Right let's have a look at this.

I know folks are awfully excited about the purported prequel to Alien, as well as it representing the return of Ridley Scott to science fiction film-making. Which is all well and good. I can understand the enthusiasm and high expectations. 

It has to be said the marketing for Prometheus has done an excellent job of teasing audiences in the run-up to the film's release. There were the confusing denials of this film having any connection to Scott's 1979 picture, memorably described once as a "haunted house in space" story. Yet with each set photo the aesthetic influence of conceptual artist H.R. Giger who worked on the original picture seemed intact. Then there's the casting of Lisbeth Salander herself, Noomi Rapace, now synonymous with the latest iteration of the kick-arse heroine, held in a similar high regard as Sigourney Weaver's Ripley was years ago. Let's not forget man of the moment, and the unforgivable snubbee at the hands of the 2012 nominating committee for the Oscars, Michael Fassbender here playing an android that follows in the footsteps of Ian Holm and Lance Henriksen.

So many points of similarity, and yet Scott and the marketers from Fox Pictures continue to insist that this is a very different beast. 

It may well be tangential, but familiarity breeds contempt - and there is too much that is familiar here. An ambitious attempt at misdirection is being made - sell the picture on associations with previously successful pictures, but try to avoid getting bogged down in the pedestrian mess that Fox has left their Alien franchise in.  What was the tagline of Alien vs. Predator again? "Whoever wins...we lose." How bitterly prophetic! It seems clear that instead of there being some mystery behind these strange denials, what is really happening is that Fox are aware they screwed the pooch with the Alien franchise and are attempting here to bring it back to life.

So no, Sir Scott is not and likely cannot return to LV-426. That former glory of his film C.V. has been spoiled. But what about his own ambit of quality film-making? How many excited persons waiting to see Prometheus threw down their shekels to see Robin Hood? Or A Good Year? Kingdom of Heaven felt like it was intended to be a worthy corrective to the misuse of the historical Crusades in political propaganda at that time, but was ultimately overlong and limp. 

These are not terrible films - I do not think Scott is capable of making terrible films, there is always some aspect of his approach to film-making that is evidently driven by passion, or a singular force of will. Still that same passion is not communicated through these pictures terribly well and this makes them uninteresting.  

Prometheus teases with past associations, ominous glimpses of horror and crew members seemingly infected by some new alien affliction - but what if this is all just so much musical chairs being played with audience expectations, as opposed to a genuine work of suspense and thrills? What about Scott's own contention that the mystery of the so-called Space-Jockey, the corpse discovered by the crew of the Nostromo in the first film, needs to be resolved? Why should it be resolved? Half the horror of Alien came from the characters, and the audience, being completely taken by surprise by a threat beyond their understanding. Whether the xenomorph was a sentient species or a biological weapon did not matter - it was out to kill everything on that ship. Where is the mystery in that?

If I am honest, there is one reason I am interested in seeing this movie - and that is to check out another performance from Sean Harris (who appears in the trailer as the lone sceptical voice of reason). His portrayal of Ian Curtis in 24 Hour Party People was amazing. In a film that brought the Madchester scene to life, courtesy of the fervidly creative Michael Winterbottom, it was Harris who impressed the most. I was delighted to see he had a role in Prometheus and I hope it leads to even greater things for him. I love how the snatch of dialogue presented in the trailer - 

Fifield: We're all here because of a map you two kids found in a cave?
Elizabeth Shaw: Not a map. An invitation.
Fifield: From whom?

Feels almost like an internalised autocritique. 'No seriously - why are we doing this again!'

In fact, rather than leave you with more pseudo-xenomorphs and would-be Ripleys running around in her whites, how about a scene from 24 Hour Party People? So it goes.

On the stroke of midnight April 30 2012, Universal will turn 100. From its beginnings in 1912 it was closely associated with one of its founders Carl Laemmle, whose influence over the studio would continue until the mid-1930s. Following the departure of Laemmle and his son Carl Jnr., Universal would enter into a number of partnerships down through the years, but the company itself remained a constant presence in Hollywood. 

In the topsy-turvy world of the film industry, that is no mean feat. 

The iconic Universal logo that has preceded the start of many's a classic picture itself has the ability to inspire goosebumps, whether it be the stately current logo, or its many parodies including my personal favourite Scott Pilgrim Versus The World's mash up with ye olde Nintendo game system.

In fact contemporary popculture owes a great debt to Universal for its shepherding of genre pictures through to cinema screens, such as Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula, James Whales camp classic Bride of Frankenstein (which in turn is indelibly linked with The Rocky Horror Picture Show), 1963's The Birds, The Andromeda Strain which led to a series of Michael Crichton-penned films including Jurassic Park also produced by Universal, David Lynch's intriguing Dune and of course Robert Zemeckis' classic Back to the Future. These films, and others like them, continue to inspire storytellers to this day with their iconic imagery. Frankenstein's Monster in particular immediately conjures up images of the heavily made-up Boris Karloff, effectively eclipsing the vision of original creator Mary Shelley herself. Philosopher Ernst Bloch felt compelled to cite the Monster as having great symbolic importance: "He is technology with a wrong conscience, the fear an America without prosperity has of itself."(as quoted in Christiane Schönfeld's Processes of Transposition: German Literature and Film).

Of course one hundred years of film-making has yielded up countless classics, but speaking for myself, I have listed below my top five favourite Universal Pictures. 

1935, Bride of Frankenstein, dir. James Whale: Often regarded as a superior sequel, this extremely imaginative, and subversive, riff on Mary Shelley's original is as striking and bold as when it was originally released. Perhaps as an act of contrition at having leapfrogged his literary source with the 1931 adaptation of Frankenstein, Whale opens the proceedings with Elsa Lanchester playing the author herself, before her subsequent reveal as the titular Bride. Nothing since has come close to capturing the bathos and high camp of this material.

1962, To Kill A Mockingbird, dir. Robert Mulligan: I am astonished that this film did not win for its Best Picture Oscar nomination. Granted losing to Lean's Lawrence of Arabia is no insult, but the quiet dignity of Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch in the face of the mob gathered to lynch Tom Robinson captures so much more about humanity than the sweeping gestures of Peter O'Toole's Middle Eastern adventure. To this day the line delivered by Bill Walker's Reverend Sykes "Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing," brings a lump to my throat.

1952, The Man In The White Suit, dir. Alexander Mackendrick: My favourite of the Ealing Studios comedies, pipping The Ladykillers to the post by the slimmest of margins, this wonderful British satire was distributed theatrically in the States by Universal. The final moments of this film, with Alec Guinness' mad dash from pursuers looking to destroy his invention intended to benefit the lives of millions of ordinary folk (and consequently wipe out the profit margins of industry) is still relevant as ever. A delightful comedy with a sting in the tail. 

2004, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, dir. Michel Gondry: Arguably the most successful of the French director's films involving a naive dreamer as protagonist, this film was the perfect distillation of Philip K. Dick weirdness, but with added heart. The final moments between Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey's lovers strike a just right Goldilocks-note of bittersweet romance. To say more would just spoil this film's many pleasant surprises for the uninitiated. 

1998, The Big Lebowski, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen: Another year has gone by and I have once again missed Lebowski Fest! I must go! Lebowski-fans are tribal, obsessive, able to quote reams of dialogue from the Coen Brothers' hilarious script at the drop of a hat. Jeff Bridges will forever be synonymous with the role of the unflappable Dude ("or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing"); John Goodman a long-time collaborator of the Coens, has never been funnier; and John Turturro almost steals the whole movie with his brief cameo as an aggressive bowler/'pederast'. It's a film with such easygoing charm Thomas Pynchon's strikingly similar novel Inherent Vice, while well-regarded, came out the poorer of the two when directly compared. An afternoon with the Dude and his friends is always well spent. 

There are many other films I could name - with Sullivan's Travels perhaps winning the title of best movie about movies ever - but that would defeat the point. Universal has been a constant in Hollywood for over a hundred years, which is a hundred years of movies that others have loved and been thrilled by. I am sure everyone else has their own list of favourites. 

So join me in wishing happy birthday and maybe revisit your own top five from Universal Studios. Cheers folks.

So last night The Goonies was on television. Heavily bulwarked by childhood nostalgia, I found myself settling in to watch it. Although the sight of a young Josh Brolin was a shock (and I am fairly sure he pops up in Batman Returns as well as a journalist, but I can't confirm this) and Mouth's irritating collection of anachronisms stuck in my craw a bit, overall is was a fun revisit.

Then the scene with the unfortunate Chunk arrived, when he confesses a series of crimes to villains

The Fratellis.

Somehow I found myself thinking about Game of Thrones, particularly the scene with everyone's favourite bastard Tyrion Lannister himself forced to 'confess'.

'What if I was to submit this to Capgras Corner' I thought to myself. And so I tracked down the footage of Peter Dinklage's laugh-out-loud monologue:

Feeling very pleased with myself, I tabbed open this site's dashboard to start work - but for some reason I had a niggling doubt in the back of my mind. Something was very wrong. One quick google search later and I had my answer. I am not the first person to notice this point of similarity.

That honour goes to Rym DeCoster of the GeekNights Podcast. He even went and mixed the dialogue from The Goonies into the footage of Tyrion's trial in the Eyrie!
Kudos sir, kudos. I hereby submit myself Emmet O'Cuana to Capgras Corner for unintentionally ripping off a far more talented fellow than I.

Whenever an issue of The Goon hits stands it is a genuine event. Eric Powell’s mash up of gangsters, zombies, alternating from month to month between horror and comedy, is a treat. In an industry weighed down by ceaseless ‘events’, needless revamping of properties to attract phantom comic consumers, The Goon stands apart by consistently delivering entertaining story-telling. 

It also makes me laugh like a fool. 

For some reason though, it would appear that is not enough. The comics market has achieved a leap in cultural recognition with the recent rash of movie and video game adaptations; however the majority of books on the shelves themselves are noticeably undifferentiated. With the increasing emphasis on crossover events that force these books from Marvel and DC to cohere to the same overarching narrative – and the relative commercial success, for want of a better word, of this approach – it would appear books like The Goon are being marginalized to an even larger degree. 

Comics are a medium that have the potential to tell a diversity of stories in a variety of ways – yet for some reason the caped brigade of superheroes continue to leave the store shelves creaking under their amassed weight. 

Well Eric Powell’s mad as hell and he’s not going to take this anymore! 

During this issue the excesses and market chasing antics of the ‘Big Two’ are relentlessly mocked, with DC’s recent company-wide reboot in particular targeted for lampoonery. Opening with a caricature of the creator himself apparently bowing to pressure that “The Goon needed a facelift to keep up with its competitors”, what follows is a series of increasingly ridiculous superhero origins for the eponymous protagonist and his bewildered sidekick Frankie. 

Following on from the previous poignant issue that explained how the Goon’s aunt Kizzie first adopted him, demonstrating just how much pathos Powell can elicit when he wants to, here he contrasts the singular tragedy of the Goon's life with the absurdity of these constantly revamped origin stories. Our hero endures at last four shifts in origin within the course of this story, including becoming an alien warrior, a Puerto Rican Jew and a homosexual vigilante from a “planet where I was granted cougar powers by the mighty shaman of the Shamalamalist people!”

It is very silly. 

As both writer and artist of The Goon Powell evidently takes a lot of pride in his craft, not to mention the book’s rise to becoming one of the top earners for Dark Horse. Therefore he does not spare the work of other artists who specialize in widescreen action splash pages in comics, not to mention gratuitous shots of female derrieres. The practice of tailoring art to be more commercially viable on eBay is also addressed, as well as the mandated practice of variant covers. The implication is clear – why are you producing such mediocre fare? 

Thankfully none of this comes across as a screed, because as always Powell is very funny. His point stands because the cynicism of these practices, which effectively threaten to run the industry into the ground, has produced material that is hollow, humourless and, yes, ultimately I feel harmful to the medium. 

An afterword from Powell nails his colours to the mast in case anyone was left in any doubt where he stands: “We’ve been dying because we are so focused on getting the dollars out of this one demographic that we’ve forgotten our own potential. I love the Marvel and DC characters too, but Jesus, am I the only one who gets bored with them? From our sales figures, apparently not.” 

 Like in any industry there is this tendency to try to control through monopoly. What the comic companies need to realize is their current approach is not a sustainable practice. Yes Avengers is a box office smash here in Australia, and no doubt Dark Knight Rises  will be too – but where next for the film divisions that oversee Marvel and DC? What happens when sequelitis sets in? Are people going to come and see a ‘Sub-Mariner’ movie, or ‘The New Gods’? 

Powell has produced work for the Big Two, which he freely admits to in his afterword, while also pointing out that this in no way invalidates his point. In particular I would urge folks to check out his covers for Dan Slott’s excellent series Arkham Asylum: Living Hell for an example of his work for hire output. 

So much great comic art is being produced by smaller independents and comics studios, as well as online, but if the bulk of the industry were to suddenly collapse where would that leave those on the margins of the territory carved up by Marvel and DC? What comic book readers need to understand is that there is an abundance of choice available to them, but if they don't seek it out the medium of comics itself will become ever more shrunken and starved for inspiration. If readers do this, then the reductive market logic the larger comic companies operate by would change.

In the meantime I look forward to whatever Powell next serves up.

The plane takes off. 

I ask for tea, and order an old movie: Striped Passage. On business trips I always watch old comedies; just a habit. This one’s a good little flick, cheery, even though it’s Soviet. You watch lions and tigers being transported on a ship; they break out of their cages and scare people. And you start thinking – those were Russian people living back then, during the Red Troubles. And they really weren’t all that different from us. Except that almost all of them were atheists.

All the girls fancy Vladimir Putin. Sorry. I am reminded of Heather Graham’s character in Arrested Development insisting that while Saddam Hussein is a monster, she does love him. It’s that bad boy fetish taken to the logical extreme – authoritarian leaders feared by the West are the national equivalents of that no good greaser kid in 1950’s Biker movies – dark, brooding…dreamy. 

Sorokin’s novel, translated by Jamey Gambrell,  subverts the Orwellian prophecy of a boot stamping on a human face – for ever by celebrating the excesses of authoritarianism. Our hero Andrei Komiaga is himself a footsoldier of an oppressive regime, a new Holy Russian Empire in the not too distant future. As an oprichnik Komiaga is one of the select few trusted to mete out the Czar’s justice to those nobles and citizens who have broken the law of this new Russia. 

Over a short period of days Komiaga and his fellow oprichniks seize and liquidate an aristocrat’s lands, rape his wife and execute the unfortunate noble; pursue the subject of a satirical poem that has embarrassed the royal family; resolve a custom’s dispute; and finally attempt to censure a public performance by a singer criticising the regime. All the while defeating the efforts of other factions within the Empire’s ruling strata to take some power for themselves.

There is a moment in particular that appears to poke fun at Orwell and his Russian predecessor Yevgeny Zamyatin. During a plane flight Komiaga notices a woman watching a historical film describing the origins of the Empire. He recognizes her as the daughter of a dissident who is depicted in the picture itself. Whereas the heroes of 1984 or We might have felt compelled to comfort this woman and become swept up in her act of rebellion, Komiaga simply makes a note to investigate her as a possible dissident. 

Komiaga never questions the regime once. In fact when faced with the possibility of his own future demise, his only thought is of whether Russia itself will continue to thrive. Sorokin includes some notes on future technology and how this oligarchical fundamentalist state has embraced it. There is a scene when all the state approved writers are summoned digitally to speak with the oprichniks, their virtual selves instantly appearing on call. Art is recognized as a subversive practice and tightly controlled. It calls to mind contemporary debate over the censorship of the internet, from the UK to Iran. 

Sorokin’s lopsided utopia is brutal and at the same time very funny. The unspooling of the Russian Revolution and the return of the Czar seems unthinkable at first, but the author revels in this inverted horizon scan of the country’s future that is strangely convincing. I remember reporting to a friend after seeing Spielberg’s Minority Report that what bothered me most about the film was how the invasive technology in the story was depicted almost excitedly, as if the director had missed the point of Philip K. Dick’s futureshock and saw this transformation of the world into a panopticon as a good thing! Sorokin’s approach is far more subtle and confronting all at once. This book is a triumph, sardonic and challenging. Strongly recommended.   

Demon Knights from the mind of Paul Cornell is one of my favourite comics on the stands right now. Whereas many comic writers fall into the trap of producing journeyman material while working for hire, Cornell consistently delivers interesting stories that often riff imaginatively with the material.

 

See for example Knight and Squire which develops the notion of the titular heroes being British versions of Batman and Robin, then evolves into a commentary on the ‘Special Relationship’ between the UK and the US. The book also distinguishes how the seeming nonsensical whimsy of the British ‘copycat’ characters actually alleviates the tragedy and sacrifice that is ever-present in their lives (unlike their dour American superhero counterparts, who appear to be masochists). The excellent Colin Smith over on Too Busy Thinking About My Comics summed the appeal of the book up as follows in an exchange between us on his blog: The more I read the book, the more I'm in awe of it. I know that we're supposed to save words like that for work which screams ART and IMPORTANT, but Cornell clearly believes that smartness should inform the text rather than overwhelming it. He doesn't scream LOOK AT ME, I'M REALLY GOOD AT THIS. Instead, he simply removes the social representations from his heroic cast and uses that to discuss the way we expect fiction to work. I mean ... how splendid is that?

Which brings me to Cornell’s latest success Demon Knights. I find it interesting that the two books currently published by DC that I enjoy the most are both set in the past. Demon Knights is set after the Fall of Camelot, its cast a group of mythical misfits. My other pick is All Star Western by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, taking place in the 1800s and revealing the historical background of Batman’s stomping ground the corrupt city of Gotham. What I enjoy about these books is how they are connected to DC’s shared superhero universe, but only tangentially, allowing them both to concentrate on simply telling stories. 

And what a tale Cornell has to tell with Demon Knights. Seven warriors thrown together to defend a lone village from a marauding army. You’ve probably seen something like this before. Cornell acknowledges the reference, playfully suggesting in keeping with Grant Morrison’s idea that Camelot has recurred many times through history – as seen in Seven Soldiers – that this story itself is another cyclic tale. Why can’t it be about samurais, cowboys, space battles (with a Valkyrie!) never mind Arthurian warriors? 

Over the course of a significant seven (recurrence is a running theme) issues we have gotten to know these characters as they fight to defend the village with ever decreasing odds of survival. Al Jabr the traveling genius who is almost a Mohammedan Tony Stark; the Horsewoman who is reminiscent of the Celtic mythological hero Oisín; Exoristos the vengeful Amazon; The Shining Knight Ystina from an earlier fallen Camelot as per Seven Soldiers; Vandal Savage an untrustworthy immortal who is both boisterous (and hilarious) as well as brutal; and finally the witch Xanadu and her lover Jason O’The Blood. 

This eclectic bunch have been forced together by circumstance and I almost like to believe the reason they stay together is simply out of curiosity at one another’s unusual stories. For the eighth issue of Cornell’s book we are presented with the origin of Xanadu and Jason, and how their unusual ménage a trois first developed with the demon Etrigan. Throughout the series Xanadu has been shown to be in a relationship with both Jason and the demon when it takes over its host, assuring both that she really loves them the most. Under questioning from her companions while Jason is sleeping, she explains how she came to Camelot to study under Merlin and first fell in love. Later after Etrigan was bound to the human by a curse, she made the sacrifice of pledging her devotion to him as well to prevent his raging jealousy. 

Taken from http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/bios/nimue.html

Of course, when Etrigan himself emerges and is questioned, he presents a different version of events. This hinting at truths and untruths is a brilliant guessing game for readers to play. What’s more Cornell is up to his own tricks with the multiple references to different sources again. Xanadu is revealed to be Nimue, who in British legend was indeed a student of Merlin’s and then surpassed him. In later versions of the story the figure of Nimue has been conflated with the villain Morgana. John Boorman’s cult classic Excalibur merged the two figures, with Arthur’s sister Morgana (Helen Mirren) becoming a student of Merlin (Nicol Williamson). 

I find it delightful that both Cornell in this book, as well as Alan Moore in the forthcoming Century #3 - 2009, have both based the appearance of their Merlins on Williamson’s costume in Excalibur. It is this combination of erudition and playfulness that I think marks out Cornell as a true peer of his countryman Moore’s. What’s more though as a writer he has repeatedly demonstrated a sincere love of storytelling, a clear interest in the craft of it as well as in its capacity to transport readers to imaginary worlds. There are too few creators out there one could say the same of. 

Finally though what I love most about Demon Knights is how each issue features the following credit. Thanks for the stories Jack. 

It’s hard to imagine now that the survival of Image Comics was a precarious thing for a time. Following a huge splash on the back of the departure of Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld and others from Marvel in protest at their creator ownership policies, the company won a slice of the comic market for themselves. Initially a threat to the dominance of DC and Marvel, mismanagement of these often derivative superhero properties (honestly, half of them had Wolverine-claws and a bad attitude), combined with in-fighting among the founding members quickly put paid to this prospect.

The ups and downs of Image’s prospects is a fascinating topic for discussion particularly in the wake of Robert Kirkman’s success with The Walking Dead both as a book and on AMC. What began as a foolhardy experiment in creator rights has following turbulent years emerged as a genuine competitor in the comic market.

Sequart and Respect Films, following on from the excellent Grant Morrison: Talking with Gods and Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts have announced that their latest documentary will focus on this period of seesawing change in the industry. The Kickstarter page for Comics in Focus: The Image Revolution has posted their $11,000 funding goal as having been reached – with ComiXology’s donation of $552 winning the day, so it would seem congratulations are in order. 

Image's story continues to develop, with the non-superhero work of Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer and Scott Snyder for the company adding a welcome dose of diversity to LCS shelves. This time round Image really are a true force to be reckoned with.

Below is an extract from the latest press release for the documentary.

 The Image Revolution will tell the amazing story of this from-scratch company, from is founders’ work at Marvel, through Image’s early days, the ups and downs of the ’90s, and the publisher’s new generation of creator-owned properties like The Walking Dead. We will tell this story through new interviews with the people who made it happen. And what better time than during Image’s 20th anniversary to do it?

The film will be produced by the same Sequart / Respect team behind the critically-acclaimed documentaries  and  (out on DVD in mid April).

This will be the second (after Comics in Focus: Chris Claremont’s X-Men) in a new series of documentaries offering in-depth looks at significant works and moments that shaped comics history. These documentaries will be released through direct download and online DVD sales.

We have turned to Kickstarter to help fund this project. This is your chance to support discussion about the merits of comics and to help document stories about the people who have had a part in shaping contemporary pop culture.

Rewards include the documentary as a DVD and / or digital download, a “Thanks” and other credits in the film, and digital access to extra interview footage that won’t be included in the film. Rewards also include books and feature-length films from Sequart's catalog.

For more information, visit the project’s Kickstarter page or its page on Sequart.

Joss Whedon is a very smart man. You can tell he is smart, because firstly he doesn’t make you feel dumb. This film is unashamedly entertaining, taking obvious pleasure in its sense of spectacle and slapstick. For the fans there are in-jokes aplenty and little nods to continuity. For newcomers – Robert Downey Jnr quipping like nobody’s business.

A smart man recognizes what he enjoys and is able to communicate that joy to others. Joss Whedon is a very smart man. 

What also makes Whedon smart is how he recognizes what doesn’t work and thinks of solutions. The Avengers does not work. 

Which is to say it should not. Tonight I had the pleasure of catching a midnight screening of The Avengers, with thanks to Kings Comics – and if ever you’re in Sydney, pop along to their Pitt Street store, it’s marvelous. I was accompanied by the lovely Dee from GirlsRead Comics Too. It is 3am and I am a wee bit tired. I have no interest in spoiling the movie for any of you who have not yet seen it. 

However, I must confess I did not come to the cinema tonight to see Marvel’s The Avengers. I came to see a Joss Whedon film, an action/adventure fantasy with a strong ensemble cast. It delivers on all counts. As I watched I found myself recognizing that all the elements in the film I enjoyed were oddly foreign to The Avengers the comic book series. The performers brought these characters to life in ways that many comic creators have oddly failed to. 

Finally we have a movie with the Hulk that knows just how to use the big green lug – and does a fine job of portraying Bruce Banner too. Also, once again no spoilers, but you will leave the cinema convinced that Hawkeye is the coolest character of the bunch. Of everyone Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson are given a surprisingly large amount to work with and the latter acquits herself quite well, given her disappointing turn in Iron Man 2. The last time I enjoyed the antics of Black Widow, Johansson’s ‘Russian’ spy, so much Warren Ellis was writing her in Secret Avengers. Here she is deceitful, resourceful, quick-witted and deadly – everything the Widow should be. Renner’s Hawkeye is compelling, his arc in this story going to dark places but without drowning in despair, unlike Millar’s spin on the character in The Ultimates (which this film admittedly owes a lot to – while at the same time avoiding the gabby Scotsman’s frustrating cynicism). 

In short – Whedon recognized that the man who shoots arrows and the ‘spy’ with a handgun needed to be worked with in order to convince audiences they belong among ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’. He pulls this challenge off with aplomb. 

This story should not work because the source material forces these incongruous elements together. Avengers is a book with pagan mysticism, super-science, black ops and conspiracy fiction. There is too much bubbling away in the pot, a comic book gumbo that threatened to be so much mush if handled improperly on the screen. Whedon’s solution is to introduce hefty doses of much needed humour, a degree of self-awareness and to bring the inter-personal conflicts of these characters to the fore. There is also another recurring aspect of the director's work, one familiar to fans of Buffy, Firefly and Dollhouse (shut up, some of us like it). Which is the importance of the group as a unit - whether it be friends or family - instead of the insistence on individualism. Only together can these men, gods and monsters become heroes. Whereas the antagonist Loki is always alone, isolated, consumed with vengeance and hatred. It's a far cry from most action films, with their Bonds, Bournes and McClanes.

Yes the typical Avengers tropes are touched on. Cosmic threats, possession, betrayal – all recurring plot factors in the comic. However, by bringing the relationships of these misfits, monsters and murderers (albeit penitent ones) to the fore, the film succeeds in making this unwieldy concept hang together. The ever-present theme of the film – how can these heroes fight the threat facing the Earth if they cannot even work together as a team – is a clever play on the incongruity of the Avengers as a concept itself. A book with little purpose other than to showcase various Marvel properties in rotation. Whose characters stay together out of an increasingly forced sense of loyalty to an idea that makes little sense. In Whedon’s film it becomes clear that rather than being a team, they exist only as the very last resort. 

See, he’s  a very smart fellow and this is a very fun flick. Go see it and compare what the film does well to where the comic often comes up short.

Right folks, pull up a pew and let me introduce you to Capgras Corner, a recurring feature that pitches two similar products against one another in a no holds barred cage fight!

Or just, y'know, point out some similarities. Whatever.

Recently the Red Band trailer for Seth "Yes We Get It Dazed and Confused Was Awesome" McFarlane's film Ted was released. Featuring Mark Wahlberg and Family Guy alumnus Mila Kunis, the film tells the story of a man who's best friend is a talking teddy bear.

Here, have a gander at the trailer.

Now what I find bothersome about this trailer is that it spends an inordinate amount of its near-three minute length on a single routine between Wahlberg and McFarlane's CGI Ted. At 2.00 on the clock we have the guessing game scene. Did you laugh? It's a typical McFarlane routine, stretch a single gag to interminable length in the hop that the audience will happily ride out that see-saw action of bemused to irritated and back again. But wait, I felt I had seen this before.

  

That was a classic scene from the Christmas episode of Father Ted a cult British show from the mid-nineties, with the much lamented Dermot Morgan playing the eponymous priest, the wonderful Pauline McLynn as the indefatigable Mrs Doyle and Gerard McSorley as the subject of their guessing game. 

Years later I can still watch Father Ted with a grin on my face. I'm already sick of Ted.

Corporate Cannibal, Boarding Gate, Southland Tales and Gamer have almost nothing in common - except for the fact that they all belong to, and they all express, a common world. This is the world we live in: a world of hypermediacy [...]

Writing this review is a real treat for me. I have been following the career of Steven Shaviro for almost a decade now after discovering his online work Doom Patrols one evening while browsing the internet for information about Philip Pullman's Galatea. Not only did I discover Shaviro and his own particular brand of pop cultural critical theory, I emerged buzzing with curiousity about My Bloody Valentine, Grant Morrison and a renewed enthusiasm for the films of David Cronenberg. His blog The Pinocchio Theory is also well worth investigating.

Post Cinematic Affect presents a series of essays on a selection of movies and videos that in Shaviro's view describe emerging new media forms that are as yet theoretically unrepresented. The book itself is not only concerned with film theory, but the post-Marxist absorption of the public in the entertainment industry. When discussing critical flops such as Richard Kelly's ambitious Southland Tales, or Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor's Gamer he is not so much interested in defending their reputations as cinematic works, as he is in demonstrating how they describe our evolving relationship with media. What might be said to be transgressive about these films is the way in which they have abandoned traditional presentation of plot, genre, camera style.

They also indulge our culture's fascination with celebrity. Cinema inherited much of its form from stage productions. Actors played parts, that allow the audience to engage with the story being performed. Yet celebrity has outdistanced any possibility of engagement with the characters being played in contemporary films.  Boarding Gate's protagonist is played by Asia Argento, an actress who has been violated and murdered onscreen multiple times in films directed by her own father. The controversy cemented her early fame, creating an identity that could overwhelm any flimsy fictional character. Director Olivier Assayas avoids this by having Argento play a woman who is constantly having to reinvent herself. Only through this continual renewal can Argento be subsumed into the story. Grace Jones similarly has a twin existence, as the music performer who must shapeshift with each appearance and as an individual woman who is quite conscious of the importance of maintaining that other self. Shaviro infers into the lyrics of Corporate Cannibal - "I'm a man eating machine", - a recognition not only of her sexualised alter ego, but her necessary existence as corporate product.

Shaviro impressively claims that Kelly is attempting a revolution against the very basis of Eisenstein montage with Southland Tales, where associations between images in and of themselves constitute meaning, without any broader context. The rapidly cut action scenes of contemporary movies demonstrate our ability, as an audience, to be viewers of multiple sources of information simultaneously. Our awareness of the action on screen is played with, such as the entertaining sequence when Justin Timberlake lip-syncs to The Killers. Here the character played by Timberlake, Pilot Abilene, is experiencing a hallucinatory drug trip. Yet our attention is drawn to Kelly having a celebrity singer 'perform', music by another act, music which it just so happens is far more evocative of his character's crisis than the bland material he himself produces. Timberlake also breaks out of sync by drinking and carousing with the other performers, reminding us of the falsity what we are seeing (not to mention the drug-impaired perspective of Abilene).

It's an excellent analysis of the levels of meaning sought by Kelly with this film. In Neveldine and Taylor's Gamer, he finds a sarcastic parody of subversive cinema. Viewers are deliberately made complicit with the insensate voyeurs of this dystopia. In engaging with the film's genre staples, we become a reflection of the media depravity here vilified. The film also anticipates developments in MMORPGs, online games that require live interactions between players and game content.

Shaviro touches on multiple sources for his post-Marxist critique, including Spinoza, Fredric Jameson and Deleuze. His analysis identifies markers for our evolving relationship with new media, but no definite outcome. This book presents an excellent overview of the changing shape of cinema and our engagement with film.

With thanks to Zer0 Books for my review copy.

In the past fifteen years, I have watched British film attempting to assert its Britishness, but I have found that the terrain it maps out seems wholly foreign to my own experience. Largely this felt like someone else's cinema, or rather a cinema functioning almost exclusively as PR for the notion of that New Modern Britain every successive government has offered up and failed to deliver.

The best job I ever had was as a volunteer with the Jameson Dublin Film Festival in 2003. In exchange for a measly three hours handing out tickets, I could go see as many festival screenings as I wished and rub shoulders with the invited cinema personalities. I met Javier Bardem! I got into a fight with Jim Sheridan's wife (less proud of that one). It's as close as I am ever likely to come to the 'film industry'.

And yet looking back it was a surprisingly hollow experience. I have been to film festivals since and they are all quite similar in their fascination with celebrity and the glossing over of any genuinely startling work of film into single word reviews exchanged over a cocktail. 'Controversial'. 'Disturbing'. 'Perverse'. There is a sense that the naieve aim of film festivals - the promotion of film as an artform - has been lost in favour of celebrity gossip and flashy marketing.

Every now and then I am reminded of the true value of film criticism, of the pleasures it can offer and the engagement with the medium it encourages. Enter Carl Neville.

This book contains a series of linked essays describing the rising star of the British Film Industry in concert with the populism of Blair's 'Cool Britannia'. Neville identifies how the films of Richard Curtis and Danny Boyle combined to elide the recent memory of Thatcherism. Realism in cinema is eschewed by the popular box office hits of the period and the new gloss of paint given to government by Blair's success in defeating the Tories  allows for an aspirational tone to enter political discourse - that of course was not acted upon. Neville also treats of the rise of 'New Laddism', as both a reaction to the 'New Man', of the 1980's and an endorsement of consumer culture.

All of this, Neville argues, is encapsulated in 90's cinema and onwards. In Four Weddings and a Funeral he finds an attempt to turn back the clock on Thatcherite Britain to the bucolic era of Waugh, whereas Trainspotting obscures the realities of drug addiction and a crime-ridden underclass by fixating on the notion of 'choice'. This nominally Scottish film is revealed to be a voyeuristic skin designed for middle-class England. Its magic realism and irony does not serve to deepen its themes as a work of cinema, but to raise a laugh and replace the awareness of the realities of heroin-addiction and social depravity with a hyper-kinetic cartoon:

The opposition between a non-judgmental imaginative rendering and a patronizing realism assumes that in some way McDonald, Boyle and Hodge are more on the side of the underclass by representing them as attractive, even enviable, rather than suffering and pitiable.

It's a startling critique of a film that has transcended its initial controversy to become one of the best-known recent films in British history. The films of Danny Boyle in particular are focused on throughout this book, with the author calling attention to how the use of vicarious fantasy avoids any encounters with harsh realism. Another example given for this process is the evolution of the football hooligan sub-genre, from Philip Davis' I.D., with its disturbing account of an undercover cop embracing the weekend violence of hooliganism, to Frodo Baggins enjoying a thoroughly middle-class misadventure in Lexi Alexander's Green Street.

Fantasy has replaced any concern with the realities of life in modern Britain. It is not all doom though. Nevillie is particularly appreciative of films like Adam & Paul and Morvern Callar (that rare thing, a masterpiece in its every iteration - the soundtrack is an absolute delight). Sexy Beast compares the misery of London's criminal underworld to sunny Spain, where Ray Winstone's Gal can finally build a life for himself. But it is The Queen which offers Neville the opportunity to return to the boogieman of this piece, Tony Blair, media literate, hysterical, with a canny ability to replace ideology with emotionalism.

This book gave me a welcome slap in the face. Impassioned argumentation and impressively cineliterate.

With thanks to Zero Books for my review copy.