Film: Let Me In (Matt Reeves, 2010)

Let Me In has no right to be as good as it is. The original Swedish film was a masterpiece, creating a heart warming story centred on the friendship of two kids that just so happens to feature vampires. It is both deadly and beautiful, with a deliberate pacing that wrings every emotion from it's audience.

The remake, being a Hammer Horror production, ups the shocks and grue factor but, in a stunning move, never sacrifices the integrity of the original or the book it's based on whilst being its own film with its own merits. Tone, style and pacing remain intact whilst the conviction of it's young cast is almost heartbreaking. It also somehow manages to make the bullying scenes and the violence that much more horrific, with the climax garnering distressing chills as the antagonists are brutally butchered largely off screen.

Matt Reeves is a man that knows how to direct the material. Both this and his previous movie, Cloverfield, use totally different styles yet benefit as such. He allows the film room to breathe and never takes the typical Hollywood "bigger is better" approach to remakes. There's no quick cuts or needless action beats and he has created a work that is just as intelligent as its predecessor.

Remakes of great films are ultimately pointless. Let Me In is the exception that proves the rule.

4.5/5

Theatre: Avenue Q

Think Sesame Street for adults and you have Avenue Q. So we get songs about porn, racism and homosexuality and, for the most part, it's gut bustingly funny. It does taper off towards the end, where the story begins to take on a more serious tone but it floated on in a suitably entertaining fashion. I would be happy to recommend it to anyone who like the theatre and is Un-PC.

It also made me want to visit the theatre more often. There's something about a live performance that has an extra edge over cinema.

4/5

Film: Sucker Punch (Zack Snyder, 2011)

I feel like I've been proven right with Sucker Punch. Whilst I enjoyed Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead, the films he's made since have shown that, when given creative control on a project, he lets his boyish immaturity take over. 300 was nothing more than a computer game and Watchmen did nothing more than copy and paste from the graphic novel to celluloid with added and unnecessary slo-mo. He is a man that has always focused on the surface detail whilst completely forgetting about depth entirely. His films are exercises in style, not content, which is why he was so unsuited for Watchmen.

Sucker Punch takes all his faults and ramps them up to levels of spastic. Whilst it wasn't the total train wreak I was expecting, the film takes all of Snyder's geeky, immature wet dreams and uses the flimsy excuse of a fractured human psyche to incorporate them into a narrative. There's a moment about half an hour in, where Baby Doll is told she must have purpose in order to survive. Ironic really, as much of the action has no purpose. There is literally no reason for any of the action beats other than that it tries to look cool (which, admittedly, it does at times). So we get mini-gun toting Samurai, steam-punk Nazi zombies, dragons and robots and none of it is necessary or relevant in aiding the plot or moving the narrative forward. Take away these jarring and ludicrous pop-promo set pieces and you're left with a hollow shell of a film that rides along on the faith that its audience will buy what it's selling. I wasn't sold. The film's flaws are just way too obvious.

I don't hate it though. It's a movie that panders to all of Snyder's fan boy cravings and is perfectly suited to his filmmaking sensibilities. It also proves that my shoutings of Snyder as an immature hack have been totally justified. It's not hateable, it's not offensive, it's just stupid. Really, really stupid.

2/5

Film: Source Code (Duncan Jones, 2011)

Whilst not quite as involving as Duncan Jones' first film, Moon, Source Code boasts enough fascinating ideas to put most summer movies to shame. It also helps that said ideas are layered on top of some genuinely enthralling moments, as Gyllenahall pieces together the bombing of a train through living the last eight minutes of a passenger's life. Think Groundhog Day by way of hard science fiction.

On the back of this, Jones should now be given the budget to command a massive summer blockbuster. Much like Christopher Nolan before him, he is a man that focuses on the story and characters in a way that is both interesting and intelligent, whilst interspersing the narrative with tense confrontations and enjoyable set pieces. There is no reason to believe he wouldn't be able to pull of a movie in the same vein as Inception a few years down the line.

He should always make science fiction. He and the genre share a kinship that is rare these days.

4/5

Book: World War Z (Max Brooks, 2006)

I've read World War Z three times now (this time as a stop gap between Pandora's Star and its sequel Judas Unchained) yet every time I'm struck by just how good it is. Make no mistake about it: World War Z is a modern masterpiece of horror fiction, taking the well worn motif of the zombie apocalypse and fashioning it to an utterly chilling and convincing worldwide narrative.

Covering literally everything from suburban carnage to those stuck on the international space station, the amount of homework Brooks did is nothing short of astonishing. The interviewer/interviewee storytelling device adds an extra sense of immediacy and an emotional human element that is normally absent in the Zombie sub-genre, making the carnage all the more devastating.

And all this from the son of spoof/comedy legend Mel Brooks. Crazy.

5/5

Book: Pandora's Star (Peter F. Hamilton, 2004)

At 1144 pages long, Pandora's Star is officially the longest book I've ever read. I have started some that are longer (I am yet to get passed the 900 page mark of The Stand) and have read others that are now longer due to new prints (my copy of It by Stephen King is 1116 but current editions have it as 1300+) but in terms of sitting down, completing and legitimately enjoying a book, Pandora's Star is the biggest.

It was also something of a gamble. Having gotten slightly bored of my usual trope of King, Barker, Clancy, Ellroy, Crichton, etc, it was high time I tried something I never had. I have read science fiction before with The Forever War by Joe Haldeman being one of the greatest popular novels I've ever read. However, despite Pandora's Star being unashamedly sci-fi, it fits into that sub-genre that is often maligned by many: Space Opera. Yet, despite utilising the traits of the genre to full effect (starships, mechanical inserts in the body, faster than light travel, antagonistic alien enemy), and pasting its narrative with broad sweeping strokes, Peter F. Hamilton still retains a sense of immediacy and, despite its epic length, never strays too far from the core story.

What he's presented here is effectively the grounding of a Battlestar Galactica style war scenario and sets it within his own Commonwealth of nearly 500 star systems. Yet in amongst all this, there are very contemporary elements, the most noticeable of which is the over-arching conspiracy story that is only revealed during the final few pages.

Quite frankly, I had a ball with it. Don't let the Space Opera moniker put you off, much of this is no holds bar stuff: the violence is swift, sharp and brutal while sex is described as an almost transcendent experience. The main set-pieces are as good as any blockbuster novel and, quite brilliantly, it leaves much hanging for the just as lengthy sequel, Judas Unchained.

Don't let it's length put you off. Pandora's Star moves along like a bullet train.

4.5/5