It was a fine affair but now it's over

[alexsarll]

On facing pages of Saturday's paper: competitors in a race complain that it is too fast, and parishioners outraged when their vicar quotes the Bible. For comparison, yesterday I sat down to watch Primer. I did this in the full knowledge that first time writer/director/producer/star Shane Carruth had made it with $7,000, a script more wibbly-wobbly and timey-wimey than Steven Moffat's finest, and a commitment to the philosophy of 'fvck the average viewer' which makes David Simon look like a commissioning exec for ITV1. But I knew these things going in, because I am not entirely stupid, and when the film did indeed prove rather hard to follow I did not complain, because I am not a whining tw@t.
(Once you've checked online to see how the plot untangles, though, it is very good - which is more than one can say for the olympics, or christianity. Possibly the best screen effort I've ever encountered to imagine how time travel might begin and work in the real world, using something close to the orthodox physics of the matter)

Otherwise, a weekend for farewells. On Saturday, the New Royal Family abdicated after a typically energetic but strangely elegiac show. And because it was their last, and because the supports included two with social overlap and one who were Proxy Music, a fairly good proportion of 'everyone I have ever met' was there. Some of whom I thought must have known each other but did not, so I was at least able to introduce them and feel there were beginnings to balance out the ending. I think in the end it felt more celebratory than not, but still a sad day. Not least because the previous night had been the end of another era. Not that you can ever definitively pronounce a death in comics, but the last issue of Phonogram for the foreseeable was out, and the creators were dressed for a wake. It's an atypical issue, too, addressing something I had wondered about - in Phonogram's frame of reference, is there anyone who really likes music but isn't a phonomancer? And of course the answer is nothing so simple as yes or no, more like 'magic happens'. It's the counterbalance to last issue and Lloyd's over-intellectualisation, to the point of being almost wordless. It is also wonderful, but by now you probably guessed I was going to say that.
Anyway, that was one issue, but due to overwhelming public demand* let's take a look at the rest of the last two weeks' comics:

Siege: Still feels like something of a chore so far. And Coipel's Steve Rogers looks like a pinhead, which is rather spoiling any inspirational qualities his return might otherwise possess. As for this issue's death...it serves in part to bring home to me the idiocy of Osborn's plan. He's attacking a citadel full of gods and, aside from Ares and Sentry, he doesn't have anyone remotely in their power class on his side. Sure, you or I wouldn't want to meet Venom or Bullseye or Taskmaster in a dark alley, but why would Thor and chums give a toss? And who are those villains who provoked the original incident which kicked this all off, and now seem to be hanging around all the time?

SWORD: The penultimate issue of Kieron Gillen's other doomed comic. Which is a great shame because it's really getting its stroll on here, and includes the single funniest comics page I'd read in some time (even if it only held that title for a day or two before I read Steve Aylett's 'Johnny Variable' in...

Dodgem Logic: Which is not strictly a comic, but it comes from the comic shop and aside from that deranged Aylett contribution, it also contains a pull-out mini comic - Alan Moore's Astounding Weird Penises. Yes, you read that right. I enjoyed more of this than of the first issue, though they still seriously need a sub-editor, as witness the sentence which manages the rare feat of getting 'its' and 'it's' both wrong within the space of four words.

Batman and Robin: So that's how the death of Bruce Wayne was faked, in spite of Superman scanning his body at the molecular level. It works, it was foreshadowed, it doesn't feel like cheating. And in the back of the issue are covers for The Return of Bruce Wayne, in which he works his way back through time - which means CaveBatman. Solomon Kane-style Batman. Motherfrakking PIRATE BATMAN. Oh yes.
In the meantime, we still have a Geordie supervillain to be going on with. And I think Cameron Stewart may draw the best Damian Wayne yet - he positively radiates brattishness. Apparently Morrison is doing more issues of this than we'd initially expected, as well as bringing Bruce back. Huzzah.

Ultimate Armor Wars: I read this drunk, and then had to read it again sober to check my memory wasn't playing tricks on me. But no, the story really is resolved by having the Macguffin be a tiny Tony Stark in a box. A little too much plot and not enough of just Tony being Tony for my tastes, but that's the nature of a climax, I suppose.

The Unwritten: I've largely lost patience with Mike Carey's other work, but while a Vertigo series about the power of stories might seem like something doomed to be overshadowed by the legacy of Gaiman's Sandman, this is quietly becoming rather excellent. This issue we find ourselves in a dream or echo of Nazi Germany, and we may even be on course to some explanation of what the blazes is going on, assuming the lead survives the cliffhanger.

The Boys: After the origin stories, we're back to the main action - or at least a prelude to it. The terribly sweet and tentative relationship between Hughie, the new boy in the Boys, and Annie, the new girl in their arch-enemies the Seven, was always going to blow up sooner or later and it now looks like 'sooner'. Oh, the tension.

Ultimate Spider-Man: Gets more charming by the issue. Now Aunt May is sending Spider-Man And His Amazing Friend-Flatmates on missions. Bless.

Greek Street: I still have no idea where Peter Milligan is going with this hybrid of Greek myth and Soho gangland thriller, but while I continue to enjoy it this much, nor am I especially bothered by that.
And since I started writing all this, I've learned of another exit - The 18 Carat Love Affair will be playing one more show, then bowing out. Sad times.

"I read naturalistic novels and they seem to me to be written by people who read too many naturalistic novels. They just seem to be full of convention, that’s all." - Will Self, from a very good interview which also explores his feelings on cities (more negative than I can agree with, but he couldn't write his books without them), the degree to which the novel's self-definition against film is obsolescent, and his sense of his own work's weakness. I know that the failings of the naturalistic novel are something of a hobby horse for me, but I was reminded just how limited a genre naturalism is the other day when a friend mentioned, quite legitimately, that the film she thought had best mirrored her own recent work experience was Tropic Thunder.

*By which I mean it got one comment, which is more than the entirety of Friday's post, so it's comparatively true.

Comments

[stephens.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, I too loved Primer but found it very confusing. I suspected at the time that this was the point - time travel being by it's very concept displacing etc. I should like to see it again.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Indeed, without just being wanky about it like eg Donnie Darko. And rewatching is easy enough given it is, after all, quite short - so two viewings would still only take as long as one go-through on a lot of other films. I think I managed to follow about two thirds of what was going on first time, and Wikipedia cleared up the rest.