Sunday 15 September 2013

TV

Friends
1x21 The One with the Fake Monica [goodness-knows-what-th watch]

Vera
3x03 Young Gods
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Films

The Falcon in Mexico (1944)
[#77 in 100 Films in a Year 2013]

Comics

A Redtail's Dream by Minna Sundberg
Prologue

This was brought to my attention by an Indiegogo email, because it's currently running an (incredibly successful) campaign to publish a print edition. But because it's a webcomic, you can still read the full thing online for free here, which is certainly handy when it comes to decision-making about backing the project -- especially at the prices involved: although you can get a PDF version for as little as $15 (~£9.50), the fact the book will be over 600 pages long in a lavish hardback with a small print run (because hey, it's free online, so if you're gonna pay for a print edition you wanna go all-out) means prices start at $90 (~£57)!

The comic itself, then, is "about a young Finnish lad named Hannu Viitanen and his shapeshifting, talking dog Ville, who are on a journey to bring back the souls of their fellow villagers from the realm of dreams. Much of the story is inspired by Finnish mythology, and it is quite child friendly and lighthearted." The artwork is lovely, a painterly fairy-tale storybook style that would seem to suit a mythology-based family-friendly tale like a glove.

The story itself, in this prologue, is harder to gauge. There's a long preamble with some foxes chatting about their love of buns. It's Quirky and therefore kinda sickly. It's also thick with dialogue and an occasionally unclear arrangement of speech bubbles. Sundberg is working in a second (or third? She's Finnish-Swedish) language here, so some of that is understandable -- indeed, the vast majority of the time you'd never know, as these overly-wordy pages are the kind of thing you could see in any young person's (she started it in her second year of uni) first dabble in the medium.

At the minute I'm a little torn: I really like the art and it sounds like the hardback will be glorious, and show the artwork off beautifully; but I'm not sold on the writing/storytelling style in the prologue. The plot summary intrigues me though, and perhaps things settle down as Sundberg gets more experienced? The campaign doesn't end for another 2½ weeks, so maybe I'll just get stuck into reading it in the meantime.

this week on 100 Films

Three new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...


Anonymous (2011)
this film by any other name would smell just as shit.
Read more here.


Iron Man 3 (2013)
Some have described Iron Man Three as “the best Iron Man yet”, even better than the exalted first movie. Others have described it as “at least better than Iron Man 2”, the derided first sequel. I thought the first one was a tad overrated and the second notably underrated, so where does this trilogy-forming instalment fall on my personal scale? Well, that depends what you want from an Iron Man film…
Read more here.


The Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994)
Normally I’m a stickler for watching film series in order, even when it doesn’t matter, so skipping 31 sequels really isn’t my style… but this was on telly one night in July and I was in just the right mood, so the second will have to wait for its turn another day.
Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


United 93 (2006)
it is hard to imagine a more competent and respectful film being made about 9/11... Perhaps most importantly of all, the families want you to see it.
Read more here.


More next Sunday.