Review


Somebody should slap Frank Miller

Over the weekend I received two comic collections that make me want to slap Frank Miller, then go and read some of his stuff from back when he was good.

The Best of The Spirit collects 22 episodes of the newspaper strip that made Will Eisner’s name and influenced so many other comics, including Miller’s. The 7 page tales are almost always self contained and often experimental. Most of all, they’re light. Even the darkest of subjects is addressed with, but never undermined by, humour. Miller’s recent film based upon The Spirit replaced the humour with overblown attempts at wackiness and buried the rest under Sin City style grim and uberviolence. After watching the film I merely thought Miller had made a disappointing movie. Now I’ve read the originals I agree with the other Spirit fans who think he’s massacred something special.

The other book I received was All Star Batman and Robin: The Boy Wonder, which collects the first eight issues of Miller and Jim Lee’s series about the boy sidekick’s origin. Will Eisner could have achieved more in 7 pages than Miller and Lee manage in any two issues of this comic. Miller’s writing, and- judging by the cover gallery- his art, has become a bad pastiche of the great work he did on Dark Knight Returns and tears apart the well balanced characters established in his Batman: Year One. The only thing I can say in favour of All Star is that Miller’s only tarnishing his own reputation with it, rather than dragging down one of comics’ greats.


The Dead Code

I watched WarGames: The Dead Code last night. I think the best word to sum it up is unnecessary. Replacing nuclear holocaust with bioterrorism and WOPR with RIPLEY it follows almost exactly the same arc as the original film, right down to a virtual replay of the ending.

All this film did was make me want to watch the original again. It’s WarGames‘ 25th anniversary this year. If you can play Region 1 discs there’s a 25th Anniversary edition coming out soon. Wired talked to some of the people involved in WarGames, including the scriptwriters, director John Badham and geek crush Ally Sheedy.


Rat Pack Confidential

The Rock and Roll lifestyle existed before Rock and Roll, and it was lived by the Rat Pack. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis jr were the core, with Peter Lawson and Joey Bishop key members and any number of showbiz chums, gangsters and girlfriends rounding out the numbers. The name was originally coined by Lauren Bacall, a slightly condescending term for the guys who hung out with her husband Humphrey Bogart. After Bogie’s death Sinatra became The Leader and his merry band went on to become loved and hated in equal measure.

Rat Pack Confidential takes the filming of Ocean’s Eleven as the starting point of the Pack’s heyday and looks first back, at how the main players got there, and then forward at the slow disintegration of the group.

Sinatra comes across as a prick, a spoilt child given to tantrums if he didn’t get his way and always over estimating his closeness to his mobster friends and influence with the Kennedy clan. He so misread the Kennedys that it almost got him killed by the mob after promising far more than he could deliver.

The hero of the group, albeit tragic and terribly flawed, had to be Sammy Davis. A black man who converted to Judaism, he fought prejudice throughout his career. At first he just wanted to be let onto the floor of the Vegas casinos he played at, if only to gamble away his earnings and chase white women, but along the way he had an epiphany and started working for full integration. His friendship with Sinatra certainly helped, and Ol’ Blue Eyes put his weight behind better pay and billing, but Sammy’s mentor would still stand in the wings making racist heckles whilst Davis was on stage.

Dean Martin was just along for the ride, that little bit distant and possibly the only person who could stand up to Frank and still stay in favour. But it is Joey Bishop who comes out of the tale with the most dignity. Brought in to emcee the Pack’s chaotic “Summit” shows he was the only person who could keep some semblance of control on stage without causing a Sinatra hissy fit. Lawson, last and certainly least of the five, was a tragic figure. Mostly he was courted because of his position of brother in law- and pimp for- John F Kennedy and suffered at the whim of the egos on both sides.

Fascinating stuff, and all told in a conversational style that reads like the patter of the Pack, or at least one of their closer hangers on. Of course, after reading a book like this it’s hard, no matter how great his talent, to have any affection for Sinatra the man, but that’s a risk you take.


Dracula AD 1972/ Lust for a Vampire

I’ve had a mini Hammer fest this week.

Dracula AD 1972 opens in 1872, with the final battle, atop a speeding carriage, between Lawrence Van Helsing and Dracula, which ends with Van Helsing dead and Dracula spiked and dusty. Enter a creepy smirking man who bottles some vampire dust and buries it in an unconsecrated corner of the graveyard where VH rests in Final Peace.

Cut forward a hundred years and creepy, smirking Johnny Alucard is hanging out with a bored group of pseudo hippies who include Van Helsing’s great great granddaughter. You just Know no good is going to come of it when he persuades them to hold a black mass in the recently deconsecrated church where her forebear is buried. Cue bright red, gloopy blood, Christopher Lee and heaving bosoms. With her gang being mutilated or turned miss Helsing has to rely upon the wiles of her grandfather to save the day.

Although it’s always interesting to watch a period piece like DAD 1972 I did feel there were a few things missing from it. Those things were naked breasts, bisexual vampire babes and a nineteenth century finishing school in the mountains of made up Styria. Luckily, Lust for a Vampire had all of these things.

It’s 1830 and vampire dynasty the Karnsteins are due to walk the Earth again. The locals are wise to this, but it doesn’t matter because a dotty old English woman has set up a finishing school just across the field from the castle ruins and enrolled lots of luscious young ladies who like to flounce around in light gowns and brush one anothers hair whilst topless. Enter from one direction Richard Le Strange- noble author of works that are unsuitable for young ladies- and, from the other, Mircalla- an alluring blonde capable of making men and women fall hopelessly in love with her.

Everyone who goes to the lake or castle for an assignation with Mircalla disappears, usually ending up at the bottom of a dried up well. Except Le Strange, who appears to be the only mortal capable of seducing her. But their love is not to be, because the villagers are breaking out the pitchforks and flaming torches and the father of one of Mircalla’s conquests has arrived from Vienna seeking answers. All quite predictable, but that’s not the point, and definitely not a problem when the film managed to reduce me to a thirteen year old, shouting at the screen, “Boobies! Show me the vampire boobies!”

Now to go away and add more Hammer films to my dvd rental list.


Crooked Features

A few weeks ago I received the Crooked Features DVD AKA ‘The Making of “Attack ofthe Clowns”‘. It’s a low budget mockumentary about the making of a low budget movie. Whilst the humour was a bit too much from the Office school for me to like it had its moments.

Rod Shuffler is a seasoned porn director- the number of films he claims to have made goes up as the film progresses- who wants to make a mainstream film and/or win a best film award at the SHAFTAs rather than yet another LIfetime Achievement gong. However his efforts are stymied by his use of his usual cast and crew, though with a new leading lady, and the funder Mr. Barclays threats of dire consequences if there are no sex scenes.

The film follows an obvious trajectory through casting, location shoots and rewrites toward the final orgy scene that you know isn’t going to happen and a somewhat anti-climactic “let’s just shoot the film we always meant to” ending. It would have worked better for me if it had been less like an attempt to do The Office meets Boogie Nights, but that’s personal taste. Still it’s worthy try, on a fraction of the budget of I Want Candy.


Black Barty

The life of the eighteenth century pirate was significantly different to the romanticised version portrayed in the movies. A ship that spent too long at sea was a smelly, damp, disease ridden vessel that needed constant work. Hulls required regular careening, where they were grounded and tipped to be cleaned below the waterline. The slightest wound could go gangrenous and become fatal. And shipmates were violent drunkards or forced men enlisted against their will from victim vessels.

On the other hand, a pirate ship was a surprisingly democratic place. Captains served at the whim of their crews and could be voted out at any time, particularly if they didn’t provide sufficient plunder or were considered unlucky. Booty was shared fairly. Captain, quartermaster and boatswain received extra shares and there were bonuses for being in a boarding but the rest was shared evenly. Given the appalling conditions endured by crews on commercial ships and indentured servants in the colonies it wasn’t surprising that many a forced man became a willing rapscallion.

Black Barty, subtitled The Real Pirate of the Caribbean, tells the tale of one pirate band and their most successful captain- Bartholemew Roberts. The welsh seaman was one of the enthusiastic converts after being forced and was voted captain within months of joining the crew. Roberts was more daring than most pirate captains, understanding that the greatest rewards were to be gained from the greatest risks. He took to raiding ports, catching several ships at a time rather than hoping to catch individuals on the high seas. Changing ships regularly, but usually renaming them some variant on Fortune his crew roamed from the Caribbean as far north as Newfoundland and across the Atlantic to Africa, where the Royal Navy finally caught up with him.

This is an interesting book let down by poor editing. Pull quotes are regularly wrongly formatted and far too many sentences had grammar errors or confused phrasing. If you can get past these, read it to find out details of the pirate’s life that Disney left out.


Pedal to the metal and finger on the trigger

Ever since my youthful days of playing Car Wars I’ve been on the lookout for a video game that captured the joy of driving along blowing shit up that I got from the card and graph paper experience. Interstate ’76 (and its less satisfying sequel Interstate ’82), came closest, with a storyline, similar damage allocation (in ’76 anyway) and scope for customisation and level building. The Interstate series still has a loyal following and has inspired such homages as Battlefield Interstate ’82, a Battlefield 1942 mod. Sadly, I’ve long since lost my I76 and I82 disks. I may have to get myself new copies.

Full Auto isn’t a pretender to the Interstate crown- it’s more Burnout with guns- but it’s still a satisfying diversion. It combines many of the standard racing game formulae with a highly destructable environment and sets you loose with twin M60s on the bonnet and a mine layer in the boot (or other weapons combos, but that’s our favourite). The aim isn’t just to finish first. In the same way that Project Gotham has Kudos points, Full Auto doles out Wreck points for maximum carnage. The coveted Full and Semi Auto ranks usually require minimum amounts of wreck points, so you can’t just plan to get ahead and stay ahead, you have to shoot everything that moves as well.

One of the best features of the game is Unwreck, which allows you to rewind back from a cock up or destruction. We thought it was a bit of a gimmick, until we tried it. It’s been our salvation several times when we’ve found subtlety and precision haven’t quite worked.

There’s supposedly a storyline to the game- something to do with gangs of homicidal street racers trying to take over your town and the only way to stop them being to cause even more damage than they do- but I’ve yet to see evidence of it. We’ve worked our way through series for the three different classes of vehicle and now we’re moving on to themed races. Maybe they’ll provide the story, but who cares?

There’s a sequel- Full Auto 2: Battlelines, but it seems to only be available for the PS3, which is disappointing for 360 owners such as us.

Now, if we could only get Damian to let us mount shotguns on his car……..


Review – Crooked Little Vein

Warren Ellis’ first novel is full of subject matter that should be familiar to you if you visit his blog regularly. Started, he insists, as something of a joke to appease his agent he had to finish it when she managed to sell it almost immediately.

Mike McGill is a private investigator fallen on hard times and with a knack for getting the most screwed up cases. When his new client describes him as a “shit magnet” he can’t even argue with them. That client is the President’s chief of staff and he wants McGill to track down the alternative Constitution of the United States, a book that will help reboot the country’s morals to those of a simpler, more repressed age.

With a half million dollar expense account and a polyamorous assistant along for the adventure McGill sets off for a trawl through America’s underbelly, where the Constitution has become a form of pervert currency. Along the way he has to deal with testicular saline injectors, cattle mutilators, porn barons and serial killers and then decide whether he should even hand the book over if he finds it.

Crooked Little Vein is a short book, Ellis’ prose is sharp and trimmed down, but it’s packed with dark humour with some hilarious one liners and set pieces. I read it in a few hours whilst waiting to do some extra (sorry, Supporting Artiste) work on Friday and was lost to the world for a few hours.


DEBS

This is the campest film I’ve seen in a while. It manages to hide a coming out tale in a spoof on Charlie’s Angels, Buffy and the like. Whilst there are few laugh out loud moments I did watch it with a smile. And it has an excellent soundtrack to boot.

DEBS are recruited from the ranks of America’s students. Special hidden questions on the SATs pinpoint young women with the skills- lying, violence, intelligence- suitable for a career in spying. They are trained at a campus populated with hot women in short plaid skirts with holographs everywhere and some sort of teleport system.

The film doesn’t quite work at first. It takes the appearance of sexy supervillainess Lucy Diamond to get into its stride. Still pining after being heartbroken she keeps itching to sink Australia as revenge. Her planned meet with a Russian assassin (who would much rather be a dancer) is actually a blind date.

A DEB team stakes out the date, along with Homeland Security, CIA, FBI and Interpol. But top student Amy has other things on her mind- she’d rather go to an art college in Barcelona and her ex-boyfriend is getting obsessive. Everything goes wrong and Amy finds herself in a stand-off with Lucy, where they start flirting.

So begins Amy’s journey of self discovery. At first denying her attraction it takes her kidnapping by the smitten Lucy for her to accept her feelings. However friends and duty get in the way and Amy has to make a choice between her new lover and everything she’s been training for.

The film is based upon a 2003 short of the same name by the same writer/director. Where do I find a copy of that, I wonder?

Update What a silly question. I can find it on YouTube, of course.

And Part Two is here.


Dynamite Warrior

If you liked Ong Bak you should definitely check out the insane sub-genre that is Thai martial arts movies. They have a wonderfully absurd approach to plot and masses of tongue in cheek humour.

Dynamite Warrior (Region 1 dvd version) is a delightfully absurd action/supernatural/martial arts/revenge/comedy melange. His parents murdered when he was a child, the hero has grown up to be a rocket armed Robin Hood, stealing oxen from traders and giving them to poor villagers as part of a quest for revenge. Meanwhile evil, effete Lord Hwang is trying to introduce the steam driven tractor to Thailand and can only overcome its expense by hiring a bandit who only fights when he’s hungry to kill all the oxen traders and steal their cattle. No, this didn’t make any sense to me for the first twenty minutes either, but stick with it.

Enter Singh, a magically protected oxen trader with two lackeys who are possessed by monkey and tiger spirits. Convinced he has found his parents’ killer, the hero must consult the Black Wizard to find out how to strip Singh of his powers. Cue a plotline involving the menstrual blood of the Black Wizard’s “daughter” being the elixir needed to subdue Singh and the obvious conclusion that taking her virginity means the effects cannot be put right again. (All of which isn’t quite as creepy as it sounds, even though some lack of clear thinking means that within the film’s timeline she’s no older than 11.)

The effects are basic but fun- you can see the wires as the hero rides a rocket Silver Surfer style- but the film isn’t relying on them. The fights are fun, if not as inventive as some in the genre and, once you get your head round its absurdities, the plot is straight forward. In the end the hero saves the girl (and her virtue remains intact, hopefully for several years), kills the baddies and, no doubt, learns important lessons about the nature of revenge.

Note I was going to provide links here about the magical properties of virginity but, though the search has turned up some interesting stuff, I’ve been unable to find anything apart from a page about unicorns that had embedded music and thus shall remain unlinked.


The Protector

This was Jackie Chan’s first lead role in an American movie. It’s a bit nastier than his other work, having some of the grimness and sadism that passed for depth in US films of the mid eighties.

After seeing his partner shot, New York cop Billy Wong (10 years in the USA exactly) chases down the drugged up robber who pulled the trigger and takes him out with a speed boat. The creepiest part of the boat chase was the way the twin towers seemed to be in every shot. Billy gets busted down to crowd control for his actions, teamed up with gruff vet Garoni (Danny Aiello). When an untouchable drug baron’s daughter is kidnapped on their watch they’re sent to Hong Kong to rescue her from his erstwhile business partner.

Back in the colony, Chan seems more at home. There’s an inventive fight in a massage parlour and one of the oddest chases ever. Chan leaps from junk to junk in Hong Kong harbour as he tries to catch a triad lackey in a boat. There’s much more nudity than I’d expected for a Chan movie, including the rather matter of fact way the baggers in the heroin factory are naked so they can’t pocket any of the product.

The nastiness makes this less satisfying than the average Chan and I was disappointed that there was no bone crunching end titles blooper reel.


F-35

Because we were arguing about the F-35’s abilities after watching Die Hard 4.0 last night.

Wikipedia on the F-35. (It even notes the plane’s part in the film.)


F-35 vertical taking off and hovering.

The film’s great fun, not letting up much and only presenting a few bits that looked wrong (surely when your truck’s leaning so hard the left hand side’s in the air you’d steer right, into the lean, not left, much like steering into a skid). It’ll probably be trounced by Transformers as brainless action movie of the summer, but recommended as two hours of simple fun.

If you want to see what went before, you can get the Die Hard trilogy at Amazon. 4.0 is easily as good as Die Hard 3, and definitely better than 2, but the original, with its inventive use of the office tower location, is still the best.


My Name is Modesty

For all my comic geek credentials, I know precious little about Modesty Blaise beyond the fact that she was a character in a newspaper adventure strip. I had to refer to wikipedia for more details of Modesty’s life before this film.

My Name is Modesty is quite true to the character’s previous appearances, even if creator Peter O’Donnell isn’t entirely happy with it. It isn’t, however, the film the box art promises. Rather than a caper-ish story of espionage and spy-jinks we get something that looks like the feature length first episode of an abandoned Alias rip off television series. It’s “presented” by Quentin Tarantino, but more because he wants to use the character himself than for any artistic merits of the film.

Her casino and gang controlling boss killed in an ambush, Modesty must protect her employees from a man intent on stealing the funds of an upcoming drug deal. Bartering hostages against questions she challenges him to roulette- the holder of the most chips after every three spins getting to ask something or see someone go free. Losing a lot more than she ought to, Modesty gives up the story of her early life- how she was a child in the Balkans who escaped a camp with mentor and father figure Lob and finally came into the employment of gang leader Henri Louche.

The film’s pacing is stilted and there’s no real tension. The roulette game, which could have been an interesting moment in amongst action scenes, is dragged out for far too long. Only at the very end do we get to see the Modesty we’ve been promised, and then it’s not as well choreographed as you’d hope.

The actors were all a bit wooden, and they weren’t helped by a basic script. Leading lady Alexandra Staden is attractive in a refreshingly non-Hollywood way, if a little frail and pale for someone who spent her adolescence and early adulthood trekking around the Mediterannean. I’d like to see more of her as an action heroine, but in a role that suggested more English rose with extra thorns than feral kid from the Balkans made good.

More Modesty Blaise stories.

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Ex Machina: Tag

I don’t buy comics any more, but I have started popping down to the library to read its graphic novel selection. Today I picked up Ex Machina: Tag, and I’m impressed.

The series follows Mitchell Hundred, one time superhero and now mayor of New York, flashing back and forth between his election campaign and present difficulties. Several years before Hundred was caught in the explosion of an unknown piece of technology and developed the ability to “talk” to machines. After a career spent saving the odd life and wearing a costume he admits is extremely dorky, he outed himself and announced he was running for Mayor. Along the way he attracted the attention of the NSA and several foreign intelligence services, leading to dangers he’d much rather do without.

Having won the mayoral race after involvement in a pivotal moment in modern history Hundred now finds himself in office and facing the fraught questions of school vouchers and gay marriage. Meanwhile something is very wrong with his NSA handler and a mysterious tag linked to his powers is showing up on the subway walls and inducing homicidal and suicidal behaviour.

The idea of a superhero turning to politics can’t be new, but it certainly hasn’t been explored much. Brian K Vaughn does a good job of mixing the West Wing with the Iron Man. There is a hint that Hundred’s condition has left him somehow other than human. Some times the decisions he makes are based upon tactical rather than emotional thinking- a lot like many a political animal- but he does seem to be getting some of his humanity back. I imagine this is a thread to be investigated in future episodes.

I’m going to be looking out for other volumes from this series on the library shelves and when I’m feeling rich enough I may even buy copies.

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Tea

With a title like that how could I resist this book?

In the early 60s Roy Moxham, then aged 21, left Britain to manage a tea plantation in Nyasaland. He arrived just as British colonial power was waning and tea workers were organising against mistreatment. One of the most hated practises was the imperial claiming of African common land and the subsequnt charging of rent to those who lived on it, requiring a month’s work a year to pay for the privilege of staying in their ancestral homes.

Treatment of coolies elsewhere and earlier was far worse than this, a theme that comes up over and over in this history of the tea trade. Introduced to England, allegedly, by Charles II’s Portuguese wife, tea went from an addiction of the rich to a drink so vital to national morale that the government took control of its supply during wartime. Along the way tea became a highly smuggled commodity and affected global politics because of the methods used to procure ever larger supplies.

The early history of the tea trade into Britain is tied to the East India Company. Early chapters in teh book tie into the events in Nathaniel’s Nutmeg. Whilst the company was having a hard time in the spice trade it was doing very well out of tea.

At first, the only source of the precious leaf was China, which would only take payment in silver. the English treasury was worried about the drain of silver from the nation’s coffers and sought to restrict it. Directly or indirectly the East India Company took to buying opium in India, selling it for silver in China and using this silver to purchase tea. When the Chinese tried to crack down on the opium trade Britain sent a fleet to “negotiate” for its reinstatement. The ensuing conflict ended with the Chinese ceding of Hong Kong to British rule and continued opium trading.

Eventually, the British looked for other sources of tea, and found them in India and Ceylon. Here, with local and imported tea, whites had direct control of the beverage’s production and grossly mistreated their workers- treating them like slaves long after slavery had been officially abolished. These and other aspects of the trade’s history are covered by Moxham in this interesting book.

Now, I must find a history of the East India Company to tie all these tales together.
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Reefer Madness

Three long essays, and an extensive notes and bibliography section, make up this book that looks at the US’ illegal and semi-legal economy. Eric Schlosser studies the politics and economics of marijuana, the growing illegal immigrant worker army and one man’s domination of the porn industry.

For over a century American politicians and moralisers have demonised cannabis and all who smoke it. The emphasis has always been on the harmful effects of the demon weed could have on middle class white kids. Senences for handling, or aiding the handling of, marijuana have escalated to the point where you can get a smaller sentence for murdering someone than for dealing a little dope. Meanwhile the system of paying informants and seizing assets has encouraged massive corruption.
As with any ill thought out, reactionary policy it’s the poor who suffer the mostwhilst the wealthy get away with their crimes and the powerful demonise those least able to fight back. The US prison system is underfunded and incapable of coping and the whole war on drugs is failing.

Per acre, strawberries are second only to marijuana. It is also one of the few cash crops that still cannot be effectively mechanically picked. So the strawberry farms of California rely on Mexican workers, many illegal, to harvest the berries and keep the costs down.

Conditions today are almost worse than thosefor the Okies in Grapes of Wrath. Unions have been broken up and pickers and sharecroppers exploited by unscrupulous farmers and combines.

The last essay traces the career of Reuben Sturman, a Cleveland comic salesman turned smut peddler who, at his peak, was the most powerful individual in the US porn industry. Consistently the obscenity cases brought against Sturman collapsed. In one ruling the jury produced a multi-page response berating the government for wasting time and money.

Such high profile embarrassments made Sturman a target for the authorities and in the end they got him for tax evasion. Not wanting to give money to the system that was trying to put him out of business, Sturman operated through increasingly complex series of shell companies and off shore accounts. Only by alleging, based on evidence it still won’t release, that Sturman had connections to the Mafia could the IRS get access to his Swiss accounts and make their case.

Throughout the essays it is clear that Schlosser is exasperated by successive governments’ inability to set the right priorities and hypocrisy in ignoring the behaviour of Enron et al. He seems to have warmed less to Sturman than his other subjects, but it is harder to feel for a tax cheat who resorted to strong arm tactics at the end than a man who could die in prison because he tried to supply somne medical marijuana.

Like Fast Food Nation, Schlosser’s look at junk food culture, this book makes you despair for the state of the US. However, unlike the expanding waistline, it looks like some of the problems aren’t going to exported, as other countries, including Britain, adopt more civilised drugs laws and others can manage to be grown up about sex.

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Man On Fire

This is a good looking film, beautifully shot, well acted and with fine direction. But none of that can save it from the nasty message at its heart.

Creasy is a former covert operative scarred and driven to drink by years of unspecified dark deeds South of the Border. Winding up in Mexico he takes a job guarding Pita, the daughter of a local businessman (Dakota Fanning, who is perhaps too blonde to be convincingly half Mexican).

As the first hour drags on the poppet works her magic and Creasy begins to care for her. So, of course, she gets kidnapped and he is shot trying to stop it. When the ransom payment is hijacked and Pita isn’t returned Creasy, still badly wounded and symbolically bleeding in swimming pools, vows revenge and works his way up the gangster hierarchy.

This is the sort of film apologists for Abu Ghraib and Gitmo must love. Creasy has no problem torturing people to get information and, unlike real life, they always tell him what he needs to hear, rather than what he wants, they all deserve it because they’re sadistic child killers and he never accidentally chops the finger off an innocent man. He doesn’t have to worry about the possible collateral damage from dropping cars off cliffs above football pitches or RPG’ing them in mid town traffic, because his quest is so Just.

We’re supposed to accept that Creasy is atoning for past sins, but really he’s just committing them again in a freelance capacity. If anything the unsurprising twist at the end lessens Creasy’s redemption rather than validates it. And I could have done without the bullshit philosophising about bullets telling the truth.

I get the feeling that this film, and the current season of 24, are about telling the American public what they should accept being done in their name. If torture works in such high quality entertainment than maybe it’s okay for the real world as well.

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This………. Is………… Punishment

Wednesday’s film was The Punisher. It’s tempting to say Straight To Video and leave it at that. Certainly, if it hadn’t been hitching a ride on the comic adaptation bandwagon it would have sunk without a trace. Still, it was vastly superior to Catwoman (the new standard of low since it snuck in under Van Halen Helsing at the bottom of the pile).

Some of the characters have been taken from Garth Ennis’ recent run on the character (Volumes 1, 2, 3 available from Amazon), as well as at least two key scenes, though Joan has gone from spindly wall-flower to sex-bomb waitress who always picks the wrong men and The Russian is mute. Ennis’ humour is left well alone, it works in panels but would be far too gory for the screen.

The death of Castle’s wife and child is a straight lift from Mad Max and Punny then goes and builds a car that would fit perfectly into Max’s world. And there’s a very, very bizarre Mariachi moment.

If you have a Region 1 DVD player, get the 1990 Dolph Lundgren movie and compare it to this year’s. If that’s not interactive enough for ya, play the game (PS2).