Wednesday 28 January 2009

The Reader

Cast
Ralph Fiennes
Kate Winslet
David Kross
Lena Olin
Bruno Ganz
Screenwriter
David Hare
Director
Steven Daldry
Running Time
124 minutes

The Reader opens in post-WWII Germany when teenager Michael Berg becomes ill and is helped home by Hanna, a stranger twice his age. Michael recovers from scarlet fever and seeks out Hanna to thank her. The two are quickly drawn into a passionate but secretive affair. (The Weinstein Company)

Thoroughly absorbing, well told and interesting story but it didn't move me. The critical events had happened years before and should have haunted the film and Winslet's character but the sense of that was largely absent.

Wednesday 21 January 2009

The Wrestler

Cast
Mickey Rourke
Marisa Tomei
Evan Rachel Wood
Mark Margolis
Todd Barry
Screenwriter
Robert Siegel
Director
Darren Aronofsky
Running Time
109 minutes

Back in the late ‘80s, Randy “The Ram” Robinson was a headlining professional wrestler. Now, twenty years later, he ekes out a living performing for handfuls of diehard wrestling fans in high school gyms and community centers around New Jersey. (Fox Searchlight)

More a fictional documentary than a drama really. It has two strong and brave performances from Rourke and Tomei. The amount of preparation and guts it took to play those roles is very impressive. Tomei's character is perhaps cliched, after twenty odd years of working in a strip club I think you'd be pretty much emotionally bullet proof.

Tuesday 20 January 2009

April Comics

Newsarama has the new Marvel and DC solicitations for April.

This is the stuff I'm thinking about in addition to my regular pull list.


THE FLASH: REBIRTH #1
Written by Geoff Johns
Art and covers by Ethan Van Sciver
Through the decades, many heroes have taken the mantle of The Flash, but they all ride the lightning that crackles in the wake of the greatest hero the DC Universe has ever known, the man who sacrificed himself to save the Multiverse: Barry Allen!
Following the events of FINAL CRISIS, Barry has beaten death and returned to a fast-paced world that a man out of time wouldn’t recognize. Or is it a world that is only just now catching up? All the running he’s done before was just a warmup for the high-speed race that he and every other Flash must now run, because even though one speedster might have beaten death, another has just turned up dead! From Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver, the visionaries responsible for the blockbuster GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH and THE SINESTRO CORPS WAR, comes the start of an explosive and jaw-dropping epic that will reintroduce to the modern age the hero who single-handedly birthed the Silver Age of comics! DC history will be made, and the Flash legacy will be redefined!
Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers. For every 25 copies of the Standard Edition (with a cover by Ethan Van Sciver), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition (with a cover by Ethan Van Sciver). Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.
On sale April 1 • 1 of 5 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US

The price is worrying but since I missed out with Green Lantern, I want to be on board this one from the start.



DEAD ROMEO #1
Written by Jesse Blaze Snider
Art and cover by Ryan Benjamin
Jonathan Romero, aka “Dead Romeo,” was the lead singer of the ‘80s rock band “The Dead Romeos.” But that was before a mysterious set of circumstances turned him into a vampire and sent him straight to Hell. Now he's back on Earth and he has a difficult choice to make: Kill his true love and earn his permanent release from eternal damnation – or protect her and burn for eternity. Either way, someone is going to die!
It’s vampires, romance, rock and dismemberment like you’ve never seen before! New writer Jesse Blaze Snider joins artist Ryan Benjamin for a bloodsucking good time in this all-new 6-issue miniseries.
On sale April 1 • 1 of 6 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

The art looks great and it just seems cool.


THE WARLORD #1
Written by Mike Grell
Art by Joe Prado & Walden Wong
Cover by Mike Grell
At the Roof of the World in Tibet, a team of paleontologists and adventurers has made the find of the century: perfectly preserved dinosaur specimens that appear to have died mere days before! Their expedition takes a deadly turn when they uncover an impossible portal to another world – an unbelievable country at the hollow center of the Earth, the mythical land of Skartaris! But they’re not the first surface-worlders to find themselves stranded in Skartaris, and their arrival in his peaceful home triggers an unforgettable new adventure for the hero who has taken the land as his own: Travis Morgan, the Warlord! This new ongoing series marks the return of creator Mike Grell to the fantasy saga that made him famous! Reunite with Tara, Shakira, Tinder and the rest of the cast in a story that continues the adventures of the Warlord but opens up a new era where any reader can jump aboard.
Along with Grell’s scripts – and lushly painted covers – comes the art of rising star Joe Prado (ACTION COMICS, SINESTRO CORPS SECRET FILES)! DC’s finest fantasy franchise is reborn!
On sale April 8 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Never heard of this before but fantasy comics are few and far between.


AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE #23
Written by CHRISTOS N. GAGE
Pencils & Cover by HUMBERTO RAMOS
This is it...the explosive issue that changes everything! From the moment it was formed, the Initiative has had more than its share of dark secrets. Now, they've all come out. On top of everything else, can the Initiative survive this? Well, the title of this story is THE INITIATIVE: DISASSEMBLED...
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$2.99

Mostly love Ramos' art and Gage is a fine writer so definitely getting this, somehow I missed the solicitations for the previous two issues which they also did.



SECRET INVASION AFTERMATH: BETA RAY BILL – THE GREEN OF EDEN #1
Written by KIERON GILLEN
Penciled by DAN BRERETON
Cover by MARKO DJURDJEVIC
SECRET INVASION has ended. The Skrull armies have been routed and destroyed. In the wake of his battle in aid of Thor and Asgard, Beta Ray Bill has departed Earth once more, to bring justice and order to the stars. But when Bill becomes savior of a space-faring alien colony, he'll discover that perhaps – just perhaps -- it's possible to be too much of a hero. Soaring action and adventure starring your favorite horse-faced Demigod of Thunder, by Kieron Gillen (NEW UNIVERSAL: 1959) and Dan Brereton (GOD-SIZED THOR)!
40 PGS./One-Shot/All-New/Rated T+ ...$3.99

No idea who the character is but for Brereton art I'm there every time.

Wednesday 14 January 2009

Slumdog Millionaire

Cast
Dev Patel
Anil Kapoor
Irfan Khan
Freida Pinto
Director
Danny Boyle
Screenwriter
Simon Beaufoy
Running Time
120 minutes

Slumdog Millionaire is the story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show’s questions. Intrigued by Jamal’s story, the jaded Police Inspector begins to wonder what a young man with no apparent desire for riches is really doing on this game show? When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out… (Fox Searchlight)

I thought it was really good. However it is way too ambitious, the scope of story they're trying to tell and filming it on the streets of Mumbai is just not possible for a small budget film, that they get about 80% of the way there is amazing. The adult characters' story is less effective than the two younger sections and overall Jamal's pursuit of Latika lost gravity as it went on rather than gained it.

Wednesday 7 January 2009

Australia

Cast
Nicole Kidman
Hugh Jackman
Brandon Walters
David Wenham
Jack Thompson
Bryan Brown
Screenwriters
Baz Luhrmann
Ronald Harwood
Stuart Beattie
Richard Flanagan
Director
Baz Luhrmann
Running Time
165 minutes

Australia is an epic and romantic action adventure, set in that country on the explosive brink of World War II. In it, an English aristocrat travels to the faraway continent, where she meets a rough-hewn local and reluctantly agrees to join forces with him to save the land she inherited. Together, they embark upon a transforming journey across hundreds of miles of the world's most beautiful yet unforgiving terrain, only to still face the bombing of the city of Darwin by the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor. (20th Century Fox)

It helps knowing it's really long, which I did, because once the cattle droving story finishes normally the end would be in sight but knowing how long it is I wasn't thrown by it carrying on. I thought OK one plot down and we're on to the next. The first was well done and enjoyable but the second less so, it fundamentally made no sense. The aboriginal and half-aboriginal people had little or no protection under the law but surely the opposite must also have been true, Kidman's character as a rich aristocratic white person would have had plenty of power so surely she could just have insisted the kid stay with her and ordered anyone and everyone she wanted off her land. It held my attention throughout and I wasn't really aware of time going by but the second part [I didn't look at my watch so I don't know what proportion of it that was] kind of played out like a long sprawling epilogue. Afterwards it occurred to me given that it's sort of an Australian western it was strangely lacking any gunfights, which would have solved a lot of problems.

Thursday 1 January 2009

End of My Year Review 2008

FILM

Changeling

Honourable Mention:

Juno, Rambo, The Dark Knight, The Orphanage

TELEVISION

True Blood

Honourable Mention:

The Shield, Dexter, The Wire


COMICBOOK

All Star Superman

Honourable Mention:

Justice League The New Frontier Special, Northlanders, Justice Society of America, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, The Immortal Iron Fist, Wonder Woman, Astonishing X-Men, JSA Classified


SOFTWARE

Comic Collector 4 Pro

I bought the standard v3 and then about 6 months later v4 came out. Not wanting to spend any more and being very pleased with my current version I decided I probably would stick with it until v5. However Collectorz offered v4 pro through Trialpay so I leapt at it. The improvements are subtle but good and it's still the software I value most.

Honourable Mention:

Opera, Picassa 3, Avidemux