Gary Oldman Goes Spy Catching in 70's Britain

Trailer

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Tomas (Let the Right One In) Alfredson directs this new adaptation of John le Carre’s famous 1970’s set spy thriller starring Gary Oldman as retired spy catcher George Smiley brought back in to British Intelligence to find a Soviet mole at the very top of the organisation.

I’ve never read le Carre's book and am only vaguely familiar with the old 1970’s BBC adaptation with Alec Guinness as Smiley, so I went to this mainly as a fan of Alfredson and Oldman. And because it has a top notch cast featuring the likes of Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, Toby Jones, Kathy Burke, Mark Strong and John Hurt.

And it didn’t disappoint.

This is a brilliant film with brilliant work by the cast and their director. Oldman deserves an Oscar nom. As Smiley he is quietly compelling and the model of restrained cunning and intelligence though hampered by an emotional weakness around his estranged wife and haunted by some of the things he’s done in his past. Mark Strong is equally as good as a field agent sent out on a mission that goes wrong and who has to then live with the personal consequences. As director, Alfredson paints a suitably drab atmosphere of 70’s Britain – crumbling old buildings, horrible wallpaper and tacky Wimpy Bars (an old British chain for fast food), all beautifully brought to life by spot on art direction and moody cinematography. And the themes he explores are very similar to those in Let the Right One in. Many of the characters here are loners, separate from life. They don’t join in. They watch from the outside. They are all essentially lonely and emotionally damaged people. Also, as with Let the Right One In, Alfredson isolates his characters, often using windows as a barrier. They are seen looking out of them a lot, looking at a world they don’t feel a part of. Then there is the pacing. It is glacial. There is no big action. Instead it is all about conversations, subtle mind games, red herrings and double crosses by oft middle-aged men in bad suits, usually in drab rooms. But it is all utterly absorbing and highly cinematic, showing us a whole new world, the kind we would never normally see; showing us the toll this world takes on these people. This is the true anti-James Bond or Bourne. Only the always good Tom Hardy as field officer Ricky Tarr comes close to a Bond-esque life, working out in Turkey to get secrets from a possible Soviet source, then seducing the guy's wife, thinking that she is the real source. There is no huge climax to the movie either, only Smiley finally working out who the mole is and springing his subtle trap, followed by the sad and grim aftermath.

Tomas Alfrdson's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a beautifully written, acted and directed film with a refreshing adult tone and feel. It requires patience and a certain level of intelligence from its audience. As much as I love my fun/escapist movie entertainment, it is a welcome relief to go see something now and again that is unapolagetically adult and artistically demanding of its audience. 4.5 (5)

Buffy Season 9: Little Slayer in the Big City

Clickable thumbnail for a page from BtVS: Season 9.1 'Freefall'


She’s back!

The Slayer returns for her ninth official season, though like the last one, in comic book form. Doesn’t matter. Season 9 (as with Season 8 before it) is canon. It is outlined/plotted, exec produced, and partly written by the god who be Joss. And Joss has written this here first issue – a short, funny, scene setting and character-building story called Freefall.

The story starts with Buffy waking up after the night before, a major hangover raging. She can’t remember what she got up to at the big housewarming party she threw the previous night; a party to which she invited all of her friends: Willow and her new squeeze, Xander and Dawn, Spike, Riley, and Andrew. She just knows something happened, that she likely made an ass of herself after ingesting copious amounts of alcohol. As her pained morning progresses, our girl slowly starts to remember in flashback bits and pieces of what went on the night before, until eventually she gets the full picture. It is then that Buffy’s new roomies confront her about what happened, and about her friends who came to the party. Yikes! Is it gonna be eviction time for the Buffster?

Uh uh, no spoilers here.

Freefall is a ton of fun. The story is told through Buffy’s tired, red tinged, alcohol dazed morning after eyes, her flashbacks a great device meaning that the reader is just as in the dark as Buffy about what she got up to, only learning what happened as she does. It’s true that Joss has such a firm grip on these characters that they live and breath on the page. As to be expected his dialogue is witty, snappy and clever, while at the same time the theme behind the story is strong. There is a forced jollity to Buffy here. But behind that jollity hides sadness and guilt. And yes, pain. Always pain. Wouldn’t be Buffy without the pain. Being the master Mr Whedon is, he can layer all of this stuff in to a very funny, perfectly constructed story about a girl suffering a bad hangover, just trying to get through her day.

So just what is the theme here? Because as we know, theme and metaphor is the bread and butter of Buffy.

Well, after the huge mystical, multi dimensional, world altering/shattering events of Season 8 the concept behind Season 9 is, we’re told, back to basics. Season 9 is supposed to bring Buffy and her friends back to dealing with the everyday, back to using the supernatural as metaphor for the kinds of trials and tribulations we all face in life: growing up, growing older, dealing with parents and family, dealing with relationships, taking on responsibility. Basically living life. This time, for Buff at least, the main theme appears to be about finding your place in the world and where you fit in when things around you have changed. It’s about building a life and trying to figure out what it is that defines you. Is it your job? Your family? Your friends? A lot of this has been touched on before in Buffy, but through the lens of adolescence, of growing up. This time it is through the lens of directionless adulthood. What happens when we are cast adrift from our old life? You can look at it perhaps like family break up, divorce, or losing a long-held job. Big adult life changes. To quote a song I know, “Where do we go from here?”

In Freefall, Buffy is in the beginnings of this adult life-adjustment phase. Things have changed. She’s trying to get a handle on her life now that her leader-of-a-slayer-army days are over. The remaining slayers are still around (many not happy about what Buffy did), but the army is disbanded, and no new slayers will ever be called again. Now, war over, former Slayer General Buffy Summers is in San Francisco working as a waitress, living in a shared apartment with some brand new roomies, trying to discover what she wants to do with the rest of her life. But despite her having cut the world off from magic and from all the mystical dimensions, there are still vampires around who need slaying. So most nights Buff keeps up her old habit of secret patrolling, of vamp slayage, but with no Big Bads, no major apocalypse’s to be averted. At least not yet. So with the rest of her life ahead of her, and its path not being dictated by any Watcher’s Council types anymore, what’s a young, free and single slayer to do? I guess that is the big question for Season 9.

All in all, Freefall is a perfect start to what promises to be a fun and intriguing new chapter in the lives of everyone’s favourite Sunnydale refugees. So thanks to Joss. I read. I laughed. I reread. I laughed some more. I got the nuances, the subtleties, and the not so subtleties.

Great stuff!

Long may the Buffster reign.

An American Slayer in London (and a brooding vamp too)

Gotta love these Jo Chen covers.

Buffy Season 9 starts proper very soon. Yay!

But before it does, Dark Horse have just published issue 1 of Angel & Faith, a separate title under the Season 9 banner that will run concurrently with the main Buffy title.

Angel & Faith sees disgraced and traumatised vampire with a soul Angel living in London with reformed one time psycho slayer Faith. Now, I don’t wanna spoil things too much for those who haven’t read Season 8 yet, but…

Oh what the hell!

Rupert Giles, stalwart and true Watcher and father figure to Buffy Summers, is dead. He was killed at the end of the big Season 8 showdown. And his killer was none other than a certain heavy-browed, brooding bloodsucker, who’d been under the influence of a nasty mystical force amusingly named Twilight. To make things even worse for poor Buff, having witnessed her soul mate murder her ‘father’, in his will Giles then goes and leaves all of his worldly goods to… Faith! For some reason Giles thought Buffy didn’t need any of it, but that Faith did. Faith’s inheritance includes a house in London, all of the remaining Watcher files/records, and an estate somewhere in the country with horses and stuff. Faith, forever in Angel’s debt for having stuck by her and helped her through her own personal darkness, takes the catatonic-with-guilt vampire with her to London in order to help him along what will now be an even harder road to redemption.

As Angel & Faith starts, Angel is out of his catatonic state and is helping Faith carry on Giles’s work. Using the Watcher files, the dynamic duo are battling evil on the streets and in the homes of Great Britain - starting with trying to finish a job Giles had begun months before: fighting to remove a monstrous, tentacled demon from a scared little girl.

Angel & Faith no.1 is great stuff. Highly enjoyable. Both A & F are in character with plenty of brooding from Angel and sexy sarcasm from Faith. It was great to start the story with a flashback to Giles in good old fashioned demon fighting form before cutting to Faith and Angel continuing and then finishing the exact same fight. The plotting is intriguing, seeing the return of Whistler, the demon who was once Angel’s mentor, who first showed him Buffy before she was called as the Slayer, who convinced Angel to come out of the gutter and be someone. Here, now, Whistler seems to be taking on a possible Big Bad role, recruiting a pair of truly nasty demons who used to work for Twilight. Then there’s Nadira, an angry, sexy, two-fisted Brit slayer who is friends with Faith (they seem a lot alike) but who is also out for blood after her slayer squad were all killed by Twilight’s people. Knowing now that Angel was Twilight, Nadira’s determined to find Angel and kill him, unaware that the big guy is actually being looked after by Faith. And then there’s the doozy of a revelation at the end of the issue, about what Angel is planning to do.

The UK setting gives the book a nice atmosphere, though it perhaps has a few too many British-isms wedged in to characters mouths, hammering home that they are indeed British. And I'm not too sure about the Buffy timeline anymore but I'm guessing this takes place 2/3 years after Chosen, making it circa 2006. If so, then Brit characters talking about public spending cuts and austerity measures would be about four years to soon. But, hey, it's no big deal as it's the characters and the story that I care about. And in that respect, A&F shoots and scores. Christos Gage’s script is tight, witty, emotional and very well structured. His new character of Nadira is instantly likeable. The art by Rebekah Isaacs is also very good. She captures the likenesses of the original actors better than Georges Jeanty manages in the main Buffy comic. Don’t get me wrong, Georges stuff is fine, just a bit more cartoony.

All in all, Angel & Faith no.1 is a very promising start to the future adventures of everyone’s favourite brooding vamp and bad girl slayer. Y’know what I really hope for though in this book? I hope that Oz turns up sometime. Cuz then we can have a Joss version of An American Werewolf in London. Heh. Roll on issue 2.

Meanwhile, on a related (and very cool) geek note:

The other day I had a brief twitter chat with Angel & Faith’s writer Christos Gage. I asked him if there was any chance the duo, while living in the UK, would come to my part of the world – to the west country - seeing as how back in Buffy season six Giles said he kept a flat in the city of Bath. Christos said maybe, and asked if there were any country estates with horses around there. Of course, being the huge Buffy geek that I am, I told him yes, there are loads, including the one shown in Buffy episode 7.1 with Giles and Willow in England, which was actually filmed by Joss at Tony Head's real home in Westbury near Bath in summer 2002. Christos then came back to say that Faith’s inherited country estate will now officially be just outside of Bath. And she may well be visiting soon. So...YAY! I may have contributed in a very, very tiny way to the continuing Buffyverse canon.

More X-ellent X-Men

X-Men: First Class trailer

Just finished watching X-Men: First Class for the second time. What a bloody great film, my fave of 2011 so far, with Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Super 8 not too far behind. Director Matthew Vaughn did a bang up job, giving XM:FC a super slick James Bond vibe and being helped no end by a smart, textured, yet economical screenplay from usual co-conspirator Jane Goldman. The movie also has a wonderful cast featuring James McAvoy as Xavier and a superstar-making turn from Michael Fassbender as Eric/Magneto. The entire cast is great but special praise goes to the gorgeous and highly talented Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique. Her relationship with Xavier and Xavier's friendship with Eric is at the heart of the film. Plus the action is all top notch. That Cuban missile crisis sequence at film’s end just rocks my world. Oh, and then there’s the sight of the delectable Rose Byrne in her undies as the icing on this mutant cake. Brilliant film and almost as good as the franchise's still high point of X2.

Also I just finished watching Marvel's last X-Men animated TV show - Wolverine and the X-Men. And that was pretty darn great too. Loved how they wove Phoenix and the Hellfire Club in to the story. Wolverine may have been just a bit too nice and cuddly in this version but his struggle to be a leader and to convince his doubting fellow ex-X-Men that he's the man for the job was pretty compelling. Nice how they kept the rivalry with Scott over Jean and Wolvie’s troubled big brother relationship with Rogue. Plus you get some really cool Sentinel bashing and some very nice little stand alone stories, many of which having elements that come back in to play in time for the big finale. Just a shame they never made a season 2 (funding issues apparently). I still prefer X-Men: Evolution over all but Wolverine and the X-Men came from the same team and carries on the same quality storytelling and character work they managed with Evolution.


Wolverine and the X-Men trailer

Make mine Marvel. :)

Raiders: The Adaptation. Why didn't I do this as a kid?

South America 1936

Okay, so I’ve watched twice now the legendary Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation.

Jeez! I can’t believe I’ve not seen this until now.

I know it isn't readily available to see, but even so, there are ways and means. And seeing as how Raiders is my favourite film bar none it’s almost criminal that I haven’t sought out and watched this little gem until now.

Time for a brief history lesson:

Raiders: The Adaptation is a 100-minute, almost shot for shot recreation of Spielberg’s classic movie put together by three young friends - Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, and Jayson Lamb from Mississippi, USA - over a seven year period starting in 1982 and finishing in 1988. The boys were all just 12 when they started. It was filmed in and around family homes, cost hardly anything, and got made through sheer on-the-spot-ingenuity, enthusiasm and a deep love for the material. On its completion the movie had one local showing in 1989 and was then largely forgotten until 2003 when somehow Eli Roth got hold of a copy, loved it and sent it to Spielberg. Spielberg also loved it and contacted the now grown up boys to congratulate them, saying he’d watched it twice on the trot and felt deeply inspired by what they had done all those years ago. The film has since gone on to have a few limited screenings at festivals around the world and made international news when Paramount and producer Scott Rudin purchased the rights to the boys story.

So what of the film itself?

As I said earlier, this is almost a shot for shot remake. It’s shot on 80’s video so the overall picture quality is not great (fuzzy image, picture rolls now and again). But that by no means detracts from the sheer fun and charm of the whole enterprise. Yes, some of the kids look ridiculous in their roles (Toht and Sallah spring to mind) and the long overall filming time means actors often look older/younger/different hair etc. from scene to scene. But their enthusiasm shines through and more than compensates. Also the kids playing Indy, Marion and Belloq are actually pretty good. As Indy Chris Strompolos has some presence and gives some good Harrison; as Marion Angela Rodriguez delivers some of the same two-fisted spunk as Karen Allen; and as Belloq Eric Zala manages to be nicely slimy with added French accent.

Technically the film is also quite the wonder – especially being made in an age long before desktop computer effects were available. For starters the lighting is often a remarkably good match to that of Douglas Slocombe’s. And the recreated sets are either eerily similar to those of the original (Belloq’s tent, the Cairo café) or they are smaller yet still wonderfully accurate versions (South American idol temple, Marion’s bar, Well of Souls). Of the location work, the kids skilfully utilised local alleyways for the Cairo market/basket chase, and what seems to be a huge quarry/sandpit for the desert stuff and end island sequence. And most impressively, they used a real ship and a real WW2 submarine for Captain Katanga’s ship and the Nazi sub.

All the way through watching Raiders: The Adaptation, I was wondering, “How the hell are they gonna do…?” re. upcoming scenes and sequences. But virtually every Raiders sequence is recreated as accurately as humanly possible. The only major sequence sadly missing is the Indy/German mechanic fight at the flying wing. Guess they couldn’t find/recreate a giant flying wing. Still, everything else the kids managed to recreate is nothing short of spectacular. Don’t believe me? See their version of the truck chase. They obviously couldn’t get a horse so Indy just leaps on to the truck from up high. But the rest of the sequence is identical – even Indy going under the truck and being dragged along behind it! This and the earlier fire gags in the Tibetan bar fight looked so incredibly dangerous. I’m amazed their parents let them do it. But then maybe they didn’t know. Probably the latter. Heh.

The film culminates, as does as the original, with the opening of the Ark on the island. Here, the kids even managed some basic visual effects combined with plenty of dry ice and simple camera tricks to portray the whispy spirits and the angel of death as they appear and then attack the bad guys. We even have soldiers being shot through with lightening, melting Nazi’s and an exploding Belloq head!

Now, I just love stuff like this! I love it where fans, driven by nothing more than passion, go out and make something for no other reason than their love of the original material and with nothing to help them except their own boundless enthusiasm and honest creativity. It’s how the likes of Spielberg, Lucas, Abrams et al got started - making their own home movies inspired by others. So huge respect to those three then lads and their friends from Mississippi who went out there and managed this epic feat. What they set out to do and what they achieved is in perfect keeping with that same spirit of ‘just get out there and do it’ adventure epitomised by Indy himself.

Indy: “I don't know, I'm making this up as I go.”


A short tribute vid

Dark Phoenix and Tabby Boom Boom shake the room

Dark Phoenix Vs. Evanescence


Thanks to the greatness of X-Men: First Class I’ve gone on a bit of an X-Men binge of late.

To start with, I went and bought Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s classic Dark Phoenix Saga first published in the late 1970’s. I haven’t read this bad boy since I was a kid when it first came out. And reading it now I’m sure back then a lot of it must have gone way over my childish head. Claremont’s writing is brilliant. It’s mature, intelligent, full of depth, thematic resonance and great, great character arcs. His style is lush, creative, emotional and rather poetic. One moment the story is a sweeping galaxy spanning epic, and then, in an eye blink, it is a small, emotional and intimate story about family, love and loss. What I love is that Claremont clearly wasn’t afraid to write what is basically a comic book for kids as if he were writing a deadly serious, character driven tragedy that deals with some pretty weighty themes. The story of Jean Grey and her tragic and seemingly unavoidable destiny is truly the stuff of classic mythology and Claremont and Byrne treat their tale with due seriousness and respect.

Oh, and as a related point of interest, the Dark Phoenix Saga is also the story that introduced the character of Kitty Pryde - the smart, capable fifteen year old girl who suddenly discovers she has special powers and must come to terms with her own destiny. Now, as any decent Whedonite worth their salt will know, Kitty is much loved by Joss and was a major inspiration behind his creation of Buffy Summers, who in turn served as inspiration to the creators of the X-Men: Evolution animated series, which featured prominently none other than Kitty Pryde. And then, just to complete the circle, Joss went on to write the highly acclaimed Astonishing X-Men comic featuring prominently none other than – yep, you guessed it - Kitty Pryde. Such perfect creative synchronicity in action.

And after that short interlude its back now to our regularly scheduled programming.

So, yeah, the Dark Phoenix Saga is excellent stuff. Reading it makes you realise just how lame the third X-Men film actually was. They tried to do the whole Jean Grey/Phoenix thing only to screw it up well and truly. One day someone should just film Claremont & Byrne’s story. Mind you, it is so epic, spanning galaxies, warring aliens and the destruction of entire civilisations, that it would probably cost an absolute fortune to make. Still, one can but dream.

And still on my X-Men trip…


Tabby ‘Boom Boom’ Smith Vs. Green Day

As well as rereading classic X-Men comics I’ve also been watching the aforementioned cartoon series X-Men: Evolution (2000 – 2003). I know someone who’s a big fan of this show and they thought I’d also like it being the huge Buffy fan that I am. And they were right. X-Men: Evolution is a great show, taking the X-Men back to their original comic book teen roots, only in a contemporary setting. In Evolution, Xavier, Wolverine and Storm are the parental figures running what is essentially a home for troubled (i.e. mutant) kids. Some are orphans, like Scott (Cyclops) Summers; others, like Kurt (Nightcrawler) Wagner, Kitty (Shadowcat) Pryde and Jean Grey have all been sent there by their families. Then there are the ones like dour Goth girl Rogue, who have been actively sought out by Xavier and co. and given a home. Living at the mansion, the kids learn to accept and control their abilities, not letting their abilities control them. They also attend the local high school so as to learn how better to relate to ‘normal’ people in an everyday setting.

For an animated kids show the writing on X-Men: Evolution has remarkable depth. The characters are distinct, well written, likeable and with real character journeys to go on. It also has a nice line in wit and can be pretty darn funny at times. One of my favourite characters in the show is the fun-loving, trouble-loving Tabby 'Boom Boom' Smith (see video above). In one memorable episode Tabby is being trained by the X-Men but she isn’t taking any of it remotely seriously and keeps on calling Wolverine “Badger” much to his extreme annoyance. I did laugh rather hard at that. Poor Wolvie. Being emasculated by a teenage girl.

In Evolution, as in Buffy, everyday troubles faced by both the kids and the adults in the show are often given the ol’ metaphor treatment. Whereas Buffy used vampires, demons and other assorted supernatural nasties as the walking metaphors for the big bad of growing up and of life in general, so Evolution uses bad mutants, human prejudice and the kids’ own abilities as problems and obstacles to confront and overcome. At the time the producers and writers of Evolution freely admitted to being huge Buffy fans and of borrowing quite a bit from Joss’s little myth. And that’s great as Joss did exactly the same with the X-Men when creating the Buffster. I’ve gotta say I’m enjoying X-Men: Evolution quite a bit. It lasted four seasons and I’m currently half way through season 2 and it’s only getting better. Also on the X-Men front, I’ve gone and bought the latest X-Men cartoon series -Wolverine and the X-Men. It’s on TV every Saturday morning over here and, just like Evolution, it is pretty darn good. Not surprising as it comes from the same team who made Evolution, though it is not a sequel and finds the X-Men in their usual adult versions.

So, yeah, gotta love those troubled mutants.

That’s all for now, bub.

‘Snikt’