SOCIETY: THE GREAT PUBLIC SERVICE STRIKE 30TH NOVEMBER 2011

 

This last image is from Sunderland Civic Centre.

And in case you were wondering-

I'M WITH THEM

GRAPHIC NOVEL: FLASHPOINT (DC, 2011)

DC New Universe: Prologue 2.

When I post an edited version of this review on Amazon I'll be giving it four stars. The graphic novel itself comprises the original 5-issue miniseries, alternate covers, plus a variety of character sketches, with a wraparound image on the book itself which is revealed when you remove the jacket. 

The story is quite well done, albeit somewhat compressed. Scenes, sometimes even single panels, refer to events which take place in the range of single issues and three-part miniseries which surround the core narrative. I wasn't actually going to bother with any of these others when they're collected  except for the Superman tie-in (I'll explain why later), but now, having actually read the whole core story, I find myself interested enough to buy several of the others.

The artwork is good slick stuff by Andy Kubert (one of two comic artist sons of comic artist legend Joe Kubert) in a stylish quasi-realistic super-hero mode being attractive, dynamic and detailed.

Now the story. Barry Allen/The Flash wakes up in a changed world where he isn't the Flash, Batman isn't Bruce Wayne but is prone to kill criminals, Hal Jordan is still a test-pilot, no-one has heard of Superman and the world's great and most trusted super-hero is Cyborg. This, on its own, isn't too bad but, as Barry discovers, things are far worse. Aquaman and his kingdom Atlantis has drowned western Europe and is at war with Wonder Woman  (who killed Aquaman's wife) and her Amazons who have conquered the UK, killed millions and castrated male survivors. This war threatens to destroy the world unless the superheroes can band together to stop them. The problem with this is that most super-heroes hate each other.

As I said above, there's an awful lot going so I can't really go into detail without going on for ages. Just one subplot though: Superman does exist but he's been locked in a secret vault since he arrived on this planet as a baby is isn't the Superman we know. Needless to say, Barry Allen, with his powers returned, faces his arch-enemy who has caused the reality shift and hurtles back in time to get things back on their proper track. Which is when something strange happens. Exactly what, we won't find out until the DC New Universe comics trades are released, though of course we already know (or I get my hands on a copy of the collected 52 first issues in mid-January).

Take away all the reasons behind it and we're still left with a good full of surprises super-hero yarn and that's just fine by me.

 

More images can be found on Google where, of course, I got these from.

CD: THEA GILMORE/SANDY DENNY - DON'T STOP SINGING

Thea Gilmore has achieved the impossible. She's created a new Sandy Denny album. Based on poems, first draft lyrics, and other fragments, Gilmore composed and arranged the music which results in ten songs which you can so easily imagine Sandy singing.

It isn't that Gilmore is copying Sandy, not that anyone could.  Her own voice is quite distinctive and strong enough that she doesn't have to anyway. The arrangements, music and choice of instruments, the way they are played echo Denny without imitating her. I could even say that Gilmore is channeling Sandy's spirit but that would be out of character for me so I won't in case anyone thinks I'm being sentimental. It's an understated, delicate piece of work which grows on the listener. In my case, a first play didn't have much impact, but with the second I suddenly heard with absolute clarity just how much of Sandy was there in this sincere tribute. Georgia, the final track, is about Sandy's baby whom she tragically never lived to see grow up and her, appropriately, Gilmore does sound the most like Sandy, something that is emphasised by a guitar sound which could have been played by Jerry Donahue on a Fotheringay track.

This is a very fine piece of work and a worthy tribute to someone I still regard as the greatest female singer to come from this country.

GRAPHIC NOVEL: SHOWCASE PRESENTS ALL STAR COMICS

Or, to give this post its correct title-

A BRIEF LOOK AT DC COMICS CONTINUITY, DISGUISED AS A REVIEW OF ‘SHOWCASE PRESENTS ALL STAR COMICS’, TO FUNCTION AS A PROLOGUE TO THE DCnU (DC NEW UNIVERSE).

After a gap of about 8 years, I started reading comics again after being introduced to Roy Thomas and Barry (before Windsor) Smith’ version of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian published by Marvel (the collected editions from Dark Horse are reviewed elsewhere in this blog). From then I became, I suppose, a bit of a Marvel zombie. I did pick up the occasional DC title but mostly, apart from Wein & Wrightson’s amazing Swamp Thing, DC hadn’t woken up to smell the coffee –their titles just didn’t have the vibrancy of Marvel’s. But they got better and eventually my consumption of DC titles increased as Marvel’s decreased. DC just had better characters and once the Moore-led British invasion got underway, they were beat Marvel (with rare exceptions like Miller’s Daredevil) hands down.

Feeling a bit nostalgic, I recently picked up Jack Kirby’s Kamandi (see recent review) which in turn got me checking out cheap DC reprints. Their Showcase Presents series collects massive (usually over 500 pages) older titles from the 60’s and 70’s but in black and white, not colour. All Star Comics is one of several I either ordered or am thinking about. The reason I opted for this title is because I’m fond of parallel worlds stories.

Now what is considered the ‘Silver Age’ of comics began in the 50’s with DCs revival of super heroes, creating new characters with older names. The new Flash, was I believe, the first and the original Flash, from whom he took his name was a character from a comic in his world. Until, in one of the most influential comic stories ever, The Flash of Two Worlds, he meets the original Flash who lives in a parallel world (known as Earth 2) which contains all the old characters from DCs initial foray into superheroes which began with Batman and Superman in 1939 which marks the start of the 'Golden Age'.

DC gradually began to reintroduce the Golden Age characters into what became known as the DC Universe, most notably in team-ups of the JLA (Justice League of America) and the JSA (Justice Society of America) their older counterparts. Anyway, in 1976 DC revived their old title, continuing the numbering, adding Presents The Super Squad and, in smaller lettering, Featuring The Justice Society of America. The hideously named Super Squad consisted of Power Girl (Earth 2's less powerful version of Supergirl and an ugly feminist chip on shoulder whereby she constantly has to demonstrate how much better than men she is), Robin (who as a bulked up Dick Grayson is US ambassador to an apartheit-free South Africa) and the Star-spangled Kid who is twenty years out of his own time and feels it. A few issues after Paul Levitz took over the scripting from Gerry Conway, the title lost the Super Squad and it became the Justice Society of America, as it always should have been.

The title lasted four years from the beginning of 1976 to the end of the decade and while, it was mostly conventional super-hero stuff, it did have some fun stuff for DC fans. Bruce Wayne has stopped being the Batman following the death of his wife Catwoman and become Commisioner Wayne. Later in the series, his daughter The Huntress joins the JSA. A grey-haired Superman is still around but spends most of his time as Clark Kent managing editor of the Metropolis newspaper The Daily Star(!). The art, mostly by Joe Staton, is more than adequate, but of more interesting is a number of early issues inked and, in a few cases, pencilled, by the wonderful Wally Wood.

I have to say that I do miss the colour.

Roy Thomas was later to create Infinity Inc, featuring the sons and daughters of the JSA, which basically did the job that the Super Squad was supposed to do only a hundred times better. Sadly, towards the end of series, DC made a disastrous decision.

______________________________________________________________________

Yes, I have to draw a line under it.

DC decided that their multiple worlds was too confusing for readers, especially new readers. It's important to note that there were many parallel worlds other than Earth 2. The Marvel Family lived on Earth-S (S for Shazam). Back in the day Fawcett publishers came out with Captain Marvel which DC decided was a copy of Superman (he wasn't), sued, won, bought out Fawcett and eventually began publishing their own version which, for legal reasons couldn't use the character's name in the title so Shazam was used instead. These days the all-powerful hero is now regarded as an archetype and Superman has dozens of clones. Even Alan Moore paid homage to him in Supreme. 

DC also bought up the Charlton characters (Blue Beetle, The Question, etc) and gave them their own universe. In their own world The Crime Syndicate (an evil JLA) lived and ruled. In another one the Nazis had won and were fought by The Ray, among others.

But enough, said DC. Let's simplify all this. Let's just have one universe where all the characters live except the ones we can kill off for publicity purposes. And so they hired Marv Wolfman to write and George Perez to pencil the first and greatest of all the company-wide crossovers ever -Crisis On Infinite Earths- a 12 issue series which would cross over with every other single DC title. It is inarguably (which, unlike 'arguably', means I'm right so don't contradict me) a superb super-hero story with terrific art. And it did exactly what it was supposed to do which was to rebuild the DC Universe from the ground up. The result was one universe and one universe only -no parallel worlds, only one Superman. Captain Marvel and Superman lived on the same Earth.

Unfortunately the powers that be at DC hadn't thought it through well enough and the next 25 years were packed with crossover series which attempted to fix the inconsistencies and mistakes which came out of Crisis -Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, etc. Parallel worlds were reintroduced in the actually excellent weekly series 52.

But none of it really worked and so DC threw up its collective hands and said, Let's start again from scratch.

And thus came the Flashpoint miniseries and its spin-off titles. 

And at the end of that, every single title was cancelled and a new DC Universe was born with every title starting at issue 1.

I'm not going to go into more detail, though I want to. I'll be reading the collected Flashpoint in a few days. I have on order, though it won't arrive till mid-January, a hardback collection containing all the 52 first issues from the DCnU. The individual title collections (of which I'll be buying a few) probably won't be arriving until May at the earliest.

To be continued.

DVD REVIEW: SUPERNATURAL SEASON 2

 

Okay, it's come to this: I am now hooked on this series. I finished watching Season 2 and am waiting for Season 3 to arrive.

I'm not sure why but this season gelled a lot more than the first. I found myself warming more to the characters but whether this was me being more familiar with the characters, the actors settling into their roles, or better scripts I couldn't honestly say. There were a few recurring characters this time around which helps, even if most of them got killed off by the end, and some good guest stars like Tricia Helfer. The stories seemed to be better even though I could always guess the twists before they were revealed -the nice girl was a werewolf, the woman was a ghost all along, etc. The season finale wrapped up the storyline which had begun with 1.1 and set the scene for a new one. 

Basically I had a lot of fun watching it. It's still a way from being one of my favourite tv series though. If Chuck and How I Met Your Mother would rate a 10 and Eureka an 8.5. Supernatural S.2 probably comes in around 7.25, about the same as Rizzoli & Isles which I've been watching on tv recently. But, like I said, its got me hooked.

Two recurring characters who are still alive at the season's end.

GRAPHIC NOVEL: OSAMU TEZUKA'S THE BOOK OF HUMAN INSECTS (VERTICAL, 2011)

Expanded from an Amazon 4* review

A psychological horror story.

I shudder to think what was going through Osamu Tezuka's mind in the early to mid-70's when this master of the graphic story, known for his compassion and humour, created a series of bleak adult masterpieces which include MW, Ode To Kirihito, Apollo's Song, and Ayako. The Book Of Human Insects preceded all of them and very much sets the tone for what was to come. I have to say that I hate the title, considering it ugly and much preferring the alternative Human Metamorphosis.

The story is fairly simple. An attractive intelligent but completely ruthless young woman, who is completely devoid of empathy, associates with someone of talent in a particular field. She psychologically becomes that person, steals and adapts their work and becomes famous for it. She leaves in her wake a trail of broken lives, suicide, and murder.

It is both fascinating and horrifying at the same time, perhaps even noirish with its femme fatale protagonist. Tezuka populates this graphic novel with a bunch of individual and interesting characters many of whom, even knowing what she is like, are unable to resist her, though one does. Toshiko Tomura, the protagonist herself, is either an enigma or an utterly self-centred psychopath depending upon your own interpretation of what Tezuka is attempting to portray. Even the ending has an ambiguity to it.  It's difficult to discuss actual details without spoiling it so I won't.

The art is standard contemporary-setting Tezuka, containing explicit but never exploitative depictions of nudity, sex, even a brief lesbian encounter, and rape. Unusually, this edition has a dust jacket (see above) but remove it and revealed on the cover are multiple versions of one image -a screaming face.

The images aren't fuzzed out in the book

Tezuka was always fascinated by insects from being a child and clearly the insect theme contains metaphors which, not being well-versed in insect behaviour, have gone over my head. You may well get them.

One thing that is astonishing is that a work of such maturity and skill was published in Japan at the same time as American comics (Undergrounds excepted) were dominated by superhero comics aimed at children and teenagers. It's taken 30-40 years for these mature stories by Tezuka to appear in the West which is just a shame. Better late than never, but it's interesting to speculate what might have happened if western creators had been aware of them then and the impact it could have had. 

Post Script.

I believe that publishers Vertical are going to reprint Tezuka's Adolf series (yes, it both is and isn't what you're thinking) sometime next year. By all accounts this is one of his great works and I'm really looking forward to it. It has been available before  but is now out of print and expensive.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH

We've all got dopplegangers somewhere in the world, people who look almost exactly like us. Once, when much younger, I was walking along a street in Sunderland, saw someone I thought I recognised, and then thought: Oh, that's me. But of course it wasn't. A good episode of How I Met Your Mother was based on this idea. The satirical magazine Private Eye has long been running a series of lookalike photos.

But how many of us have famous dopplegangers? I have. Admittedly he's not enormously famous but he is pretty well known to fans of Australian soaps, particularly Neighbours. He's even got the same first name as me. As I'm assuming most of you lot aren't fans, here he is, Neighbours Harold Bishop.

 

Ian Smith, b.1938

And here's me.

Ian Williams, b.1948

My long lost older brother.

Or am I seeing something that isn't there? Susan insists we look alike. But then recently she's been telling me I look like Russell Brand.

 

 

No, sorry I made a mistake. It's Russell Grant she says that I look like and who, to my delight, was just voted off Strictly Come Dancing this evening.

But please tell me she's wrong.

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: KAMANDI THE LAST BOY ON EARTH by JACK KIRBY (DC, 2011)

I confess I’m not a great Jack Kirby fan. I understand and appreciate his historical importance to the super hero genre but I’ve found his storytelling to be both simplistic and overblown while admiring, on an aesthetic level at least, the vigour of his art.

After basically creating Marvel Comics with Stan Lee (okay, Steve Ditko and Gene Colan may have helped somewhat), he moved to DC at the beginning of the 70’s where he was pretty much given free rein to create his own line of comics. And what he did was create Kirby’s Fourth World which include the god-like villain Darkseid. If you think that name is bad, there’s always the hero Scott Free aka Mr Miracle, and others whose name are too painfully awful to mention. My objection to Darkseid is that he’s so powerful I could never be convinced by his being defeated by DC’s superheroes, not even Superman. DC have been mining Kirby’s legacy ever since and even Grant Morrison couldn’t convince me that Darkseid was a good character. His New Gods have also made some impact on the DC universe, Forever People less so.

Thankfully that wasn’t Kirby’s only legacy to DC. OMAC continues to make an impact and is currently revived by DC as part of the reinvention of the DC universe. As is  Etrigan the Demon whom Alan Moore brought to vigorous life during his run on Swamp Thing, thereby sealing the character’s position in the DC universe. Mind you, Kirby’s original version was pretty good too. And also pretty good was Kamandi The Last Boy On Earth.

It’s a cheap and cheerful intentional rip off of Planet of the Apes.   Kamandi has emerged from Command D, a government shelter where, presumably, generations of humans have lived since a nuclear war, only to find that humans are effectively animals and used as slaves by the variety of tribes of intelligent bipedal animals (lions, tigers, gorillas, etc) who live among the remains of what was, and unrecognised by them, human society. Kirby’s art is at its vigorous best and ably inked by Kirby’s own choice Mike Royer (who provides an introduction) for 20 issues included in this volume, plus a further 13 of the final 20 that Kirby would draw which we’ll hopeful see in a companion to this book next year.

Kamandi is a curious choice for a hero as he’s incredibly arrogant and super confident, convinced that he’s superior to the various animals who believe him to be inferior (like the rest of the humans). It may be a sly joke on the part of the Jewish Kirby to create such a blonde Aryan hero who is a conceited pain in the backside. His story is that of a journey of discovery as he explores this strange new world, having adventures, making friends and enemies and even, briefly, a girlfriend who can talk. There’s also Tiny a nifty version of King Kong who can talk and wants Kamandi as a pet –no, there isn’t a gay subtext- and suffers, you won’t be surprised, the same fate as the original. The animal tribes themselves, by their behaviour, are parodies of human society and there is some social comment here but I wouldn’t pay too much attention to that as Kirby is just here to have fun.

You will too.

At £37.99, Titan publishers’ edition (actually the US edition with a bar code sticker on the back cover) is a bit expensive even for 450 pages of prime Kirby. Amazon’s current price, however, is a much more appealing £22.99. The paper quality is similar to that of the original comic which is fine as that’s what the art and the colouring were designed for and it would look odd on anything else.

Post Script.

In the post from Amazon, another graphic novel by Osamu Tezuka –The Book of Human Insects which was created, I believe, around the same time as Kamandi.

GRAPHIC NOVEL: OSAMU TEZUKA'S PRINCESS KNIGHT VOL.1 (VERTICAL, 2011)

Osamu Tezuka is one of the greats of graphic storytelling. Not to have read anything by him is akin to not having read anything by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Alan Moore, Moebius, Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez, Will Eisner, Frank Miller, etc. Tezuka makes you see the form in a completely new way just as Akira Kurosawa (film), Hayao Miyazaki (animation) and Haruki Murakami (contemporary fiction) do. He is that important.

Tezuka (1928-1989) was an astonishingly prolific writer/artist. His dying words were, apparently, “I beg you, let me work.” He died aged 61, still at the height of his powers, but leaving a vast legacy behind. Although known at the time only as a cult figure to western audiences, he was honoured in Japan where he was accorded the nickname “The God of Manga” for his influence on and contribution to this uniquely Japanese form of graphic storytelling.

His work is enormous in scope ranging from fairly simple children’s adventures to his dark adult-orientated work of the 1970’s, not forgetting his masterpiece, the playfully philosophical multi-volume series Buddha.  But for all the range of work , it is always recognisable as that of the same person. Even in his children’s books there is an underlying compassion, open-mindedness, and empathy for humanity and all our foibles. Even his most famous creation, the exhuberant series of adventures about the child-robot Astro Boy (aka Mighty Atom), is a parable about racism. Yet Tezuka never openly preaches, he lays down his work for the reader to take away what they will.

Note: the book itself is black & white

Which brings me, finally, to Princess Knight, an early work originally published in serial form 1953-56 and then revised and republished 1963-66. Vertical, the publisher who has, and still is, re-issuing many of Tezuka’s finest works state on the blurb that “Princess Knight mixes themes of gender identity and politics with classic shojo-style illustration to create a charming proto-feminist masterpiece…” Wow! Now while this is actually true, it doesn’t make it doesn’t exactly make it sound suitable for children. In fact this is an all-ages fantasy , originally aimed at children (particularly girls) but does possess a certain charm for the older reader.  Vertical, however, are clearly aiming this at an adult audience.

Accidentally given a boy’s heart as well as a girl as a result of the angel Tink (who looks like a young boy) Sapphire has to pretend to be a boy because of the rules of primogeniture in order to stop a nasty person taking the crown. Tink is sent by God to Earth to get the boy’s heart but ends up protecting Sapphire.  I may as well quote again from the blurb otherwise I’d only be paraphrasing it anyway. “Filled with narrow escapes, treacherous, courtiers, dashing pirates, meddlesome witches, magical transformations and cinema-worthy displays of derring-do…” It could almost be the full-length feminist cartoon that Disney never made, though they did rip off Tezuka’s Jungle Emperor when they made The Lion King. Vol.2 is to be published in January and I’ve already ordered it.

But, when you buy your copy, do share it with a child under ten, or, better yet, buy them their own. It’s too good to keep to yourself.

DVD: THE DEAD (2011)

Despite having watched more zombie movies than I feel I should have, I still can’t understand why they are so popular. Basically a zombie is this: shambling rotting corpses, catch people, eat them. And a zombie movie isn’t much more than that, except it centres round a group of people of whom most, if not all, will either become zombies or zombie food by the end of the movie. Zombies don’t have the versatility of vampires or werewolves who can range from predatory monsters to tragic romantic and sexualised (anti)heroes –see Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula for all that in one movie. Zombies, however, are pretty boring monsters and most zombie movies don’t transcend my description above.

And it’s all George Romero’s fault. Until Night of The Living Dead, zombies never ate anyone. They (and they were mostly black) just did as they were told by their master. The only partial exception to that rule was Hammer’s Plague Of Zombies which can be read as a dig at Britain’s class structure.

Until George Romero who established new rules and can be directly blamed for the all the cheap and really really bad movies made by anyone who thinks he (and it is pretty much all ‘he’s’) can make a movie and end up proving they can make a really really bad one. All you need are some amateur actors, basic equipment, and a friendly butcher.

It’s not as if zombies are used much as metaphors (Romero, and Plague of Zombies excepted). All most makers of zombie movies want to do is appeal to gore fans by showing as much human decay and getting as much human insides outside as possible.

Luckily The Dead is a rare exception. For a start it’s set in an un-named African country which seems to consist mostly of semi-arid scrubland. Murphy, our protagonist is the sole survivor of the last flight out when the plane crashes into the sea. Managing to get to shore he begins a journey to find some kind of aircraft to use to get home. On his way he teams up with an African soldier who’s searching for his son whom he believes has been taken to a place of refuge in the north. They travel, initial wariness slowly building into friendship, either on foot or in a dilapidated through sun-baked arid land littered with dismembered corpses and where the shambling, shuffling dead are never very far away.

This is a very powerful and well-made film. The constant threat of the dead (dead-dread) is ever-present and there are very few scenes where the tension is lifted. The gore factor is high but it never seems gratuitous primarily because the camera never lingers. The editing is very tight as it cuts quickly away from horrific images. There a few scares but you can pretty much see them coming such as when Murphy goes into the dark basement of an abandoned building or peers into darkened huts. We never find out why this is happening though the soldier suggests that it’s the earth cleansing itself, which is as good an explanation as any.

This isn’t just that rare thing, a good zombie movie, it’s a good movie full stop.

Post Script

Just one odd thing which struck me. You never see any animals in this film. I would imagine that with all the corpses around and the walking dead themselves, the place would be paradise for scavengers  and predators like wild dog packs, jackal, hyenas, and lions. I suspect the reason for this omission was either budgetary -it would cost too much- or because such scenes might detract from the focus of the film, probably the former.

RECENT ARRIVALS: BOOKS, DVDS, GRAPHIC NOVELS

These may or may not get reviewed later.

Contrary to the above image, Haruki Murakami's latest and longest work -1Q84-  is actually published in two volumes. The first contains Books 1 & 2, the second (which I've just started is) Book 3. Needless to say it's an amazing piece of work and Murakami is one of my very favourite writers. He's unique and brilliant with an absolute mastery of prose.

Also from Japan is another one of my big favourites -writer/artist the late Osamu Tezuka (no stranger to this blog) with one of his earlier works (serialised 1953-56) and now published in two volumes by Vertical. Unlike their other editions of his work, Vertical haven't flipped Princess Knight and so it reads from back to front and from right to left which is a bit of a pain.

About as far from Princess Knight as you can get is Adam Macqueen's Private Eye: The First 50 Years. With an RRP of £25.00 for this hefty hardback, Amazon are selling it for £12.50 but I bought it from Amazon Warehouse for £8.50. Az Warehouse is an Amazon outlet that sells new but damaged items at a reduced cost. In this case the damage was a minor crease to the top of the front jacket cover so as far as I'm concerned I've got a bargain.

The book itself is great. Written by an Eye insider who is more than willing to display the magazine's warts and all (indeed it would extremely hypocritical given the Eye's willingness to expose those of others not to do so) and is arranged on an A-Z basis, with plenty of cross-references to enable the reader to follow particular strands, which makes it an ideal book to dip into rather than wade through. In an odd way it's also a kind of a history of the underbelly of British society of the last half century given then number of scandals that the satirical magazine has brought to light. Lots of photos and cartoons too. Great stuff. (That was the the review.)

Next up is a book I happened to see in Waterstones. I never actually buy books there, I just check it out to see if there's anything I've missed, which does happen sometimes, and then order it from Amazon or one of their marketplace dealers. It's an absolutely massive collection of short stories, one of the largest I've ever seen being a large format paperback over 1100 pages long and in a 2-column format. The writers range from Algernon Blackwood to China Mieville (check out the names on the cover) and span over a century of writing. I'm looking forward to reading it but don't hold your breath waiting for a review; it may take some time.

 

This DVD was loaned to me by my friend Ian Penman who has a particular interest in the 1960's British pop scene. It's a biopic of Joe Meek, the brilliant but nutty independent record producer. I was a teenager around the time the events of this film took place so it should bring back some memories. I actually saw Heinz (the blonde on the sleeve above), one of Meek's proteges at the Sunderland Odeon (a cinema now bingo hall) on one of those one-night pop star package tours which were so popular at the time. A classmate boasted he gave V-signs to the singer.

Yes, I know this comes from 1992 but I've never seen it and picked it up for 50p at the Animal Krackers charity shop (see my Cat Rescuing blog).

I've got to watch this African-set zombie movie in the next few days as I received it as a review copy from Amazon Vine (the review freebie programme of which I am a happy member) so expect to see the review here soon.

DVD: ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE (2006)

Mixed reviews when this came out meant it didn't bother until recently when I read a review in a list of under-rated horror movies. Now normally I'd do a review for Amazon and reprint it here (or vice versa), unless there were so many reviews already that anything I had to say would have already been said by someone else. But that isn't the reason I'm not doing an Amazon review. In order to review it all, without making it sound like an absolute bog-standard slasher, I would have to mention that it has a twist. Once you are aware that there is a twist you've just about guessed what it is. I know I did. I also got it wrong but not completely wrong; or, I got it right but not completely right.

So what I'm going to do is just review it here and if there's the slightest chance you may want to watch it -stop  reading now because I'm going to reveal the twist.

The leading role is played by Amber Heard in her first leading role. She's since had several and is highly regarded as a very promising young actress. She's especially popular in lesbian circles as she came out three years ago and has been in the same relationship with another woman for three years. It's nice to see that this hasn't affected the parts that she's been getting. Of course there's no reason why it should. Extremely openly gay Neil Patrick Harris has been playing a compulsive womaniser in How I Met Your Mother for seven seasons now and doing it very well. 

Okay, here's a decent picture of Heard.

And here's another from the film.

Mandy Lane is lusted after all by all the boys at her school. She a virgin, she's unattainable, she's slightly withdrawn but seems nice, she's athletic, she's friends with a bullied male outcast. At a party, the outcast tries to defend from a lecherous bully and later sits on a roof overlooking the pool where all the kids are. The bully, drunk but behaving decently, tries to get into coming down, but the outcast talks him into jumping off the roof into the pool. He says he'll jump too but he doesn't and the bully breaks his neck.

Several months later, Mandy is no longer friends with the outcast as a result of the incident and has agreed to go away to a ranch for a weekend with three boys (absent parents of one of the boys own it) and two girls. All the boys want to get into her pants, two of them are pains in the arse, one of them (the black kid) is okayish, both the girls are bitches. There's a macho good guy ranch hand.

Then someone starts killing the kids.

Now, knowing there was a twist, I came to a certain conclusion which is invited by the title. All the boys may love Mandy Lane, but does Mandy love the boys? Is Mandy going to be the killer? I certainly thought she was until the first killing when she's in a different location with the rest of the kids. It isn't that long before we do find out the killer's identity and it's the only other person it was ever likely to be -the outcast.

However I still had my suspicions about Mandy. One scene later on has her in the bathroom comforting a girl (see picture) and it almost looks as if Mandy is going to kiss her at one point but she's interrupted by the boys. Was I, knowing Heard is gay, imagining the sexual tension between the two or was it part of the character of Mandy?

Finally we come to the climax. The ranch hand has been shot but Mandy's bound up his wound. Shortly after the last surviving boy is killed and the girl (see above) is running across fields, pursued by the outcast, towards Mandy and they embrace. A moment later we hear the 'shuck' of a knife entering a body. Mandy steps back and lets the girl drop.

Yes, I was right. Mandy was in cahoots with the killer. But this is where it gets particularly disturbing. Now the kills themselves aren't over the top gory in the sense of Friday 13th or the Hatchet movies, but they are brutal. The victims are rarely dispatched quickly but viciously beaten or stabbed several times. When Mandy moves to meet her partner in crime, she ignores the moans of the dying girl, casually pulling the knife from her stomach to leave her dying slowly, blood bubbling from the wound. The outcast now expects himself and Mandy to commit suicide together but Mandy, who's been manipulating him all along, has a different idea but it doesn't involve him being alive. 

It's never spelled out clearly, though there have been oblique clues, but Mandy is a psychopath. She's never been enthusiastic or particularly emotional about anything during the entire course of the film. The outcast may not have all his marbles, but you can understand his motives for killing -the years of being bullied, of being an outsider. Mandy's motives, other than amusement, are less clear, if she has any at all. There's a drawn-out scene where the outcast chases Mandy at reneging on their agreement but she manages to beat him to death. Walking away, she goes to the badly injured ranch hand and helps him, presumably on the grounds that one living witness supporting her story is better than everyone being dead whereby suspicion could still be cast on her. Once you know the secret, you're forced to rethink the entire film and all of Mandy's actions, making this a cut (sorry) above the usual slasher movie.

A last embrace