Whilst I am at the movies…. here’s a short teaser from Spider-man 3.
The first two films were both excellent (the second slightly better)… and I expect the third to be equally as good. The appearance of the black alien / venom makes it exciting.
Frank Miller’s 300
Anybody who reads batman and daredevil graphic novels will know the name Frank Miller. It has been a while however since Miller penned anything related to either of the DC or Marvel superhero stories.
He has produced some landmark graphic novels such as –
These were all fantastic stories and gained a lot of critical acclaim and together with the likes of Alan Moore’s The Watchmen, raised the level of comics / graphic novels in popular culture. I would strongly suggest getting your hands on these books. Daredevil has always been my personal favourite.
Miller subsequently penned and wrote a number of other once off hero books as well as other stories including “300“. 300 is now being made into a film which is due for opening in the US on 9 March 2007. The trailer can be found at Apple’s website. It looks interesting.
300 is a graphic novel, written and illustrated by Frank Miller with painted colors by Lynn Varley. It depicts the Battle of Thermopylae and the events leading up to it from the perspective of Leonidas, king of Sparta. The comic was particularly inspired by the 1962 film, The 300 Spartans, a movie that Miller watched as a young boy.
Every page of the comic was illustrated as a double-page spread. When the series was gathered into hardcover form, the individual pages were twice as wide as a normal comic. Miller’s art style for this project was similar to his Sin City work, although the addition of color is an obvious difference.
300 was initially published as a monthly five issue comic book series by Dark Horse Comics, the first issue published in May 1998. the issues were titled Honor, Duty, Glory, Combat and Victory. The work was collected as a hardcover graphic novel in 1999.
Is Bryan Singer the best superhero director?
The new “Superman Returns” film is currently garnering positive reviews. What is interesting is that the film is directed by former X-Men & X2 director Bryan Singer. You will note that Rotten Tomatoes have given him a similar high score for the first two X-Men films (the third X-Men film was not directed by him and wasn’t favoured by the critics). Singer also made quite an impact in “The Usual Suspects“. He seems to understand the myth & mystery of larger than life characters. Perhaps the other director that can do good superhero films is Sam Raimi (Spider-man 1 & 2, Darkman).
One of the things cited to work well is Singer’s cinematography which manages to bring out the exhilaration & emotion of the superhero.
So far looking good for Singer and Superman. May I suggest that Singer does Daredevil?
Lost – the theories
Many of you know that I am a TV series freak. One of the series which I follow is ABC’s Lost which chronicles the story of the survivors of Oceanic Flit 815. Each of these survivors have dark secrets which seems to indicate that they were all brought to the island for a certain reason. What that reason is (or are) is subject to a lot of speculation and mystery. For those of you who would like to discuss or understand more about the mysteries in Lost, then you can visit the Lost Theories website.
I find that Lost is a fascinating series because of its many layered mysteries. It manages to successfully blend thriller, sci-fi, supernatural and human drama all into one. If you haven’t seen it, I would strongly recommend this. The best is to get yourself a full season box set and watch the whole season in one go.
I will be waiting for season two to be available on DVD.
Cranky Dr House rules!
I’ve been watching the first season of House MD and find it excellent. Hugh Laurie acts as the cranky but brilliant doctor House. For a short time, it was a little difficult to accept Hugh Laurie as a serious and angry character. I’ve known him as Rowan Atkinson’s punching bag in the various Blackadder series. Usually, it is Atkinson that is the cranky bastard. But this time round Laurie pulls off a brilliant act of a flawed genius and genuinely cranky doctor who’s main interest in his work is solving medical puzzles. On other occassions he just plainly verbally abuses his patients either through insensitive comments, or by sharp perception of the patients’ hidden secrets.
Fully recommend House MD as a series to watch. One good thing is that each episode stands on its own, so you do not need to watch the whole series in sequence.