A little while ago I talked about Dredd being a fantastic action film and one of the last flicks I saw at the picture theatre. Well, here's another.
Drive is very different to Dredd. It's a slow, quiet, somehow-very-European-feeling action film. Rather than being full of big, over-the-top action sequences, it's got these long stretches of engrossing drama that ratchet up the tension and then explode into quick, jarring moments of ultra-violence. Very effective and very satisfying.
I can't recommend it enough. SBS has it up until May 22.
90% of this "action" flick looks like this. … And it's fantastic.
3 comments :
Thanks for this one, Alex. It looks like something I will watch. Will get back to you!
Oh PS. Princess is suddenly into all things Marvel. So all the movies and characters etc. Is that something you are into? Is the Dredd thing part of that? I am so ignorant. Really, my comic knowledge extends to Richie Rich, Donald Duck, Mad Magazine. And that's about it. Oh no, the BC books, Peanuts, and Thelwell. Think we've talked about those before. BC was awesome. Also Asterix, and Tintin.
This could almost do with a post of its own, but I'll endeavor to keep it succinct:
Judge Dredd is part of 2000AD. 2000AD specialises in sci-fi, and is one of the last of the British anthology comics that were legion thirty years ago. Issues are printed weekly and usually contain a collection of six page chapters, each coming from a different ongoing story. 2000AD is about the only regular comic I still follow, despite the fact that it's a shadow of what it was in the '80s & '90s. I made a post about a recent issue here.
For an insight into how good 2000AD and Judge Dredd were, I highly recommend reading the 1990 story America. It should only take an hour or so to get through.
Purchase it here.
Torrent it here.
(comes with two sequels included)
Now, onto the two big American publishers:
1) Marvel (owned by Disney)
Spider-man, Iron-man, Wolverine, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Daredevil, Punisher, Nick Fury, Shield, Avengers, X-men, Ghost Rider. At this point, I think the movies are making more money than the comics. They're certainly far more popular.
2) DC (owned by Time Warner)
Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow. Trying hard to copy Marvel's movie success, but not having much luck.
Both publishers specialise in super-heroes. Usually, each character or group will have their own separate ongoing series, with a thirty page installment printed every month.
It's generally accepted that these comics started getting good in the '60s when Marvel writer Stan Lee bravely experimented with the concept of giving characters complex human emotions and depth. Quality steadily increased and peaked in the '80s, during what's know as the "British Invasion", when a bunch of the best 2000AD writers jumped ship and came to work for DC, revolutionising how Americans thought about comics. Neil Gaiman's Sandman won a literary award, and soon writers were getting bigger fan-followings than the characters they were writing. Many decided they were sick of writing material they didn't own or control, and struck out on independent ventures. The industry fell apart, Marvel went bankrupt, and by the turn of the century, both companies were struggling to put together anything decent.
I'm told the quality's gone back up again, and that a lot of the Marvel movies and TV shows are decent too; but I haven't followed an American superhero book in fifteen years, and the stuff I have seen, both book and movie wise, looked pretty bloody bland. About the only recommendation I can give to anyone wanting to get into the "Marvel Universe" is jump on the torrents and get the back catalogues of Spider-man, X-men, and maybe Daredevil, and then go from there. There's certainly plenty to keep you going.
Post a Comment