There are things men can do to one another that are sobering to the soul; and it’s one thing to square it with god, and another to square it with yourself.
– Leckie, Part One
I know that The Pacific is airing in the States a good few weeks ahead of us, but the first episode of the show (well, a double bill) just landed here in the UK and Ireland on the ever wonderful Sky Movies. I’m probably going to do a little summary of my thoughts on the whole show when it finishes airing, but I do have some initial thoughts that might bear putting into words. It’s a great time to be watching television, isn’t it?
It shouldn't be that hard to convince you to watch The Pacific...
We’re coming into summer blockbuster season. Hell, one might suggest that Kick-Ass has heralded the start of it. If it hasn’t, Clash of the Titans has. That’s if you don’t believe Alice in Wonderland kicked it all into high gear. Anyway, you know what that means – spectacle, lots of it. Some of it incredible, some of it… not so much. The masses flock to the cinema to while away the long summer evenings and movie theatres are filled with the laughter of children (which can be quite irritating to the patrons). It also means that, like the spring lambs, the beautiful cycle of the life and death of film criticism must begin anew. Critics will begin to lament their increasing irrelevance as poor movies make huge sums of money, journalists will light a funeral pyre and some filmmakers like Kevin Smith will gladly join the mob chanting ‘critics are dead’. This fine annual tradition will ebb and flow like the box office fortunes of many an undeserving behemoth. And at the end of it, the critics will still be here.
It appears that releasing news that Joss Whedon was in contention for the gig as director of The Avengers on April 1st was just horrible timing – it looks like this particular story might not be a festive-themed joke and might just be something thiat may be actually happening. However, since Marvel’s somewhat shrewd business strategy seems to consist of mentioning a name and dodging the internet backdraft long enough to determine how fans will react, we thought that a Joss Whedon helmed Avengers film might merit some discussion.
I don’t know what it is, there’s just something incredibly sweet about knowing that aspects of your own childhood are still hip and cool. Yes, I’m 23 years old, but I sound like I’m 80. Anyway, with not one but two big budget Tintin adventures on the way (which involved – though he’s departed – Stephen Moffat alongside Peter Jackson and Stephen Spielberg) and the surprising on-line popularity of the string of Muppet Studio Music Videos, I actually feel quite good. There are their three releases so far peppered through their post. If you haven’t had a chance to hear them, they’re well worth a look. You know you want to.
Well, with The Eleventh Hour airing over the weekend, it seems like the perfect time for a reflection on the end of the Russell T. Davies era of Doctor Who. I’ll probably go back and do a retrospective on the Eccleston era at some point in the future, but Tennant’s four years in the brown trenchcoat provide a fertile enough starting ground.
Last week I remarked on how ridiculous it was that people were getting freaked out by the use of a certain c-word (and, no, it’s not a misspelling of the words “kick ass”) by a certain pint-sized assassin in a certain superhero spoof movie. In said article, I had the audacity to state that – although I wouldn’t agree with it – I could understand if they were upset by the gratuitous violence the little kid commits, rather than her choice of language. It appears my appeals to sanity within the moral guardian community has been somewhat answered and various commentators have begun decrying Kick-Ass for the way it treats and portrays Hit Girl, the eleven-year-old sidekick to wannabe Batman by the name of Big Daddy.
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Note: This article contains slight spoilers for the movie and probably bigger spoilers for the graphic novel. You have been warned. But don’t worry, if you want to wait to see the film, this article will be here when you get back.
The Russell T. Davies era of Doctor Who is officially over. The man who revived the franchise has departed, passing the reigns to Stephen Moffat. Similiarly, David Tennant has hung up his iconic brown trechcoat, to be replaced by virtual unknown Matt Smith. The Eleventh Hour, the opening salvo of the show’s fifth season since its return to television, aired tonight on the BBC and we were impressed. Mighty impressed, might we add. This isn’t a review (I’ll do a year-end round up in about twelve weeks), just some thoughts on this new era in television’s longest running science fiction show, based on a sixty-minute opening episode – particularly on the Doctor-Companion relationship. There are minimal spoilers within.
“Anywhere you want, any time you want… one condition: it has to be amazing.”
Mark O’Rowe wrote a play that I had the pleasure of seeing last year called Terminus. The piece, featuring four characters narrating sensational events occurring in and around the city of Dublin in thick Northside accents and with distracting amounts of elloquence, obviously became something of a cult hit – so much so that it returned to the Abbey (our national theatre) earlier this year. I mention this purely because O’Rowe has very much fashioned the script for this Irish film from the same cloth as his theatrical success. The same elements which I enjoyed in Terminus I enjoyed in Perrier’s Bounty, and the same elements I didn’t enjoy were just magnified by the transition to film.
Kick-Ass may be the action movie of the year. It will more than likely be the comedy of year. And it is currently among the best movies I’ve seen so far (and it’s been a very good March, might I add). Kick-Ass does what Watchmen should have, and takes superhero movies to the next level: working on the assumption that the genre is so well recognised that audiences will appreciate all the tiny little tropes, Kick-Ass picks apart the big budget superhero flick, but manages to avoid being mean.
Kick-Ass kicks... well, you see where this is going...
