Fables: Legends in Exile

Written by: Bill Willingham, art by Lan Medina, Steve Leialoha and Craig Hamilton
Number of Pages: 145 pages
Genre:  Graphic novel, comics, fantasy, murder mystery,

Fables is a comic book series published by Vertigo Comics which started in 2002 and is still ongoing, having reached 129 issue so far.  Basically, all the characters and creatures from fairy tale and folklore, who call themselves "Fables", have been driven out of their various magical worlds by a powerful enemy known only as "The Adversary".  The only world safe from the Adversary is the mundane, or "mundy", world which is our world.  So the Fables escape to contemporary New York City where they form an uneasy community trying to keep their true magical nature hidden from the mundy world and also trying to retake their homelands from the Adversary.
This book collects the first five issues of the series.  It's basically a murder mystery story in which the Fables' sheriff, the reformed Big Bad Wolf who has taken human form and the name Bigby Wolf, tries to solve the mystery of the disappearance and possible brutal murder of Rose Red, who happens to be the estranged sister of Snow White, the Fables' deputy mayor.

It's a completely self-contained story although with sub-plots and references that spin off into a larger Fables     narrative and can be read and enjoyed on it's own merits without picking up any of the other volumes.  The series hits the ground running with an entertaining story and distinctive characters.  Even the minor characters are developed well with their own personalities and relationships.  The idea of fairy tale characters in the modern world is not a new one but Fables has always worked with it better than most.  The art is detailed and colorful.

The book also contains a short prose story by Bill Willingham about how the Big Bad Wolf came to join the Fables, and a short comic story which fist appeared in the 2009 book Peter and Max: A Fables Novel.

It is definitely worth checking out for fantasy fans.

A word of warning though, although it's about fairy tales and magical creatures it is definitely not for kids.  It contains some strong language, violence and sexual scenes.

Island of Lost Souls

Year:  1932
Director:  Erle C. Kenton
Screenplay:  Philip Wylie and Waldemar Young, based on the novel The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells
Starring:  Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Kathleen Burke, Bela Lugosi, Robert Kortman
Running Time:  67 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, horror

This classic and hugely influential film tells the story of shipwreck survivor Edward Walker (Arlen) who finds himself stranded on a mysterious island owned by sinister scientist Doctor Moreau (Laughton).  Walker soon learns that Moreau has been conducting grotesque experiments on animals and has created a race of part human/part animal hybrids. 

The film was the first, and is definitely the best known, of several screen adaptations of H.G. Wells' classic scienc-fiction novel.  It is very well made and atmospheric.  Laughton turns in a great performance as the silkily charismatic and ruthlessly amoral Moreau.  Bela Lugosi is also extremely impressive under heavy makeup as the "Sayer of the Law", the leader of Moreau's creations.  Kathleen Burke is seductive as the "Panther Woman", Lota.  The special make-up effects are very impressive with each of the creatures having a distinct look and personality.

With it's themes of genetic engineering and plastic surgery, the film is still relevant today.   

Star Trek Into Darkness

Year:  2013
Director:  J. J. Abrams
Screenplay:  Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof, based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry
Stars:  Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Peter Weller, Bruce Greenwood, John Cho, Anton Yelchin
Running Time:  133 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, action, adventure

This film is the twelfth to be based on the beloved science-fiction television series Star Trek (1966 - 1969) and is the sequel to Star Trek (2009).  After breaking several regulations in order to save the life of Mr. Spock (Quinto), Captain James Kirk (Pine) is demoted to First Officer.  However, Starfleet suddenly comes under attack from renegade Starfleet officer John Harrison (Cumberbatch), who kills Kirk's mentor Admiral Pike (Greenwood).  Harrison promptly flees to the planet Kronos, home of the warlike Klingons.  Consumed with vengeance, Kirk is temporarily reinstated in command of the USS Enterprise and ordered to pursue Harrison to Kronos and dispatch him with the aid of experimental photon torpedoes.  However, if Kirk carries his orders through, tensions between the Federation and the Klingons will inevitably erupt into all-out war.

The film features spectacular visual effects and plenty of exciting action.  Fans of the original series may enjoy the frequent references to characters and events, but will possibly be annoyed by the fact that the film, despite being set before the events of the television show, plays fast and loose with the series continuity and history (although this is sort of explained by the fact that this and the 2009 Star Trek are set in a parallel universe to that of the original show).  Chris Pine does the necessary heroics well, but lacks the roguish charisma of William Shatner's Kirk, Zachary Quinto makes for a great Spock, and Benedict Cumberbatch is a complex and memorable villain.  It's just a pity that Zoe Saldana and Simon Pegg are underused.

The film was made in a 2D IMAX format and was converted to 3D in post-production.  I saw it in 2D IMAX and it looked amazing in that format.  Whichever format you see it in this is an engaging and consistently entertaining space adventure.

Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine in Star Trek Into Darkness

Looper

Year: 2012

Director: Rian Johnson
Screenplay: Rian Johnson
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Noah Segan, Piper Perabo, Jeff Daniels
Running Time: 118 minutes
Genre: Science-fiction, thriller, time travel
In the year 2044 time travel is still thirty years aways from being a reality. However, mobsters in the future use the technology to send their victims back in time to 2044 where they are immediately executed by hit-men known as "Loopers". If a Looper survives long enough he too is sent back in time to 2044 to be killed by his younger self, this is called "closing the loop", and if a Looper fails to kill his future self for whatever reason then the consequences for both of them are severe. Joe (Gordon-Levitt) is a Looper and a drug addict who has ambitions for a better life in France. However, one day Joe discovers that it is his turn to close the loop when his future self (Willis) is sent back for him to kill. However the older Joe escapes and soon younger Joe is on his trail desperate to kill him and make things right. Joe's boss, Abe (Daniels), a gangster from the future living in the past, sends every man he has to dispose of both versions of Joe.
This is an intriguing time travel film which has a fascinating take on the idea of the the temporal paradox which has been a mainstay of time travel stories right from the start. There are obvious influences of The Terminator (1984) and 12 Monkeys (1996), which also starred Bruce Willis. The future Joe hopes to change the past to influence the future. There is also the intesting concept of how you would react if you came face to face with either your younger self or your older self. One of the key scenes in the film being a discussion between the future and the present versions of Joe in a diner, where the older Joe refuses to discuss the complexities of time travel on the grounds that it makes your head hurt. Another key scene occurs when another Looper doesn't kill his future self and ends up being captured and tortured. The torture is depicted as the future version runs, old scars start appearing, his facial features become increasingly disigured and limbs start disappearing and his personality starts changing as the memories of the torture begin to assert themselves.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, with prosthetics to make him more convincing as a young Bruce Willis, carries the film with a great performance marrying toughness, cockiness and emerging sensitivity, while Bruce Willis is as lost and confused as he was in 12 Monkeys but this time with a horrible moral dilemma to contend with. Emily Blunt is also impressive as the young single mother on whose farm young Joe takes refuge.

This is a dark film with a shocking twist that probably very few mainstream film-makers would have the courage to pull off. It also features an impressive depiction of a depressing, post-economic crash, noirish world. With recent films such as Moon (2009), Inception (2010) and Source Code (2011), intelligent science-fiction is in great shape at the moment and this is one of the best examples of the genre.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis in Looper

Bizarre

Year: 1970

Director: Antony Balch
Screenplay: Antony Balch, John Eliot, Martin Locke, Maureen Owen, Alfred Mazure and Elliott Stein
Starring: Valentine Dyall, Maria Frost, Sue Bond and Yvonne Quenet
Running Time: 91 minutes
Genre: Comedy, fantasy, sex
This film definitely lives up to it's title. Basically it is seven short stories dealing with various aspects of sex narrated by an Egyptian mummy (Dyall). The stories include a photographer who goes to extreme lengths to make sure that her models really capture pain, an elderly man who is preparing for his young wife's first child only to discover that the baby is not what he expected, a strange man who really loves lizards and the adventures of a glamorous secret agent in a spoof of 1960s spy movies.
Antony Balch was kind of a curious figure on the British cultural scene in the 1960s who is probably best known for his experimental short films that he made with Beat writer William S. Burroughs, Towers Open Fire (1963) and The Cut-Ups (1967). This was his feature debut. The film is very much a product of it's time and sometimes feels like a time capsule of the late sixties (it was filmed in 1969). It is worth bearing in mind that by modern standards the film is horribly politically incorrect and if it wasn't so ineptly made it would probably be extremely offensive. The acting is pretty bad, most of the cast being primarily models instead of actors. The script is bad and the film is full of nonsensical interludes and weird visuals. For the most part it falls into the "so bad it is actually hilarious", however there are moments where Balch shows genuine cinematic talent, and the film deserves points for being genuinely unpredictable, and it is a real oddity.
It was a huge success in it's day and ran on the grindhouse cinema circuit in London pretty much constantly throughout the 1970s in variously edited versions. The film was also released as Secrets of Sex.

Fifty shades of blue:  Bizarre

Judo Saga

Year:  1943
Director:  Akira Kurosawa
Screenplay:  Akira Kurosawa and Tomita Tsuneo, based on the novel Sanshiro Sugata by Tomita Tsuneo
Starring:  Denjiro Okochi,  Susumu Fujita, Yukiko Todoroki, Takashi Shimura
Running Time:  79 minutes (cut from 97 minutes)
Genre:  Martial arts, period drama,

This film is probably most notable as being the directorial debut of legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.  Set in 1882, the film tells the story of headstrong, young Sanshiro Sugata (Fujita) who heads out to study martial arts but finds himself caught between two rival schools, one teaching the traditional jujitsu and the other teaching the more modern judo.

The film is stylish and well made, if slow-moving.  It features many themes and techniques that would recur time and again over Kurosawa's career, such as the relationship between pupil and master, and between tradition and modernism, and techniques such as wipes, changing camera speeds and the use of weather patterns to reveal character moods.  It was a huge success in it's day and spawned a sequel, also directed by Kurosawa, which was released in 1945.  The film has been remade five times.  It was cut by seventeen minutes by the Japanese censors for "failing to comply with the Government's wartime entertainment policies".  The missing footage has never been recovered.

The film is not among Kurosawa's best, but it still has much to recommend it.  Certainly his mastery of cinema was evident right from the start.

Sanshiro Sugata (Susumu Fujita) is holding on in Judo Saga  

Caravaggio

Year:  1986
Director:  Derek Jarman
Screenplay:  Derek Jarman and Suso Cecchi d'Amico, from a story by Nicholas Ward-Jackson
Starring:  Nigel Terry, Sean Bean, Tilda Swinton, Spencer Leigh, Michael Gough
Running Time:  93 minutes
Genre:  Biography, drama

Towards the end of his life, celebrated Seventeenth Century painter Michelangelo da Caravaggio (Terry) reflects on his eventful life, from his youth as a violent hustler and street artist to his rise to fame under the patronage of Cardinal Del Monte (Gough).  Caravaggio becomes known for his skill as an artist and notorious for his habit of using people from the street as models for his mostly religious paintings, as well as his habit of sleeping with many of his models, both men and women.  His reflections focus on his relationships with thuggish street fighter Ranuccio (Bean) and Ranuccio's girlfriend Lena (Swinton), who both become his models and his muse. 

Acclaimed British director Derek Jarman worked for seven years to make a film of the life of the legendary painter Caravaggio, and the original idea was something much closer to the conventional movie biopic to be shot on location in Italy with a fairly large budget.  However, the budget fell through at the last minute and Jarman was forced to scale back his plans quite considerably.  The film ended up being shot entirely in a studio in London.  Possibly as a result of this, the film never aims at an authentic recreation of 17th Century Italy.  Instead it kind of exists in a surreal twilight zone somewhere between the world of Caravaggio and the world of 1980s London.  There are numorous deliberate anachronisms in the film: characters wear items of modern dress, merchants do their accounts on pocket calculators, an art critic writes venomous reviews on a portable typewriter and Ranuccio works on a motorbike among others.  However the film is visually startling.  The look of the film attempts to replicate the look and feel of Caravggio's paintings with striking success.  It creates it's own world that is both dreamlike and strongly vibrant and physical.  The performances are very good, if occasionally overly theatrical.  This film marks the movie debut of Tilda Swinton, who went on to do several more films with Jarman, as did Sean Bean.  Derek Jarman was a painter himself and the film presents a striking account of the art world.  Rarely do biopics of an artist focus so strongly on the actual painting of the works themselves.  This film is probably Derak Jarman's finest film and certainly his most accessible.  It's well worth checking out.

Nigel Terry and Sean Bean fight it out in Caravaggio