Forgive me, readers, for I have been slack, it’s been two months since my last reviewdle. I was overseas for some of that time but not even close to all of it so I can only offer my apologies for neglecting you and this catch up episode…

New York, I Love You  

This is second film in a series of love songs to cities (the first being 2006’s excellent Paris, Je t’aime) where several directors contribute to segments about and set in the city in question.  While Paris was a series of discrete and complete short stories, New York comes over all Short Cuts and goes for inter-weaving vignettes.  As a whole, it is patchy and unsatisfying, although there are some truly excellent “episodes”, including Eli Wallach (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) grumping his way through his wedding anniversary lunch at Coney Island and Anton Yelchin (Star Trek, Terminator: Salvation) losing his virginity in Central Park on prom night.  You know where’s a really great place to see this movie?  The Sunshine Cinema on East Houston in New York’s East Village.  At least, seeing it there worked for me.  Pretty cool, but it also made the film feel too polished and, well, cinematic.  Like when you watch a film set in your own town and know that when characters walk from their home to a location “around the corner” they’d actually need a trains and two buses to get there.   That’s okay I guess when it’s a film set someplace.  But this was a film about a place and in the end it rang a bit hollow.

The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus  

This is certainly a Terry Gilliam (Twelve Monkeys, Brazil) film – it is convoluted, confusing, frenetically-paced, wildly imaginative and utterly gorgeous to look at.   They cope rather neatly with the death of Heath Ledger during filming by having three other actors (COLIN FARREL, JUDE LAW and JOHNNY DEPP) play him inside the fantasy world of the Imaginarium.  Ledger plays a kind of trickster/catalyst and is one of the film’s least interesting aspects.  The relationship between Dr Parnassus (CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER, The Sound of Music) and the Devil (musician TOM WAITS, Mystery Men) is wonderfully drawn as deals are made and remade over centuries and the stakes escalate until they are betting for Parnassus’ daughter’s soul.  Charmingly, the bets seem to be more about the camaraderie of two immortals than actually winning anything.  The look of the film is spectacular and the performances are terrific, especially Andrew Garfield (Boy A) as Parnassus’ assistant.

The Time Traveller’s Wife  

Lacking in all but the merest whiff of the tragedy and joy that drenched the book, this film is too shiny-shiny and soppy-romantic for my tastes.   Centring on the 30-something year relationship between Clare (RACHAEL McADAMS, The Notebook), and her spontaneously time travelling husband Henry (our ERIC BANA), the story, pacing and some of the performances (unfortunately not Bana’s) engage well enough during the running time, but on reflection I find that my prevailing impression of the film is just how bad Bana’s wigs were as he played younger versions of his character.  What a waste of good source material.

The Damned United  

On one level The Damned United is a biopic about Brian Clough (played by MICHAEL SHEEN, The Queen, Frost/Nixon), an English soccer player turned coach trying to build or find a team that can match his ambition to make it to the big time.   On another, far more interesting level, it’s about hubris, ego and humility.  Clough and his assistant coach Peter Taylor (TIMOTHY SPALL, the Harry Potter series) have a remarkable, lovely partnership where together they are far more than the sum of their parts.  The real story and emotional journey comes from the series of tests that bring this partnership to breaking point.  Sheen does a great job of making the smug, arrogant Clough likeable and bringing us all along on his journey.

This dismays me. apparently Seth Grahame-Smith has written a follow up to his Pride & Prejudice & Zombies that paints honest Abe as a axe wielding vampire killer. For some reason this makes me cringe.

I think what excited me about P&P&Z was the idea a new narrative was weaved into the existing one creating a whole new storyline. It’s why I think Wicked is such a great story. While Dorothy is going about dropping houses on people and scalding a lion for roaring there was a whole other drama. It’s also why people were excited about the Star Wars prequels (although the execution of that was just woeful).

This latest volume though feels like the work of a 7 year old, or the guy who wrote “From Dusk to Dawn”. Random ideas thrown together. Zombie Hawks, Unicorn Transformers, Dawrf Spacemen. All amusing momentarily but damned if I’d want to sit through 90 minutes of it. What the film does promise is stunning visuals if Burton is involved but I’ll pass thanks.

-Trev

Hey folks, I recently did an article for Webcomics.com about how I do cell style shading. It’s just gone online. Now webcomics.com IS a subscriber based site bit it’s also a fantastic tool for people interested in webcomics and comics in general and at only $30 a year (what some sites charge per month) it’s well worth the expense. I don’t get anything for promoting it, it’s just something that I think is worth it. At some point I might put it on this site but for the moment it’s only available over there.

-Trev

Hey folks. Just wanted to let you know that it’s been confirmed we’ll be at Melbourne Supanova. We’ll be sharing a booth with Guardian Comics Paul Spencer who does the great Ticket To Ride webcomic about a group of guys who run a superhero themed adventure park.  We should have books 1 & 2 as well as issue one of the current arc which due to it’s mammoth size we’ll be breaking into shorter comic book style publications.

I also plan on heading up to both Brisbane and Sydney’s Supanova this year (for the very least to meet Joe Kubert!) but i’ll give you more details as we get closer.

Huzzah
-Trev