But I Digress | My Little Alien

"It started with one word. One word appearing slowly against the blackness of space: ALIEN."

It did indeed—for me, and I can't imagine how many millions of other admirers of the aforementioned franchise.

That quote, in case you were wondering, comes from the back cover copy of Alien: The Archive: a beautiful new book that's taken pride of place on the coffee table in the corner of the spare room the other half and I spent the autumn turning into a lovely library.

It's a massive thing—The Archive rather than the library—and not half as expensive as it is expansive. No surprise, I suppose, since it's the first official book about all four of the films. That said, it did surprise me. I was expecting a collection of film stills and a bit of behind-the-scenes business; a few storyboards and prop shots, possibly, printed on great big glossy pages. 

(Knowing me, as I do declare I do, I'd have bought the book on that bare basis, if Titan hadn't kindly sent a complimentary copy along, What can I say? I have Alien on the brain.)

Make no mistake: The Archive has all that, but it's so much more than just a book of pretty pictures; of illustrations and annotations. It begins with an overview of the franchise so far, by way of an involved interview with its star, the wonderful Sigourney Weaver. The remainder is arranged according to the four films featured. The pages devoted to Alien take in, for instance, an extensive introduction based on interviews with the cast and crew, followed by briefer pieces about sketches and concepts, building the world, casting the characters, making the models, filming the effects, and a fair few other things. Aliens,  Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection all receive the same detailed treatment.

It's an incredible compendium—and, considering that Christmas is coming, a great gift idea, if your friends or family members are fans of the franchise. Not a few of the folks we've had over to see our lovely library have spent longer looking at this book than admiring the room I renovated, and I don't even begrudge them their distraction.

If you've got Alien-friendly gamers to get gifts for, also consider Alien: Isolation, which I finally completed this week. I don't have a huge amount to add to the more responsible reviews out there, except to say that the save system, though archaic and fundamentally frustrating, in many ways makes the game: the tension that is Isolation's single greatest strength is never tighter than when you're hunting for the save station's distinctive beeping after surviving a couple of close encounters with you-know-who.

Also, the aesthetic? Pitch perfect. The sound design? Superlative. Isolation is the best Alien game there's ever been by far. It'd have been a better eight hour experience than it is a twenty hour epic—the mechanics wear more than a little thin during the mediocre middle act—but Isolation, like The Archive, exceeded my every expectation.

Now I have a couple of classes to teach this evening, and a party to attend afterwards, nevertheless, I know what I'll be doing during the wee hours of Halloween.

"It started with one word. One word appearing slowly against the blackness of space: ALIEN."

Trailer Trash | A Coffee for Carrie

You folks know me by now. As often as not, I'm all about the horror — and at this time of year, there's normally no stopping me. But to be perfectly frank, I could give a flying fig about Kimberly Pierce's forthcoming remake of Carrie.

From the latest trailer, it looks like a shot-for-shot retread of Brian de Palma's classic adaptation of the original Stephen King story:

Maybe it's just me, but I simply don't see the need — never mind the fact that I don't buy Chloë Grace Moretz as a high school outcast for a single solitary second.

On the other hand, something fun has come of this brand new Carrie. It's led, of late, to some instant classic viral marketing. The following was filmed at a New York coffee shop:

Incredibly, this clip has already clocked up in excess of 16 million views at the time of this writing, and it was only uploaded on Monday. I suppose I can see why. I for one can't help but wonder what I'd have done in the same situation... other, that is, than run.

Mind you, the canny marketing of Carrie doesn't make me any more likely to invest in any way, shape or form in this ridiculous reboot.

Status Update | Sayonara, Summer

By gum, it's been a busy week or three! Not here, clearly. But with the summer well and truly behind us — sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it's true — the classes I teach in the evenings are in session again, and I dare say I may have overcommitted elsewhere in an attempt to fill some of all the free time that I hardly remember happening.

I suppose I have had a few hours to relax. I certainly played the hell out of Saints Row 4 — just the kind of mindless madness I needed, really — and the other half and I both stole a moment to learn all about Sam and the family from Gone Home. I never thought I'd be nostalgic about the mid-90s, but The Fullbright Company showed me just wrong I was. Yet Gone Home is a game as much about the future as the past: it's a glimpse into an age — fast-approaching, I hope — of more mature gaming.

Now that I think on it, I've seen a few movies, too: Star Trek Into Darkness, which wasn't half as awful as many made out, and Zero Dark Thirty, which impressed the hell out of me — and made me want to rewatch Kathryn Bigelow's vampire masterpiece Near Dark. I'm hoping to sit down with World War Z before the weekend, as well.

What? I said movies, not new movies. What do you expect? I haven't been to the cinema in nearly a year...

But by and large I've been filling my every minute with fiction. You'll start seeing the fruits of all that on The Speculative Scotsman shortly, but for the moment, recent highlights have included More Than This by Patrick Ness and Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson, the author of my favourite book of 2012. Still to come, there's some good-looking new Lavie Tidhar, Parasite by Mira Grant, Proxima by Stephen Baxter, and — of course — Doctor Sleep by Stephen King, which I've been reading this week... alas, I can't say much more about it than that.

For the foreseeable here, I have two more great guest posts in the can, not a few related reviews, a temperature to take and an announcement to make. The blog'll be back in business in a bit, basically, but no less than ten imminent deadlines mean I'll be occupied with other obligations a little longer.

Meantime, I hope you've been keeping up with the British Genre Fiction Focus over on Tor.com. This week's column went up earlier this afternoon, in fact: there's some Adam Nevill news and a bit about Ireland's bid to host Worldcon in 2019, but the starring attraction is a whole lot of talk about The Time Traveller's Almanac, complete with a mini-interview with Ann VanderMeer about the process of putting together what is an incredibly ambitious anthology. Read all about right here.

Press Release Your Luck | Continuing The Dark Crystal

"You could be the author of a new novel set in the world of Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal!"

So says the banner of Penguin Books' new project: The Dark Crystal Author Quest.

Which is what, exactly? Well, almost exactly what it says in the header: a quest for an author to write a novel set in Jim Henson's fan-favourite universe.

Note that the publishers are looking for a prequel to the movie as opposed to a sequel, as some sites have erroneously reported.

In any event, roll the press release:

"The world of The Dark Crystal is a world unlike any we have ever known. Under the triple suns, the skies roil with cloud formations not seen in our skies. Seedpods spiral up and rocks scuttle off. It is a world where the wise and noble urSkeks have been split into two imperfect races, Skeksis and urRu; and the Gelfling Clans, the species most like our own, go about their lives not knowing what their future holds. This is a world waiting to be explored and expanded upon with new stories, new quests. 

"At The Jim Henson Company, we continue to be enthralled with the possibilities of this world and invite you to join us in our obsession. We have set up a portal to share what we know, a new website with all of the information about this place and these creatures: DarkCrystal.com. We invite you to use the resources, character descriptions, locations, and history on this site to join us in imagining the next Dark Crystal story."

And here are the gory details 

"From October 1st, 2013 to December 31st, 2013, The Jim Henson Company and Grosset & Dunlap of the Penguin Young Readers Group will be accepting writing submissions to find the author for a new novel set in the world of Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal. This author search is open to all professional and aspiring professional writers. 

"This new Dark Crystal novel will be a prequel story set at the time of the Gelfling Gathering, between the Second Great Conjunction and the creation of the Wall of Destiny. We will be placing all known lore from this era on DarkCrystal.com, the definitive home of The Dark Crystal. There you will find all the knowledge available for you to shape and build your story—and all we ask is that you share your stories with us."

Me, I wonder why they haven't simply solicited an actual author to compose a proper prequel. Surely The Dark Crystal canon is deserving of established talent rather than being farmed out to fandom.

Then again, I can be awfully old fashioned...

That said, I can't imagine many established talents would put up with the shady small print:

Each entry will be the sole property of the Sponsors. By competing in the Contest and/or accepting a prize, each entrant (including the prize winner) grants to Sponsors the right to edit, adapt, publish, copy, display, reproduce and otherwise use their entry in connection with this Contest and in any other way, in any and all forms of media now known or hereafter devised, throughout the world, in perpetuity, including publication on www.darkcrystal.com. Further, each entrant (including the prize winner) grants to Sponsors the right to use each entry and the winner’s name, likeness, and biographical information in advertising, trade and promotional materials, without notice, review or approval, or further compensation or permission, except as set forth herein, and except where prohibited by law. Sponsors are not obligated to use, publish, display or reproduce any entry.

All for $10k — with no prospect of royalties — which is not, in all honesty, a whole lot. Don't sign your souls away so easily, readers!

Overall, though, this is exciting news, no? Not because of the Author Quest itself — at least, not from my personal perspective — but because it suggests renewed interest in one of my all-time favourite fantasy films.

Could this move be indicative of The Jim Henson Company's intentions to make a new movie?

Could this be a potential test of our appetite for The Dark Crystal 2? Yes!

Oh, let it be true...

But I Digress | The Limits of Cinema

It's been a while since I blogged about movies.

Truth be told, though, it's been a while since I saw anything particularly interesting.

When I was a much younger man, I'd watch a movie every night, almost without exception. Admittedly, a lot of the movies I watched during these grass-is-greener years were utter rubbish... but I knew that, even then. To an extent, I revelled in it, because I was also aware that I was living through a period of unequalled freedom; that it would be a long, long time before I had so many hours to spend on nothing of note.

That's very much the case these days, I'm afraid. 

When the opportunity to sit down with a film presents itself, the first thought that crosses my one track mind is: That's however many hours I could spend reading the next book in the review queue! And all too often, my nasty adult brain baulks at the prospect. Invariably, I end up doing something responsible instead. Mowing the lawn or preparing a class or rewriting a review.

I do realise that going to the cinema isn't in itself an irresponsible act, but I do feel like a negligent person when I follow my heart instead of my head. And perhaps that's played into my feelings about the occasional films I have seen this year. I thought Cloud Atlas would be awesome. It wasn't. Ambitious, absolutely, but really rather flat. Mama, meanwhile, is a singularly silly film.

I can't even remember what else there was.

These are films I would have watched quite happily when I was a smaller Scotsman. Enjoyed, even. Today, they feel like a waste. Of my time, which obviously there's less of than there was then.

I'm getting old, I guess.

On the other hand, I realise how self-fulfilling my attitude to movies at the moment is. If I won't give a film the time of day, then of course I won't see one that changes my mind. So for the last little while, I've been on the hunt for something extraordinary.

Today, I have likely candidate, the poster of which was recently released:

Fingers crossed it doesn't disappoint!

Not unrelatedly, I've just ordered a copy of Upstream Color. Primer blew my mind back in the day, and though I don't expect that of this, something reminiscent is all I really need. A reminder that cinema can be as profound and affecting as the best written fiction.

Because it can, can't it?

But I Digress | Star Wars Into Darkness

If I see one more article purporting to contain exclusive news about the latest director, actor or other talent NOT involved in Star Wars: Episode VII, I swear I'm going to swear off the internet.

Admittedly I've never been a huge Star Wars fan. For me, it was Star Trek all the way. And though a love for one of the above doesn't necessarily preclude some fondness for the other, I tend to think these things are set in stone when one's stone is still soft — which is to say when you're young.

As a kid, in an odd intermingling of idiocy and innocence, I imagined the people who made Pepsi and Coca-Cola hated one another, and thus, the people who drank one soft drink had nothing to do with the enemy beverage. The same went for Snickers and Mars bars, fast food from McDonalds versus Burger King, and Star Wars vis-a-vis Star Trek.

I was a Coca-Cola kid. I also enjoyed Snickers, McDonalds and Star Trek. I dutifully avoided the other in each of these fields, with sometimes fundamentalist fervour, such that even now I have mixed feelings about Mars bars. Seriously, why no nuts?

In any event, then came the realisation that Star Wars fandom was essentially inextricable from the friends I found myself making, so I gave the original trilogy a shot. I gave it a couple, at that. But each time, I came out of the experience as cold as I'd gone in. The films seemed cartoonish to me. Simplistic, and sometimes silly. 

This is particularly rich coming from a Trekkie, isn't it? Believe you me, I'm well aware!

But back to the matter at hand: feeling my years even at age 11, I concluded that I should have sat down with Star Wars sooner. Because by the time I did, it was too late. I was new to double digits, but still too old for A New Hope.

I felt this way because Star Trek had my heart. There was just no room at the inn for another love. And I dare say it's still fully booked.

So the news of three more Star Wars movies leaves me... unmoved. I don't doubt that this is huge for some of you. But do we really need to blog about the infinite number of directors that don't plan to direct Episode VII? Each and every actor that may or may not return to reprise their roles?

No.

Tell you what, though. Star Trek Into Darkness looks fantastic. :D

I was going to see The Hobbit at the cinema this Christmas one way or the other, but the recent news that the IMAX print of it comes complete with nine minutes of the Star Trek sequel, has me reconsidering my mixed feelings about movies on those massive screens.

So where do you folks fall? Are you die-hard Star Wars fans, or Trekkies like yours truly? More to my meanderings, is there anyone out there who'll swear by both series?

But I Digress | The I in IMAX

I used to go to the movies all the time — at least once a month, if not every couple of weeks, to see what I could see.

This year, I've been to the cinema all of... two times. I saw Cabin in the Woods, and I saw Prometheus. I enjoyed both experiences immensely... though I think I would have been fine waiting to rent a copy of the former film.

And why is that, I wonder? What did the movies mean to me that they don't any more?

I suppose it's something to do with the inherent spectacle of cinema. The experience of being taken in by a film. But then, I didn't always have a sweet series six Samsung to watch movies on at home, nor the surround sound setup that I take for granted today. Either that's what's changed, or I have.

Though I suspect the whole truth is that it's a bit of both.

Because I certainly don't like opening nights. These days, there's nothing quite as likely to spoil a trip to the pictures for me than the sweaty, noisy, nacho-slathered mass of fellow film-goers that one can hardly avoid on opening nights. The inappropriate sniggering. The conversations you can't help but overhear during quiet moments.

The farts!

So on those increasingly rare occasions when I feel like I need to see something at the cinema - because I'll have to wait four more months if I opt not to - I'll wait at least a week. Often longer. And in that time, any number of things can happen to put me off: I can read one too many negative reviews, or be spoiled by some sadistic soul, or outside of all that, obligations have a habit of coming up right when I wish they wouldn't.

Which is why I still haven't seen The Avengers. Or The Hunger Games. Despite having planned to take both films in at the pictures.

I won't - and I haven't - let that happen with The Dark Knight Rises. Batman Begins might have been a bit mince - fun in a silly sort of way - but The Dark Knight was and is one of my very favourite films ever, and I have faith in Chris Nolan to conclude this trilogy more meaningfully than in the movie it began with.

Long story short, I've been avoiding potential spoilers all week. I haven't, as yet, read a single review. And I think it's safe to say that by now, the farters have come and gone.

Or at least, that's the dream.

But the dream, for me, has taken on a different form than it has in the past, because given how significant spectacle is in terms of my interest in cinema, and the fact that there isn't another film I can imagine myself being this excited to see due for a period of years, for the first time in my life, I've booked tickets to the IMAX. To see The Dark Knight Rises.

And do you know, I don't even know what IMAX is!

My best guess? It's big cinema. And I'm expecting big things from this film. So it sort of follows.

But I really have no idea what to expect otherwise, and there are truly few things as thrilling to a jaded old man like myself as that. To wit: woo!

I'll report back on my inaugural IMAX experience in the comments a little later, or else in my review of The Dark Knight Rises. In advance of that, though, what about you guys? I want to know.

Do you, for instance, go to the cinema as often as you used to do? If not, why not? What's changed?

Meanwhile, who's seen something at the IMAX? Did it add anything to the essential experience, in your opinion, or ruin the movie for you?

We'll talk again shortly!

Film Review | The Woman, dir. Lucky McKee

Intermittently surreal, stupid, sickening and superb, The Woman is a film that will surely move you, whether one way or the other. It's been something like a month since I saw the wretched thing, and though I didn't initially find the experience of it very pleasant, it's one that's stayed with me ever since, as precious few horror movies do.

Directed by cult favourite writer/director Lucky McKee - whose May you might recall making a minor mark - from a script by award-winning genre author Jack Ketchum, The Woman is in fact a sequel to the 2009 film Offspring, which I neither saw, nor do I now want to see... because McKee didn't make it.

Anyway, in Offspring, as I understand it, we meet the titular woman of The Woman: the makeshift matriarch of a family of feral, flesh-eating forest folk. Seemingly she alone survives the events of Offspring, for in The Woman we meet her on her own terms - as does fucked-up family man and hobby hunter Chris Cleek - which is to say, covered in her own filth and living off the land, with a cut in her gut that'd be the end of a lesser person.

Chris, whose family seem to live in perpetual fear of him, and for good reason, takes an unhealthy interest in the woman, as voyeuristic as it is sadistic. Soon, having tired of watching her wash through the scope of his hunting rifle, he contrives to capture this strange specimen, ostensibly to help her back to health, but in truth to use and abuse her as he sees fit. Horribly, Chris' son Brian seems to share his father's fascination with the woman - how like father, like son of him - while the wife and distant daughter of the Cleek clan are too terrified to do anything but play along. In one scene, among the most disturbing in a thoroughly discomfiting film, they help him clean her tortured body with a pressure washer.

So it goes - that is excruciatingly - for an hour and a half, every other moment of which feels like something out of your worst nightmare, and mine. The Woman is a nasty, mean-spirited, unremittingly grim film that the faint of heart would be well to give a wide berth... but if you can stomach it, Lucky McKee's latest also so happens to be his greatest, as powerful in its inimitable way as the woman whose systematic suffering it revolves around is powerless.

Fearless Scottish actress Pollyanna McIntosh positively disappears into the role of the woman, such that I did a double-take upon seeing her headshot on the IMDB. Opposite her, Sean Bridgers as Chris Cleek is every inch McIntosh's match, though his is a more insidious portrait of a family man gone head-first into the deep end, to find himself at home in the dark waters there. Supporting the pair, all nervous energy and glazed-over emotionally, Angela Bettis (none other than May in May) paints a truly chilling picture of Chris' hopeless, helpless wife Belle.

The kids are, yes, less impressive - though the littlest of the three is abominably adorable - but the poorest performance of the piece, and it is a very poor performance, almost kills The Woman completely. Carlee Baker as Genevieve Raton, a teacher who gets caught up in the goings-on in and around the Cleek residence, is simply intolerable; voluptuous but vacant, she seems a pretty face for the sake of a pretty face, and her scenes stop McKee's surprisingly subtle study in its tracks.

Similarly, the music is a mixed bag. There are a couple of terrific, Trent Reznor-esque tracks original to the film, all scratch and atmosphere, but interspersed as they are between a selection of period pop. rock songs, ripped right out of Donnie Darko, they seem at odds; discordant, and while I can understand the purpose of such juxtaposition in principle, in practice one or the other, whole-hog, would have been far preferable.

Otherwise, The Woman works... and given its singularly shocking content, its nontraditional execution, and its occasional confusion of the talented and the talentless, that's not a little surprising. But from the awesome pre-credits montage to the palpable catharsis of the last act, The Woman effects such shattering beauty and brokeback brutality that if you have the least interest in what horror can be, heedless of the entry requirements to the multiplexes where most modern movies make their overinflated budgets back, then this film is the proof, and the pudding, and the black cherry on top.

Film Review | Paranormal Activity 3, dir. Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman

I am, I confess, an absolute sucker for found footage films.

It's a gimmick, I know, and a lot of folks have had enough of it already... though clearly, what with all the whining you hear about Paranormal Activity and its creepy kin, these cool cats can't bring themselves to look away either. Why is that?

If you ask me, I think it's because, at best, the found footage form can cut right to the quick of what makes great horror great, which is not to say the elaborate dismemberments of the SAW series - may it burn in hell in perfect peace - nor indeed the in-your-face silliness of some CG monster, a la Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, but rather those things that you cannot see, or say you saw with any certainty; those things you can only imagine.

The proof of these things is only ever circumstantial. In your bones you know they are there, these unspeakable, unknowable awful horrors; they're just ever-so-slightly off camera, but you can hear them and feel them and ultimately fear them, because the imagination knows no bounds. And the best found footage films exist almost entirely in the imagination. Who can resist the allure of that?

For about an hour, Paranormal Activity 3 is one such film: among, I would say, the genre's very strongest. For about an hour, during which time we follow Julie and her live-in husband Dennis - mother and father figure to baby Katie and ickle Kristi, the protagonists of Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Activity 2 respectively - during the autumn of 1988, the third installment of this evidently annual franchise seems, surprisingly, at the peak of its powers. For about an hour.

The rationale for the footage itself feels a matter of happenstance taken too far, but this is to my mind the only inherent drawback of the found form - the narrative need for there to be some reason, any reason, why someone has committed all that follows to film - and I am thus inclined to let it slide.

So the story goes: back in the dark days of tape, Dennis and his friend Randy Rosen operate a small business shooting and producing wedding videos, so when things start to go bump in the night, and Kristi's relationship with her imaginary friend Toby takes a dark turn, Dennis persuades Julie to let him set up cameras around the house, the better to catch an impossible predator in the act.

And that's really all you need to know, because the allure of this narrative is not its intricacy, or its subtlety, but rather those gaps and absences you must fill in for yourself. This is never more evident than in the sitting room-come-kitchen, which is so wide that to capture it, Dennis has to mount a camera on an oscillating base - a repurposed fan that pans, often excruciatingly slowly, from one area to the other, making for any number of Paranormal Activity 3's most effective moments. One recalls the definitive moment of Paranormal Activity 2; another, involving that old reliable Halloween costume - the white sheet become a ghost - works as a fond callback to a scene from El Orfanto. In both, the tension, nay the terror thick in the theater wherein I saw this second sequel, never mind in me, was born of what was obscured, and what we could not see: the figure that appears at the door as the fan-camera tracks across to the kitchen is spooky, sure, but what set grown men and woman to tittering like children in the winter wind was the awful absence of that figure when, ten nerve-shredding seconds later, the camera returns to the scene of the scare, only to reveal that the glimpsed thing, whatever it was or was not, is gone.

Now I didn't much care for Christopher Nicholas Smith as Dennis, but as Julie, the lovely Lauren Bittner - channeling a certain Deschanel-esque quality - made me long for the 80s all over again, and I really try not to make a habit of that. The kids were cute too: Jessica Tyler Brown as little Kristi particularly. Meanwhile Dustin Ingram's Randy Rosen was fun, and there are of course cameos from the little-seen leading ladies of the first and second films in the series. Across the board, in fact, the performances this time out are strong; a pleasant change of pace given the outlandish amateurishness of the cast the October before last.

There is a moment in the early-going of Paranormal Activity 3 that makes the movie, and a moment in the daft last act that breaks it. I won't spoil either, except to say neither one is what you think it is: in fact each works in its way to poke fun at what you probably thought, and indeed this installment of the Halloween franchise is easily the most good-humoured of the three. Alas, unsurprisingly, in its final fifteen minutes, Paranormal Activity 3 turns into exactly the sort of drivel detractors of found footage films will delight in taking apart. Let them eat cake, I say!

Me? Well, I enjoyed my cake just fine, though the icing - let's face it - the icing could have been better.

Film Review | Green Lantern, dir. Martin Campbell

I don't get it.

I mean, someone's got to be pulling my leg, right? In a summer bookended by big-budget comic book movies, the first, Thor, was supposed to be awesome; so awesome that I was sad to have missed it at the cinema, so when the Blu-ray release rolled around, I gobbled it up.

And I thought it was silly nonsense. Daft but largely harmless.

Green Lantern, meanwhile... well, I only watched Green Lantern out of some misplaced sense of duty to a medium I dearly adore - the comic book, of course - so unanimously dire were the pronouncements about this particular superhero vehicle. But you know what? I actually enjoyed it.

Now I'm neither so fool nor so full of myself as to think expectations, or indeed a lack thereof, played no part in my experience of these two similar-but-different films: that Thor had come so highly recommended rather raised the bar in terms of my idea of it, I don't doubt, and perhaps the presumption that Green Lantern would be wall-to-wall terrible left me easily impressed. Nevertheless, I think there's a case to be made for Casino Royale director Martin Campbell's return to men in tights six years on from The Legend of Zorro. It's an unabashedly popcorn-friendly film, with markedly more interest in low entertainment than high art -- and what in all the quadrants is the problem with that?

Nothing, is what. And Green Lantern makes no claims to the contrary: in fact from the get-go - a clunky pre-credits VO explaining the origins of the Green Lantern Corps, as if it'd be an affront to let us figure these things out on our own - you know what this film will be. It will be ridiculous. It will be overwrought. It will pander, and indulge, and embarrass.

And, so it seems to me, you will either love every minute of it - unlikely though that may be if you're in your double digits - or despise this harmless bit of sci-fi eye candy for what it is.

I'm coming around to thinking that critics seem to see the superhero movie as something of an all or nothing proposition. Either it can be brilliant, basically because it transcends the trappings of its origins in the funny pages - a la Sam Raimi's Spider-man, or Bryan Singer's take on The X-Men - or it's some despicable thing because it doesn't.

Green Lantern certainly doesn't; to a fault, it seems subservient to the sixty-some years of comic books from which Hal Jordan, space cop, springs, not at all fully-formed. But between the masterclass and the amateur hour, film critics tend to afford the superhero movie precious little middle ground, and I would argue that - of all the genres there are in cinema - the superhero movie needs as much or more middle ground as any other. Were there such a space, Green Lantern would sit squarely in the middle of it. On an ornate throne fashioned solely from force of will. 

Yes, it's ridiculous. Yes, it's overwrought. Green Lantern is pretty much all the things it's been called - and it's been called a lot of mean-spirited things, I do declare - but it is all of these things so very inoffensively, innocently even, that the hate seems to me way out of proportion. Sure, there's some cheap-looking CG, but there are too some beautiful visual effects.

Actually, by and large, Green Lantern is spectacular to look at, up to and including the lovely Blake Lively as the Ryan Reynolds' love interest. Reynolds is for his part dopey but endearing, and his character's counterpart - Peter Sarsgaard on fine form as insidious supervillain Hector Hammond - is a good match. I did however shed an imaginary tear to see how far Tim Robbins has fallen.

In any case, Green Lantern is good looking, well cast, ably acted, and it sounds the part, too, thanks to a tense orchestral score from M. Night Shyamalan collaborator James Newton Howard, who just so happened to work with Hans Zimmer on the superhero movie soundtrack to end all superhero movie soundtracks: for The Dark Knight, needless to say.

The plot is of course a bit of a mess - better, as Fleetwood Mac might say, that comic book movies go their own way - and a more liberated script would have made a great deal of difference, but as it is, Green Lantern remains a mildly exciting, if not exactly thrilling way to spend two hours, and though it never quite comes together as some more optimistic souls than I had hoped it might, still it is leagues better than the abhorrent nonsense it's been made out as.

The Scotsman Abroad | The Horrors of Horror

We had a good chat a couple of weeks ago, I think, about horror, and how horribly it tends to end. That was a discussion in large part brought to bear by Nathaniel Katz's review of The Ritual, and the Caitlin R. Kiernan I had been reading... but also a couple of movies I'd volunteered to watch for review on VideoVista, The Zone's sister site for cinema. A couple of horror movies, of course, that I'd heard great things about. 

Alas. These films were assuredly not great things, and in both cases that had a lot to do with the way they concluded... or didn't.

Why don't we start with the show-stopper? 

The Silent House is a Uruguayan found footage affair ostensibly shot in a single take, about a girl and her handyman father who go to clean up a cottage in the countryside only to find themselves terrorised by something that goes bump and stab in the night. It's actually good shit, for the most part. Sadly:

The Silent House would have been a manifestly more memorable piece in totality without its ill-conceived last act, wherein Hernandez takes it upon himself to explain what should by all rights be left inexplicable. In so doing, the ambitious director overreaches at the last (but not least) hurdle, systematically it seems subverting the power of all the alarming happenings he bade us witness only moments ago, because sadly, the muddled rationale Hernandez spells out - the big reveal before the final curtain comes clattering down, ten minutes too late - goes wholly against the internal logic so deliberately, delicately established before. We are left, then, with not the intricate puzzle we had presumed, to be turned over and over in our minds after the fact - perhaps unpicked in the fullness of time, or perhaps not - but only... a trick; a cheat; an unholy hoax. 

(read the full review here) 

That said, The Silent House seemed to me a masterpiece next to Julia's Eyes, the last film to bear super-producer Guillermo del Toro's name before Are You Afraid of the Dark? The problem with Julia's Eyes is as follows:

It is, at heart, a daft little horror film - proficiently executed on a technical level, from set dressing through effects by way of Fernando Velázquez's throwback Psycho score and Óscar Faura's exceptional cinematography, but narratively it is no more and no less than a nonsense - if not an utter nothing. Mistakenly, Morales approaches the film's story with such po-facedness as to render this ridiculous thing conspicuously ignorant of its own ridiculousness. He seems to think his themes far-reaching and his characters sincerely meaningful when they are in reality no more than cyphers, to a one; and how gripping his script?

I'll tell you: not... one... whit. Only in its moderately powerful middle third is Julia's Eyes even passing tense or atmospheric. In the erstwhile, it is limp, insubstantial, vastly overlong, and as obtuse as the revelation Morales attempts to pass off as a twist, come the dreadful dénouement, which only serves to underscore what an almighty waste of time Julia's Eyes is.

(read the full review here)

So we're right back where we started; surprise, surprise.

But stay tuned... all is not lost! Later this week I'll be reviewing the best horror film I've seen in some time, and certainly the most disturbing movie - genre or not - I've sat down with since The Human Centipede. So there's that.

Trailer Trash | Not The Full Full Sequence

Oh my lord it's only the Australian teaser for The Human Centipede 2!

Or is it?

Yes. Yes it is. But truth be told, it isn't much of a trailer. Not even the faint of heart need fear the following:

"Banned in Britain. Cut in the USA. Unleashed in Australia" indeed...

You know, I wouldn't usually waste a post on such rubbish - consider this a freebie! - but I wanted, given the week's discussion, to go on record to say I actually thought The Human Centipede was, for a modern horror film... kind of an incredible piece of work. Surprising and ghastly and relentless yet coherent in a fashion few movies these days dare to be, and supremely effective excepting the awful actors/segments. If more so - as ever - in the beginning than come the inevitable end; because the thought is always more awful, isn't it?

I do not however expect this nonsense to be anything approaching its equal. Not judging from this trailer trash, that is -- which I'm sure it's perfectly unfair of me to do. But fapping to what I can only imagine is repellent body horror? Honestly, this is how you picture your target market?

Well the hell with you, Full Sequence.

Trailer Trash | Rise, Ye Dark Knight!

I am curiously unmoved by this teaser trailer for what must be my most fervently anticipated film from the foreseeable future:

Perhaps it's because it's mostly made up, as Garth Franklin reports over at Dark Horizons, of repurposed footage from Batman Begins, which to be perfectly honest I didn't adore. Certainly not half as much as I did The Dark Knight -- and this despite my unbridled love for all things Caped Crusader. (Though that seems something of a misnomer when applied to Christopher Nolan's brooding vision of the character, doesn't it?) 

 

As is, the most Bat-tastic thing about that trailer to me is the glimpse of a more suitable image of the shattered Gotham skyline to borrow for my desktop background than was featured in the poster I blogged about last week. Oh for a full, downloadable HD trailer, and decent free screen-capture software!

 

Your thoughts, then, ladies and gents? Will this tide you over till something more substantial comes along? Or are you as underwhelmed as I find myself? 

 

P.S. Here's hoping you can all see this video. I'm telling you, embedding from facebook: it ain't easy!

***

Source: Dark Horizons

News Flashing | Three Movie Posters to Rule Them All

You know The Dark Knight Rises is filming just up the road from where I am at the moment?

Madness.

I suppose I could drive down, see what I could see, but hell, it's not like I could flash my blogger ID and expect to get on set. If I was very, very lucky - as exceedingly lucky as Mr Kipling's cakes and pastries are good - I might catch a glimpse of a Batmobile chassis... but in all honestly, I'd sooner see that thing when it's good and ready to be seen.

Speaking of which, the first teaser poster for The Dark Knight Rises was released yesterday. You've all seen it, right? Isn't it awesome?

But of course it's awesome!

(In fact, with a little cropping here and a little rotation there, it could very well be my new desktop wallpaper. Michael Whelan's gorgeous cover art for The Way of Kings has served me well, but I think it's time may have just come.)

However, pleased as I am to finally see some art from The Dark Knight Rises, I dare say the release of that poster rather overshadowed two other images which also slipped out of the great Hollywood marketing machine yesterday. And let's face facts: the breaking of Batman is a way away yet.

(Summer 2012 can't come soon enough...)

In the meantime, would you kindly feast your eyes on these, ladies and gentlemen? I give you the posters for Hugo - which is to say a fantasy film by way of legendary director Martin Scorsese - and the long in-the-making prequel to The Thing: 

Now these movies, due in October and November... these are movies we can start getting excited about right now!

And as well we should, because the early reports are that this prequel to The Thing could eclipse even the decades-long legacy of the original -- here's hoping...

...whereas Hugo (formerly The Invention of Hugo Cabret) just so happens to be the film Ser Scorsese's been making since completing work on my favourite movie of all 2010: I mean Shutter Island, of course.

If either of these forthcoming flicks can live up to the cinematic watermarks of their respective predecessors, we could be looking at an incredible Fall of genre films right here.

Don't you think?

***

Source: Dark Horizons

Letters to Editors | Rest In Peace, Pixar

Dear Pixar,

Have I told you lately that I love you?

No, really: I do. You're smart, you're beautiful, you're funny. You have legs and head and heart - the very kind I can get behind. What more could anyone ask from a computer animation studio?

Was it love at first sight? Well, no, not exactly; after all these years I'll admit it. Sure, Toy Story was wonderful, but you have to understand, I was at school when it came out, and when our usual teachers were off, or we were nearing the end of term, it was Toy Story that the substitutes resorted to; Toy Story in mean little half-hour chunks, again and again and again. This one VHS would do the rounds - from class to class and back - so often I swear there were times I had to splice the tape together. So too much of a good thing... all that. To be honest I got a bit sick of your first film.

But hey. It wasn't you, baby - it was me.

Mind you, I can't be held responsible for A Bug's Life. What was that, eh Pixar?

Never mind. I didn't; not for long at least. Because after that one little misstep, you just kept getting better... and better... and better. From Toy Story 2 through Monsters, Inc and on, finally, to Finding Nemo, which I could not at the time conceive of any possible improvement on.

Yet - bless your fluffy little lamp - you kept on at it. You gave us The Incredibles, which was super. Then came Cars: not the best thing since sliced bread, but at least it was better than A Bug's Life. That it to say, I didn't despise it like everyone else seemed to.

Anyway, onwards... and upwards! So it was that our affair continued, with a string of original, touching, truly masterful films beginning with Ratatouille - foodie good times - and ending with Up, which featured a three-minute musical masterpiece that can still bring a tear to the eye of this grumpy old asshat here.

Between those two beauties, however, a movie that is and will I think forever be among my very, very favourite films: WALL-E. WALL-E was incredible. Perfectly judged, elegiac yet optimistic... just... just something else. I don't have the words, and here I'm meant to be all about the words.

But - though I hate to say it - something's happened to us since. Perhaps it was because you'd scaled such impossible heights, and the only place you could go was back. A third Toy Story was one thing, and it worked; against all the odds perhaps, but still, it worked: for a goodbye it was good, great even. Yet where did you head next? What did you do with all that affection? You took it back to Cars.

This Summer, with Cars 2, I fear you've forsaken much of what made you such a marvel in my eyes, Pixar. And alas, the road ahead looks equally uneven. First and foremost, what's all this about Monsters Academy? Can I just say no thanks now, save you the wait? And of late - twist the knife why don't you! - there's been talk of Toy Story 4 too, and a sequel to The Incredibles.

Pixar, my darling... my dear, sweet Pixar: what in the name of all that's rendered are you up to? Where do you think you're going in such a hurry?

Deep into the annals of the damned Mouse House, I dare say.

Please, enough with this nonsense. This new agenda of yours to push out two movies a year rather than the one beautifully polished gem that you've found such success with... it's a deeply misguided modus operandi. Certainly it is if all you mean to make of it are the very sequels you nearly broke up with Disney over, a couple of years ago.

I'll be plain: two shitty nothings do no make one great something. Give me Brave.

Brave could be brilliant - in fact, on the basis of that trailer and my faith in One Man Band director John Andrews, I full well expect it to be. But I beg of you, Pixar: never mind the rest of your slate. Stop right there and save us all the heartache. Take a year out after Brave, or however long it takes for y'all to come up with something new and shiny and exciting rather than paving the way for the selfsame road to ruin you nearly went AWOL over in the dark part-ownership days.

Pixar, you've been with me for a long time. Through the happy times and the sad. And I know as well as anyone that all good things must come to and end, but... just... please... not like this.

Pretty please?

Hopefully yours,

Niall Alexander.

Meme, Myself and I | Which Alien Are You?

io9 had a neat little game up on the front page yesterday: some cod-psychology about what your favourite Alien film says about you. Whatever my misgivings about the untouchable mentality they have over there, I have io9 and a bunch of other aggregators' RSS feeds ticking away at the top of my browser window, and if I haven't waxed verbose over my undying love for (most of) the franchise on the blog before, well...  let's take it as said, shall we?

To make a needless long story moderately less long, when I saw this particular article pop up before bedtime last night, I couldn't not click it. And would you credit it, I came away baffled at the accuracy - at least in my case - of this simple little meme. I'd recommend you head on over to io9 now and see how your favourite Alien film reflects your outlook on life.

As for me?

Well, I have no shame admitting it - I've seen the error of my ways since, after all - but coming up, far and away my pick of the four core movies was Alien 3. That means, and I quote:

"You believe in the cult of nothingness. Just like there is no escape from the Xenomorphs for the prisoner monks, there is no escape for you either. The world is a bleak place. Love, family, hope, it's all just waiting to be thrown into the fire. What is the use in taming the love from a feral child or rescuing potential mate Hicks, when life will just murder them while you sleep? You are not a glass-is-half-empty kind of person. You are a half-a-Lance-Henriksen kind of person. Sure, every once in a while there's time for a bald-headed romp with another doomed inmate (inmate of life, that is) but not even a wise, bespectacled black Jesus can save you. In the end, we're all just meat for the festering monster asleep in our guts."

I've had reason to reconsider my taste in Alien films in the aeons since attaching myself to David Fincher's unfortunately botched debut like a barnacle to a naked sailor. Every so often I'll pop the ol' Quadrilogy into the DVD player and let rip, and these days, I'm an Alien man all the way - that is to say, a devotee of the one and the only, the original Alien, which I think the best by at least a light year.

And that says what, exactly, about The Speculative Scotsman?

"If the you're a fan of the first Alien, you respond to the cold, dark world of the unknown. It drives you like the Nostromo, plowing through the big black of space. You like your horror Paxton-free, there's no time for humor when people are dying. You also may have a few trust issues, as you should. Is this just a regular dinner, or will this meal end with one of your mates strewn across the table? Thankfully this also makes you a bit of a survivor. When the end-of-the-world is nigh, you're the best equipped to make the big decisions. Who's going up in the air-shaft to find out what's making all that racket? Not you. A cat lover, you have a calm that propels every decision, even in the face of unthinkable madness."

Well I'll be...

Damn and blast it - it's all true! Right down to the cat thing, and the subsequent unthinkable madness. I didn't realise I made for quite such easy reading.

But off with you all to Meredith Woerner's article, to see which Alien archetype you are. And please, do feel free to share your results - perhaps with a word or two as to their accuracy (or not) - either in the comments, or else on your own blog. I mean, if you can think of a better way to get to know people on the internet, you're either a filthy fibber, or a far smarter human than I.

###

Source: io9

Screen Shot | Silent Hill Set Revelation

/Film have showcased some photography of a pivotal set from the upcoming film Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.

I'm a mite late on this, but what with all the fuss about A Game of Thrones on HBO, and then those dastardly pirates, I thought it could wait. The movie's not going to be done till next year anyway.

But that doesn't mean we can't ogle a few of the early sets, and wonder together whether this sequel to what is in my opinion the best video game to movie adaptation ever is going to end up gorgeous or garbage... or gorgeous garbage.

We can check off gorgeous, if these long-exposure shots by photographer Sara Collaton are anything to go by. Certainly they document a few rather impressive sets; impressive in a perfectly creepy kind of way, of course, as fairgrounds are wont to be after-hours - and growing up right next door to a big ol' park the carnies would hit every couple months, this thing I know for fact - and very auspicious they are. Moreover, they indicate the filmmakers mean to hold true to the movie's inspiration, which is to say Silent Hill 3.

That's the one with Heather in: Heather, the daughter of Harry Mason, the player character in the first Silent Hill. The first Silent Hill video game, I mean.

Anyhow, the cast is certainly promising. From the first film, Rahda Mitchell and Deborah Kara Unger are set to return alongside franchise newcomers Carrie-Anne Moss and Malcolm McDowell. And would you look at that! Why, it's only Sean bloody Bean again! Both as his character from the original, and also Harry?

Wait, what?

Don't look at me: I don't have a clue how that's going to work. Am I missing some pivotal thing, maybe?

But I digress. I'm much more concerned about the talent behind the camera than in front of it, in any event. With the decidedly dodgy horror of Deathwatch behind him, and late of the very genre void Solomon Kane was, Michael J. Bassett is both writing and directing this second Silent Hill film. And that... that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, I fear.

So is Silent Hill: Revelation 3D going to be guff? Or does it stand to inherit the mantle of Best Video Game to Film Adaptation from its divisive predecessor?

Or would you perhaps take issue with my premise? I make no bones about it: as an absolute devotee of the video games, I utterly adored the first Silent Hill film. But I hear a lot of folks disagree...

###

Source: /Film