DVD: 10 DAYS OF JOEL & ETHAN COHEN: DAY 5 - THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998)

The Film.

For some reason this reminded me of Robert Altman's remake of The Long Goodbye which, as it turns, isn't as surprising as you might think. The Coens, in the making of on the DVD, state that they took the structure from the noirs of the period and writers like Raymond Chandler. In the Altman movie, Marlow the detective is a laid-back stoner just like The Dude (Jeff Bridges) here. Plus the Coens movie is also a kind of a noirish mystery as well as being a comedy. And, I've just learned after completing the first draft of this review, Joel Coen cites it as an influence, so score one for me there, dudes! (Blows whistle. Pats self on back.)

When the Dude's apartment is broken into, his head thrust down the toilet and his rug pissed on because the wife of a man with the same name owes bad people some money and they somehow confuse the Dude with a rich millionaire, he goes to the rich millionaire and asks him to replace his ruined rug. This seems a reasonable request but the rich, and wheelchair bound, millionaire (the Big Lebowski of the title) sends him away with a flea in his ear. So on the way out, the Dude informs a flunky that his boss said he could take any rug he liked. Also on the way out he sees the millionaire's very young slut, sorry, wife who offers to perform oral sex on him for a thousand bucks. Next thing we know, she's been kidnapped the millionaire wants the Dude to deliver the ransom. And that is when things get complicated.

It doesn't help that the Dude's best friend (John Goodman) an ex-VietNam vet (and don't we know it) who overreacts to anything including pulling out a gun when a guy insists his score was valid when his foot went a couple of inches over the line in  a match at a bowling alley. He also has another bowling friend whose name appears to be Shut The Fuck Up Donnie (Steve Buscemi) as Goodman never calls him anything else.

And I'll stop there because I went into detail about the story I'd be on the for next half hour. Suffice to say, the delivery of the ransom goes drastically wrong thanks to Goodman, the Dude's car goes progressively from dented to trashed, the Dude himself is beaten up several times, he has a close encounter with the millionaire's eccentric artist daughter (Julianne Moore) who is about 15 years older than her stepmother, and so on. It's all very lively and a lot of fun as the laid-back Dude gets more and more agitated and his insensitive intemperate buddy lets it all wash over him, uncaring as to any threats to the missing slut, sorry, wife.

As ever, lots of good character actors in minor eccentric supporting and cameo roles (John Turturro, David Thewlis, Ben Gazzara, Peter Stormare, to name but a few). The odd beginning featuring a tumbleweed rolling across a western prairie (to the appropriate song Tumbling Tumbleweeds) an on into Los Angelese as the gravelly voice of the narrator (Sam Elliott) introduces the Dude and later turns up in the middle wearing western clothing to meet him, and to narrate the end of the film. Plus good use of incidental music.

What's it all mean? Buggered if I know, but I did have a good time watching it.

Random Notes.

The film was generally liked by the critics even if they weren't always sure why. Basically the Coens create their own version of America in their movies and you either like it or you don't. The Big Lebowksi, thanks to Bridges performance as The Dude has become a cult and the Dude a cult icon.

DVD: 10 DAYS OF JOEL & ETHAN COHEN: DAY 4 -THE HUDSUCKER PROXY (1994)

This is the third of the four films I've reviewed so far that I saw not long after it was initially released, the others being Blood Simple and Barton Fink, and it was the one that I remembered the least about.

There's a reason for that: it's not very good.

In theory, it should have been. The Coens had been professional film makers for over a decade. It has all their usual hallmarks of interesting camerawork and angles, eccentric memorable characters, good actors, etc. I mean, how can you beat Paul Newman in a rare comedic role or the talented Tim Robbins playing an enthusiastic innocent in the big city, or Jennifer Jason Leigh playing a reporter who isn't as hard-nosed as she thinks? Difficult, but the Coens managed it.

Shortly after the boss of a massively successful company takes a dive through a skyscraper window, the board of directors learn that he has arranged for his stock to be sold on the open market which means, because they are so successful, the price is so high they can't afford to begin to buy a majority shareholding. So the only way they can win is to drive down the price of the shares. They do this by appointing the recently employed mail room boy Tim Robbins as new boss who they believe they can manipulate. At first this seems to work and they allow him to go with this all-ages invention of his believing it will fail miserably. Unfortunately for them, it's the hula hoop and share prices go even higher.

At the same time, he is being investigated by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Jason Leigh (using an irritating voice reminiscent of Katherine Hepburn) who gets a job as his secretary and slowly but surely she falls for him. Scenes on her newspaper include John Mahoney (see Barton Fink, and Frazier) as the editor and Bruce Campbell in the thankless role of a cynical colleague (a role which would be virtually invisible if played by anyone else). It turns to fantasy towards the end when Robbins throws himself off the skyscraper only to be saved by a literal deus ex machina as the film turns into a blatant fantasy and concludes with a happy end.

And the reason it isn't a very good film is because it's a comedy which just isn't very funny. And the reason it isn't very funny is down to the script. Considering the scriptwriter is notoriously the low man on the Hollywood totem pole, this is ironic. A good script can't save a bad movie, but a bad script will certainly doom one no matter how good it is in every other department. And if you've read the other entries in this little mini-series, you'll already be aware that the writers are none other than the Coen brothers themselves.

Plus Sam Raimi.

As Crimewave also proved, while they may all be good buddies, their respective talents just don't work together. The Hudsucker Proxy has its moments here and there but overall it doesn't add up to much.

Random Notes.

In blink and you'll miss them parts are: Anna Nicole Smith as Za-Za a floozy, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, and Sam Raimi.

Clint Eastwood was first offered Paul Newman's role but couldn't take it because of scheduling problems. 

Including marketing the film cost $40 million but didn't even make $3 million in the domestic market.

(Thank you, Wikipaedia, for the above.)

DVD: 10 DAYS OF JOEL & ETHAN COHEN: DAY 3 -BARTON FINK (1991)

The Film.

This is an odd one, make no mistake about it. While Coen movies often cross genres, this one crosses so many that critics can't agree which ones they are. Indeed opinions differ widely as to what it's actually about. I have my own opinions but checked the longish article in Wikipaedia which summarises a variety of views, some of which coincide with mine and some don't. The Coens are two ferociously intelligent individuals who share a puckish sense of humour and it can be difficult to take what they say about their movies at face value. I remember reading that they said they'd never read Homer's Odyssey despite basing the structure of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? very closely on it. My view is that they probably kept a copy or two on set during the making of the film. The thing about any work of art, particularly a problematic one like Barton Fink is that whatever the viewer gets out of it is, by virtue of it clearly being open to a number of interpretations, irrelevant to whatever the Coens intended.

So. whatever I say about it has to be valid and those views, while my own, are hardly likely to be original. Inevitably I'll be revealing plot twists as it's impossible to discuss Barton Fink without doing so. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Superficially it's about a talented playwright who's poached by Hollywood and finds himself out his depth in their shallows. He lives in a seemingly deserted and fading hotel where he is befriended by a working man who is more than he seems. Fink creates, he believes, his best work and it is rejected by the studio boss. And that is pretty much it.

However, consider another way of looking at it. It's about intellectual elitism. As the film opens, so does Fink's play about the working man (it's set in 1941 by the way) has just opened and is a rousing success. Fink (John Turturro) is full of himself and the need to give the working man a voice. It's clearly obvious that he has no idea what the working man is like at all but he is so full of his own burning need to create that this never occurs to him. When the studio tells him to write a wrestling movie for Wallace Beery he has no idea how to begin because he has no knowledge of popular culture. When his befriended by Charlie (John Goodman) who mentions that he has lots of stories, Fink rolls over him so full of his own self-belief. Only later does a completely mad serial killer tell him bluntly that he never listens.

Then there's the film's visual dichotomy. The Hollywood scenes are crisp and bright, light fills them. Walls and furniture are white or give the impression of whiteness. everything is sharp and clear and busy, even if it is only with the expansive sound of the Hollywood mogul's (Michael Lerner) voice. The hotel in which Fink finds himself is very different. The colours are full and rich but they are deep and dark with reds and browns seeming to predominate. The hotel is faded, looming, and empty. Even though we see a corridor with shoes waiting to be shined at every bedroom door, the only guests we ever see are Fink and Charlie, the only staff the elevator boy (a very elderly man) and the bell boy Chet (Steve Buscemi). Is this the Coens suggesting something about Fink's state of mind or something else? I don't have answer, I'm just asking a question.

Is it a satire or a black comedy about the state of Hollywood in the early 40's. To a certain extent the answer is yes. Many of the Hollywood scenes are played for laughs, albeit sometimes of the bitter kind. Michael Lerner is terrific as the over the top mogul, usually genially ebullient but swift to turn into a cruel intimidating bully. Out of his depth, Fink (who is apparently based on Clifford Odets) turns to the great writer W.P.Mayhew (John Mahoney) who is also struggling in the Hollywood salt mines and is apparently (though the Coens say not really) based on William Faulkner (which I had guessed). Mayhew, however, has become a bitter drunk and his writing is really done by his secretary/mistress Audrey (Judy Davis).

Is it a film noir or a crime drama? Some way through, Fink turns to Audrey (who has already rejected his tentative advances) for help with writing but when she shows up at his room it's with sex not writing on her mind. When Fink wakes up next morning he finds her next to him dead and bloody. Charlie appears and offers to get rid of the body, just to help his friend. Much later when he returns, Charlie says he has to go away but asks Fink to look after a parcel for him. Not long after that the police arrive to interrogate him about a homicidal maniac called Madman Muntz. Guess who Charlie really is? One of the cops, the appropriately named Detective Deutsch, makes a deliberately anti-semitic remark. Some days later, the cops appear again to interrogate Fink but Charlie arrives and kills them both as he sets fire to the hall. Fink escapes with his precious new (and ultimately worthless) manuscript, and the parcel Charlie gave him.

Symbolism is clearly important to the film and I'll cite a few images, but as to their meaning... In his room is a picture of a girl on a beach to which his eyes are drawn constantly. In the final scene, he's sitting alone on the beach when a pretty girl turns up, they talk briefly, then she sits down in the exact same pose as the picture. Also in his room, the wallpaper is gradually is gradually peeling away and at one point Chet tacks it to the wall. Gluey paste which closely resembles semen slowly rolls down the damp wall. There is definitely a subtext about sex here. The parcel, which I was certain contains Audrey's head, is never opened and is with him at the beach. (Another unanswered question is: did Charlie kill Fink's family while he was away -Fink had already given him their address.) And the name, Fink, itself. What does that tell us about him? And why did they pick a 5 feet tall actor for one of the cops?

And that's as far as I'm going to go. Barton Fink is a film which asks more questions than it answers. If you haven't seen it, do. Then you can try and discover them for yourselves.

Random Notes.

They loved this movie at Cannes. It won three major awards: Best Actor, Best Director, and the Palm D'Or.

DVD: 10 DAYS OF JOEL & ETHAN COHEN: DAY 2 -INTOLERABLE CRUELTY (2003)

 

The Film.

Around 20 years after Blood Simple, the Coens decided to make a screwball/sophisticated romantic comedy along the lines of those that Cary Grant used to star in. Unsurprisingly, they chose Clooney for the lead as, among many other things, he is a fine comedy actor with a lot of charm. Here he plays an unscrupulous and totally amoral divorce lawyer who cares little for matters like where the blame lies so much as how much he can get for his client (and himself).

There's a great extended cameo in the opening scene-setting sequence by Geoffrey Rush who then disappears for most of the film only to pop up near the end in a scene which delivers a neat delayed payoff from the results of his divorce where he got screwed by Clooney. Clooney's next case is to keep his client's wife's hands off his assets despite the fact that she caught him in the act -and, for the sake of brevity, I'm going to completely omit the role of Cedric the Entertainer in this film. Clooney succeeds by managing to accurately portray her as a conniving devious gold-digger. Unfortunately the wife left with nothing is a woman who is as unscrupulous as Clooney himself. Yes, you guessed it, it's Catherine Zeta-Jones who delivers a great performance played completely straight (unlike Clooney who tends to mug a little too much). Zeta-Jones (I'm sure there didn't used to be a hyphen in her name but there is now) isn't a great dramatic actress but within her range there are few who can match. Here she is poised, astute, highly intelligent, and devastatingly beautiful. No surprise that, against his better judgement and knowing what she is, he falls for her.

Thus the stage is set for an engaging battle of wits as Zeta-Jones schemes to overturn the downturn in her fortunes. I won't say how as this would spoil the fun for you if you haven't seen it. Clooney and Z-J (pronounced Zee-Jay) have great chemistry together which sucks you in and makes you want there to be a happy end while all the time wondering how the hell that could be possible. There's also the funniest accidental-suicide scene ever. Add the usual gallery of great supporting roles that populate Coen films (including Billy Bob Thornton and, in a cameo, the legend himself  Bruce Campbell) and you have a supremely entertaining piece of fluff. Gosh, writing this makes me feel like watching it again.

Random Notes.

Unusually for the Coens there are two other writers involved in the screenplay. Whether they wrote the original scripts and the Brothers substantially revised it or what, I don't know.

Apparently a number of critics had a go at the Coens for wasting their talents with this lightweight diversion. Ah fuck 'em if they can't take a joke. If this is the sort of movie the Coens do to relax I wish they'd make more. Incidentally, I won't be reviewing Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? because it isn't in either sets and I bought the DVD (and the soundtrack CD, apart from The Sound of Music back in the 60's, a first for me) years ago.

DVD: 10 DAYS OF JOEL & ETHAN COHEN: DAY 1 - BLOOD SIMPLE

Just arrived from Amazon and for the bargain price of £11.69 is a 7-disc set of movies from the writer/director team of Joel & Ethan Cohen. Although one is credited with writing and the other directing, this is a legal convenience and they actually share both duties. This has recently been discarded. I came across them in 1983 with their first movie Blood Simple and followed them for a while, seeing three of those included in this collection and two of the three on another collection I ordered at the same time. What I plan to do is watch each of these movies and write a review of them. Just don't expect one a day for the next ten days. Now the obvious way to do this would be in chronological order so I can assess how they develop as film makers but I can't be bothered with that. Instead I'm going to watch them in the order they are in the box and I started from the back which, coincidentally, is their first film Blood Simple (1983) which will be followed by Intolerable Cruelty (2003) and it's difficult to imagine two more contrasting movies.

The Film.

I hadn't seen Blood Simple in about 25 years but it still holds up pretty well and my memories of it proved surprisingly accurate. From the very beginning it's obvious that the film makers knew what they were doing and were prepared to be bold about it. A man and a woman are driving down dark Texas roads and talking but at first we only see the backs of their heads. Gradually we begin to learn something about their situation.

The plot is straightforward. Bar owner (Dan Hedaya) has employed a sleazy private eye (M.Emmett Walsh and nobody does sleazy like M.Emmett) to spy on his wife (Frances McDormand). Having proof she's having an affair with one of his staff (John Getz) he tells the private eye to kill her. Instead, having got his hands on the money, Walsh shoots him with his wife's gun and leaves it laying around. The lover arrives, assumes McDormand has killed her husband and decides to hide the body. However, as the viewer knows from the constant dripping of blood, Hedaya isn't dead. This leads to an extremely harrowing scene where the lover tries to bury him alive (see the German poster above). The things get worse but in case you haven't seen it I won't say how.

One of the clever things about this film is that you the viewer knows what's going on all the time but none of the participants and that is what leads to them dying. Film noir has never really been successfully revived as a genre, though there has been the occasional success. Blood Simple is emphatically one of them.

Random Notes.

McDormand must have had a good time making the movie as she married Joel Coen shortly afterwards and we'll be meeting her again in some of the Coen movies.

Their next movie was scripted by them and directed by Sam Raimi. While not without certain pleasures, Crimewave isn't the three men's finest hour by a long long way.

DVD: 14 BLADES (2010), TRUE LEGEND (2010)

Wuxia (pronounced: Wushu -unless I've got it completely wrong) movies are essentially all fantasy. As soon as martial arts come into play it's not long before the laws of physics (particularly that of gravity) are broken as fighters perform impossible jumps, somersaults, and even appear to levitate as skip from leafy branch to leafy branch as if they were on a road. All main characters involved in martial arts fights have superhuman speed and agility and can recover from damage (such as three arrows going completely through the body and out the other side) when a normal person would die instantly. Like I said, fantasy.

True Legend, despite supposedly being a true story, nevetheless still fits the bill. Set in the 1800s when Europeans loomed large in China, it tells the story of Beggar Sue. It's a very episodic tale and, as such, lacks the narrative drive of other wuxia movies. Here he is performing impossible feats as he rescues a Prince. Here he is returning to live a quiet life only to have his father killed by his adoptive brother and badly wounded. Rescued by his wife, he's helped by herbalist and cliff abseiler Michelle Yeoh (in a cameo). Here he is becoming a drunk. Here is... and so on until the end. It's quite well done with great action sequences and you would expect no less when directed by Yuen Woo Ping, but it didn't greatly grab me.

To be honest, I couldn't really follow the set up at first of 14 Blades, but it's basically this. A group of hard core enforcers of the Emperor are betrayed and only the leader survives to carry an important message to someone else important. The 14 blades are all contained in basically a magical box (it is mechanical but utterly impossible in its construction -fantasy) and wielded by the betrayed leader our hero. 

Once it settled down into a chase format with lots of fights as our hero gains friends and allies and does battle with his enemies with the worst one being a whip-wielding woman, then its fine. This is the one where he recovers from three arrows being shot through him. There's always something going on to hold the interest and it's quite well made.

There's even a sort of love story. Chinese love stories in wuxia tend to be a bit different however. She glances coyly. He sternly doesn't notice she exists. They fight tentatively. He pretends he isn't interested in her. They have a fight which involves lot of gravity-defying action. He admits that she isn't completely unbearable to have around. She glances coyly.

All in all this is a generally efficient piece of wuxia.

DVD: THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED/ THE SHE-CREATURE (1956)

A few months ago, I watched a series of DTV movies (and reviewed them all in this blog) which used the titles of some of Arkoff's old schlock-horrors from the 50's. Here is a double-backed DVD of two of the originals. Both are, of course, black and white cheapies but even now they aren't without their charms.

The Day The World Ended was directed by Roger Corman and it probably took him a week and if you know anything about how fast he worked that's quite slow for him. Limited sets of course: house exterior, house interior, mist shrouded outdoor scenes, and a couple near a waterfall and pool, plus some trees.

Right, it's the end of the world, as you might have guessed from the title, and a mismatched bunch stumble into a small valley, protected by lead-bearing hills and winds which keep the radioactivity away, where lives a middle aged bloke who's prepared for it all and his nubile daughter. Arriving uninvited and unwanted are: our noble hero with mutating radioactive man on his back, a wiseguy on his way to L.A. with his sassy moll just a little past her prime, and lastly a kindly prospector and his burro (donkey to you). They may be the last people in the world and food is limited.

Not to worry, radioactive man is soon up and about munching on the local radioactive wildlife and trying to avoid that mutated thing with horns, three eyes, and claws. You knew that already, didn't you? Okay, so the wiseguy fancies the daughter and wants to take over which means he gets knocked down a few times by the noble hero. There are arguments and more friendly interactions. Dad wants daughter to marry the noble hero and have lots of kids and, hey, as an ex-ship's captain he can even marry them. The ex-stripper wiseguy's moll hangs around dancing to quaint music, smoking, and showing off her moves and trying to convince the wiseguy that she's still the girl for her. Resources get short, the mutation (there are others but the budget only ran to one guy in a monster suit) starts getting active on the munchies front and some mild mayhem ensues until only Dad, daughter, and noble hero are left but, finally the radio catches someone else broadcasting so daughter and hero set out to find new friends in this brave new world.

But don't let that put you off as no matter how dated and creaky it is, it's also rather fun. The presentation is wide-screen, the image is reasonable quality, and there are closed captions for them (me) that needs them.

Now one of the fun things about The She-Creature is that the noble scientist-hero believes the villain (who claims he can get his assistant to relive past lives and even bring the She-Creature she used to be a million years ago back to life) is a con-artist. Guess what? The noble-scientist hero is dead wrong. The villain can do everything he says. Then again, there wouldn't be much of a film if he couldn't.

Another movie with fairly limited sets, this one directed by efficient hack Lou Rusoff. Lots of beach scenes, lots scenes in and around a posh house owned by a rich publisher whose daughter fancies the noble scientist-hero but who becomes more interested in the villain's beautiful assistant who, in thrall to the villain, can't escape him. The villain predicts horrible murders by you know what which come true. Local cop (Ron Randell just before his period of late50's-60's fame) knows he's guilty but can't prove it. The rich publisher sees the chance to make millions off the villain and they enter into a mutually beneficial arrangement for a time. Eventually the predictable happens, She-Creature goes on the rampage and the noble scientist hero and the beautiful assistant live happily ever after.

This one is full screen but still with closed captions and again is quite a reasonable print. The She-Creature is quite striking, covered in what looks like the shells of dead turtles (including big breast plates so we know that the She-Creature is definitely a she and must have been an interesting addition to the stunt man's CV). Again, it's creaky but fun and only 77 minutes long which is just enough.

DVD: JENNIFER'S BODY (2010)

This has generally had mixed reviews (translated: poor to average) but with a script by Diablo Cody, the writer of Juno, it sounded interesting enough for me to pick up when I could get really cheaply (i.e. under £3.00 including postage, from the Amazon Marketplace dealer zoverstocks from whom I get a load of stuff). Plus Megan Fox is very easy on the eye and she isn't as bad an actor as she's made out to be.

It's different from the usual run of horror movies by having two female leads playing the hero and villain. The dialogue, as you'd expect from Cody, is sharp and snappy though not up to Juno standards but more than acceptable in a horror movie. The opening is unusual too with Seyfried, the hero, locked up in a loony bin where she viciously and without any real reason, kicks the crap out of a member of staff and gets locked up in a padded cell from where she begins to narrate the story from the beginning.

Okay: two friends from childhood now in high school, the insecure and plain Needy (Seyfried) and the extrovert promiscuous Jennifer. They go to watch a new band who, after the place they're playing at conveniently burns to the ground, lure Jennifer into their van, take to an isolate local beauty spot and, believing her to be a virgin) sacrifice her to Satan. However, not being a virgin, she comes back to life with a demon inside her and she's hungry for man-flesh.

The rest of the movie is mainly who is she going to kill next  and her deteriorating relationship with Needy and it all moves along very nicely and entertainingly the climax where we find out what happens to Jennifer and, as it turns out, more importantly to Needy.

Through in a great piece of work by JK Simmons as a one handed teacher and one-man chorus on the horrifying events that are happening and you get a perfectly satisfactory and very enjoyable minor horror movie.

Jennifer can talk on the phone to Needy while setting her tongue on fire. Neat!

TV/DVD: JOSS WHEDON'S DOLLHOUSE SEASON TWO

 

This is what Season 1 should have been but basically Whedon, as he tacitly admits in an extra on the DVD ,hadn't thought it through properly. Season 1 only picked up when the focus shifted to the Dollhouse itself rather than Eliza Dushku's persona of the week. When she was just a Doll, the audience didn't respond to her and her persona's weren't real anyway.

They were lucky to get a second season and it proved to be just right but too late. From the off, we get Dushku's Doll developing her own personality which is more than the sum of the personas she's had, and in a twist, is revealed to still have. From then on it's a small group within the Dollhouse against the mighty and unscrupulous Rossum Corporation which seems intent on developing the technology which will lead to the apocalyptic scenario revealed in the final episode of Season 1.

There are twists and turns galore until the final revelation of who the mastermind behind Rossum actually is and it is a shock. It could have only been more surprising if it was Dusku herself; but it isn't. This really is gripping stuff and a vast improvement on what went before. That said, I'm glad it didn't get a third season because everything is neatly wound up, providing a satisfying conclusion.

I should also mention that there are more from Whedon's stable of actors with the inclusion of Alexis Denisoff (Buffy/Angel) and Summer Glau (Firefly) which is always nice to see. This is one of those shows where there is so much going on it's either write a lot or a little.

DVD: GAMERA VS ZIGRA / GAMERA THE SUPER MONSTER

I've really got to be in the right mood for a kaiju movie -that's Japanese giant monsters to you. Usually this means Godzilla as I have a rather large collection from the three different periods these movies were made. But when I saw these two double-backed on one DVD I just couldn't resist.

Gamera is Godzilla's dumb cousin -metaphorically speaking, that is, they aren't really related. Gamera suffers by having to be a man on his knees in a giant turtle suit. This means he isn't very agile, his arms are short. and he can't throw very well. When Gamera hurls a boulder at an opponent, he more or less lifts it up and lets it go and by some miracle it shoots straight at the enemy monster. He does have a fiery breath but it's nowhere near as effective as Godzilla's radioactive blasts.

Fortunately, the enemies from outer space who want to destroy the world with their giant monsters are so dumb that a ten year old boy can usually outwit them as happens in both these films. This is because Gamera is a friend to children and he can apparently hear them calling his name from miles away. Plus they were made for the kiddie audience which doesn't explain why I'm watching them.

I'm not going to pay much attention to Gamera vs Zigra (see them fighting above) as most of the best bits appear in Gamera The Super Monster which is basically clips from half a dozen other Gamera movies cobbled together about ten years after they were made in a kind of Gamera's Greatest Fights. Here, aliens from outer space have come hunting down 3 space women who escaped from their destroyed planet. This compilation movie was cobbled together around 1980 which is why the bad guys ship looks like a star cruiser from Star Wars (and it wouldn't surprise me it was a star cruiser from Star Wars).

Once they arrive, they send down their agent who looks just like a young Japanese woman as do the three space women. The bad girl, however, gets blamed every time one of their monsters fails to defeat Gamera which is hardly her fault. Okay, maybe she can't outwit a 10 year old boy and fails dismally to kill the space women. The space women's leader is tall with very short hair, wears trousers and reminds me of a lesbian dominatrix -but that could just be me and my interest did perk up whenever she was onscreen.

This is Gamera chomping on Viras the three-legged alien octopus.

For fans of Japanese cartoons, there are two dream sequences which feature them and Gamera, onc of which I'm sure was Battle Cruiser Yamamoto.

Okay, these two films are very silly, not terribly well made, and great to laugh at. Alternatively you can sit down with a youngish child and enjoy them together. You may, however, want to put your hands over your ears when they play Gamera's theme song.

TV: SKINS 5.8: ALL

 

The last episode of this series and here be spoilers. Sorry, but I can't really discuss it without them.

It's the final preparations for the wedding. The girls are taking it seriously, the boys... well, what did you expect? Rich, on Alo's insistence that Grace will love it, gets his hair seriously cut but not so short as to be unsuitable for the Beatle suits the four of them wear. There's still the tension between Frankie, Liv and Matty and Liv has also noticed the girl crush Mini has for Frankie but makes light of it.

The day of the wedding is also the day that Grace's parents are taking her off to the posh school in the middle of nowhere and, just before Grace pops into town, Professor Blood gives her a pendant which, unknown to her but will come as no surprise to everyone watching, contains a tracking chip. The gang set off in Alo's van which he promptly wrecks having got lost. The happy couple get a lift with an older new age married couple who are so sickly (and funny) even I wanted to vomit. Frankie, Liv and Matty wander off on their own. Mini eventually follows them leaving Alo and Nick to bumble through. We get an insight into why Frankie feels so much of an outsider and the tensions between her, Liv and Matty explode and result in Frankie nearly getting killed. Somehow they all manage to arrive at the church where Rich and Grace haven't been having an easy time of it. 

Naturally the parents arrive before the wedding can take place but what happens next is surprising. When Grace won't back down and Blood blames it all on her friends, Nick tells him why their friendship is good for all of them. Blood doesn't axactly back down but he walks out draggin his more sympathetic wife with him. Grace and Rich decide they don't need to get married because they are happy the way the are. But it is their free choice which is important and it all ends in a party at a village fayre where Liv gives up Matty and he and Frankie hug. Cue loud music and dancing to a band.

A nice episode to end on. I'm not going to go into any analysis here as it's all tied up with my overview which follows here-

OVERVIEW

The troubled but fascinating Frankie portrayed superbly by Dakota Blue Richards

In a way, expectations were unfairly raised by the first episode which focussed on newcomer and ambi-sexual Frankie who has two gay dads. Her boyish looks immediately set her apart as an outsider and the focus of venom from Mini whose own spite alienated her two friends Grace and Liv. That viciousness we realised later was a result of her own deep-rooted and well hidden sense of inadequacy. The high drama, the cruelty displayed to Frankie, tended to overshadow everything which was to come. It certainly got the viewer's attention.

It took a while to realise this was a very different Skins to the previous two groups. By comparison, this was almost down to earth realistic kitchen sink drama. There were no comedy gangsters (instead a creepy molester who owned a fancy dress shop), no millionaire artist for a mother (though I suppose the revelation of David Blood for a dad was bad enough), no over the top performances by a gallery of comedy and character actors (well, mostly), and the characters themselves were toned down. 

What we got was a slightly hyper-real version of reality, of typical teenage problems -jealousy (Liv), the imposition of unrealistically high expectations (Nick), the search for identity (Frankie), losing their virginity (Mini),  the first serious boy/girlfriend (Rich and Grace) and so on.

The character development works well and convincingly throughout the series and it's entirely believable that Mini has become almost overprotective of Frankie by the final episode (where she even calls Frankie her 'best friend') in contrast to the venomous bitch in Episode 1. Grace, always sweet and loveable, has developed enough inner strength to defy her father. Even Nick (and I always have trouble with alpha males) has developed a certain sense and compassion. Alo, however, remains a well-meaning idiot. With that exception they've all grown up to one degree or another which sets the scene nicely for the next series.

What I felt this missed out was more scenes of the group together or at least in subgroups. There's a good vibe (excuse me for that) in the group scenes even when the scenes themselves involve negative emotions (the Twelfth Night sequences for example). While I've enjoyed the series, it hasn't gripped me in the way the others have done. Then prior to writing about an episode I would watch it more than once on DVD, stopping and starting it as I did write to make sure I had my facts correct and dialogue quoted properly. This time it's been after one viewing so I have made a few errors but I never felt engaged enough to want to watch it a second time shortly after the first.

It's been a likeable show but next time there had better be more or I doubt if we'll see a series 7.

DVD: DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME

Director Tsui Hark is back on form with this fantasy historical mystery featuring Chinese folk hero Di Renji who was used by Robert van Gulik for his Judge Dee series of books.

The film opens with construction on an absolutely enormous hollow statue of Buddha which overlooks the royal palace. It has to be finished for the coronation of the Empress or heads (and probably other parts) will roll as she's a pretty ruthless sort of person. The building interrupted when two officials spontaneously self-combust. So, there's a complicated mystery to solve so who ya gonna call? As only one person has the brains and requisit skills to do it, there isn't much choice. Just one teensy little problem: he's been in prison for five years for stirring up trouble against the Empress who has a lot of rivals.

Needless to say, he's soon on the case, trusting no-one not even the beautiful Jing'er the Empress's right hand woman, or the albino official Pei who are supposed to be helping him. When not attempting to solve the mystery, he's fighting off assassination attempts and demonstrating superior martial arts skills. He's also a rationalist, solving the puzzle by science rather than superstition. However, this is a fantasy historical mystery movie so it's often fantasy science. We don't have any beetles which... Oops, nearly gave away something I shouldn't.

Dee's allies

This is a gorgeous film to look at with spectacular special effects and some great action sequences directed by Sammo Hung. Red herrings abound, many people have deep dark secrets they don't want finding out, Dee can't trust the Empress, or anyone, people are sometimes quite literally not who they seem. I will say one thing: despite all the trappings, the story plays fair when the villain is finally revealed (and has a spectacular fight with our hero) and Dee's deductions presented to the audience.

The only technical aspect which lets the film down somewhat is the subtitling -and I should add that this review is based on watching a Hong Long DVD. The translator doesn't have as good a command of English as he should, frequently getting tenses wrong. Also, contemporary slang is used which is somewhat jarring and together they tend to pull you out of the film. Good subtitling makes for a seamless viewing experience.

This is great fun, just not quite as good as Reign of Assassins.

TV: SKINS 5.7 GRACE

Last week's trailer suggested that the sweet and loveable Grace was as screwed up as most of the others. Not for the first time, the trailer was misleading. Grace does have problems but they aren't of her own making. She also has one big secret which I'm sure the revelation had every viewer sitting upright and thinking Holy shit! I didn't see that coming.

The episode opens with Grace trying to sneak Richard out of the house without her parents seeing. Richard, however, sees her father and is totally gobsmacked. Grace's father is The Prince of Darkness, The Destroyer of Dreams, the Demon Headmaster himself, waspish and effete Professor David Blood (whom I suspected was supposed to be gay. Got that wrong).

Richard manages to get into the garden without being seen. Unfortunately, the Bloods have an aggressive dog (we'll pretend we don't see the wagging tail when it attacks). Being very much the opposite of stupid, the parents know immediately what's been going on but don't bring it out into the open. Instead, later that day, Dad tells Grace he's going to send her back to the academy she previously attended, though he relents if she continues to get straight A's. Richard is invited to a highly uncomfortable dinner, leaving as Grace's three mates arrive for a girly evening (which includes doing coke).

At school, Grace is directing Twelfth Night with all her friends in it. Liv, Matty, and Frankie (playing a girl playing a boy -yes this is the age of metafiction all right: see later) have the leading roles, Rich is Sir Andrew Aguecheek and is apparently pretty good. An external examiner is invigilating the performance and Grace needs to get that A. Professor Blood, however, is not only devious, ruthless, and unscrupulous when it comes to his dealings at Roundview, he's the same with his daughter and tries to blackmail Rich into acting badly. He doesn't know it but this isn't neccessary as Liv is pretty damn sure that Frankie fancies her boyfriend Matty (told you that last week!) and suspects the feeling is mutual. Liv and Matty quit the show and Min takes Liv's role. When Grace tells Min to kiss Frankie (who's supposed to be a boy), she does -and does Min take a microsecond too long over that kiss? I suspect we'll have to wait for the next series to find out. Grace manages to get Liv and Matty back in but there are too many tensions and when they play in front of an audience with the examiner, the play ends in a different manner to that which Shakespeare intended but nevertheless impresses everyone who give cast and director a standing ovation. Grace gets the A and her father tells her, backed by her mother, that she's going back to the academy anyway.

I mentioned metafiction in the last paragraph because this is a thread throughout the episode. Her mother has brought Grace up on stories and Grace considers herself more an actor than a director anyway -in Richard's episode she becomes a heavy metal fan, inhabiting the new persona completely. She plays the best friend, partly because she is a nice person, but also because she likes the happy ending of stories. She convinces herself that, with her help, she can give Liv and Matty their happy ending, but she fails. She tells Richard about the importance of stories. The irony here, that which makes this a metafiction, is that Grace herself is a character in a story (in a tv series called Skins). The use of metafiction like this is a perfectly valid technique but it takes great skill on the part of the writer to pull it off. Neil Gaiman does it brilliantly in The Sandman series, but the writers of Skins are all young and they just don't have the chops to pull this off. Here Grace is pulling us out the story because, by talking about stories, she stops being a character in whom we have an emotional investment and becomes the mouthpiece for the writers.

The end of this episode sets the scene for next week's finale. Late at night, Richard tosses stones at Grace's window. When she steps out on to the balcony he starts quoting Shakespeare at her which segues into a funny clumsy parody of Romeo and Juliet's balcony scene. In her bedroom, he asks her to marry him.

I think it'll end in tears -Skins often does- but I hope I'll be proved wrong. Grace and Richard are this series' Naomi and Emily. Aren't they just adorable?

DVD: REIGN OF ASSASSINS

Barbie Hsu is the name of one of the actresses in this film (far right). The world feels a better place to me just knowing that.

 

You almost certainly won't have heard of this film unless you're a die hard fan of wuxia. (Wuxia is the Chinese genre of historical martial arts swordplay which is very popular in the Far East but a bit of a cult for Western audiences). ROA was released there last year and is a collaboration between producer & co-director John Woo and writer & director Chao-Bin Su. Basically it was directed by Chao-Bin with Woo overseeing the production and he was, I've read, on set every day. Although the rights have been sold in America, Adi Tantimedh (writing on the website Bleeding Cool which is where I learned about it) suspects it might just get buried. And it isn't available in Europe either. The only way you can get hold of a copy is from a Far East dealer -I got mine from Hong Kong for only £6.95 (free postage) on Ebay, along with the new Tsui Hark film Detective Dee which is based on the Robert van Gulik Judge Dee novels and I'll be reviewing it soon.

And on with the film which, in case you weren't paying attention to the image above, stars the sublime, the wonderful, the amazing-

MICHELLE YEOH

-who, as far as I'm concerned, is enough reason alone to buy the DVD. But there are other reasons, lots of them.

Okay, the mcguffin is this -the body of a revered Buddhist monk has been split into two, get them back together and whoever owns it rules the world of martial arts.

Now, the leader of the Dark Stone clan of assassins wants it for himself. Drizzle, his most skilfull warrior (played by Kelly Lin) steals it, hides it, goes to see a surgeon and emerges later as Zeng Jing (Michelle Yeoh). Yeoh sets herself up as a clothes seller and resists the efforts of her neighbour to find her a husband. Instead she finds herself attracted to the kind-hearted one-man post office service Jiang A-shen and they get married. Inevitably the hunters find her and she has to both try and keep her husband safe while maintaining her secret. Needless to say she fails and as the action gets wilder, more and more secrets are revealed including that of her husband. Be honest, you knew he had to have a secret. It would have been more of a surprise if he hadn't.

This is a bold and confident movie. Despite it being an action movie, the writer-director is confident enough in his cast and his characters to allow for long sections of character beats, permitting the viewer to get to know and have more of an emotional investment in them. These sections work well, helped by the skill of the actors so that they are always interesting. Yeoh is, of course, the star of the show. Despite her reputation for her physical skills, which earned her the unqualified admiration of Jackie Chan, she is also a very fine actress who gets better as she gets older. She can suggest so much while appearing to do little.

It goes without saying that the action set pieces are a bravura showpiece of the actors and stunt persons skills, the fight director, and the editing. There's some great wire-fu work which is all the more effective by being less showy than other wuxia movies I've seen. I did notice that some of Yeoh's sequences are performed by stunt people when once she would have  done them herself but she is 50 next year and she must be slowing down no matter how fit she is.

This is just a terrific film and it would have been a good one even with another lead actress, but Michelle is the icing on a very fine confection.

TV/DVD: JOSS WHEDON'S DOLLHOUSE SEASON ONE

 

Yes, it's been out for ages but I've only just bought it. Yes, me, a big fan of Joss Whedon, just bought it and just finished watching it.

Look, when it first aired in this country on Sci-Fi, I watched a few episodes but it just didn't grab me. Didn't help that the Sci-Fi Channel doesn't have subtitles and I couldn't have the tv on too loud so I ended up missing bits of dialogue which didn't help. Finally, a couple of weeks ago I thought what the hell and ordered it.

And it was good and as soon as I'd finished watching the last episode I ordered the last season, that being season 2 because, like the much better Firefly which only lasted one season, it got cancelled. Now when I say that Firefly is much better than Dollhouse, that's like saying Hamlet is much better than Macbeth but that doesn't mean Macbeth isn't a superb play.

While Firefly hit the ground running, it took Dollhouse a few episodes to get into its stride. That was then it stopped being Eliza Dushku's new identity of the week and became more involved with the Dollhouse itself. It's a typical Whedon production: sharp snappy dialogue, lots of surprises, strong characters and a great ensemble cast operating around a strong lead.

The DVD is a good package with a lot of making of extras. The big feature, however, is the original pilot which is very different from the screened first episode. It contains a lot of new scenes but also scenes which were shown but often in different episodes so as to hold back on the payoff of plot twists. It's really worth a watch to see how the show was reshaped after input by Fox executives.

Expect a post on Season 2 in a few weeks time.

MUSIC: 11 DOWNLOADS

Amazon were having one of their for one week only never to be repeated, honest guv, really how can you refuse? deals. In this case it was 10 downloads for £6.00 (or 5 for £3.50 which isn't a good deal) with their normal average price being 69p per download and more recent best selling stuff at 89p. Not the most generous of deals but enough for me to be interested. I'd been primed because I'd recently bought a download of something I thought was terrific. Can you guess what it was?  I'll give you a hint.

Well I didn't want to make it too hard.

So I thought I'd look for ten tracks. Rather than take the obvious route of checking out albums by artists I liked, which would have been typically me, I simply went to Amazon's list of tracks in best selling order until I'd picked ten tracks which interested me. Once I'd downloaded them, I brought them all together along with the download I'd bought a few days ago and put them in alphabetical order of artist.

 Here they are:

Adele: Rolling In The Deep. 

Simply amazing song and an amazingly expressive performance. How can a 21 year old sing so well? I watched her sing it live on an American tv show (via You Tube) and she really is good.

Adele: Someone Like You. 

What I just said, only the song isn't quite as amazing; still pretty good though.

Cee Lo Green: Fuck You.

I caught the Glee rendition of the song as 'Forget You' and rather liked it so I thought I'd go to the source. Oddly, I prefer the Glee version, though I do like this, only not as much.

The Imagined Village: Scarborough Fair.

British folk supergroup, sort of. This comes from their second album released last year. It's an attempt to reclaim it back from Paul Simon by taking it at a slow place utilising fiddle, guitar, accordion and sitar-like sounds. The vocalist is very strong but just not quite strong enough and misses the odd note here and there, but it's still pretty impressive. And, at 6.50, long.

Jessie J: Do It Like A Dude.

Heard a bit about her lately and, like all the others here, I played a sample of the track.Hi energy, heavy percussion, synthesised voice, some rude lyrics, some lyrics I didn't understand, and for some reason it just puts a smile on my face; dunno why but it just amuses me. She is an experienced songwriter and I like her image. She's openly bi, but then that's quite trendy these days.

 

Joanne Shaw Taylor: Going Home.

British guitarist Taylor, now in her mid-twenties and living in Detroit,  has been playing the Blues and her Fender Stratocaster professionally since she was sweet 16 when Dave Stewart gave her a job. She's certainly very competent and this piece of Blues opens slowly and builds. It's a nice piece but nothing you haven't really heard before.

Your homework for this week: Compare and contrast the above two artists.

Lady Antebellum: I Run To You.

An American three-piece band, 2m/1f sharing vocals, good harmonies in a soft rock vein. Very nice.

Lady Gaga: Born This Way.

I'm not convinced either way about the biological determinism argument as being responsible for sexuality. Some gay men and women report they've always felt attracted to their own sex while others report it as coming on during their adolescence and there are numerous accounts of women having a lesbian relationship in their 30's and older -I know two personally. Neverthless, anything which spits in the face of the religious right  and stands up for gay equality is fine by me. Plus I've always liked Lady Gaga who has consistently taken a stand on this issue.

The Oyster Band & June Tabor: Love Will Tear Us Apart.

Popular folkies get together for a jam session which produced this lovely version of one of my favourite songs by Joy Division.

Teddy Thompson: Looking For a Girl.

Just a good performance of a good upbeat  song by singer/songwriter and son of cult figure Richard. Teddy is on his way to being a cult himself -highly talented but mostly overlooked.

Tina Turner: Proud Mary.

It's probably superfluous to say anything about a living legend and the greatest singer of generation but this is just a great version of the song. It starts out slow and delicate before turning into an unstoppable monster as Tina belts it out for all she's worth and that is a hell of a lot.

So: eclectic or what?

TV: SKINS 5.6 ALO

Another website I visited recently pointed out that the Skins formula is becoming very obvious and a little bit repetitive. Focus on one character, reveal that no matter how together they seem on the surface, their lives are a snakepit, build to some form of a resolution where there appears to be a kind of coming to terms with problems. This episode fits perfectly.

Turns out Alo lives on a small farm owned by his parents and he'd rather spend his time masturbating to Internet porn, smoking dope, and hanging out with his friends than helping them out. Symbolic incident: he has to pick stones out of the path of the tractor his father is driving to turn over the soil. In the way is a big lump of rock which Alo vainly tries to wrestle out of the ground. His father tells him to leave it because it's always been there. Translation: this is the way things have always been done; there's no need to change.

But change is what Alo wants. He doesn't want to be bound by the stuffy ways of his parents. After yet another row because they're taking him out of Roundview because his grades stink, he invites the gang round for the afternoon and they make a mess of the farmyard by throwing eggs and flour bombs at each other. Alo decides to go the whole hog and get them to invite everyone they know for a party.

(At the party, a guy tries to dance with and grope Frankie who isn't having it. He gets annoyed, calls her a lesbian and pushes her and Nick slams him against the wall. Frankie rushes outside where's she's joined by Liv who tells her it doesn't matter to them if she's gay, they're just curious. My opinion: she isn't, she likes Matty. Or, she just might not be sure what she is.)

Parents arrives, kids scarper, Dad collapses. 

But it's only due to high blood pressure. Alo eventually goes home. He goes out into the field with his father and the tractor, ties a rope around the rock and, with Dad's approval, uses the tractor to get the rock from the ground. Audience wipes a tear from the corner of their eye.

Next episode is about the loveable Grace who, from the trailer, looks as if she might be bi-polar.

GRAPHIC NOVEL: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: BIG TIME and SUPERMAN: SECRET ORIGIN

 

1. Icons.

There's no question that these two characters are both iconic superheroes. Going further, Superman has become an archetype of the superhuman (even though he's technically not human and, at the very least, he was preceded by Philip Wylie's novel Gladiator). But Superman was the first (1938, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) to appear in comics and his comic book descendants number in their hundreds.

In 1962, Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko created Spider-Man. The difference here was that (although there had been teenage superheroes before, they were usually -with the exception of Superboy- sidekicks with no distinguishing personalities. Peter Parker, however, faced all the usual teenage problems, made even worse (though the terms hadn't been invented then) by the fact that he was both a nerd and a geek but without any other nerds or geeks to hang out with. So was born the superhero with problems which soon became an archetype (or cliche, if you like) of its own, even though in one way Spider-Man is Superman's bastard son.

With Superman being about 73 years old and Spider-man an aging 39, it's not suprising that their origins have undergone several re-interpretations as times have changed. Now while Marvel Comics simply ignored changing times without rebooting Spider-Man (though we have seen several explorations of his origins but they don't change things, rather update them in a little more detail), DC Comics rebooted their entire universe at least three times in the last 25 years. With the first of them, DC hired writer/artist John Byrne to reboot Superman, getting rid of Superboy, Supergirl, and Krypto the Superdog, and de-powering a character who had become virtually (and boringly so) effectively omnipotent in the process.

Superman: Secret Origins is a fresh look (in a 6-part comic series) at Superman's early years starting with him as teenager and ending with establishing himself in Metropolis. Spider-Man: Big Time isn't quite the same, but it is part of an ongoing process to refresh the character and the environment surrounding him. So, apart from the fact that the two trade hardback collections arrived today and I read them both, there is a thematic link which is the reason I'm linking the two together in one review.

2. Superman.

Because of his powers, Superman can easily be boring and uninteresting as a character and credible threats have to be ramped up to ludicrous levels. In this story, however, we're looking at a teenager and a young man learning how to come to terms with his powers and the dangers they involve and in learning about the world. It's a journey to the beginning of maturity and the focus is on the man and not the superhuman. The storytelling is clear, uncomplicated

The art by Gary Frank (a British artist) is clean, detailed, and realistic. If you were to make a criticism it would be to call him Bolland-lite. (Another British artist working in American comics who has a strong clear line in detailed realistic artwork but with an often humourous touch.) His style is pleasing to the eye, his panels never confuse, but genuinely enhance the story.

Geoff Johns is a talented but often inconsistent writer. Here, thankfully he's on good form and he tells the story of Superman's early years with a sensitive touch. He hits all the usual bases -Lana Lang, the first girlfriend, discovering his origin and the trauma it causes, meeting teenage Lex Luthor (before the premature baldness set in naturally, Johns even brings in The Legion of Superheroes. And cut to Clark Kent's wide-eyed country boy arrival in the great metropolis of... Metropolis to start his job on a near-bankrupt Daily Planet. He quickly meets Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane. Lois, and this is where Johns scores very highly, is a sharp intelligent young woman and she quickly notices that Clark's bumbling act is just that and she challenges him on it, though she doesn't get an answer. And on to the conflict with Lex Luthor, hero of the city, which includes effective reworkings of stock Superman villains the Parasite and Metallo. We also meet Lois's  estranged military father who is almost as much of a bastard as Luthor. And there's lots more.

This manages to balance stock scenarios with often subtle changes which enhance this retelling of an oft-told tale. Indeed this is so good it's the perfect introduction to the superhero comic for someone who's never read one before. I was enjoying reading this so much I felt frustrated when I came to the end that there wasn't any more.

3. Spider-Man. 

Spider-Man has always been the most likeable of superheroes, making jokes as he saves cats/people/the city/the world from disaster but, like the legendary comedian, his mask hides a sensitive soul, in this case it's Peter Parker. Unfortunately the comic lost its way over the years drowning a morass of legendary bad long-running epics like the much-loathed Clone Saga. When Marvel, using the talents of writer Brian Bendis and artist Mark Bagley (his art is on the lines of Frank), issued Ultimate Spider-Man, a refreshing reworking of the teenage hero with some new twists the comics fans cheered loudly and this, I suspect lead Marvel to consider reworking the orginal hero.

For the last three or four years, several writers working as a team but now mostly Dan Slott, the character has been revitalised by changes in his life, new supporting characters, new villains, and several surprises. We meet J. Jonah Jameson Jnr's father for the first time (no-one knew he had a father!) who turns out to be as likeable as his son is a pain in the arse and who marries Aunt May. Peter has just got a new girlfriend who works for the police as a forensic scientist, and far too much more to mention.

Big Time, the title is only significant at the end, is the latest collected installment in the revitalisation of the character and it's a good one. Opening with Spidey leading the Avengers against Dr Octopus's robots, we get a new Hobgoblin (oh well) whose secret identity knows Peter. The Black Cat is back to help, mostly, and the Kingpin isn't (well he's back but not to -oh never mind).  But the biggest event is that Peter gets the job he should have always had which sets the scene for major and positive changes.

The art by Humberto Ramos is on the cartoony side which suits the tone of the story. We're talking fun superhero stuff here and definitely not the place to start for those not familiar with the Spider-Man mythos. Those who are will enjoy it a lot.

Post Script: Secret Origin.

"I was enjoying reading this so much I felt frustrated when I came to the end that there wasn't any more."

 And it turns out that there's a very good reason for this. While checking Google Images for stuff to include here, I came across some that weren't in the book. Because they weren't in the book. At least not in my copy which was missing a chapter/issue about Clark's Kryptonian heritage. So I've sent it back to Amazon to be replaced.

Something I omitted to mention, artist Frank, presumably after discussion with or under orders by Geoff Johns, has deliberately modelled Clark Kent after Christopher Reeve which I wasn't sure I'd like but having read the book consider it a fine tribute to the late actor.