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Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a show by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly creator, Joss Whedon, that aired over the Web in three parts in July, 2008 (on drhorrible.com). It may be the pilot for a future project. It may be a stand-alone show. There's nothing certain other than the fact that there will eventually be a DVD and soundtrack made available. So, how was it? Transcendent. It's the first Web show that I've seen that I think truly transcends the medium and deserves to simply be called a short film. With a run time of just under 45 minutes in total (across the three episodes which range from 13 to 15 minutes), it certainly feels too short, but every minute is rewarding. The short form of this review is simple: Go see it.

Wanted is the first American film by the acclaimed Russian director, Timur Bekmambetov. He was previously best known for the action/horror/fantasy films Night Watch and Day Watch which are now available as brilliantly subtitled re-releases in the U.S. Wanted focuses on Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) who learns that his father was the best assassin in the world, but has just been murdered by a rogue assassin he used to work with. He teams up with Fox (Angelina Jolie) against his father's killer, Cross (Thomas Kretschmann) and plot ensues. At its core this is a superhero film. The idea that a gunman can "bend" bullets in the air and shoot targets with pinpoint accuracy from across town is absurd, but practically mainstream for the flexible physics of the graphic print medium. So, our hero learns to be a super-assassin for good.

None of this prepares you for the wild ride that ensues, and in the end the film actually manages to be a bit of a morality play about the dangers of fanaticism, how easily one can be seduced by it and the costs that it can bring to bear. I definitely enjoyed this film, but as with Night Watch, I felt it had a slightly "foreign" flavor that would forever keep it out of the mainstream. Still, it's well worth seeing, and I recommend that it be seen on the big screen or on Blue Ray once it comes out in that format.

Friday, May 2, 2008

The Orphanage (El Orfanato in Spanish) is a Spanish-language release by Juan Antonio Bayona (director) and Sergio G. Sánchez (writer), but you'll hear a lot about Guillermo del Toro in association with this film. He executive produced it, and the film shares his sensibilities expressed in Pan's Labyrinth (which del Toro wrote and directed). Unlike Pan's Labyrinth, however, this film does not explore the fairy tale world of imagination from a child's eyes, but rather from an adult's. At its heart, this is a ghost story, not horror. That's an important distinction. If you walk in thinking that you're going to see blood and gore or have people jumping out of dark corners at our heroes then you'll get little of what you came for. Instead, this is a very cerebral and personal thriller that tracks the fate of a distraught mother as she becomes more and more aware of what is going on in her home.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Iron Man is a superhero movie based on the Iron Man comic book series that has been running (in one form or another) since 1963. While not Marvel's most beloved hero, Tony Stark AKA Iron Man has long been a core member of their universe, often acting as a peer to Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four. There are plenty of plots and twists from the 45 year history of the character. In rather typical fashion, the movie chose to focus on his origin, and in the case of Iron Man, that origin played well into current events in the real world.

OK, all of that's out of the way. How was it? Amazingly good. I don't throw around praise like that easily, and certainly not at superhero movies-gone-comedy. However, this was easily the best superhero film since the first Spider Man and for many of the same reasons. Let me cover some of the bad, then I'll get into why you should watch this.

Cloverfield is a hybrid between the horror and giant-monster/action genres. Typically, I would expect this to be light on plot and characterization and heavy on explosions and laboriously explained pseudo-technical arm-waving. Nothing could be further from the truth, and that's what made this easily the best giant monster movie in recent memory, and perhaps of all time.

The Sacrifice is a psychological horror film that takes place in a sleepy New England town that has too many secrets. On the surface it's a bit Lovecraftian, but it has some modern twists including a romantic interest between the two male leads, Jonathan Kelly (Kersey) and David (Snyder). This is a first effort for independent director, Jamie Fessenden, and it shows. The camera work is uneven, the lighting is occasionally terrible, and the sound makes some scenes feel more like a reality show than a movie. For all its warts, though, this is the kind of suspenseful horror that the genre used to be all about. If you enjoyed The Ninth Gate or some of the Twilight Zone's more horror-oriented episodes, then this is a film for you. Keep an eye out for the upcoming sequel from Dunkirk Studios.

My first exposure to his work was in the pages of superhero comic books such as The Authority and Planetary. Ok, there's a pigeon-hole. Problem is, there are more. He's also written the hybrid tale, Transmetropolitan, which is a darkly comedic and highly cynical near-future tale of a suspiciously Hunter S. Thompson-like gonzo journalist. Well, that certainly pegs him as the run-of-the-mill black-and-white comics writer, except for the fact that Transmetropolitan is from Time Warner's DC Comics' Vertigo line... not exactly the niche one would expect.

Outside of comics, Ellis has collaborated on a never-aired TV series called Global Frequency which was based on his science fiction graphic novels of the same name. His first effort in the world of historical fiction was the graphic novel, Crecy, which traces the events of the battle of Crecy which, along with two other battles, established the supremacy of the English Longbow in medieval warfare.

As you can see, tracking down what it is that Warren Ellis writes about is a little difficult. There are, however, many common themes and he has a style which invites comparisons to some of the greats of the New Wave science fiction of the 1960s, especially with respect to Harlan Ellison's acerbic wit. Vulgarity, unorthodox sexuality and violence are often interspersed with an analysis of the human condition that borders on the post-modern but isn't quite introspective enough to become lost in its own deconstructive naval-gazing. He's also prone to the abuse of pop-cultural cliché in unexpected settings. His series, Planetary, for example is something like The X-Files in a world of super-heroes and mad science, but every issue is written as if it were the story that immediately follows a film or comic of some other genre. There is the issue about giant monsters on a Japanese island, now all dead. There's an issue about two cops that could have come straight out of any of a dozen action films from Hong Kong in the 1990s, but one of them has died and become a vengeful ghost. You get the idea. It's the story you don't hear after an otherwise interesting genre story.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Jekyll is a BBC drama series about a modern day Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The story opens in the middle, as Dr. Jackman is dealing with his uncontrollable transformations. There's nothing in this series that knowing the original story can spoil for you. You meet Mr. Hyde in the very first episode. You are told about the original story very early on. What you don't expect is the radically unique way they handle the transformation. I won't ruin it, but it's not at all what you expect, and the way both the writing and the acting rise to the challenge is one of the high notes of the show. If you want to know more about the story, I'll go into full details, but first a spoiler-free review:

About the writing.... This is potentially the best written show of 2007. There's a level of faith in both the actors and the audience that is rare on TV today. Certainly an American show that tried to treat the audience with such respect would be deluged in "notes" from the studio. Twists are the norm in every episode, and everything about this series is a surprise. Every character is more than they seem at first, and the series keeps throwing curves until the very end of the season.

What about the lead? James Nesbitt delivers a mousy, unassuming, clever and surprisingly strong Dr. Jackman, and a complementary creepy and unhinged Mr. Hyde. When Hyde refers to his scientist alter-ego as "Daddy," my skin crawled. The secondary roles are equally well played. His assistant dances around admitting her obvious desire for and fear of the doctor with grace and skill. His wife has some difficult scenes to film, and she pulls them all off perfectly. I found myself rooting for her more than Dr. Jackman.

Overall, this is the one series this year that you're both least likely to have seen, and most likely to be pleased with. Don't miss it now that it's on DVD!

Now, on to the spoilers...

Monday, August 6, 2007

The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark is the first of a new direct-to-DVD series by the same team that did Mystery Science Theater 3000. The idea is similar. Three people provide a sort of "commentary track" for an otherwise unwatchably bad movie. That's about as far as the comparison goes. Had this been an episode of MST3k, it would have been one of the worst.

Hollywood After Dark was a crime thriller front for a soft-core porno (no naked body parts, but only thanks to pasties and tiny bikini-bottoms) from the 1960s starring Golden Girl, Rue McClanahan as a stripper in the seedy world of Hollywood nightclubs. There's really not much there to work with, and even the otherwise ribald Film Crew can't come up with enough jokes to last through the tortuously long exotic dance sequences. I watched this with some co-workers, and we did laugh at times. Mike Nelson's timing is still excellent, and the two "robots" from the series are just as funny as real people. The sketches were dull and lifeless, but mercifully short.

If I had to identify one thing that this movie suffered from most, I'd say that its the genre. Erotic crime thrillers just aren't as good when they're bad, and you can't fall back on making fun of the silly rubber suits or laughable tech.