery, in order to locate Troy's deadly bomb. In a gory sequence, Archer and Troy have their faces removed and Archer has Troy's face put on his head. Archer enters prison, not realising that Troy has woken from his coma. Discovering what has occurred, Troy has the surgery performed on himself and takes, Archer's face, before killing all the people who knew that Archer was now Troy. Archer must escape from prison, recover his face and save his family from a lunatic that everyone thinks is a national hero ...

While this may seem alike a confusing premise for a film, it works splendidly. The performances from Travolta and Cage are superb, each impersonating the other's walks and mannerisms perfectly. The supporting cast are also excellent, but the main kudos goes to the director, John Woo.

Finally allowed a free hand after previous studio interference in his American films, his abilities shine as he shows what he can do with his dazzling camera work slo-mo and choreographed gun sequences in some of the loudest and most exciting set pieces ever seen. However, the film, while an action thriller on the surface, has depth as the two leads become more entangled with each other's families, coming to terms with the loss of close relatives and with their diametrically opposed characters. This is the sort of high-quality blockbuster you wish Hollywood made more often.