Walls and bridges

2012-01-22T13:29:00.004Z

BLANKETS STATEMENT

Graphic novel superstar Craig Thompson is currently over in the UK. He signed at Gosh in London yesterday, he's talking as part of Comica in St Albans Centre in the West End on Monday 23rd and signing again at Mega City in Camden Town on Tuesday 24th January. His latest book Habibi has been garnering attention for the last couple of months and he is a very interesting subject to listen to as well as being a very talented creator. Tickets are still available for the Comica talk this Monday. Just pop along here for further information:

http://www.comicafestival.com/index.php/site/news/craig_thompson_talks/

Here's a couple of photos I took at his signing at Gosh on Saturday…

2012-01-14T13:47:00.005Z

POWER CORRUPTED

As seems traditional at the beginning of each year, we have a new Clint Eastwood film. He has retired from acting so he only directs these days and J Edgar, a biopic about the evil head of the FBI, has Leonardo DiCaprio in the eponymous central role. Eastwood as director has made some great films, even in the last ten years (Mystic River, Changeling). But equally, his most recent efforts helming movies (Hereafter, Invictus) have been weak and rather unimpressive. J. Edgar, which kicks off at the beginning of Hoover's life as a young man in the bureau at the start of the 20th century, suffers despite DiCaprio's presence. Biopics are by their very nature formulaic and convention-bound and J.Edgar is no exception. Its flaws are many: it feels like a whitewash of a figure who made himself very unpopular with people while he was heading the FBI, a man who never seemed to come to terms with who he really was but was more than happy to persecute others for their failings. DiCaprio makes a decent fist of portraying Hoover on screen but Eastwood's attempts to paint his protagonist as misconceived and heroic in a perverse way fall on their face. The rest of the cast don't really have anything to work with and are left feeling like cyphers. He operated during a very pivotal period of American history but watching it, you can't help but feel that there is a genuinely interesting story to be told here but that you're not being given it in J. Edgar. It is very tricky to make a film where the central character is unremittingly unsympathetic and so Eastwood would always have been on a hiding to nothing. J. Edgar is maudlin and ultimately unsatisfying and the prosthetic makeup on Hoover's male companion Clyde in later life looks unconvincing. The script's attempts at humanising Hoover fall totally flat. Perhaps it's time for Eastwood to call it a day as he's got nothing to prove anymore…

2012-01-02T08:31:00.006Z

A LOOK FORWARD (AND A LOOK BACK)

As is traditional this time of year (although it's usually on New Year's Eve), I use this blog post to take stock of how the year's been and what will be happening in the next year. 2011 was a very mixed bag:

•We did put out another TRIPWIRE which was a very strong issue but because of the current climate, advertising was significantly down on the previous year.

•We issued two digital issues which did okay but it has made us think that we need to do a little bit of tweaking re: the digital magazine

•In terms of freelance work, I did more work for the Judge Dredd Megazine including pinning down Steve (Preacher, Punisher) Dillon for it and I also got my first feature for Big Issue In The North which has a picture credit for my Michael Moorcock photo with the feature I wrote, which was exciting

•Speaking of photography, I did take a lot of photos in 2011 and feel that my work is developing (pardon the pun) as we go into 2012

•I got my own place to live, which has felt weird but is quite liberating

•There was quite a bit of subbing and copy editing work although I had to cast my net a bit wider

•I ended 2011 having written just over a third of my detective novel, so that's good news

So for 2012, there's a lot to build on:

•In March, there's my first ever photo exhibition, of my comic creator photos at Gosh now in Soho. This feels odd but very exciting

•At Bristol in May we'll be selling a number of exclusive TRIPWIRE 20th anniversary prints. 2012 is the 20th anniversary of the magazine and there will be a few items to buy at Gosh but it'll run from March until late summer when we hope to put out a TRIPWIRE 20th book that will top the 10th anniversary one that came out in 2002 with plans for an anniversary evening also at Gosh later in the summer

•We intend to turn TRIPWIRE into a bi-monthly app from the end of February. 2012 will be the first year in the last five years that US Editor Andy Grossberg isn't going to be involved

•I will finish the first draft of my detective novel sometime in the first half of 2012

•On the photography front, I shall build on whatever occurs at the Gosh event and put out a few more limited run books. I shall also try to get at least one other book project locked down this year, which is hard in the current climate but I live in hope

So it's looking like a very interesting year…

2011-12-29T12:15:00.004Z

HEARTFELT

Whisper of The Heart, an animated film written by Hayao Miyazaki but directed by Yoshifumi Kondo, was first released back in 1995. Thanks to Edith at StudioCanal, I got a screener of the film and she was also generous enough to give me three copies to give away. Find out how you can win a copy after my review of the film.

Miyazaki does have a very distinctive style so that even a film that's not directed by him still has a very unique feel to it. Whisper of The Heart is a teen drama about Shizuku, a young girl living in Tokyo who falls for a boy in her school, Seiji. Their relationship, which begins when she sees his name on all of the library books she takes out, forces her to think about her own life, sending her on a different path. Whisper of The Heart is a sweet teen romance with some of Miyazaki's classic idiosyncratic touches like cat figure The Baron in the antique shop owned by Seiji's grandfather, which has a tragic story attached to it, and a dreamlike feel to parts of Tokyo. The animation is very sophisticated and the voice talent is well-chosen as you'd expect from a Studio Ghibli English dubbed film. Whisper of The Heart is perhaps a little less sophisticated than Miyazaki's more recent efforts but if you're a fan of him and Ghibli, then this is a Blu-ray that's worth picking up…

To win a copy of Whisper of The Heart, then just email me at joelmeadows@btinternet.com with your answer to the following question:

Q: Which university did Hayao Miyazaki go to and which course did he complete there?

Closing date is February 28th 2012. I shall pick three random correct answers from three entrants. Good luck…

2011-12-22T15:03:00.009Z

SPOILER WARNING

DETECTIVE WORKS

In 2009, director Guy Ritchie moved away from sometimes questionable gangster films to release Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law. The film was a little bit of a revelation so here we are two years later with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Downey Jr and Law are back as Holmes and Watson but this time we are joined by Jared (Mad Men) Harris as Moriarty, Noomi Rapace (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) as gypsy Madam Simza and Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes. Moriarty, a respected professor at Cambridge, has a plan to manipulate the world's powers for his own ends and so it is up to Holmes and Watson with the assistance of Madam Simza to prevent this happening. Watson has decided to take the plunge and marry his sweetheart Mary (Kelly Reilly) but Holmes has endangered both his friend and his new bride by interfering with his evil nemesis's plans. A Game of Shadows moves Holmes even further away from Doyle's source material than the first film but the fact is that it just doesn't matter. Ritchie, with the help of Downey Jr and Law, has created a pulp adventure tale which is fun and entertaining to watch and beautifully shot and edited. Harris is exceptionally sinister as Moriarty although you wish he had a little more to do in this film and the chemistry between Downey Jr and Law is further developed. Fry as Holmes' eccentric brother provides a few laughs and acquits himself decently. Paul Anderson as Moriarty's henchman, crackshot Sebastian Moran, works well on screen. There's no love interest for Holmes here unlike the first film and Rapace as the gypsy whose brother holds the key is very watchable. It is quite refreshing that the script didn't throw Holmes and her into bed but uses her as another member of the team. The location shooting in Switzerland and France look spectacular on screen and Ritchie with production designer Sarah Greenwood also synthesise a London that looks fresh and yet familiar at the same time. Ritchie tips his hat to Doyle's end for Holmes over the Reichenbach Falls but leaves things open for a third instalment, which would be welcome if the quality remained as consistent as this. A Game of Shadows is a superior sequel to its progenitor, pure unadulterated fun with a strong cast and a real sense of adventure to it…

2011-12-20T14:08:00.005Z

CRUISE CONTROLLED

Tom Cruise has had a very chequered career in recent years thanks to his association with Scientology. Mission Impossible is a series of films that still appeals to the worldwide cinema audience and I went to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, the latest instalment in the series. Cruise returns as agent Ethan Hunt in a story that's helmed this time by director Brad Bird (The Incredibles). The IMF is shut down after they are implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, forcing them to go on the run to clear their names. Ghost Protocol is being shown in IMAX and sometimes this gives the action scenes impressive impact (the sequence where Hunt has to climb onto the world's highest building in Dubai is a piece of genuine exciting cinema) but the script is quite weak. Ghost Protocol feels like a film where the production company have come up with a number of impressive setpieces before the script is even written and so it lacks cohesion. The script feels a little old-fashioned and anachronistic, like an Eighties Bond film. Jeremy Renner as Brandt doesn't ring that true as action man material but Simon Pegg as comic relief Benji does what he always does on screen in that annoyingly likeable fashion. Cruise is rather bland and unengaging but sometimes, like in the opening prison break sequence, he works rather well. The other problem with the film is that, despite Bird as director, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol feels like a star vehicle for Tom Cruise. It passes the time pleasantly enough but feels pretty forgettable. It's bound to do well at the Christmas box office as it's pretty review-proof. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is a pleasant enough piece of fluff but it doesn't stay with you once you leave the cinema…

2011-12-16T13:20:00.005Z

KILLER SCRIPT?

The film Kill List, which came out early this year at the cinema, has just hit DVD and as I missed it on the big screen, I thought I'd check it out on the small one. A British film directed by Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace), Kill List has as its central protagonists ex-soldier and now assassin Jay (Neil Maskell) and his partner Gal (Michael Smiley). Jay has a wife, Shel (MyAnna Buring), who is fully aware of what her husband does for a living but Gal is not married. Promised a big payoff for three seemingly simple jobs, the pair find themselves in a situation that's anything but simple. Kill List is well-acted, well-directed and with a decent script but the big reveal at the end, where the film takes a different direction, isn't totally credible and it doesn't quite hold together as a single cohesive idea. However Maskell and Smiley are both very good as is Buring and director Wheatley also acquits himself well, so it's definitely worth watching. Kill List isn't a wholy satisfying production but people interested in modern British filmmaking should check it out…

2011-12-06T09:57:00.003Z

MASTER OF FANTASY

Last week saw my Michael Moorcock feature run in the Big Issue in The North. It was very exciting to see it because it also contained one of my portrait photos run as a full page with a picture credit. I have interviewed him a number of times and he is a true gentleman. Here is the feature for those who haven't seen it…

2011-12-03T16:54:00.010Z

CHILD'S PLAY?

I went to see two prominent children's films over the last couple of weeks so I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast the two in terms of approach and assessing whether they work.

First is Puss In Boots, a spin-off of Dreamworks' successful Shrek animated movies featuring the swamp's most likeable character. Voice talent Antonio Banderas returns as the ginger swashbuckling cat in a tale (pardon the pun) that gives us his origin story. Director Chris Miller throws the eponymous hero in a story that owes a lot to Jack and The Beanstalk with his partner in crime Humpty Dumpty, a fellow fairytale orphan who betrayed Puss years ago and seemingly wants to set things right. Voiced by The Hangover's Zach Galifianakis, Humpty has an accomplice, Kitty Softpaws (Penelope Cruz), who is a very talented cat thief. So they decide to steal Jack and Jill's magic beans to allow them to reach the giant's castle. The film is a clever pastiche of classic westerns and obviously things like Zorro and Miller has a deft hand for action and character. There is chemistry between Banderas and Cruz (not the first time they've collaborated) and Zach Galifianakis acquits himself pretty well as do Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris as Jack and Jill. The 3D animation works nicely and visually Puss In Boots looks lavish and cinematic. Now that Shrek has been retired from the big screen, expect to see more outings from the ginger furry lothario. Puss In Boots is an enjoyable, occasionally smart and very likeable mainstream animated feature…

Hugo, based on illustrated book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, is director Martin Scorsese's first foray into children's films. The Hugo of the title is an orphan who lives in the works of a fictional Paris train station, making sure that the clocks run on time, who has spent a number of years trying to unravel the mystery of his father's untimely death. His life appears to change when he meets curmudgeonly watch seller Georges (Ben Kingsley) and his young charge Isabelle (Chloe Moretz). It's a very strange film: it starts life as an epic mystery seemingly about Hugo's father (played by Jude Law) and an automaton that he was obsessed with and then changes tack and direction about halfway through. It is being shown in 3D but the 3D doesn't add a lot to proceedings except when Scorsese is showing off the inner workings of the station. Asa Butterfield as Hugo is very good on screen but Moretz tries far too hard as she plays against her usual type. Kingsley is excellent: rather than chewing the scenery and the script as he usually does, he underplays what is arguably the pivotal role here, and you do feel genuine sympathy for him. The cast is a bit of a mixed bag: Sacha Baron Cohen as the station inspector with a clockwork leg, shows that he isn't an actor, merely a comic turn but a small cameo from Christopher Lee as the sinister-looking Monsieur Labisse at the grand age of 89 makes you wish they did more with the character. Stepping outside of Scorsese's comfort zone of gangsters and killers doesn't quite work as some of Hugo feels very artificial but it is still a very charming film with mostly a strong cast and some well-excecuted ideas. It isn't as creatively successful a kid's film as Tintin but at a time when Hollywood blockbusters usually consist of giant robots beating the shit out of each other or meteorites destroying the Earth, there is something refreshing about what is such a nostalgic affair. Hugo passes two hours very pleasantly indeed and will do decently at the box office for cinemagoers looking for something a little bit different to the usual fare…

2011-11-18T12:30:00.004Z

LEGENDARY POSTERS

The art of the movie poster is one that seems to have fallen out of fashion these days with film companies preferring to create digital photo images for their posters. Drew Struzan is the last of a dying breed, creating memorable, iconic images for many unforgettable films like The Shawshank Redemption, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, Star Wars: Episode I and many more. In 2010, Titan Books published The Art of Drew Struzan, a lovely oversized hardcover celebrating his work. In October of this year, Titan republished Oeuvre, a book originally brought out by Dreamwave around 2005. It's a smaller size than the original publication but the art still looks magnificent. Oeuvre is an art book as the only text is an introduction by George Lucas and introductions to Struzan's film work, his movie art and his personal works. There is an argument for letting the work speak for itself and Oeuvre certainly does that. The reproduction is very nice indeed with plenty of standout images like the six Star Wars Episode I-VI posters reproduced as foldouts. The movie art is run without logos and type and so they are really given room to breathe here. He has a wonderful eye for likenesses and his work also really captures the tone and feel of the films he has provided images for. This book is very good value at £29.99 and so for anyone who is a fan of Struzan's work or movie history, Ouevre is a great anthology of his art…

www.titanbooks.com

2011-11-11T22:04:00.009Z

GODS AWFUL

When film companies embargo movies until the day before release, it's a very bad sign. The Immortals, directed by Tarsem Singh and starring Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke, Frieda Pinto and John Hurt, features the story of Theseus battling against evil King Hyperion. But I almost don't know where to start with this film. Tarsem Singh's visual style is eccentric to say the least, although if you've seen The Fall or The Cell, then you'll know what to expect. Sadly, Immortals is a sludgy and meaningless morass of idiotic production design, a terrible script and some truly awful performances. Mickey Rourke as King Hyperion spends a lot of his time wandering around in a helmet that looks like a cross between a bunny and a shark's mouth for no apparent reason, the digital sets look terrible, dark and unreal and the 3D makes it pretty hard to follow the 'plot', which deals with waking the Titans, the precursors to the current crop of Greek gods led by Zeus, who were imprisoned centuries ago. The production design for the film makes very little sense at all as the gods' costumes look like they were designed by a student on London Fashion Week and the Greek city where Theseus and Co prepare to take on Hyperion and his army resembles a corridor on the Titanic. The rest of the cast aren't much better than Rourke: Frieda Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire, Rise of The Planet of The Apes) as virgin oracle Phaedra looks pretty but is fairly wooden, Luke Evans as Zeus comes across as if he's stumbled on the set from a BBC afternoon drama and Stephen Dorff (Stavros) shows why his career has taken a downturn over the last fifteen years. Ironically Henry Cavill (future Superman) doesn't acquit himself too badly as Theseus but it's not enough. It's a shame really as through all the poor directing, amateurish design and abysmal script, you can almost see what Singh tried to achieve here: a different take on the Greek myths. But Immortals is a muddled abomination, one of the worst films to see release over the past two decades, giving Sucker Punch a real run for its money as a true turkey.

2011-10-31T07:59:00.008Z

LONDON CALLING PART TWO

As promised, here's reviews of the two other films I caught at press screenings at this year's London Film Festival.

First is The Descendants, directed by Alexander (Election, Sideways) Payne and starring George Clooney, Matthew Lillard and Beau Bridges. Clooney plays lawyer Matt King in Hawaii and the film opens to reveal the fact that Matt's wife Elizabeth has just had a terrible boating accident and she is in a coma in a hospital. As well as dealing with her wife's predicament, King is also the head of the family trustees and the entire family has to vote what to do with a large unspoilt piece of land in Hawaii, whether to sell it to developers or leave it unspoilt. It turns out that King and his relatives come from a family whose wealth can be traced back to the fact that their ancestor married a Hawaiian princess in the 19th century. Unfortunately, as King battles with what his and his family's future holds, certain things come out about his wife, causing him to rethink his life with his two daughters. The Descendants shows the same sharp and keen eye for dialogue and getting the best out of actors that Payne displayed with Election and Sideways. Clooney, a little inconsistent in his film choices, made a smart move here as he is very sympathetic and very human as the father and husband whose world has suddenly changed in an instant. The rest of the cast are also very good including a particularly degraded looking Beau Bridges as King's cousin, Shailene Woodley as King's difficult teenage daughter Alexandra and Payne uses the idea of Americans with a foothold into Hawaii very effectively. We see Hawaii as a place with the same problems as the US mainland. Bittersweet and funny at the same time, The Descendants is a well-made and accomplished drama with a very likeable cast and a strong script…

A Dangerous Method is the latest effort from David Cronenberg and looks at the relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud and how modern psychoanalysis was created. This is the third collaboration between Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen, who plays Freud. The ubiquitous Michael Fassbender (X-Men First Class, Shame) is Jung while Keira Knightley plays Sabina Spielrein, a troubled Jewish Russian girl who comes to Jung for treatment. There are a number of flaws in A Dangerous Method: it feels too much like a play rather than a film with its theatrical setpieces and Knightley just doesn't convince here, pushing her chin out to show the audience that she's not all the ticket. The tone is rather arch, cold and self-important too which is a shame because the story of Jung's friendship with Freud is one that should be intriguing and engaging. Mortensen and Fassbender do have some chemistry as the doomed friends but none of it really gels. Cronenberg is a strange director and while he should be applauded for trying to move outside of his comfort zone, A Dangerous Method really doesn't work although it does look stunning…

Here's a few pics from the press conferences for both film with Cronenberg, Payne and others…

2011-10-26T10:37:00.003+01:00

GOOD DETECTIVE WORK

This week sees the release in the UK of The Adventures of Tintin, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson's first adaptation of Herge's comic work. This is a film that has been in the planning stages for a number of years but even Herge, when he was alive, apparently thought Spielberg would be the perfect choice to bring his boy reporter and dog Snowy to the big screen. Tintin was created using motion capture technology, a technique that has led to the films made with it previously populated with characters with dead, creepy eyes. I am glad to say that Weta digital have avoided this pitfall here, creating characters who are warm and alive on screen. The 3D is used intelligently and because it's a light film, it also means that the action is easy to follow unlike many other 3D productions in live action that have been released this year (step forward Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides). The Adventures of Tintin manages to distill the fun and the heart of Herge's illustrated work, harking back to the most fun elements of Spielberg's Indiana Jones films and synthesising a genuinely entertaining adventure story. This film takes three of Herge's adventures (Secret of The Unicorn, Red Rackham's Treasure and The Crab With The Golden Claws) and conflates them into a single story. So Tintin has to find the clues to piece together a mystery that brings together Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), the evil Sakharine (voiced by Bond himself Daniel Craig) and a replica of a galleon, the Unicorn, that holds the key to the whole affair. Bumbling police officers The Thompson Twins are played by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost here. Adventures of Tintin is a very enjoyable pulp adventure movie, made by two of the best practitioners in the business and the script, by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish strikes just the right balance to keep kids amused while offering enough for adults to stay interested. Ironically the film feels like a very British affair, perhaps thanks to the actors and the screenwriters. This film deserves to be a huge worldwide hit and hopefully through Spielberg and Jackson having their names on this, this will charm American audiences the way it has done in the UK. Steven Spielberg still has the magic touch…

2011-10-22T22:41:00.004+01:00

LONDON CALLING 2011 PART ONE

The London Film Festival is in full swing and, as with every year, I have been cherry picking the odd film that appeals to me. The first film I caught was 360, directed by Brazilian Fernando Meireilles (City of God, The Constant Gardener). It's a drama in a similar vein to something like Babel: we see a number of stories and protagonists in cities around the world (Vienna, London, Bratislava, Paris, Rio and Denver) and, as the film progresses, we see the connections made between the seemingly-disconnected cast of characters. Screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/ Nixon) has also admitted that it owes something to Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde. 360 does have a lot of central characters (from English businessman played by Jude Law to prostitute Mirkha (Lucia Siposova), Anthony Hopkins as the man searching for his lost daughter and Valentina (Dinara Drukarova), the wife of Russian thug Sergei) but unlike Contagion, this film is finely balanced so Meireilles and the excellent ensemble cast have the opportunity to give 360's creations enough life so that the viewer can get caught up in their world. Even Jude Law isn't half-bad here. Come back for another LFF review, this time of The Descendants directed by Alexander Payne with George Clooney…

2011-10-20T16:34:00.003+01:00

A DISEASED MIND?

Contagion, the latest film directed by Steven Soderbergh, is a bit of a throwback to the Seventies disaster movie. Possibly Soderbergh's last film, as he has been talking about retiring from movies, Contagion looks at the possibility of a worldwide lethal virus taking hold. With a cast that includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Laurence Fishburne, it does feel like a star vehicle with the audience taking bets on which of the cast will bite the dust in the most painful and unpleasant way imaginable. Soderbergh is an accomplished and talented director but Contagion, while offering some nice on-screen disease porn, is limited by its very genre and so we don't really get much in the way of character development. The closest we get is Mitch Emhoff (Matt Damon) as a put-upon husband who sees his wife, who kicks off the whole film, die at the 'hands' of the virus and Dr Ellis Cheever (Fishburne) as CDC head, trying to stop the virus from spreading any further. Jude Law as Australian blogger Alan Krumwiede is annoying and lacking credibility on screen as the man who cries 'conspiracy' when the virus is discussed by the US government. The concept of a worldwide 'plague' spread by human contact is a frightening one but films like this always sacrifice character for shock set-pieces. So it's a film that entertains while you're watching it but doesn't stay with you after the final credits roll. Contagion is not a film that will be remembered by posterity, as it's one of Soderbergh's weaker efforts…

2011-10-06T12:37:00.005+01:00

BRINGING THE HAMMER DOWN

Quatermass and The Pit, also known as Five Million Years To Earth in the US, is the third film featuring Nigel Kneale's scientist creation. The professor gets involved with a case involving paleontologists unearthing mystery skeletons at a fictional Tube station, Hobbs End, in west London. This time, the eponymous scientist is played by Scottish actor Andrew Keir rather than Northern Irish-born American actor Brian Donlevy, who Hammer brought in for the first two. Released on Blu-ray for the first time, Quatermass and The Pit has its share of naive charm with its images of late sixties London and enjoyable support from fellow Scottish actor James Donald as Dr Matthew Roney. Admittedly the Martians look like giant rubber locusts (presumably because they are) but this is the sort of enjoyable nonsense that we used to excel at in this country. Keir is very likeable on screen and Julian Glover as the pompous Colonel Breen is suitably oleaginous. Quatermass and The Pit is a fun ride and it's only right that it's got a Blu-ray release…

2011-09-25T21:06:00.008+01:00

EARLY EVIL

Manhunter was the first appearance on the big screen of Hannibal Lecter and it's now come to Blu-ray. Michael Mann's 1986 film starring a pre-CSI William Petersen (as FBI agent Will Graham) has Lecter in a supporting role, played by the magnificent Brian Cox, as the main murderer here is the Tooth Fairy (the creepy Tom Noonan). Based on Thomas Harris's book Red Dragon, Manhunter is directed in a very cold and detached way and even the production design acts as a barrier to the viewer getting too emotionally connected to the characters. Sometimes the directing does become a little too detached but credit has to be given to Mann and the cast, especially Petersen and Cox, although Dennis Farina as Petersen's FBI compatriot is also very good. The thriller element is well-handled except for the slightly silly ending where Graham becomes an action hero after being more cerebral for the rest of the film. Despite the fact that there are moments when some of the Eighties touches have dated a little, Manhunter holds up better than the other big-screen outings for Lecter that followed. A modern classic that should be seen…

2011-09-24T12:48:00.003+01:00

PHOTO SENSITIVE

I have decided to take the plunge and have a go at funding one of my photography books via crowdsourcing. The book is called A Year in the Life and will chronicle London throughout 2012. People can pledge starting at $10 and to find out more, please go to the following URL:

http://igg.me/p/43620?a=252284&i=shlk

It will be an exciting project so I'm hoping that this experiment will work…

2011-09-14T16:32:00.005+01:00

SPYING QUALITY

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy starring Gary Oldman in the George Smiley role, feels like a film from a different era. The TV adaptation starring Alec Guinness was set in a world where England and America were playing a game of espionage against the Russians in a period when one side may have blown the other to kingdom come (or that's how it felt at the time). There are no jump cuts, people don't leap through the air followed by explosions and you don't get knife fights or pursuits over the rooftops of particularly picturesque Moroccan houses. Oldman doesn't even speak for about the first twenty minutes of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy but his presence is feel nonetheless. The plot is labyrinthine, about a Russian traitor in the British secret service and the lengths that Smiley and his colleagues go to to expose and flush the Judas out. Oldman is brilliantly understated here with every nuance serving a purpose on screen. He is assisted by a very competent supporting cast that includes Colin Firth, playing a little against type but displaying a little more range than usual, the ubiquitous Mark Strong (who shows that he is more than just the comedically sinister villain for Hollywood movies), Benedict Cumberbatch and Ciaran Hinds. Even small cameos by actors like Stephen Graham and Roger Lloyd Pack lend something to the overall mix. Director Tomas Alfredson (Let The Right One In) has a very steady hand here, letting the performances speak for themselves. He also recreates 1970s London (and a few other places) with rare skill and attention to detail, with the help of production designer Maria Djurkovic. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a classic British spy film with some exceptional performances and assured directing. It should be remembered by posterity as it makes the case that not all remakes have to be inferior. Deserving of many awards when the season kicks off later in the year…

2011-09-11T23:14:00.005+01:00

BOOK YOUR PLACE

On Sunday I went to the Hampstead and Highgate Literary Festival 2011. In the London Jewish Culture Centre in Hampstead, I watched four panels (one on the anniversary of 9-11 with the BBC's Gavin Esler and three very smart panellists; one on Guilty Pleasures for Reading with The Guardian's John Crace, Olivia Lichtenstein, John Sutherland and Joanna Briscoe; one that was just TV personality Nicholas Parsons promoting his autobiography and the last was a talk on book The Stones of London by its author Leo Hollis). It was in very civilised surroundings and the talks were each interesting for different reasons: the 9-11 talk featured author Frank Ledwidge (who served in Iraq), BBC journalist Jil McGivering and Granta's editor John Freeman and it was obvious that they had only just scratched the surface of the topic; while the Guilty Pleasures panel was a nice light counterpoint to the 9-11 one. It was fairly impressive to watch Parsons speak on his own for around an hour about his life and career although it did feel a little bit like this was territory he had trod before. The Stones of London talk was very fascinating indeed and I regret missing half of it because it was scheduled against the Parsons talk. So, for what was my first book event as a photographer, the first day of the Ham & High Literary Festival 2011 was a very satisfying one for me. It's on Monday and Tuesday this week so I'd recommend trying to get down to it…

www.hamhighlitfest.com

2011-09-01T16:48:00.005+01:00

TRIPWIRE AT LAST

On the Tuesday before last, I grabbed the new TRIPWIRE, issue #55. It's taken a bit longer than we were hoping but I hope this is our best issue to date. The Elric cover, by David Michael Beck, looks spectacular: the heavier paper stock really brings out the image. And the features have come out really nicely especially the Jason Aaron, the Christopher Fowler but it all looks really strong. And it's available in UK comic shops as of today (Wednesday). It can also be reordered from Diamond Comic Distributors, item #MAY111336. So what are you waiting for?

2011-08-21T08:05:00.005+01:00

THEIR DAY ISN'T HERE YET
Directed by Costa Gavras's son Romain Gavras, Our Day Will Come (Notre Jour Viendra in French) is a film about two of society's outcasts, united by their red hair and their mistrust of society. Vincent Cassel plays psychiatrist Patrick and Olivier Barthelemy is teenager Rémy. Their paths cross when Patrick encounters Rémy when the boy is running away after hitting his mother in the family home. Patrick sees in Rémy a figure who he can manipulate for his own entertainment as he is bored of listening to other peoples' problems in his work. So he forces Rémy into increasingly more extreme and violent situations on the way to the ferry to Ireland, where Rémy believes that he will arrive as some sort of redheaded messiah, fitting in better than he did back in France. It's a very strange film and despite its attempts at profundity and Cassel's performance, which is always worth watching, it has little dramatic cohesion and doesn't really feel that credible or consistent as a film. Olivier Barthelemy as Rémy does turn in a pretty intense performance as Patrick's partner in crime though. It is Gavras's longform debut however and so it does show that there may be promise in his future work. The direction is pretty accomplished for a first feature, so he'll definitely be a name to watch in the future. Out on blu-ray now, it is worth watching despite its shortcomings…

2011-08-19T23:25:00.005+01:00

BIG-HEARTED
In 2011, Ealing Studios celebrates its 80th birthday and to commemorate this, Optimum have been reissuing some of their best-loved classics on Blu-ray and for a limited cinema run. The latest is Kind Hearts and Coronets, Robert Hamer's brilliant effort from 1949. Based on Roy Horniman's novel, Kind Hearts and Coronets stars Dennis Price in probably his finest role as Louis Mazzini, the distant relative of the Duke D'Ascoyne who plots revenge on the D'Ascoyne family after they snub his mother. Set in Victorian England, we see Mazzini from birth to adulthood, stymied by his social standing and determined to right the wrongs aimed at his mother by becoming the Duke D'Ascoyne himself. Playing the various D'Ascoynes in line to the Dukedom is Alec Guinness, displaying why he was perhaps one of the most versatile and likeable actors of the 20th century. There is a louche arrogance to Price that makes him mesmerising on screen and whether he's wooing the widow of one of his victims or brazenly insulting his childhood sweetheart Sibella (the gorgeous Joan Greenwood), the viewer is always rooting for him to succeed in his plan. There is an argument that Kind Hearts and Coronets is Ealing's best film, because there is a depth and a subtlety here that perhaps is lacking in some of their other work. It is great to see such a masterwork available on Blu-ray and to see for a short period at the cinema. It holds up extremely well and for people who haven't seen it before, they are in the enviable position of enjoying it for the first time. A true cinematic classic with some masterful performances…
http://www.optimumreleasing.com/

2011-08-19T08:12:00.005+01:00

A FUN RIDE
Summer movies can be disappointing and 2011's batch has been a mixed bag. However, Cowboys & Aliens, directed by Iron Man's Jon Favreau, passes a very pleasant couple of hours. Director Favreau is a very steady hand when it comes to big screen spectacle and from the start, when we see amnesiac cowboy Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) end up in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, he commands the viewers' attention. Dispatching a group of mercenaries, the cowboy heads into town where he encounters the antagonistic Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano). So far, it feels like a classic western with Craig on great form as the Man With No Name. Then everything gets turned on its head with the appearance of the aliens of the title. So it then falls to Lonergan with the aid of crusty landowner Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford playing against type as an unpleasant figure), saloon owner Doc (Sam Rockwell) and mysterious woman Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde) with the assistance of a group of Native Americans to fight the aliens, who are intent on plundering the Earth for its gold. Craig makes for a very credible leading man and Ford shows why he has endured for all these decades in Hollywood. It does make you think sometimes whether Favreau would be great helming a traditional Western. As a popcorn movie, Cowboys & Aliens is a very entertaining piece of fluff…

2011-08-02T22:25:00.005+01:00

BACK TO THE FUTURE
Summer 2011 has been an odd summer with some of the tentpole movies disappointing. So it's heartening to watch a film like Super 8 from director JJ Abrams. A pastiche of/ tribute to Spielberg and Dante's output from the 1980s, Super 8 is set in small-town Ohio in 1979. It deals with a group of kids, led by Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) determined to make a horror film using their super 8 camera. But the twist is that something strange has happened to the town, with a real monster living there. Abrams has made no secret of his love for 1980s films and this comes out in Super 8, which is shot like a Spielberg film with direction that feels like anathema to 2011 cinema. Spielberg is even producer on Super 8 and it has a very anachronistic feel. And I mean that in a positive way as editing is more measured than you get these days and directing is very deliberate. The kids are all very good actors especially Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning) and Courtney, managing to be sympathetic to the audience and avoiding the sort of maudlin schmaltz that could make Super 8 unwatchable. Abrams shows that he is probably one of the best mainstream Hollywood directors currently working and a spiritual successor to Spielberg. It's not perfect by any means as the last act falls a little bit flat and the monster looks like nearly all of Abrams' on-screen horrors. But its flaws are not enough to prevent me from recommending it as perhaps the most fun you'll have all summer at the cinema. Super 8 is highly recommended…

2011-07-28T14:21:00.008+01:00

MILITARY IMPRECISION
Marvel had a sizeable hit on their hands earlier this year with another of their second-tier creations making it to the big screen. Thor was a very enjoyable film that managed to distill all that is best about the character while making it work on a big screen. So expectations for Captain America: The First Avenger were reasonably high. Director Joe Johnston seemed well-suited as The Rocketeer (1991) was great, able to bring the 1940s to life with rare style. Unfortunately Jurassic Park 3 (1993), also directed by Johnston, was disappointing, a studio picture by the numbers. Captain America exists mostly as an extended set-up to next summer's Avengers. It opens with an icy scene set in the Antarctic where a US government operation discovers a strange object embedded in the ice. Flash back to the Second World War and we are introduced to skinny nebbish Steve Rogers, desperate to enrol in the US army but physically they won't give him a chance. He is always trumped by his mate James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes, who gets to go off to fight for the US while Rogers (starting life as a very skinny Chris Evans) is stuck in the States. But one day Rogers meets German scientist Dr Abraham Erksine (played by Stanley Tucci), who offers him the opportunity to take part in an experimental programme in the US army. So Rogers, seeing his chance at last, jumps at this and so he's off to train with the other soldiers. Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) is his commanding officer and he's not convinced that Rogers is up to the task. Rogers also meets Peggy Carter (the slightly stilted Hayley Atwell) during his training, a British army officer, who he takes a shine to. He gets the treatment and turns from a weak, having sand thrown in his face to a pumped-up super soldier. But the US army only want to use him for propaganda, performing as Captain America surrounded by dancing girls to keep soldiers' morale up. When his fellow combatants are kidnapped by evil organisation Hydra, headed by the man who's too nasty for the Nazis, Johann Schmidt aka The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), Rogers decides to disobey orders and go to free the soldiers. The Red Skull is bent on world conquest thanks to unearthing an object of immense mythic power. So Rogers and his team encounter Schmidt and the stage is set for the last act of the film. The film concludes with a scene set in the modern day, which sets things up for the aforementioned Avengers next year. Evans looks pretty good as Captain America but Johnston doesn't do enough with the Forties setting, making it feel like everything takes place in a bubble away from reality. Weaving makes a very entertaining Red Skull but he doesn't have loads to work with and Atwell is a little bit too stiff for there to be any real chemistry between her and Evans. Evans also doesn't have the charisma to be totally credible as a character as likeable as Rogers. Captain America: The First Avenger isn't a bad film as Johnston, coming from a special effects background, does know how to direct action. But it lacks the characterisation of something like Thor and the plot is weaker. Also because it is a set-up to another film, it smacks of a calculated marketing exercise at times. So there are worse films you could spend two hours watching but it lacks the heart and substance and pulp likability that it needs to engage with the audience…

2011-07-26T20:45:00.004+01:00

LEAKY CARBURETTER
Pixar don't often put a foot wrong and their consistency at making films that appeal to both adults and children is incredible. But Cars 2 may be their first miscalculation. The first Cars in 2006 was a shallow and rather unmemorable film but John Lasseter obviously has a soft spot for the characters as we have this sequel out now. Cars 2 has world champion Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) and his cretinous sidekick tow-truck Mater (the voice of Larry The Cable Guy) head out to compete in a World Grand Prix race. The race takes them to cities like Tokyo and London but there is a sub-plot in Cars 2. Finn McMissile (the voice of Michael Caine) is a British spy who enlists Mater to help him in a matter of international espionage. Cars 2 is well-animated but the script is very weak indeed with almost nothing to keep the adults occupied while the very young kids enjoy the film. Casting Caine as a British spy car is a nice touch but the story, some drivel about a fuel magnate looking to discredit green fuel, really isn't up to much. There isn't the connection with the characters that you have had in say Toy Story 3, Up or The Incredibles. It's as if they were so keen to make this that they forgot what makes Pixar films stand out: their meticulous writing. Cars 2 will probably keep six or seven year old kids happy (just about) but there's nothing for adults to get their teeth into…

2011-07-24T22:18:00.003+01:00

ADMIRABLE CRICHTON
One of my favourite films of all time, The Lavender Hill Mob, has just got a cinema release for its remastered version and it's also just hit Blu-ray. Putting aside the fact that there's only so much you can do with a 60-year-old film, The Lavender Hill Mob is a very simple film but it is its simplicity that is part of its brilliance. Alec Guinness plays Henry Holland, a naive bank clerk whose job it is to make sure that gold bullion reaches its home safely once it leaves the bank hits on a seemingly flawless plan to steal the gold and get it out of the country. With the aid of his accomplice Alfred Pendlebury (the incomparable Stanley Holloway), owner of Gewgaws limited, a company that makes tourist tat to sell around the world, and thief Lackery Wood (Sid James), Holland puts a plan into action. But of course the plan doesn't succeed. Director Charles Crichton, who also helmed Hue & Cry and The Titfield Thunderbolt, makes everything feel easy here with a deft hand for direction, packing everything into just 80 minutes. Guinness is fantastic as is the slightly hapless Holloway and even though James's role is small, he makes a major contribution on screen. It's also wonderful to see London just after the war to witness the devastation that continued into the 1950s, especially noticeable in the scene around St Paul's Cathedral. The Lavender Hill Mob is a marvelous slice of 1950s British cinema, among Ealing Studios best, with a peerless cast and a great script. It deserves a Blu-ray release so it's heartening to see it get one…

2011-07-14T21:48:00.004+01:00

WAND GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER
Ten years after the release of Harry Potter and The Philosophers Stone (or The Sorcerors Stone if you're American), we have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. The first part was dull and overlong but with everything to wrap up, expectations were high that the second part would at least be entertaining and action-packed. And I have to say that Deathly Hallows Part 2 is probably the most satisfying of the Harry Potter movies, with the exception of The Prisoner of Azkaban. Potter comes face to face with the dark lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), discovers his true identity and his real parents and vanquishes Voldemort to create a new kind of status quo for the magical world that Potter and his friends inhabit. Everything that has been foreshadowed in the previous films is brought to a head here. Characterisation is still rather thin on the ground but at least the film never outstays its welcome and the payoff is worth the wait. The three main actors don't have much in the way of range but that's been pretty consistent throughout the entire series. The visual effects, done by pretty much all of Soho's biggest effects houses, do look amazing although it is questionable whether releasing it in 3D was nothing more than an excuse to jump onto what has become a rather tiresome bandwagon. The 3D here looks a little muddy in places and it would be a better film without it. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 is a decent conclusion to a decade-long movie experience that has had an impact on the current generation of the fans of Rowling's creation similar to that of fans of Star Wars in the 1980s. Potter fans will already have seen it by the time this review goes live and viewers who are either ambivalent or apathetic towards Potter won't care anyway…

2011-07-10T10:55:00.006+01:00

THE END OF AN ERA
As I write this, I am in the process of moving. From the place I have lived in for over a decade now to a flat. So I am surrounded by boxes, which will be temporarily stored until I move into the new place on Saturday 16th July. It's been an odd few weeks as I've been going through the garage, sorting out and getting rid of a lot of crap that I've accumulated over the years. I've found a load of back issues of TRIPWIRE and a box of copies of TRIPWIREx10, the anniversary book that we published back in 2002.
I wanted to plug two TRIPWIRE products in this latest post. The first is TRIPWIRE Digital 0.02, the second free to download digital edition. With an X-Men First Class cover, there's a feature about the genesis of the film, interviews with a couple of its screenwriters plus we also have a Blueberry feature, a look back at Otomo's Akira and a piece on Rebellion's Slaine The Horned God. I hope that we've topped the first issue. You can get it from www.tripwire-magazine.com.
The second TRIPWIRE product is TRIPWIRE #55, which will be available to buy from the end of this month. It's another packed issue, chock full of great content:
•Under an exclusive Elric cover painted by illustrator David Michael Beck, we celebrate 50 years of the White Wolf in the year that BOOM! brings the character back to comics and we talk to its creator, MICHAEL MOORCOCK
•London-based writer CHRISTOPHER FOWLER, writer of Bryant & May and Rune, lifts the lid on a career influenced by comics
•It’s fifty years since Fantastic Four #1 so we commemorate this with a look back at Marvel’s first family with the help of some of the creators who’ve been part of FF history
•WALT SIMONSON’s eagerly awaited The Judas Coin hardcover is published this Christmas and we preview the book including a unique sketchbook and pencils and inks section
•JASON AARON discusses Scalped, Wolverine and his other work
•Location Scouts Sarah Eastel talk about their work
•Shaenon Garrity writes about the history of webcomics seen from the inside
•SERGIO ARAGONES discusses The Funnies and his work
•PLUS STRIPWIRE, TRIPWIRE’s comic-within-a-magazine returns as does The Power List and Graphic Novels you should be reading

Diamond item code is MAY111336, so you can still order it from Diamond Comic Distributors.
Here's the two covers (Digital 0.02 and TRIPWIRE #55) plus a few feature pages from the print edition to whet your appetite…

2011-07-06T09:54:00.007+01:00

LOOKING BACK AT A CLASSIC

Blu-ray has given people the opportunity to take another look at classic movies. Unfortunately, even though these films are still classics, sticking them on Blu-ray is a bit pointless as the film company is unable to improve picture quality on movies of a certain age. Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, made in 1973, has always been considered to be a masterful contemporary thriller and so this Special Edition Blu-ray was inevitable. The problem here lies not with the film itself, which is still a thrilling tale that shows the breakdown in Laura and John Baxter's marriage, but the fact is that the picture doesn't look any better than if you were just to stick the DVD onto your Blu-ray player. Roeg's adaptation of Daphne DuMaurier's work is just as powerful now as it presumably was almost four decades ago. After the tragic death of their daughter in a pond near their house in England, the Baxters decide to relocate temporarily to Venice where John (Donald Sutherland) is involved in restoring a historic church. But Laura (Julie Christie) is still obsessed with the loss of her daughter and continues to look for answers. Meeting a blind English clairvoyant woman and her sister, Laura begins to believe that the woman is in contact with the spirit of her deceased daughter. John continues to be sceptical but, when he is warned of impending doom befalling him in Venice, he ignores this at his peril. Roeg uses Venice very effectively as a location where nothing is as it seems and the viewer takes things for granted at his or her peril. Sutherland and Christie have excellent chemistry and the film never outstays its welcome. But it is redundant as a Blu-ray release because the quality of the picture is not enhanced. The extras are okay (interviews with Roeg and some of the production crew) but nothing special. So for people keen to watch Don't Look Now, they would be better served picking it up on DVD and having it upscaled on their Blu-ray player (although the price difference is pretty negligible between getting it on DVD and Blu-ray). So it is still an exceptional film but don't expect to get any more out of the Blu-ray than you would from a DVD...

2011-06-28T11:03:00.010+01:00

SUPERHEROIC BEHAVIOUR
The Incredibles is arguably one of Pixar's best films of all time. There's also an argument that it is perhaps the best superhero movie of all time. At last you can enjoy it on Blu-ray as it's released this week. I was lucky enough to get a review copy of it. Pixar's films almost seem designed for the format and the transfer here is very nice indeed with the colours looking super-sharp, rich and vivid. Seven years after its release at the cinema, Brad Bird's The Incredibles still holds up wonderfully well. The Parr family, father Bob, wife Helen and kids Violet, Dashiell and Jack Jack are forced to lead a normal suburban existence after superheroes are outlawed in Metroville. Bob (Craig T Nelson) holds down a dull job in insurance while Helen (Holly Hunter) tries her best to be a typical housewife. But Bob can't quite pack in the superhero lifestyle and spends one night a week while he's supposed to be out bowling with best friend Frozone (Samuel Jackson) sitting and listening to the police scanner. Then one day Bob gets drawn back into the world of costumes, contacted by a mysterious figure. He gets kidnapped by the grown-up super villain who Bob rebuffed when the villain was a kid. So the rest of the family are forced to come to his rescue. Blu-ray brings everything to life and actually gives The Incredibles the opportunity to attract a whole new audience. The sound gets an extra boost with the transfer to Blu-ray and the voice talent really shines especially Nelson and Hunter. The extras include a intriguing roundtable with the key players of the movie including Bird and producer John Walker and short Jack Jack Attack, which is entertaining. For anyone who's an animation aficionado, The Incredibles Blu-ray is a must-buy…

2011-06-26T23:25:00.002+01:00

PANDERING TO THE AUDIENCE?

In a summer overloaded with 3-D fare, Kung Fu Panda 2 is one of the few big tentpoles that is actually enhanced by the process. The first Kung Fu Panda was a surprise hit back in 2008, taking $60m at the US box office in its opening weekend. Dreamworks is the only credible rival as a mainstream animation house to Pixar and Kung Fu Panda, like Shrek, has an emotional depth lacking in most other animated features from other companies.

The other thing that's sad but true is that Jack Black is only likeable and seemingly in his element when he's the chubby unlikely action hero panda Po. The first film was a very accomplished and entertaining piece of fluff and Kung Fu Panda 2 actually manages to surpass its progenitor.

The plot is pretty simple: Shen (Gary Oldman) is a peacock who dabbled in the dark arts years ago and has returned to wreak his revenge, which would involve the end of Kung Fu. So Po and the Furious Five with the help of a number of new faces decides to face off against him.

The animation is incredible with the 3-D process giving the whole thing an almost painterly feel. You are thrown into Po's world in a totally immersive way and the fight sequences are well-directed and move with agility and speed. The voice talent here is well chosen with new addition Oldman almost stealing the show as the evil peacock Shen.

As I said, there is depth here and when the truth about Po's real father is revealed, there is a sense of emotion to it. Kung Fu Panda 2, despite its light and throwaway tone, isn't just another summer toy tie-in movie: it is crafted with care and attention to detail.

It isn't often that this is said but a sequel, as long as the same care and attention is taken to it, would actually be a welcome addition to a future summer's movie raft. Kung Fu Panda 2 certainly doesn't pander to its audience but makes it expect more from filmmakers…

2011-06-23T16:44:00.002+01:00

IT'S BEEN A FEW WEEKS…
June has been a little bit of a crazy month which is why I haven't posted anything here in a little bit. We are finishing off the second digital TRIPWIRE and knee deep in the next print edition of TRIPWIRE. This week was pretty interesting: on Tuesday I went to the New Worlds talk at the British Library with Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss, Norman Spinrad and John Clute. Part of the British Library's Science Fiction celebration, hosted by Roz Kaveney. Although the talk lacked a little focus and Kaveney didn't guide the conversation all that well, Aldiss and Moorcock made for an erudite double act and Spinrad had some interesting things to say. Critic Clute was a little out of place as he was the reviewer for New Worlds and perhaps it would have been a better talk if he had hosted it rather than Kaveney. Although I do know that Kaveney knows her stuff about science fiction, so it may just have been an off night. New Worlds is apparently being resurrected so perhaps this is a timely talk…
Then on Thursday I met up with Michael Moorcock for a brief chat and to take some photos. He was a gentlemen as ever and his wife Linda kindly slotted some time in for me to see him.

2011-06-05T14:56:00.004+01:00

HELPING JAPAN
This month sees the release of a charity book with the money going to a very worthwhile cause: it's going to help the Japanese tsunami and earthquake victims. Spirit of Hope, published by the Comic Book Alliance and the brainchild of CBA chair Tim Pilcher, has a very impressive lineup: Nick Abadzis, Donna Barr, Mark Buckingham, Jason Cobley, Mike Collins, Glenn Dakin, Al Davison, Martin Eden, Gary Erskine, Al Ewing, Henry Flint, Alan Grant, Tony Lee, Gary Spencer Millidge, David Pugh, Darick Roberston, Declan Shalvey, Liam Sharp, Si Spencer, Lew Stringer, Chris Western, Andrew Wildman.
Released 18th June for £14.99 + p &p, you can order it from the CBA website. Here's the two covers by Jimmy Broxton and Mike Allred.

http://www.comicbook.org.uk/spirit-of-hope/

2011-05-21T18:37:00.003+01:00

ON THE SHELF SPECIAL
Recently I've been thinking a lot about digital and print publications. With book shops struggling to survive (and only Waterstones left over here as the only national book shop chain) it does seem that the writing is on the wall for them. Digital does provide a more convenient experience for a lot of people. But there are specific books that, as of current technology, can only be properly consumed and enjoyed in print. I am talking about photographic and art books. Those lush hardcovers put together with extreme care and attention that showcase some of the finest work in a number of different fields.
New York based publisher Abrams has a list of great coffee table books and they were kind enough to furnish me with a few review copies of four of their recent titles.
First up is Hitchcock Piece by Piece by Laurent Bouzereau. A hardcover which is a little bit like the DC and Marvel Vault titles in that it includes pouches with detachable facsimiles of things like snippets of Hitchcock script, photos from the director's family album and even a letter from the Motion Picture Association of America, querying whether Hitch's The Birds was suitable for theatrical release with some of its contents making them feel uncomfortable. Apart from the detachable pieces, Hitchcock Piece by Piece features a selection of wonderful photos taken from various stages of his career of the director and many of his on-screen collaborators. Bouzereau's writing is informative but never dry and he manages to pack a lot of his research onto the page. The reproduction here is very good and it is quote obviously a book that its editors, as well as its writer, have taken a lot of care and consideration as to how it should be approached and assembled. Even though Alfred Hitchcock is a subject that has fascinated writers and journalists for many decades, Hitchcock Piece by Piece is an intriguing historical document of the life and career of perhaps arguably 20th Century Hollywood's most influential behind-the-camera figure…

Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell From The Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg by Virginia M. Mecklenburg is another Abrams book but quite different to Hitchcock Piece by Piece. Put together in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Telling Stories is a book that features two extended essays looking at the cultural impact that Rockwell made on American society. Illustrated partly by posters from the collections of Lucas and Spielberg, Mecklenburg, and Todd McCarthy in the second essay, Norman Rockwell's Camera Eye, examine Rockwell's distinguished career and take a look at the cinematic techniques that he utilised in his work. Despite the familiarity that audiences have with his work, it would have been nice if some of the images here had a little more room to breathe as the illos that are run on full pages remind you of the impact that Rockwell had on modern popular culture. Interestingly, McCarthy is a more accessible writer than Mecklenburg and his essay, buried at the back, feels fresher and more interesting to the reader. But it is still evident that Mecklenburg knows her stuff about the subject and she does manage to hold the reader's attention, accompanied by the cream of Rockwell's art. It seems timely that this book was released this year when a major Rockwell exhibition took place at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London…

The Making of Avatar by Jody Duncan and Lisa Fitzpatrick, was released to capitalize on the huge worldwide success of James Cameron's blockbuster movie that dominated the world's box office back in 2010. It's not a bad book although it does seem quite light on concept art and storyboards. The writing strikes the right balance between dense techy prose and the sort of more general text that would appeal to the casual reader. Since Duncan is the editor of Cinefex, the magazine devoted to film special effects, her expertise in this field is clear to see here. But there should have been more images as the significance of Avatar was the groundbreaking visual work that Cameron, Weta and Co carried out. However this is the Making of Avatar rather than the Art of Avatar and so perhaps I am being overly critical. The Making of Avatar does provide a perceptive look at the genesis and production of this important film…

And last but not least, there's Egypt: A View From Above, photographs by Philip Plisson with text by Christian Jacq. A wonderful oversized hardback, this book contains some of the most staggering aerial photos of Egypt including a number of places that are amongst the most recognisable architectural and historical icons anywhere in the world but Plisson succeeds in investing them with a newfound power and majesty. Jacq's text is well written but it is the photographs here that are the stars of the show. Travel photography books have become so hackneyed and overly familiar but Plisson has a great eye for the unusual, finding colour and drama in what seems like the most mundane subjects. For anyone intrigued by this ancient place, Egpyt: A View From Above is a must-buy book as it is for anyone who admires great photography. And it's an experience you definitely couldn't replicate on an iPad or a tablet…

2011-05-18T13:56:00.004+01:00

A BIT OF A RUM DO
Pirates of The Caribbean is a film series that rapidly went downhill. The first one was surprisingly entertaining, the second (Dead Man's Chest) was less so and the third, At World's End, was an abomination with no plot and real script to speak of. So we fast forward four years to Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom and director Gore Verbinski are gone with Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane stepping into the supporting roles as Angelica and Blackbeard, respectively. Verbinksi has been replaced by Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine) and only Johnny Depp, back as Captain Jack Sparrow, and Geoffrey Rush, as Barbarossa, have any connection with the previous three. At World's End received quite a kicking critically but it still made $300m in the US alone. So On Stranger Tides is intended to be a little bit of a reboot with a new director and two main cast players. As with seemingly every big Hollywood film at the moment, it is getting its release in 3-D. On Stranger Tides sees Jack Sparrow in London to rescue the Black Pearl's first mate Gibbs (Kevin McNally) from the hangman's noose. Once he has succeeded in this, he decides to gather a crew to locate the legendary Fountain of Youth. Falling in with Blackbeard (McShane) and Angelica (Cruz), who is masquerading as Sparrow, he sails to try and track down the Fountain. At the same time, Barbarossa, who has now taken a Royal Navy commission, and the Spanish are also determined to find the fountain. The plot is fairly secondary here as the question is whether the pyrotechnics of the special effects work and the answer is that On Stranger Tides, while better than its predecessor, is a tawdry, dull and overlong affair. Depp's Captain Sparrow, charming once, is now annoying and idiotic, McShane's Blackbeard is rather wasted and Cruz is bland and uninteresting. The sub-plot of the love affair between the human and the mermaid is clumsy and unengaging. Rush must have signed up again purely for the cash as he looks bored and out of place here. The 3-D also looks really murky and the rivalry between the three parties is badly directed and the whole thing comes across like a very poor man's Indiana Jones. It will undoubtedly make buckets of gold at the box office regardless of what the critics say but On Stranger Tides is manipulative, tedious and far too long…

2011-05-12T20:32:00.000+01:00

ALDISS AND MORE
The radio silence here has been because the last month has been insanely busy. As part of a book project that may or may not happen about sci fi and fantasy writers photographed in their place of work. I've been to see Christopher Fowler (Bryant & May) back in February and this week I was lucky enough to visit Brian Aldiss (Heliconia, Frankenstein Unbound) for the same project. I got some great shots and he was a gent as always. I feel very lucky sometimes that I do get to meet interesting people thanks to my job…

2011-04-22T11:18:00.004+01:00

TRIPWIRE BACK IN PREVIEWS
After a gap of two years, TRIPWIRE will be available to order from Diamond US in Previews. If you go to page 351 of Previews May 2011, you can order TRIPWIRE#55, item code MAY111336. For £6.95 UK/ $9.99 US, you can get 124 pages in full colour. Here's info on what's going to be in it

Under an exclusive painted cover by illustrator David Michael Beck, we celebrate Michael Moorcock's Elric anniversary by talking to Moorcock himself, looking back at the past of the character in comics and what Boom! has planned for it. We also profile movie location scouting company Sarah Eastel plus London fantasy author Christopher (Bryant & May) Fowler talks about his career. It's fifty years since Fantastic Four #1 so we commemorate this with a look back at Marvel's first family with the help of some of the creators who've been part of FF history. Then there's STRIPWIRE, like an entire 22 page comic inside a magazine with artists like Roger Langridge and Kev Mullins, a profile of classic artist LB Cole, the return of old favourites like the Power List and the Graphic Novel roundup and a look at the success of Paizo's Pathfinder RPG.

Here's Beck's magnificent cover image…

2011-04-18T13:57:00.004+01:00

ENTRANCEWAY TO HORROR
The Door (Die Tur) is a German horror/ fantasy film starring Mads Mikkelsen, the Danish actor who is best known to international audiences as Le Chiffre in Casino Royale but was also in the excellent Flame and Citron, a Danish film set in Denmark during the Second World War. Mikkelsen plays artist David, whose life is torn apart when his daughter Leonie drowns in their swimming pool. What makes matters worse is that he feels responsible as he was too busy shacking up with Gia (Heike Makatsch) to keep an eye on his young daughter. For his wife Maja, played by Jessica Schwarz, the death of their daughter is the last straw. So we are moved forward five years in time. But then David finds a mysterious door in an overgrown garden in their neighbourhood, which appears to offer him a new beginning. But things are not as they seem. The door transports David back to before Leonie was killed and, as he prevents her death, he believes that he has rewritten history to patch things up. The problem is that the David of five years ago is still around and so, to resolve matters, the older David is forced to take action. Mikkelsen is an excellent lead and the gorgeous Schwarz as his wife is great to watch on screen. Director Anno Saul maintains the momentum throughout the film with everything shot at a slight distance to create an unsettling reality that doesn't quite feel like the real world. The Door isn't really a horror film so much as a fantasy but the Body Snatchers' type denouement is quite creepy, leading the viewer to realise that David's not the only one who's passed through the door. It's available to buy now on DVD from Optimum and is recommended for fans of European horror films, especially ones that are a slow burn and are a little more cerebral than your average slasher movie…
www.optimumreleasing.com

2011-04-13T23:00:00.003+01:00

TRIPWIRE GOES DIGITAL
We've been mulling this over for a bit but about ten days ago, we decided to take the plunge. So if you go over to www.tripwire-magazine.com, you can download for FREE the first digital edition of TRIPWIRE, or issue 0.01. Currently it's a .pdf but it will become more and more sophisticated and interactive as the months and years pass. Under a Thor movie cover, we look at the history of Marvel's God of Thunder coming to the big screen. Plus we review Duncan Jones' Source Code, give a history of 2000AD from 1977 to the present day and get a glimpse into what BOOM! has planned for Hellraiser.It costs NOTHING, so what are you waiting for?

2011-04-11T15:18:00.013+01:00

WINDY MILLAR?
So after months of hype and bluster, Kapow Comic Con 2011 came to London at the weekend. Promising San Diego in London (overpriced hotels, restaurants you can't get into and panels you can't get near;), at last there was the chance to see what all of the fuss was about.
Kapow took place at the Business Design Centre, a venue for trade shows located in middle-class North London. The weather in London, and in fact England, during April is normally very changeable with rain likely. But they were lucky with this as it felt like July (in any other country, as July over here is also very unpredictable).
Kapow Comic Con 2011 had a decent lineup of guests (like Brian Bolland, Frank Quitely, Dave Gibbons, Duncan Fegredo, Chris Weston, Sean Phillips, Bryan Hitch and John Romita Jr), a selection of panels featuring things like a preview of Thor the movie with Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston and a lot of Millarworld announcements. The celebrity bullshit with which they partially promoted the show mostly evaporated at the show itself. One of the 'celebrity' guests, Jonathan Ross, was only at Kapow for about half of Saturday and many of the other celebs cancelled at the last minute.
The range of comic dealers was decent but big name publishers DC and Marvel were not set up at the show, leaving only Titan (the main bankroller of the show) and magazines Comic Heroes and ImagineFX and a number of independent British outfits like SelfMadeHero and Cinebook to fill the slots.
The Stan Lee Awards were rather amateurish and embarrassing with over half of the winners being absent. The presentation by Guinness World Records for a number of comic-related records was nicely put together though.
The overall vibe was positive however and, removing all of the bluster and hype, Kapow was a very decent London comic show in a nice venue. There's already talk of another show in 2012 and I am glad. If they learn from the experiences of this year's event and build on what worked here, then Kapow will be a worthy addition to the British comic show going calendar…

http://www.tripwire-magazine.com/

2011-03-31T23:51:00.003+01:00

A PICTURE OF MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY
2011 sees the World Photography Organisation hosting their photography festival in London for the first time. Located at Somerset House on The Strand, this week-long celebration of the best in world photography runs from 26th April to 1st May and features many of the world's finest photographic practitioners. Thanks to the generosity of the organisers, who have kindly donated a promotional code that gives visitors here 15% off entry.
This special offer ends on April 4th - don't miss out: buy your Festival pass today before it's too late!
To benefit from the 15% discount, enter now the following promotional code PROMO15 in the gift voucher box using this link: http://bit.ly/h7IHC4
I'll be visiting the festival myself and it's a stunning venue located right on the river Thames.
To see the festival's schedule, just visit this link: http://bit.ly/eFsd45

2011-03-28T12:22:00.006+01:00

ALLEN GOES AYCKBOURN
Woody Allen's last film, Whatever Works, with Larry David, was particularly awful and pointless. So expectations for his latest effort, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, weren't high. Returning to shooting in England (partly because these days European money seems to be the only kind he can get), You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is a drama about Helena Shebritch (Gemma Jones), married to Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) and their daughter Sally Channing (Naomi Watts). Sally is married to American writer Roy, played by Josh Brolin. When Alfie splits with Helena as part of some late mid-life crisis, and takes up with brainless bimbo Charmaine (Lucy Punch), the rest of the family's life seems to feel the ripples. Sally's husband Roy takes a fancy to gorgeous neighbour Dia, played by Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) while Helena goes to 'find herself'. You can tell from the offset that none of it is going to end well but one of the biggest problems here is that it's such a slight concept that it leaves your brain almost as soon as you have finished watching it. Allen doesn't seem comfortable in this world of English manners and foibles and dialogue comes across as stilted and unconvincing in the mouths of the predominantly British cast. The character portrayed by Antonia Banderas as Sally's boss is redundant and Punch as gold-digging airhead Charmaine comes across as unreal and caricatured. Watts turns in a decent performance as does Hopkins, who underplays things for a change. So You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is an improvement on Whatever Works but it's hard to believe that this was the same writer/ director responsible for Annie Hall, Manhattan and even Bullets Over Broadway. So worth catching on DVD when it comes out but nothing would be gained by seeing it at the cinema.

2011-03-18T18:01:00.002Z

ITALIAN STYLE
Last Saturday, I went to Goldsmiths College in New Cross to see Dave McKean talking to Lorenzo Mattotti. Part of Comica, this was tied in with the release of Mattotti's new Stigmata book and the pair just spoke about the Italian master's varied career, from his book Fires, his wonderful New Yorker covers and the forthcoming The Raven, written by Lou Reed and published by Fantagraphics. Turnout was very encouraging with a full room and it made me realize that, as well as being a genius at colour work, his line art is magnificent. It kicked off a little bit late but made for a very interesting couple of hours. Mattotti is exactly the sort of comic artist who should be getting wider exposure outside of Europe and this is the sort of talk that may start to help this. McKean, obviously familiar with Mattotti's canon, made for a good interviewer. Comica continues to offer a mixed range of comics and comic-related events and it has now built up to be one of the cultural highlights in London's graphic novel calendar.
www.comicafestival.com

2011-03-14T08:01:00.003Z

LOWERING STANDARDS
I went to see The Eagle, a film based on Rosemary Sutclif's novel written in the 1950s about the Roman legion who lost their standard and were routed by Picts in Scotland. The story is the same one that was depicted in Neil Marshall's Centurion but here we have a slightly larger budget, Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, Touching The Void) and American beefcake Channing Tatum. The big problem with The Eagle (which was originally called The Eagle of The Ninth but the makers thought that the simpler name would make it more appealing) is that it is filled with inconsistencies and historical mistakes. Tatum plays Marcus Aquila, a centurion determined to regain the honour of the lost legion by retrieving his father's legion's golden eagle emblem and restore his reputation. He is assisted by his slave Esca (Jamie Bell) and so they make their way over Hadrian's Wall. They are captured by the Picts and Aquila's status is reversed, making him the slave. The Picts look more like Native Americans, carrying tomahawks, and Guern (Mark Strong), one of Aquila's father's legionaries, has an American accent for no apparent reason. Presumably the producers thought that, if they shoved Americans and American-sounding actors into The Eagle, it would play better in the States but it detracts from the story. The script isn't up to much, Tatum is lumpen and rather wooden but, to be fair, Bell is pretty good. Centurion made for a much better film for a fraction of the cost and came across as far more credible. The Eagle is just about worth watching on DVD but it really does feel like a wasted opportunity…

2011-03-12T09:53:00.004Z

SOMEDAY MY PRINTS WILL COME
I have decided to bite the bullet and offer a selection of my photos as A3 prints for people to buy. So you can choose from a photo of a mysterious woman on the Brooklyn Bridge in the Autumn sunshine, the entrance to Lewes Castle in Sussex or a classic American car in North Beach in San Francisco. There are PayPal buttons on the side of this very blog, making it easy to order. Each print costs £9.99 including postage and packing for UK customers or you could buy all three for the bargain price of £25. You can also PayPal the money to my email address (joelmeadows@btinternet.com), specifying which print(s) you'd like. At some point in the next month, I shall be working out how much it will cost to send to the US, so any American or Canadian visitors here interested in buying, please bear with me. So why not grab one?
Here are the images…

2011-03-06T19:49:00.005Z

DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SETS

Over the last thirty years, Philip K Dick has had a lot of his work adapted to the big screen, some more successful than others (Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly and Total Recall, to name but a few). The Adjustment Bureau, directed by George Nolfi and starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, is the latest attempt to bring Dick's work to the cinema, loosely based on Dick's short story 'Adjustment Team'. Damon plays politician David Norris, who, on the night that the results of his election contest are announced, meets Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt) in the men's toilets at the hotel he is watching the results. So this chance meeting causes Norris's destiny to change course and we are introduced to the existence of The Adjustment Bureau, a group of shadowy figures whose role it is to make certain that peoples' lives run according to a grand plan. Norris is warned by Richardson from the Bureau (Jon Slattery from Mad Men) that he is not intended to be with Elise as eventually he will end up as President of the US. But of course, this being a movie, the viewer knows that Norris will never settle for this. The Adjustment Bureau has a likeable cast, is well-directed and a decent script but the problem is that it's all too light. When you are first introduced to the shadowy figures, you are expecting a dark and thrilling adventure tale a la The Matrix or Dark City but as it progresses, the romance overbalances it. Damon is very good and Blunt makes for a fairly captivating female lead but, at the end, there's no meat on the bones. So it's not a bad film, by any means, and is certainly worth watching but there is something lacking here…

2011-03-04T20:05:00.005Z

CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR
This week sees the release of one of my favourite British films of all time on DVD and Blu-Ray. It's no exaggeration that Brighton Rock (1947) is a movie that's up there for me with other classics like Get Carter, The Long Good Friday and Mona Lisa as the best of what Britain can produce in this genre. Based on the seminal Graham Greene book, Brighton Rock, directed by John Boulting and known as Young Scarface in the US, is the story of Pinkie Brown, a violent sadistic young gangster and his gang of cronies in the archetypal British seaside town of Brighton. Pinkie has a rival in the shape of Italian Colleoni and so he is battling to maintain his piece of the action. The problem is that Pinkie's gang kills newspaper man Fred Kite, bringing down all manner of aggrevation on themselves. This is Richard Attenborough's first major role and as the lapsed Catholic Pinkie, he is magnetic on screen, with his character's youth forcing his adversaries to underestimate his power. The future Doctor Who, William Hartnell, as Pinkie's heavy Dallow, brings a rare menace to the screen and Hermione Baddeley as the blowsy Ida, who is drawn into the web as the last person to see journalist Fred alive, more than holds her own. Boulting is a wonderful director and Brighton really does become a character in its own right here. The script is faithful to Greene's book with the best lines lending it almost a literary feel on screen. Hans Mays's music only serves to increase the tension and drama here intercut with some of the best editing on any film before or since. It is a true slice of British cinema history and, with the release of Rowan Joffe's film of the same name (set in the 1960s), this should attract attention when it comes to Blu-ray and DVD. The extras are not much to write home about, although the interview with Joffe, who seems to know a lot about the Boulting precursor, makes for intriguing viewing. Brighton Rock is a British film masterwork and anyone who is a serious cineaste should have it in their collection. This restored edition is worth the price, if only for the film itself…
www.optimumreleasing.com

2011-02-15T21:39:00.003Z

MAGNUM OPUS
The Chris Beetles Gallery has been a fantastic oasis of illustration in St James's for years now and, with them also dealing in photography, it was inevitable that they would one day open a gallery just devoted to that. Last Tuesday, I went to the launch of the Chris Beetles Fine Photographs. Located on Swallow Street near Piccadilly, the space kicks off with an exhibition from the wonderful Eve Arnold, female Magnum photographer and the woman who shot Marilyn Monroe when she was making The Misfits. It's well worth a visit as it's a lovely space and it's nice to see Arnold's work on display. It's also obvious that the owners will be taking as much care with this as they have done with the Illustration gallery and it's a worthy addition to the photo galleries in the West End of London.
http://www.chrisbeetlesfinephotographs.com/

2011-02-06T13:05:00.007Z

FROM OUTER SPACE TO THE OLD WEST
January was a quiet month for movies but I did go to see two films at press screenings at the end of the month. First we have True Grit, the Coen Brothers' 'remake' of the much-loved John Wayne western, sticking more closely to the book that it was based on. Now the Coen Brothers are amongst my favourite directors and I have loved them since I saw Barton Fink at the cinema (I came to them a little late) but they have this strange tendency to follow a great film with a competent but pointless one. A Serious Man (2009) was a very good film indeed so unfortunately True Grit follows this pattern. Jeff Bridges plays Rooster Cogburn, the irascible Marshall retained by young Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) to bring the killer of her father to justice. Matt Damon is Texas Ranger Laboeuf here, who falls in with Cogburn and Ross on the trail of killer Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). The problem with 2010's version of True Grit is not that it's badly made or poorly acted. Bridges is very capable as Cogburn, Steinfeld acquits herself very admirably on screen and Damon is excellent almost as usual and the cinematography by Roger Deakins is wonderful but it doesn't add anything really: the John Wayne version still holds up pretty well over four decades after it was released. The fact that lots of praise has been lavished on it is a little bit of a mystery as it is a competent and well-made but ultimately pointless exercise. Let's hope that their next film comes out of left-field a bit more. True Grit is a decent, 3-star film but it doesn't leave you with anything and so will be forgotten very quickly by posterity…
Paul, directed by Greg Mottola, is the latest Simon Pegg/ Nick Frost collaboration. With Edgar Wright off to the US, it's the first of their movies not with him. Paul deals with two English geeks taking a roadtrip pilgrimage to all of the weird places in the West and Southwest of the USA, places where UFOs and strange happenings have been reported over the years. Kicking off in the nerd mecca of San Diego Comic Con, Graeme Willy (Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Frost) get more than they bargained for when they meet a real-life extra-terrestrial in the shape of Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen). Paul won't appeal to everyone and it's not perfect by any means. Frost is annoying but Pegg is likeable on screen and Rogen's ET-with-attitude is entertaining. Jason Bateman as the FBI agent with the humourous name (I won't stick it in here) is suitably hard-bitten and Sigourney Weaver as the evil US government agency head looks like she's having fun here. Kristen Wiig stays the right side of annoying as a one-eyed Christian girl who takes a shine to Willy. For the people who dream of things like going to San Diego Comic-Con and writing their own science fiction or fantasy novels, Paul is an enjoyable slice of knowing nonsense which, while it won't change the world, will pass an hour and a half pleasantly enough…

2011-01-20T17:05:00.002Z

LIFE IS BIUTIFUL (SOMETIMES)
I went to see Biutiful, the latest film by Alejandro Inarritu, starring Javier Bardem. Inarritu, along with Alphonse Cuaron and Guillermo Del Toro, is one of the Mexican directors who has made such an impact over the last decade in Hollywood. He has made previous films like Babel and 21 Grams, movies that are cerebral with a lot to say. In Biutiful, he presents a Barcelona that is seamy, seedy and sleazy and yet vibrant and alive at the same time. Bardem plays Uxbal, a directionless man split from his crazy wife Marambra (Maricel Alvarez), and he has custody of his two children, a son and a daughter. To make money, he visits local funeral parlours and 'speaks' to the recently departed relatives of its mourners. He continues his meanderings until he receives serious medical news and it forces him to change his outlook on life. In the hands of a lesser practitioner, his part would be mawkish or disconnected but Bardem is magnificent as Uxbal: magnetic on screen, totally dominating proceedings. Inarritu is a fantastic director and, while Biutiful won't be to everybody's taste, anyone interested in serious cinema will be blown away by the depth and breadth of this movie, which also debates the plight of immigrants forced to live in substandard accommodation and exploited by their employers and how people come to terms with their own mortality. It is an exquisite masterwork and a more than worthy addition to the director's other movies…
I also went to see Killing Bono, a film that is only really notable because it contains the last screen performance of Pete Postlethwaite. Directed by Nick Hamm, the film looks at two Irish brothers, Neil and Ivan McCormick (played respectively by Ben Barnes and Robert Sheehan), who went to school with Bono and the rest of U2 in Ireland and spend the rest of their lives trying to get out from under their shadow. The problem with the whole film is that the script is hackneyed, clumsy and unconvincing. The actors playing the two brothers make a decent fist of it but none of it rings true. Postlethwaite as gay photographer and landlord Karl shows why he was so well-regarded as an actor before his early passing this year but he's totally wasted. Martin McCann who plays Bono isn't bad but everything feels lightweight and artificial. Peter Serafinowicz as their manager, Hammond, is embarassingly awful on screen and the humour that runs through the film is cringeworthy. So not exactly a fitting epitaph for Postlethwaite, Killing Bono is the sort of British film that FilmFour used to make in the Eighties and will disappear almost as soon as it's arrived…

2011-01-05T16:43:00.005Z

WRITING ON THE WALL
I've started 2011 feeling upbeat about the future. I have finished the plot synopsis and draft chapters of the detective novel and will be sending it out this month. I'm pretty pleased with the way it's turned out. Prose is hard work and I'm beginning to hate the text I wrote last year but I am going to persevere. It's a character I created for a short story that I wrote to submit to a competition in 2009. It's also a way for me to flex different muscles than the journalism and it's something I'm finding satisfying…

2010-12-30T10:36:00.004Z

LOOKING BACK (AND LOOKING FORWARD)
As is customary this time of year, I thought I would talk about what I've managed to do this year and what I hope to achieve in 2011. It's been a very interesting year:

•We published another issue of TRIPWIRE, packed full of diverse features and content. With each edition, the aim is to improve on the previous and hopefully we succeeded. I am very proud of this issue. We didn't get it out more frequently but the fact that we brought it out at all in the current climate was something.

•I brought out a number of photo books through Blurb (London Eye, Stone Gardens and Black & White). I took tons of photos in 2010 and at last I am seeing that I am developing (pardon the pun) as a photographer. I am now trying to consider what I am taking and things like composition and framing. I even did a photography weekend with a friend of my brother's, which I found very enjoyable. Two of my photos ended up in the monster 75 Years of DC that Taschen published at the end of the year, so that was very cool.

• On the freelance front, I had a very good year. Despite beginning it with what I thought was a year's contract at a consumer 'champion' magazine (I won't tell you Which), one that ended after only five weeks but on both the subbing and feature writing front, 2010 was a very good year. I got work into Future's new comics-focused magazine Comic Heroes, continued to write for The Judge Dredd Megazine and got some material into Sci-Fi Now as well as another piece for The Word. I also subbed and did production work at a lot of new places (new for me) including Digital Arts, Apollo and The Week.

• There were a couple of book projects including a followup to Studio Space and a number of photographic books that seemed as if they were going to happen but they fell through because of a number of different factors. It's an occupational hazard so there's no point getting stressed about it.

•Following on from writing a detective short story for The Sunday Times Culture competition in 2009, I begun work on a novel featuring the same protagonist. While prose is hard, I am pretty chuffed with the results and intend to carry on with it.

So 2010 was a good year but what would I like to happen next year?

• I would still like to take TRIPWIRE more frequently and we are in discussions with a couple of people to try to make this a reality. Nothing may come of it but I live in hope. We do intend to try and do something electronic on a semi-regular basis.

•I would like to find a publisher for the detective novel. I have been chatting to an editor and a agent so it could happen. It wouldn't see the light of day until 2012 at the earliest even if it did but that would be fine.

•Studio Space 2 would find a home. I am talking to someone to see if we can get this off the ground. We have a fantastic provisional list of artists (Sergio Aragones, Frank Quitely, Frank Cho, Dave Dorman, Glenn Fabry, Bryan Hitch, Frazer Irving, Dave Johnson, Mike Kaluta, Roger Langridge, P Craig Russell, John Paul Leon, Ben Templesmith, John Romita Jr, Mark Schultz, Charles Vess, Matt Wagner, Chris Weston and JH Williams III) so I would like to get that closer to being a reality.

•I shall continue to take more photos, do more books through Blurb and I would like to set up an exhibition of my photos and also do things like sell prints and calendars of my work. I would also like to get at least one photographic book off the ground published by a regular publisher.

•I'll keep on subbing and doing the freelance writing because it's a good way to keep my hand in with the field of film, TV and genre in-between doing TRIPWIRE.

• I shall still be writing here at this blog as I have done since 2006 as it's still a great place for me to talk crap about whatever I want to talk crap about.

•In 2011, we'll be preparing for the 20th anniversary of TRIPWIRE. It's scary to think that we started publishing it in 1992 but we intend to do something very special for 2012. The current plan (and it is in the very early stages) is to produce a 200 page book that will include the cream of our content so far plus lots of brand new, exclusive material.

So to everyone who reads this blog: Have a great New Year and I'll see you all in 2011

2010-12-27T14:50:00.004Z

TIME FLYING
Coming up in the next few days is my customary look back at 2010 and look forward to 2010 but before that, I just wanted to talk about something else. It is a cliche that time seems to move faster as you get a little older but it certainly seems to be true. Over the last couple of days, I have been hunting for a photo I took of Alan Moore quite a while ago for someone else to use in a book project and, as a result, I've been going through some CDs that include backed-up pages from old TRIPWIREs, photos and images that date from some period over the past decade. They have proven to be an amazing treasure trove of material, reminding me of trips, holidays and work past. I even found the issue of TRIPWIRE that we completed in July 2003 but never published (it exists in its entirety as a .pdf) and it's been interesting to take a look back. Also in terms of my photography, I did have a camera on trips during that period but it was only my compact. So it's very intriguing to see how I've improved as a photographer. So here's a photo I took of Moore in Northampton back in 2000 and some shots from a week away in Ireland in May 2005…

2010-12-14T16:06:00.002Z

LIFE OF GRANT
On Sunday I went to see Talking With Gods, a documentary about Grant Morrison that was showing at the ICA as part of Paul Gravett's rolling Comica festival. Clocking in at 80 minutes, despite the portentous title, director Patrick Meaney has done a decent job of trying to encapsulate Morrison's significant contribution to comics and related culture. Morrison has always come across as a far more likeable character than Alan Moore and this documentary does nothing to disabuse me of this opinion. Having met Morrison over the years (and he wrote a few columns for TRIPWIRE back in the 1990s), I did know quite a bit about him already. Having said that, the sections of the film where he talked about his father, who took him along to break into government facilities, were genuinely interesting as were segments with him talking about his teenage years and his time in bands. Obviously there is a decent amount of screen time with the man himself but Meaney has included brief chats with comic industry figures like Geoff Johns, Karen Berger, Frank Quitely, Jason Aaron, Warren Ellis and many more to try to give it all a little bit of context. There are strange omissions here: despite the fact that Zenith in 2000AD was probably what exposed him to a wider comic-reading audience, AD's editor at the time isn't included here and there is no Peter Milligan, a contemporary of Morrison's. The inclusion of former Warrior editor Dez Skinn was a little bit strange here too as his connection to the writer is that Morrison wrote a Marvelman story that never saw the light of day and almost took over from Moore on the character. Despite the fact that Grant Morrison as weird, out-there, occasionally drugged-up maverick feels like a persona that he has created for himself, oddly there is something very down-to-earth about him that the viewer can't help but like. The Q&A afterwards was a little bit pointless and rudderless: a Skype chat had been set up with the director and at the screening were Rian Hughes, Frazer Irving and Steve Cook. But Hughes hasn't worked with Morrison for a number of years and Cook, a letterer, didn't have much to contribute. Only Irving, who had finished a Batman run earlier this year, has worked with Morrison recently and so it felt a little bit redundant. It felt a little bit like it hadn't really been thought through properly. The event would have worked better if it was just the director who was interviewed or if they couldn't get him physically over, then there would have been no shame in just screening the documentary. However, Gravett's intentions were obviously decent so I'm glad I went along. The documentary is worth seeing if you're interested in Morrison or modern comics but hopefully he may be able to insert the missing figures into the documentary for DVD or a future release…
www.comicafestival.com

2010-11-27T13:18:00.007Z

FROM BOY WIZARD TO SUPERVILLAIN
I have been to see two films at press screenings over the past two weeks and, while they are two very different movies, I thought I would review them in the same blog post. First up is Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1. Now unfortunately with each Potter film that has been released, they make less and less of an impact on me as a viewer. Harry Potter is one of the few modern film franchises that seems totally impervious to critical response. As I write this, Deathly Hallows Part 1 racked up an opening weekend in the US of $125m and made over £18m just in the UK. So the audience for Potter is so huge around the world that it wouldn't matter if every critic, every magazine and every newspaper slated it. So I am going to present my thoughts here knowing full well that it won't make the blindest bit of difference. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1, directed by David Yates and starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, adapts the first half of the final Harry Potter novel. School Hogwarts plays no part in this story as villain Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) has his firm grip on the magical world and so The Deathly Hallows deals with Harry, Hermione and Ron attempting to avoid his agents while working out a way of foiling the evil magician's diabolical plans. There are several problems with this film and the most heinous crime it commits here is that there is no concession to anybody who hasn't lived and breathed Harry Potter for the past decade. Alright, this is the seventh part of a film series but anyone who isn't conversant with the canon or the characters would not understand or really care if they sat and watched this film. Additionally, the opening sequence, where Moody (Brendan Gleeson) alters the appearances of several of the other characters to look like Potter so that Voldemort's agents are thrown off the scent, is a nifty idea but one that is thrown away after the first 15 minutes and replaced by what feels like hours of turgid dullness with Harry, Hermione and Ron wandering through the forests and fields of the country, while all of the grand battles and action seems to occur off-camera. Two-and-a-half hours is a long running time for this, especially when a large proportion of this feels like filler and time-wasting. There are a couple of nice scenes, namely the chase at the beginning and the animated sequence where we learn what the title means is visually very impressive. But perhaps the other scenes were more powerful on the printed page but it slows the pacing down significantly. If all of the key plot moments occur in the second half of The Deathly Hallows, then Part 1 cannot work as a film in its own right. If you are a Harry Potter obsessive, then you would have seen this film already and if you are not a fan or interested in the genre, then you won't see it anyway. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 is a very frustrating film…
Megamind is the latest animated film from DreamWorks and stars the voice talents of Will Ferrell, Tina Fey and Brad Pitt. Megamind takes the Superman story (alien gets rocketed to Earth from a dying planet) and turns it a little bit on its head. Megamind is the lifelong nemesis of square-jawed Metro Man but when he gets his wish and wipes Metro Man out seemingly for good, his life becomes meaningless. So he sets about creating a new superhero adversary for himself but that's when things start to go wrong. Ferrell as Megamind is extremely good and Pitt ( Metro Man) and Fey (as reporter Roxanne Ritchi) are very talented vocal foils for him. The animation here is fantastic, using 3-D to very impressive effect. The flying sequences are particularly effective but the whole film utilises the format very cannily. Its script is funny and sharp where it needs to be and its mild subversion of superhero and comicbook tropes make it a much cleverer film than you might expect. Its running time of 95 minutes means that it never outstays its welcome and holds your attention throughout. Dreamworks has been one of the only animation houses to truly challenge Pixar's dominance of the modern market and Megamind is a worthy addition to that canon…

2010-11-19T11:09:00.002Z

Blurb are doing a special deal until Nov. 26th:

if you order one of my books from www.blurb.com and enter the following codes, you can get 20% off:

* USD $ coupon code: PROMO
* GBP £ coupon code: PROMO1
* EUR € coupon code: PROMO2
* CAD $ coupon code: PROMO3
* AUD $ coupon code: PROMO4

just make sure you order by November 26th…

here's the links to my books:
Stone Gardens: www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1351502
London Eye: www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1177930
Town & Country (Hardback): www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1101477
Town & Country (Paperback): www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1129466

so why not grab one of my books?

2010-11-18T09:10:00.012Z

ME AND MARTIN SCORSESE
October and November have been interesting months. Apart from going to New York in October, I got to meet Michael Moorcock in London (something which I'll save for another post) but I also was lucky enough to go to an event at BAFTA in London to commemorate the reissue of Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, the critical reaction to which caused Powell to stop making films in the UK. It is 50 years since its release and it is coming to Blu-Ray after a cinema rerelease on November 19th. The event at BAFTA was introduced first by Professor Ian Christie, who used to work at the BFI, Thelma Schoonmaker, Michael Powell's widow, and finally by Martin Scorsese, who has been instrumental in getting the film rereleased over the past three decades. I go to lots of press screenings and press events but this was different as it was a BAFTA event and so it was a little bit more exclusive. Even though we didn't get to speak to Scorsese, it was fantastic even to be in the same room as him and I did get a couple of really good shots of him in the BAFTA cinema. Peeping Tom was definitely a film ahead of its time as it deals with voyeurism and lack of privacy in modern society and watching it now is a wonderful time capsule of London in the late fifties. Karlheinz Böhm or Carl Boehm as the central figure, Mark Lewis, the man obsessed with photographing the world around him, is suitably creepy while Anna Massey as his girlfriend, Helen Stephens, is very watchable on screen. Powell's direction is very assured and the script and plot still have something to say even five decades after its release. If anything, what it has to say is even more relevant now than it was back in 1960. Peeping Tom is a great social document and, if you are able to catch it at the cinema when it gets rereleased from 19th November, it's recommended. A must for serious cinephiles…
http://www.optimumreleasing.com/

2010-11-14T18:21:00.002Z

RED BUBBLE AT 15 PER CENT OFF
Red Bubble are currently offering 15% off my work but only until the end of today, so if you visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/joelmeadows1 and put in the following code: joelmeadows1_is_on_sale_6587, you can get a discount.
But only until the end of today…

2010-11-13T14:03:00.007Z

FESTIVAL IN THE BIG SMOKE
The last month has been crazy so this is the first chance I've had to put a post up about the London Film Festival, which ended at the end of October. Because I was freelancing and then away, I didn't go to many films this year. The LFF, unlike Cannes and Toronto, is not a film market and one of its main purposes is to showcase film for the cinemagoing public. It has also created buzz for a number of significant British films the last few years: Slumdog Millionaire and An Education were helped by their showings at the LFF. It is a fantastic festival and I look forward to attending it each year.
The first film I caught was The King's Speech, a drama starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham-Carter and directed by Tom Hooper. Now Firth, while a likeable actor, usually just bumbles through his roles but here as the future King George VI, afflicted with a terrible stammer, he is playing against type. Geoffrey Rush plays antipodean exile Lionel Logue, who is brought in by George's wife, Queen Elizabeth, to try to help him overcome this problem. Bonham-Carter as Elizabeth is actually quite good, acting as a decent foil for Firth. TV veteran director Hooper (Cold Feet, Elizabeth I) brings an assured touch here, humanising the Royals and with a perfect eye for period detail, thanks to Eve Stewart's sumptuous production design, lifts The King's Speech above more than just the usual Royal-focused film with an eye to attracting American audiences. Rush is superb as the man who becomes George's friend, determined to help him out despite the protestations of the Archbishop of Canterbury and King George himself. Guy Pearce, who plays Edward VIII, the monarch who resigned and went to live with Mrs Wallis Simpson, makes his role go a decent way and his arrogance is a nice counterpoint to George's warmth. There is talk of Oscar nods for The King's Speech and it would certainly be warranted…
Next up is Black Swan, directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Winona Ryder. This is a film that has attracted much speculation and divided audiences who have seen it. Portman plays Nina, a classical dancer who is offered the role of the prima ballerina in a new production of Swan Lake after their principal dancer Beth Macintyre (Ryder) leaves. Vincent Cassel is svengali Thomas Leroy, the head of the ballet company, who isn't convinced that Nina is capable of playing both the White Swan and the more evil counterpart, the Black Swan, in Swan Lake. So Nina becomes obsessed with trying to pin down the other role, with her life seemingly falling to pieces around her. Black Swan looks incredible, dark and menacing, but the problem here is that Portman's Nina is an obnoxious, narcissistic and unsympathetic character, so when the film ends on a low note, because the audience can't empathise with her, it leaves you feeling quite cold. None of the other characters are particularly likeable either with Cassel a bit of a shit who had a fling with Beth before the company got rid of her and only Lilly (Kunis), who befriends Nina, comes across as remotely human. So Black Swan works as a technical exercise and there's no denying Aronofsky's prowess as a director but it's clinical and rather portentous in places with a protagonist that you never really get to care about.…
Finally there's 127 Hours, directed by Danny Boyle with James Franco, Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn. Boyle is an incredible director, able to turn his hand to everything from hedonistic drama (Trainspotting) to post-apocalyptic zombie horror (28 Days Later). He is a very stylish director who knows how to entertain his audience. 127 Hours recounts the true-life story of Aron Ralston (James Franco) an American adrenalin junkie who decides one weekend to take a biking, hiking and climbing trip out to the middle of nowhere in Utah but comes unstuck when he gets trapped in a canyon when a rock falls and pins his arm. It's interesting that 2010 has seen the release of this as well as Buried but the two films are approached in a very different way. Only Danny Boyle could make a film about a man trapped in a canyon for several days and still make it entertaining. 127 Hours looks fantastic with the Utah scenery captured incredibly on camera, thanks to the cinematography of Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle (the latter he worked with on Slumdog Millionaire). James Franco, on who this film stands or falls, is also pretty convincing as he transforms from a man only interested in making himself happy to someone a little more aware of his friends and family. Boyle could have made a crowdpleasing followup to Slumdog after the worldwide success of that film but it is to his eternal credit that he picked what comes across as a very personal project. The world of modern cinema would be a poorer place with Boyle making films in it and 127 Hours is an engaging, tense and ultimately uplifting movie…
I was lucky enough to go to the press conference for 127 Hours so here's a few shots from that…

2010-11-06T09:30:00.007Z

ACROSS THE RIVER PART TWO
Here's photos I took of the rest of Brooklyn including photos taken in Prospect Park, Park Slope, Governor's Island (which isn't actually in Brooklyn) and Brooklyn Heights…

2010-11-01T21:42:00.004Z

ACROSS THE RIVER
As promised, here's a small report about our day in Brooklyn. After the New York Comic Con, it was nice to have a more chilled-out time. So we left about 11am and took the subway to near the beginning of the Brooklyn Bridge. Then we decided to walk over the East River on the bridge. The weather was fantastic as it was a sunny day with piercing blue sky and it took about 45 minutes to walk the bridge. Andy C has a friend Jonathan Barkey who is a photographer and lives in Brooklyn Heights the other side of the bridge. So once we met up with Jonathan, he took us around Brooklyn, to Governors Island across on the ferry and to Park Slope, Prospect Park and ending at Brighton Beach and Coney Island. I had only been to Brooklyn once years ago and so we got to see loads of places that were totally new to me. It has a very different feel to Manhattan: the pace seems to be slower and it has a vibe all of its own. Governors Island, which isn't in Brooklyn, was interesting as I took some intriguing photos looking out to the Statue of Liberty. Jonathan was a decent guide and I think because he is a photographer too that he knew what would interest us as visitors. So here's a selection of photos I took that day on the bridge, the perfect antidote to the more stressful days that preceded it. The next post will include photos taken in the rest of Brooklyn…

2010-10-27T10:10:00.007+01:00

BITING THE BIG APPLE
I've not been to a New York Comic Con since 2008, when they were in the beginning of the year. So I decided that 2010 would be the year I would go back. October is a nicer time of the year than February so the weather was bound to be better. Unfortunately we left this rather late and because hotels were seemingly too expensive, we decided to book a flat. We searched online and found a place called feelnyc.com which looked quite decent. We booked a place in the East Village, which was cheaper than a hotel but we booked it with the understanding that it would have two beds. But when we got there, it turned out that it only had one bed and didn't really match the photograph that was on their website. So we were forced to book a hotel at very short notice. To top that, they have refused to return my deposit. So that cast a shadow over the trip. I won't be using anybody like them in the future and I would hope that people reading this blog would bear this in mind if they were to use them in the future. We found a hotel up near the park which was pretty nice but cost more than we were planning to spend. I felt a little bit stupid considering that I have been to New York countless times. But the days after were a lot better: we got to catch up with my friend Mark Chiarello at DC for lunch, we visited animator Bill Plympton in his studio and also we visited Mike Kaulta's studio on the Upper West Side. So the precursor to the show was pretty enjoyable. The weather started as rainy but it became very nice and it actually felt like it was summer rather than autumn. The show was very impressive: from the Thursday afternoon icv2 Digital Comics Conference, it was obvious that it had already grown since I was last there. Icv2 brought together important figures like Boom's Mark Waid, comicsbeat.com's Heidi MacDonald and Marvel's David Gabriel to discuss how digital does and should fit into the current market. We even got to catch up with Bill Baker, who I've not seen in over two years, for dinner which was very enjoyable. When we got there on Friday, the queue to get in was crazy but luckily because I was registered as press, I was able to circumvent this. New York Comic Con 2010 had an amazing guest list of the biggest and best comic creators working in American comics today including Brian Bendis, Joe Kubert, Adam Kubert, Andy Kubert, Jim Lee and many more. Unlike San Diego Comic Con, even though film and TV was represented through the Walking Dead's Frank Darabont and a preview of Marvel's Thor movie and DC's Green Lantern film, comics were still the main thing on the menu. I have heard that it may have hit 100,000 people this year and this is phenomenal. Considering that it has only been going for five years, this is even more staggering. New York has been the home of the American comic for decades but at last it has a show that reflects that. We did visit Brooklyn on one of the days after the show but I'm going to save that for another post. Here are some photos I took at the show to give you a flavour of what it was like…

2010-10-19T14:06:00.007+01:00

KEEPING AN OPEN MIND 2010
The past few weeks have just flown by so there's a bit of a backlog here. With me going to New York and then (rather less glamorously) to Birmingham, I've not updated as regularly as I normally do. I shall enddeavour to catch up this week so here's the first post in a little while. Open House, as regular readers of this blog know, is a weekend, usually the third one in September, where hundreds of buildings, structures and places are opened up across the whole of Greater London. These are usually places that are not usually accessible to the public so for someone like myself, it's a wonderful opportunity for me to see places I've never been to. I've been going for over a decade now so it's getting harder and harder to find new gems. This year, we decided to pick Southwest London, so on the Saturday we went for The White Lodge in Richmond Park plus the Kilmorey Mausoleum in St Margaret's and Garrick's Temple of Shakespeare in Hampton. The White Lodge is a Georgian building which was built as a Royal residence and since the 1950s it has housed the Royal Ballet School. The exterior is wonderful but the interior is like any other wealthy school you would visit. It did give us an excuse to walk a little around Richmond Park, which is stunning, and recommended. So after visiting there, we got in the car and after lunch, drove to the Kilmorey Mausoleum located in St Margaret's near Teddington. This is an Egyptian-style mausoleum, built by the Earl of Kilmorey in the 1850s. It is unusual because most funerary objects these days are located in the grounds of cemeteries so this was somewhere a bit different. Not a huge place but worth visiting if you happen to be nearby anyway. Lastly on the Saturday we went down to Hampton to see Garrick's Temple of Shakespeare, which is also not big but it's perched right on the river so really beautiful. We walked down to Hampton Court and back which is always enjoyable. On the Sunday, consulting the book, I decided to visit the Apothecaries Hall in Blackfriars in the City of London. I was pleasantly surprised to find somewhere in the City of London, a part of the city I thought I was very familiar with, that I had never visited before. This is the hall for the City Guild that includes pharmacists as its members and dates from 1670, just after the Great Fire of London. Behind an unassuming façade on the street is a wonderful wood-panelled building, so this really was a hidden gem. So even though I've done Open House for over a decade now, I still managed to find new places to engage my interest. This weekend continues to be a wonderful event…

2010-09-25T09:33:00.005+01:00

TALK OF THE TOWN
The Town is the second film directed by Ben Affleck and it adapts Chuck Hogan's hard-hitting Boston crime novel, Prince of Thieves, reissued as The Town. Unlike Gone Baby Gone, Affleck has also cast himself in this film. He plays Doug MacCray, a veteran bank robber who comes from the wrong side of the tracks, Charlestown in Boston. He rips off banks with his gang and he never really thinks about what he is doing until he meets bank manageress Claire Keesey (played by Rebecca Hall) during one of their robberies. Their paths cross again after the robbery and what starts as an insurance policy to check that she can't identify MacCray or any of his accomplices turns complicated. Affleck shows here that he can handle action like an experienced pro as director and he also turns in a performance that is measured, accomplished and quite subtle in places. Support is very solid too: Jon Hamm (Mad Men) as FBI agent Adam Frawley shows that he can be more than just Don Draper and Rebecca Hall makes what could be quite a limited role her own, treading the fine line between vulnerable and intelligent. Pete Postlethwaite as the evil florist (seriously!) Fergus, who has MacCray by the short and curlies, is very entertaining on screen and the actors playing the other members of the gang acquit themselves well, especially Jeremy Renner as the psychotic James Coughlin. Chris Cooper's cameo as MacCray's old lag dad is small but pivotal. Heist movies have always provided fine entertainment on the big screen and The Town is only let down by an ending that feels like it's tacked on to provide MacCray with some redemption. But it's still a very impressive thriller with some top-notch performances and assured directing. Director Affleck may have a future in Hollywood…

2010-09-23T19:46:00.003+01:00

UNDERGROUND HIT?
I went to see Buried last week. A film made by Spanish director Rodrigo Cortes and starring Ryan Reynolds (Hal Jordan in next year's Green Lantern), it is truly a one-hander in the ultimate sense. Reynolds plays lorry driver Paul Conroy who was working in Iraq and has now been captured by an insurgent group. So Conroy is trapped in a wooden coffin somewhere in the country, waiting to be rescued with only a mobile phone for company. Buried isn't a film that you could rewatch because it is rather harrowing but you have to give credit to Reynolds, who embodies the all-American here, a man who has been left to dry by the company that sent him there. He shows that he is actually a pretty decent actor as Buried stands or falls on his performance. The cinematography is suitably claustrophobic throughout and Cortes really does manage to give you enough to keep you watching for its 90 minute duration. Buried feels a little bit like a Seventies film as it doesn't employ the gimmicks of something like a Blair Witch but its lo-fi feel does place the viewer in the box with Conroy. And you just know that it isn't going to end well. From the start, you have this feeling. But the journey is engaging and unsettling at times and Reynolds is very good. Incredible to think that he'll be flying around in a green CGI costume fighting space monsters next summer. Buried is an interesting curio and one that holds the viewer's attention while he or she is watching it. So it's definitely a smart choice for people interested in cinema…

2010-09-13T13:18:00.004+01:00

WINDY MILLAR
Every now and again, a magazine comes along that changes popular culture forever. While we're waiting for that magazine, I thought I'd share some thoughts about Clint, Titan's new magazine 'edited' by Mark Millar. It's a strange beast: clocking in at around 100 pages, the first issue is dominated by comics and peppered with a few 'features' including an interview with comedian Jimmy Carr. Let's start with the comics. The first strip is an installment of Kick Ass 2, which premieres first in Clint and if you've read the first comic series, then you know what to expect. It's a bit of fun and Romita Jr's art looks pretty at the larger print size. Next up is Turf, Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards' comic series originally published by Image and represented here. It's not a bad start although Ross often covers up Lee Edwards' gorgeous art with too much dialogue and the writing could do with a little bit of editing. The next strip, Rex Royd, by comedian Frankie Boyle, Jim Muir with art by Michael Dowling, is an absolute stinker. Reading like the demented child's version of a Grant Morrison script, its incompetent writing is matched by the pisspoor art. Not its finest moment. Nemesis, written by Mark Millar and drawn by Steve McNiven, reprints the Marvel Icon series and contains all of Millar's staples as a writer: extreme violence, some swearing and some gratuitous action. Finally, Space Oddities is a three page 'Future Shock' type short which rounds off the comics content. The features here all wouldn't be out of place in a 1995 lad's magazine like Loaded or FHM. Clint suffers from a schizophrenic 'editorial' slant: is it a 1990s lad's magazine or is it a comic anthology? This is a major problem for the reader as if they're comics fans, they would already have picked up Nemesis and Turf and if they're not, then they won't give a shit anyway. The lad's magazines market has shrunk away to almost nothing: Loaded, which used to shift half a million in its heyday, now does about a tenth of that, and the rest are just chasing the crumbs from the table. So it seems rather strange to be trying to capitalise on that. And comics just don't sell on the UK newsstand. 2000AD potters along doing around 80-100,000 a month and that's had over thirty years to build its brand up. So while I wish Clint well, as it's always nice to have another outlet for British comic content, I am not convinced this is going to find its market through reprints and shoddy originated content. There were rumours that it was going to feature people like Ian Rankin and I'm hoping this will be the case as it needs a far better class of writers to make it anything like Mark Millar's initial boasts. It also needs an actual editor on board to maintain some kind of quality control which should include ditching Boyle's teenage drivel. The Jimmy Carr feature isn't bad but the rest are pretty weak and pointless. Clint isn't the worst thing you'll ever read but it's certainly a long way from the best…

2010-09-07T11:32:00.003+01:00

PROS AND CONS OF BEING A JOURNALIST
What I do has its ups and downs. The downside is when work is sparse on the ground, you end up envying people with a regular income. But the upside is that you do get to do some genuinely fun things. Back in August I went along to London’s lavish Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane in Mayfair to meet Sylvester Stallone, director of The Expendables, and cast members Dolph Lundgren and Jason Statham. The suite was packed with members of the press as the trio answered questions on the film. Stallone was the most vocal of the three and he admitted that there was a lot of pressure for him.
“Sometimes you come onto a film and you’ve got a major turkey and it’s not even Thanksgiving but this time it’s the other end of it where there’s a great expectancy and you’re thinking ‘jeez I didn’t expect this when we started making it.’ So you begin to think: ‘Is this going to live up to its ideals.’ It’s complex. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
Statham echoed this. “All the expectations were on Sly. That’s why you choose to work with people who know what they’re doing. A lot of the time we don’t get such a luxury in that choice,” to which Stallone quipped: “You’d better go with Christopher Nolan now!”
Dolph Lundgren agreed with his two co-actors. “This movie is like the World Championships and you feel like you just want to live up to it.”
Stallone and Lundgren appeared together in Rocky IV twenty-five years ago and the conference was wondering whether the dynamic had changed between them and how Stallone prepared to appear on screen with Lundgren again.
“That’s a good question,” Stallone responded. “For the first part, I’ve never trained harder than I did for Rocky IV. Dolph is a world-class athlete so we got to know each other pretty well. Then time has changed. We’ve gone through ups and downs, marriages and then meeting this time was really a pleasure because of all the actors I’ve worked with, he’s remained the most grounded and humble. Plus I’m dying to kick his brains in!”
The conference lasted for around 20 minutes and then they were led out. Stallone stuck around outside the hotel to sign autographs, pose for photos and admire a group of very expensive sports cars that were parked outside the hotel. The charm offensive for The Expendables obviously worked as talk is afoot of a sequel already.

2010-08-26T11:20:00.002+01:00

ON WRITING
San Diego is now a distant memory as I've been back a month now. In between freelancing as a sub, I've been trying to make progress on two novel ideas. Fiction is bloody hard. For me, it's a lot tougher than journalism. With that you have the structure and the protagonists (for all intents and purpose) already there for you. I'm also finding that, the more I read about writing novels and talking to other people about it, the more confused I get. I do feel like I'm making progress but I almost feel that I should just sit down and write something and see where it leads…

2010-08-15T22:46:00.005+01:00

SAN DIEGO THE LAST WORD PART TWO
And here's another 15 photos I took at San Diego including the Hilton on the Tuesday after the show plus a photo of my bizarre-looking room at the Porto Vista in Little Italy. They do say a picture paints a thousand words:)…

2010-08-15T10:33:00.007+01:00

SAN DIEGO: THE LAST WORD
I know San Diego ended a few weeks ago but the last three weeks have flown by. Every year I put up huge posts on Comic-Con but this year I thought I might do it a little bit differently. 2010 is the twelth year in a row that I have been there, first just as a fan and then as a journalist. In the middle of this decade, it was fantastic as I would go there, do lots of interviews and then sell them to magazines in the UK. But things have changed over the last two or three years: San Diego Comic-con is now such a well-established show that the publications who used to rely on journalists like myself to provide them with copy are now sending their own editorial staff to cover it themselves. So while this year, I did get to do interviews with people like Frank Darabont (Walking Dead), Zach Snyder (Sucker Punch) and Mark Verheiden (Falling Skies), the outlets I would have sold them too already had people there. So San Diego Comic-Con 2010 may be the last one I attend for a while, unless we can get increased investment for TRIPWIRE so that I attend it to cover just for ourselves. The show has gotten far too unwieldy for one person to cover now anyway as each year that I go, the size of the floor increases and the amount of TV and Film content continues to grow. I am not knocking it as a show as, if you're a fan of genre on the big and the small screen, there are few events like Comic-Con, attracting people like Kenneth Branagh, Harrison Ford, Ryan Reynolds, Jon Favreau and scores of others. So here's a few photos I took at the show of various people in costume and the hall itself. I've broken it up into two posts just because of the sheer number of photographs…

2010-08-11T11:53:00.003+01:00

A ROCKY END?
I went to see The Expendables last week at Empire, Leicester Square in London's West End. I admit that I was a sucker for some of those stupid Eighties movies starring Stallone and Schwarzenegger, so I was hoping that perhaps the film may have provided a little bit of unchallenging entertainment. Stallone, while not the world's greatest director, has made a few solid films in the past and is a competent if unremarkable actor. The Expendables of the title are a group of mercenaries who go around the world battling villains like Somali pirates and evil South American dictators. Stallone leads the group which also includes Dolph (Punisher) Lundgren, Jason Statham (Crank, Transporter and Death Race) as the humourously named Lee Christmas and Jet Li (Hero, Romeo Must Die). Also part of the group is Mickey Rourke as their mechanic, the imaginatively-named Tool. So the group is hired by Mr Church (a cameo from Bruce Willis) to take out General Garza, the tyrant who runs fictional Central American island Vilena. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger has a small on-camera appearance. So cue soft-rock and long lingering camera shots of a plane over the sea. The Expendables isn't the worst film you'll see this summer as it rarely outstays its welcome with a tight 90 minute running time but the problem is that it takes itself far too seriously, Stallone looks a little weird and Rourke looks stranger and more freakish with each film he appears in. Only Statham and Li work here and they're significantly younger than Stallone and Lundgren, who is as wooden and stiff as he was in his Eighties heyday. This is a film that will come and go pretty briefly at the cinema and is only really worth watching on a Saturday night with a few beers on satellite TV.

2010-07-30T06:06:00.007+01:00

HOME FROM THE WEST COAST…
I got back from San Diego late last week but I am still horribly lagged. It was a very enjoyable 10 days and I even got to do some fun things too. I'm hoping that the regular visitors here haven't all died of boredom and stopped visiting as it's been almost a month since I last put up a new post. But July and the beginning of August have been very interesting indeed, passing by in the blink of the proverbial. So here's half a dozen photos from San Diego for you (Bruce Timm, Frank Darabont, some bloke dressed as Death who was on the escalator opposite me, John (Bender) DiMaggio, who I gave a copy of TRIPWIRE to, Matt Groening and Grant Morrison. I'll be putting up a proper post in the next few days…

2010-07-11T14:29:00.001+01:00

JOEL MEADOWS PHOTOGRAPHY
At last my photography website is up and running. It contains the best of my photos and will be updated from time to time. So why don't you check it out?

www.joelmeadowsphotography.com

2010-07-06T14:05:00.006+01:00

A TRIP THROUGH THE WIRES FOR 2010
The new issue of TRIPWIRE is at the printers now. It's hard to believe that this is the fifth issue we've done with the new format but it's hopefully our best yet. We've got a Futurama feature, an interview with movie poster master Drew Struzan, chats with fantasy veteran writer Michael Moorcock and bestselling author Glen David Gold plus artist, illustrator and photographer Dave McKean talks about his career. We've also got anniversary commemorations of DC's 75th birthday and Captain America's 70th. It's thinner than last year's issue but this is reflected in the price (£6.95 UK or $9.99 US rather than £9.95 UK or $15.95 US). It'll be out in the second half of this month, available at select Tesco Metros, West End newsagents, Forbidden Planet, Forbidden Planet International, Gosh and Orbital in the UK and through Barnes & Noble and Border in the US plus in Chapters and Indigo in Canada. Here's a few pages and the cover from it

2010-06-18T21:50:00.000+01:00

WHATEVER DOESN'T WORK
Woody Allen's career has taken a definite downturn over the last twenty years. He has retreated to directing and moved off screen in his own films, something that hasn't really helped the consistency of his recent work like Match Point, Scoop and Cassandra's Dream. In 2008 he had something of a mini-renaissance thanks to the very likeable Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which had a great cast and a very strong script. So when Whatever Works came along, I was hoping that it would continue that return to form. But unfortunately that film was just a blip and Whatever Works, starring Larry David, is horribly misconceived. David plays Boris, another Allen analogue, who lives a futile existence until he meets displaced Southerner Melody (Evan Rachel Wood). He marries her, triggering off a series of more and more improbable events until they split at the end of the film. Melody's mother Marietta (Patricia Clarkson) appears, looking for her daughter and embraces the bohemian New York lifestyle as does her estranged husband John, played by Ed Begley Jr. It's obvious that Boris and Melody are mismatched but the humour is laboured and uncomfortable here and by the time she runs off with Randy, probably the worst name for an English character ever, you are relieved. Despite some decent performances and the odd funny line, despite David seeming like an obvious successor for Allen to pass the Jewish New Yorker comedian mantle onto on the big screen, Whatever Works just doesn't. David's character is annoying and there are some idiotic sequences that just don't ring true peppered throughout the film. It was originally written for Zero Mostel and perhaps that's why it's such a total mess. David is an adequate actor but mostly he's just himself. Allen may have lost his magic touch completely now but let's hope that's not the case. File under missed opportunity…

2010-06-01T19:20:00.002+01:00

ITS SHOW TIME
May is usually a crazy time because there's the Annual Bristol Comic show plus there's also London Expo at Excel in Docklands. I normally go to both and this year was no exception. We didn't have a new TRIPWIRE out but we had a table with last year's issue, some copies of Studio Space and a few other bitsnpieces. Bristol is a city that I always enjoy visiting: about 120 miles west of London, it has a really laidback and friendly vibe as a place. As you would expect, myself and Andy Colman stopped off on the way down. I had wanted to visit Stourhead for the last couple of years: it's a Palladian house situated in the south of Wiltshire with world-famous gardens. We hit the most horrendous traffic a few miles from Stonehenge and were worried that we weren't going to make it. But we did and it was spectacular. We didn't go into the house but spent a couple of hours in the gardens and their reputation is well-deserved. They are well-kept, beautiful and serene and because it's Spring, everything was blooming and flowering.The garden is packed with follies, buildings like temples that are created to make the gardens look more interesting, and from a photographic perspective, with the sunny weather we were lucky enough to encounter, it was a very enjoyable afternoon. It only took us just over an hour to reach Bristol, as we avoided the late afternoon traffic. The weekend was fun as ever as we got to catch up with people we don't see often enough like Matt Badham, David Baillie, Baz Renshaw, David Morris and girlfriend Liz, Rob Williams, Paul Cornell and loads of others. I chaired a Marvel panel on the Sunday with the aforementioned Cornell, Williams plus Kieron Gillen and Neil Edwards, which seemed to go well. The weather held up for the whole weekend and we even managed to visit a few places on the Monday on the way back to London, including Clifton, Ashton Court (although the house was shut) and Victorian cemetery Arnos Vale, although I'm beginning to feel like I'm getting obsessed with cemeteries.
I'm going to save London Expo for Part Two of this post because that was a fairly packed weekend too. So here's a few photos I took at Stourhead, in Bristol and in Arnos Vale and Clifton on Monday…

2010-05-10T22:47:00.004+01:00

FAMINE TO FEAST
I realise that I haven't posted here in a few weeks. I've been lucky enough to be working back at Guinness World Records after the lovely people at Which? terminated my contract early. Although, after what happened, I feel I may have had a lucky escape. I've always said that freelancing is famine or feast and it's currently in its feast phase. Apart from working at GWR, I have been doing more features for Sci Fi Now (Hellblazer 25th anniversary and Futurama), more for the Judge Dredd Megazine (Predators) and diving into a new TRIPWIRE. This new issue will hopefully be the best one we've pulished. I've also been doing lots more photography with Stone Gardens, my London Cemeteries book now up at Blurb, which looks fantastic and I've also put together a photo portfolio book of my best shots to show to potential clients and employers. So the blog has taken a back seat. I'll be posting a Robin Hood review later this week but here's the cover to my photo portfolio book and three interior spreads…

2010-04-22T23:32:00.002+01:00

SPRING AT LAST
We've had a bitter winter and so it's nice to see some spring colour. Here's a couple of shots I took in Regents Park this week. Colours are magnificent and I'm really chuffed with these photos…