Category: Review Page 6 of 8

(At least, that’s what the title page of the book says; the spine and front cover, oddly enough, call it ‘The Inside Story of Viz’. No idea why.)

This is the story of how Viz went from being a photocopied comic sold by Chris Donald in Newcastle pubs to the one of the best-selling publications in the UK (beaten only by far less funny magazines like the Reader’s Digest and Radio Times).

Donald’s prose style is conversational and witty, and he manages to make topics such as distribution and merchandising deals seem almost interesting. I felt the book was at its best, though, when he was describing the thought processes behind the actual creation of characters, and thus later chapters – after his involvement in the comic has reduced, and he enjoys his early retirement on the proceeds of its success – were less engaging; I wish him well, and he’s certainly earned his money, but I found it harder to relate to the problems he was having with the restaurant he set up than the earlier descriptions of trying to come up with something funny. In all fairness, though, even those chapters aren’t dull, thanks to the generally affable nature of the writing (and, one can’t help but conclude, his general outlook on life).

On a purely personal note, I was amused to see the coverage of the launch party for the Viz competitor/copycat ‘Oink!’, to which Donald and other Viz creators were invited (and where they stole the cake which had been made for the occasion – shades of Malcolm Hardee’s ‘I Stole Freddie Mercury’s Birthday Cake’, I thought). I wrote a couple of items for Oink in my teens (as, more significantly, did Charlie Brooker), and Donald’s assessment of that comic, as well as the other competitors which sprang up as Viz approached sales figures nearing a million per issue, was interesting to see.

Definitely recommended if you’ve ever laughed at anything in Viz, and if you’re interested in how comics or cartoons are made, as well as providing another example of how acclaim and being paid very well for doing something you love don’t necessarily bring you happiness. Though I guess most of us will never actually get to find out if that’s truly the case, and so would probably be willing to find out the hard way rather than taking other people’s word for it.

Yes, I’m writing this within a couple of hours of seeing the gig. Creative and prolific, and on a school night no less.

Anyway: the third Kyro gig I’ve been to in recent months ( does this make me a groupie? I rather hope not) and I think this was probably the best yet. There was a real sense of energy and enthusiasm about the set, with singer Ian charging around the stage and singing as if his life depended on it during the opening number ‘Killer’, but then slowing down by the time they got to the third track ‘Crazy’. The other band members, I noticed, were grinning to each other at various stages during the set, and the sense of fun was infectious; the music’s really strong, and the band and the audience alike were having a good time.

There was a great lull towards the end of their closing track ‘Rockstar’, where it seemed that they were almost done, and Ian thanked the audience for coming, but then the guitars and drums crashed in again and the chorus was back, and it all felt natural and unforced, and most importantly it sounded damned good.

As I’ve said before – and I hope I’ll soon have little need to say many more times, as events really should make it unnecessary – Kyro are very good indeed. There’s not a weak link in the band, and all the songs have something to savour about them. If you haven’t already done so, go to Napster and download their recent EP, so that when they make it big (as they rightly should), you can irritate your friends by saying you were into them before everyone else.

This graphic novel (aka big chunky comic) by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, despite being over a decade old, remains a perfect example of why anyone who maintains all comics are for children is, quite simply, wrong.

It’s complex in its story and ideas, the art and colouring is a million miles from simple linework cartooning, and some of it is deeply moving (the Valerie chapter, for instance).

It’s about ten or twelve quid to buy, but it’s well worth the money, being the sort of thing you can return to over and over again, and find something new.

Recommended for anyone who says they like a good story, and isn’t hidebound by limited notions of genre and/or medium limitations. Which, I would hope, is anyone reading these words.

It’s been a few weeks since I saw this film, and I’ve been mulling over my reaction since. It’s very much a mixed bag, really, and my feelings towards it are rather coloured by the fact that Alan Moore (the co-creator of the comic) has strongly expressed his distaste for the changes made in the transition between the page and the screen. It’s tempting to make this review into a ‘the good/the bad’ semi-list, but I won’t.

Oh, and here be spoilers, so look away now if you don’t want to know the results.

There are fundamental problems in the film, many of them inevitable given that a comic of something like 200+ very dense pages has been reduced to a film of about two hours. There are huge leaps in the action which don’t necessarily make sense, the character of Finch has been horribly reduced (would have loved to see his Larksmere visit filmed), and the character of V has been changes, as has Evey.

But… there are some bits of the film which work surprisingly well; the Valerie sequence is about as well filmed as it could be, and is really rather moving, and Stephen Fry’s character, whilst very reliant on the likability that Fry as a person brings as welcome baggage to the screen, is effective in both plot terms and as a performance.

Speaking of performances, Weaving as V is pretty good, though the problem with having heard V’s voice on and off in my head for nearly two decades inevitably means that that his voice isn’t quite what I was expecting (oh yes, that sentence looks mad out of context, but you know what I mean). Natalie Portman’s not bad as Evey either, though she’s slightly less sympathetic as a result of plot changes such as during the scene with the Bishop where she tries to betray V.

The general consensus about the film is that the bits which are faithful to the comic work well, and that the newly invented bits don’t, and whilst the former aspect of that is certainly true, the latter isn’t entirely the case; the end sequence wiht the crowd and the barricades – despite its mob tendencies going rather against the anarchist principles of the original story – is quite effective, and the threaded together bits with the dominoes works pretty well. To my amusement, as well, I actually thought that it was Christopher Hitchens playing Lewis Protheroe, though I was (unsurprisingly) wrong (it was Roger Allam).

So, a not-bad film, though certainly not a great one, and for people who haven’t read the original work it’ll probably be pretty entertaining, though viewers familiar with the original will almost certainly spend a lot of time missing what’s not there, and umm-ing and ahh-ing about the new material. And some of the ideas in the film remain timely, such as the line about how governments should be afraid of the people, and not vice versa…

Is this a cautious recommendation? I think it is. Maybe wait for it on rental if you’re not sure.

This novel – which I think is aimed at teenagers, though it’s far from clear – is a straightforward prose retelling of Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac. I’m a fan of the original play, to the extent that I’ve watched various incarnations of it on stage and screen, have read the play in various translations (and even in the original French; yes, that’s right, look impressed, and feel slightly aroused by my erudition), and have even listened to the opera.

So I know the story, and was looking forward to the novel. But I was very disappointed – the description of places and people is slight (I don’t think it’s made clear that Cyrano has a big nose until a page or two after his first appearance, when it’s meant to be a defining feature of him in literal and figurative terms), and the expanded page count isn’t matched by expanded detail in the scenes, or in the backhistory of the characters (explaining why De Guiche hates Cyrano so much, for example).

Perhaps the most notably absent element is that of the romance scenes; when Cyrano’s standing beneath Roxane’s window, speaking in place of Christian, and wooing her, we’re told she starts to tremble and swoon, but the lines he’s speaking just didn’t seem substantial enough to me to elicit that effect. Maybe I just take a lot of seducing*, but I thought it seemed more like Roxane was being swept away by the words because the plot demanded it than due to the power of the words being said to her.

As I say, I have the idea that the novel may be aimed at teenagers (I found it in that section of the bookshop after a friend had alerted me to the existence of this prose version), but in all honesty I think they’d find it a bit unlikely as well; even when I was most awash with hormones and teen angst and uncertainty I doubt I would have been convinced by a lot of the stuff in this book, so I think it’s definitely a wasted opportunity.

If you want to read Cyrano, I’d recommend the Christopher Fry translation; if you want to watch it on screen in its original period setting, the Depardieu portrayal is about as good as it gets, but the modernisation of it by Steve Martin in ‘Roxanne’ is impressive, not least because he writes and stars.

And when I think about it, I first saw the Steve Martin film version when I was in my teens, and it worked for me, while I’m certain McGaughrean’s novel would have left me feeling distinctly unmoved.

*I’d love to put a footnote to this confirming or denying, but thinking about it I don’t think I can be so conclusive in a couple of lines. Feel free to e-mail in your agreement or disagreement (this invitation applies to women only. Sorry chaps).

Once again, Kyro put on a great show, and their new bassist Max seemed like he’d been there for ages. Nary a bum note to be heard from any of the band, and the use of keyboards and samples is really coming into its own.

Five great songs in their criminally short set, any of which could easily be a single (and indeed they should be), and it would be insanely unfair if they didn’t see all their talent and hard work pay off.

And I won’t even mention the fact that Ian, their lead singer, was pogo-ing so energetically at one stage that he almost landed on top of the drum kit. He’s a good friend, and it would be unkind to bring it up.

Oh.

This was apparently commissioned by the Henson company when they realised just what strong sellers their films ‘The Dark Crystal’ and ‘Labyrinth’ had proven to be on sell-through video (and, more recently, DVD), so they approached Neil Gaiman (comic writer and novelist) and Dave McKean (artist, to put it mildly) to make a film. And this film is the result, telling the tale of Helena, who finds herself in another world and on a quest to find the Mirrormask, which – she’s told – will save both this dying otherworld, and her life in the world she’s used to.

It’s a very British-feeling film, both in terms of the cast, and the setting (until things go all otherworldly, that is), so in all honesty I don’t know how much of an international appeal it’ll prove to have. That aside, it looks great to see McKean’s style brought to life – I can only begin to imagine how much of a ‘wow’ it would elicit from someone who’s not familiar with his work, as it’s very distinctive.

The story relies perhaps a little bit too much on ‘dream logic’, but it’s ultimately nicely rounded off, and the playing by all the cast is strong, especially the young woman playing Helena. Oddly enough, even though I saw it at the ICA, where you’d expect the sound and vision to be pretty good, it came over as rather poppy and crackly, with the occasional jump in the film, though I guess there might not be too many copies of the film doing the theatrical rounds, so maybe this one was a bit tired?

Anyway, that’s all a side issue, as I’d guess the majority of people will watch it at home. And I’ll certainly do the same, as it feels as if it’d be something to return to. Definitely worth a look.

I’ll freely admit that I didn’t fully understand this film, but that was more to do with the fact I’d had a long day and this was a late showing than any real fault with the film.

As you may have heard, some of the cast of this film have come under fire (thankfully, only in figurative terms) for their involvement in this film, which seems a bit of an over-reaction to me, as the basic premise appears to be that people in business are often willing to ignore the law and human rights to make a profit, whether at a personal or corporate level. I can’t really see why this suggestion would make some people get so angry (as, er, it’s what’s commonly known as a fact if you look at the history of the twentieth century), unless some people are particularly prickly because this film deals with corporate misbehaviour and governmental collusion in relation to oil. Though getting angry about that idea at the moment would be even more daft. So I don’t understand that particular fuss.

Anyway, the film deals with the above, in a number of interweaving plotlines, where it’s not always entirely clear what the nature of the characters’ relationships may be – but in its way, this is quite pleasing, as it doesn’t patronise you as a viewer by explaining everything to you as if you’re simple, and you have to do a bit of work. Which is a nice change, really.

The quite impressive cast are good, and the dialogue, while a little exposition-heavy in places, is pretty solid. Not necessarily a fun film, and certainly not one I’d recommend to watch on a date, but certainly interesting, intelligent, and timely. I suspect it would repay repeated viewings (and not just because I was drifting in and out of consciousness at the end).

This novel was recommended to me by a friend, and I’m glad I listened; at first glance it appears to be a book of short stories, but they’re all interlinked, and run all the way from a historic seafaring journal to a tale of life in a post-apocalyptic future – and then back again.

There are running themes and images in the stories, and they’re all written in different voices, and Mitchell does well to make them not only distinct, but also sufficiently interesting and involving that there’s a sense of ‘aw, I was just getting into that’ when one story ends, though the interest is soon diverted to the new tale. The one I found least interesting was what might be seen as the ‘central’ chapter, but this proved worth persevering with as it paid off later.

Very well written indeed, and I gather Mitchell’s written a couple of other novels, which I’ll have to look out for. Recommended.

Whilst I’m sure that a large number of people will be drawn to see this film by the presence of Charlize Theron in an array of skimpy and skin-tight outfits, as a sophisticated and knowledgeable type, my interest stemmed from an appreciation of the original animated short features. As bizarre in terms of story as they were in unusual in appearance, the second series suffered somewhat from the absence of creator Peter Chung, but was nonetheless still interesting.

Chung doesn’t seem to have had much of a hand in the live-action version, which sets up Flux as an acrobatically-skilled assassin fighting against an oppressive future regime. So far, so standard, but after about 40 minutes, things start unravelling, the status quo proves not to be what either side had really believed it to be, and the film reveals some story ideas which are arguably more interesting than you’d necessarily expect.

However, the film felt like a lot of it was missing, perhaps trimmed to get it down to a multiplex-friendly 90-odd minutes, and I was reminded of the film Event Horizon, where a lot of the plot appeared to be either taking place off-screen or in expository dialogue. This throws the plotting somewhat, and leads to the feeling that certain of the plot holes would have been patched up if the whole film had been up there on the screen.

The performances are all perfectly fine, and the stunts and special effects are pretty good, but there’s a lurking feeling that even though the film’s better than you might have expected, there’s nonetheless a slightly more interesting film lying beneath the surface.

Overall, then, a perfectly serviceable film, and a smidgin above the level I anticipated, though not as interesting as the original cartoons. Still, if you’re going to see it with the more limited expectation that it’ll feature Ms Theron in various states of limited dress and undress, you’ll probably feel you’ve got your money’s worth. I know I certainly did.

Damn. I nearly got away with that, didn’t I? Ah well.