Being Frank Movie Review

Many moons ago I used to review movies. I loved doing it too, and went to some awesome screenings and press conferences - heck I was in the same room as the entire cast of the Avengers! Yes, I was twenty feet away from Scarlett Johansson and Tom Hiddleston without passing out. Getting to these screenings was pricey and soon fell outside of my budget, and the big Marvel movies didn't really need press conferences and screenings to get people interested - people were going to see them no matter what! - so my movie reviewing seemed to have been left by the wayside.

However, I still get invites and review offers for some of the coolest indie movies around, and last month I was offered the chance to check out the new documentary Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story. 

I couldn't make it to the screening, but my very good friend Maz Webster went in my place and really enjoyed it. Anyway, enough of me waffling on, here's Maz with her review of Being Frank.

This is a portrait of the man underneath the over-sized papier-mâché head of Frank Sidebottom, Chris Sievey. A good looking, hugely creative man. One that saw himself as a pop star, and could have achieved such status but didn’t fit into the Manchester music scene of the time. With his band, The Freshies, he released a few pure pop Manchester singles but they never quite broke out. Frank Sidebottom first appeared at a Freshies gig as a fan. This appears to be the start of a split personality which intimately consumed its creator.

Being Frank is an affectionate film including interviews with some of the privileged few who knew  Chris Sievey and including well known fans such as John Cooper Clarke and Johnny Vegas. This comical and moving story is told through extensive images, music and tapes made by Sievey himself. 

Starting with him as a young man, this is a portrait of a family man who had a fun and unique approach to fatherhood. Often making videos with his children, this is a man who lived and breathed art in all forms. Apparently never disheartened when a project failed to take off, he would just move on to the next idea. Frank Sidebottom was just meant to be a fun character but became a legendary Manchester personality putting the suburb of Timperley on the map. Sidebottom was often on television, released records, produced a comic and made many live appearances particularly through the ‘Madchester’ time of the late 1980’s. 

Frank Sidebottom allowed Chris Sievey to express his art and claim the fame he sought after. The alter ego however, started to overtake his true personality and a double life was truly formed. 

This is a thoroughly enjoyable film and is totally fascinating and inspiring. The world has lost a fantastic artist and human being. It’s time to bring Sievey and Sidebottom into your life. It really is.

Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story is released in cinemas in the UK on 29th March 2019 by Altitude. For further information, check out the official website for the movie at www.beingfrankmovie.com and check out the trailer below.

SING review

Before I decided I needed a hiatus from the internet, I was offered the opportunity to attend a review screening of a new animated film called SING. The film opens this weekend, but the review screening was months ago, before Christmas, as the film had already hit cinema screens in the US.

I have to confess, it's not my cup of tea, but I knew just the person who would be keen to see it - a colleague of mine from the dayjob who not only is a huge Matthew McConaughey fan, but also has a daughter who is the perfect age for this movie. Having these tickets to hand, I thought she'd love to see the film in advance, and in return I'd get a review written (so that I didn't have to!)

So, without further ado, Maz's review of SING!

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A failing theatre owner decides to put on a singing talent show in an attempt to save his business. Auditions are held and contestants are chosen. Each contestant has as many of their own problems as the theatre owner, Buster Moon. All the characters are anthropomorphic animals, which makes Sing fun. I mean, a singing snail is funny!  Dancing bunnies, punk rock porcupines and gangster gorillas are also in there. Coming together in the hope of winning cash to solve their personal problems these animals find friendship, love and support. What came across most was a passion for singing, showing how music positively affects different lives. The soundtrack is a wonderful eclectic mix including Queen and Stevie Wonder which works very well.

The direction of the film is also great; the fast movement through the city gives it a live action feel at times. The cast is fantastic with Matthew McConnaughey's optimistic koala, Buster, Reese Witherspoon's singing, housewife pig, Rosita and Seth McFarlane's crooner mouse, Mike. 

Both myself and my 12 year old enjoyed Sing throughout, it's not going to change the world but it's a lovely uplifting film which touches on many human issues such as shyness, family ties and heartbreak. If only X Factor showed us as much talent, passion and fun as these animals in the world of Sing.

Staying up late to catch a Fantastic Beast

Last Thursday night we did the crazy and exhausting thing that every true fan does, and we went to the midnight opening first screening of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them at the IMAX. We'd already seen the first ten minutes thanks to attending the amazing Fan Event last month, but the movie continues to be a delight for fans of JK Rowling's Wizarding World.

You probably know what the story is by now - Newt Scamander, magizoologist, arrives in New York by ship (thinking about it, you can only apparate so far without risk, and portkeys have a nasty habit of making you sick... maybe a portkey would have affected the animals in the case too). He has a TARDIS-like suitcase storing many fantastic beasts, and some escape when his case gets muddled with budding baker/muggle, sorry - no-maj, Jacob Kowalski. The chase is on to recapture the beasts before they are harmed.

Simple huh?

Minor Spoilers follow... so shhhhhh...

No. Not simple at all. Behind this is not only the underlying threat of Gellert Grindelwald, the dark wizard that fought to undo the International Statute of Secrecy protecting the wizarding world from muggles (and vice-versa), but also the threat of a different kind of "beast" that is terrorising New York.

As expected, I loved the film. Great stuff, though very, very different from what you could have expected. It really does feel like the start of a much longer story (which will be told over the next four movies) and it doesn't follow the predictable Hollywood structure. Things happen because they have to, not because it follows a three act structure or "set pieces". It's a little jarring at first, but refreshing in the end.

At first I was unsure about the casting of Eddie Redmayne, especially as it felt in the trailers that he was going to be mumbling a lot through the film, but when you actually watch it it all makes perfect sense. He's quiet, introspective, shy, and (much like someone who spends all of his time with animals) rarely makes eye contact. He's determined to save lives, both the creatures he's protecting, and everyone around him - even the villain(s) of the piece.

It has some seriously dark moments too. With the major monster of the movie being the way humans treat things they don't understand, you can expect some dark turns. Not only that, MACUSA (the US equivalent of the Ministry of Magic) is super-paranoid about creatures, and exposure to the muggles. A bit of a comment about gun registration with the need for wizards to have a license to carry a wand. Hmmm... But also, a nasty bit about capital punishment as well, with MACUSA's equivalent of the gas chamber, where wizards are executed in a "death cell" - but it's okay, because they'll take your nice memories out of your head and put them in the pool that'll kill you and you'll be happy to go and see all those nice memories again. As I said... DARK!

We're already planning a second trip to see it, so we can take in the extra details that we missed the first time around (mostly due to it being the early hours of the morning).

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On top of that, the few free moments I've had recently have been spent playing a little free app (available on Android and iOS) called Fantastic Beasts Cases from the Wizarding World. A new game approved by JK Rowling where you play an investigator for the Ministry of Magic's Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

You partner with Mathilda Grimblehawk and go around locations trying to solve mysteries that involve beasts. It's a basic "find the object" game, with timers, mirrored levels, spot the difference, and more. It's horribly addictive.

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What with that, and the announcement of a new Harry Potter Miniatures game coming next year from Knight Models...

Looks like I should brush off that pitch for a Harry Potter RPG again...  one day... one day...

Strange Days Indeed

The Doctor will see you now.

Doctor Strange, the latest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, opened in the UK today.

I've been fan and a reader of Doctor Strange for years, so I've been looking forward to this movie for a while. My first comics as a kid, before the realms of 2000AD even, was a British title called Super Spider-Man and the Titans. It was a Brit reprint of a number of Marvel titles, printed landscape - a double page spread each side, so four pages of US comic across when open - and in black and white. I was a massive Spider-Man nerd as a kid, but it didn't stop me reading all of the contents of this title.

Inside was the continuing stories of Spidey, just at the time when it was amazing - the death of Gwen Stacey, the Green Goblin, the Spider-mobile, and yet another attempt by Doc Ock to marry Aunt May. I loved it.

Also inside this weekly was pages of Thor, Captain America, and tucked away at the back was Doctor Strange, master of the mystic arts.

UK Marvel reprint comic "Super Spider-man and the Titans" 1976

At this time in the 70's, Doctor Strange was... well, strange to say the least. It was right in the middle of what most Marvel fans would consider the peak of Strange's run, and it was certainly the coolest art I'd ever seen. I don't know how "current" the issues being reprinted were in the UK, but at this time in the 70's, Super Spider-Man and the Titans was printing the Strange stories illustrated by the legendary Gene Colan.

Much like the art of Spider-man at that time, the artwork in black and white was glorious. If anything, the colour may have ruined it. John Romita Sr.'s Spidey was amazing and the definitive Peter Parker for me. Gene Colan's Doctor Strange was astounding but freaky as hell.

There have always been scary images that freaked me out as a kid. I was always a bit sensitive like that. The cover of IT. The Doctor Who annual 1977 with its weird art. And the sequence of Doctor Strange when he's off in the astral plane, in a weird dream sequence where his head pops off like a wax dummy and bounces down the stairs. Totally freaked out.

It was one of those things were you're a little wigged, but you can't stop looking at it. I wasn't entirely sure what the hell was going on, but it was mesmerising.

Of course, time passed. I grew. Moved on to 2000AD, Starlord, Tornado, then discovered Sandman and Shade: The Changing Man, Watchmen, etc... But that's another story.

Fast forward a bit to the mid 90's, and my future wife says that she's a big fan of Cloak and Dagger. She has the entire run of Strange Tales featuring Cloak and Dagger / Doctor Strange and I had some time on my hands after finishing art college. I blasted through every issue. Excellent!!

But again, things went quiet for me on the Strange front. Thankfully, it has returned recently with the art of one of my favourite artists, Chris Bachalo. (Been a fan of his since his work on my fave comic of all time - Shade: The Changing Man). And awesome stuff it is too.

Anyway, you didn't want to hear about my comic history, you wanted to know if the Doctor Strange movie is good.

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To cut to the chase - yes. It is. Very good.

The movie follows the story of the comic fairly faithfully. Strange is a neurosurgeon, and a brilliant one. Problem is, he knows it. He's arrogant, self centred, and over confident. He's smug, rich and career-focused. When he is busy looking at his phone while driving (let that be a lesson to you all), he piles his car up and in the accident his hands are crushed. Countless surgeries and all of Strange's money later, he still can't stop the shakes from the nerve damage.

Just like the comics, his desperation to get his old life back takes him East, where he is taken in by The Ancient One where he learns that opening his mind can lead to a kind of spiritual healing that will give him his hands, but also open up the realms of magic and sorcery. And when the Ancient One opens it up, you get some of the trippiest and weirdest visuals you'll ever see.

There's the inevitable villain, played by Mads Mikkelsen (who, in my opinion, gave us the greatest Bond villain, and the coolest Hannibal Lecter ever) and various levels of training and events that gives Doctor Strange his abilities, his cloak of levitation, the Eye of Agamotto, and the Sanctum Sanctorum.

In fact, if you look at it from a distance, it really does play out through the expected beats of an origin story, and it doesn't really surprise. What does surprise is how well such a basic story is presented.

Scott Derrickson, the director of Doctor Strange, is best known for his horror work (Deliver Us From Evil, Exorcism of Emily Rose and one of the scariest movies I've ever seen, Sinister). It's rumoured Dan Harmon was brought on to lighten the tone of what could have been a very dark movie. The humour is pretty good too, showing that Marvel really know how to make an entertaining superhero movie with thrills, scares and light moments - not getting mired in the gloom.

Visually, the movie is stunning. Taking inspiration from Steve Ditko's original art, and movies like The Matrix and Inception, the world twists and bends, folds in on itself and changes orientation in a fluid and mindboggling way that is very cool but is never too confusing. It looks massively complex, but you still understand what's going on.

Being a Strange fan from my childhood, I never thought I'd ever see a fight on the astral plane, or the Dark Dimension on screen, so this is a dream come true. Cumberbatch is great, with his best Hugh Laurie doctor accent, and the rest of the cast are just as cool. Of course, Rachel McAdams is severely underused - something we can hope will be rectified next Strange movie. C'mon, Marvel. You can do better than that.

On the whole, great stuff. I'd have liked more, though. It's just under two hours long, and when the final fight comes, you don't really expect it to be the "final fight".

Not the best of Marvel (my faves still are Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy) but still a great, great movie.

Princes of the Universe

Every so often I get the opportunity to review movies. Sometimes they're new movies about to hit the big screens, and sometimes they're older films that have resurfaced on shiny remastered bluray. But rather than just review the movie, I like to add a little context. After all, the site I used to write for has gone, so posting on my blog I like to keep it a little more personal. Review the movies that have touched me, or have a history with me. 

A little while ago I was notified of the 4k restoration of one of my favourite movies - Highlander - and was given the opportunity to see the new and shiny edition of the movie. Previous DVDs and blurays had not done the film justice, and I'm happy to report that the new edition is just as glorious, just as loud and just as immortal as it should be.

Highlander was one of those weird movies in the 80s. I went to see a lot of movies, and this was right when I was in my sixth form and trekking every saturday to the nearest cinema fifteen miles away on the bus to see just about everything with a slight science fiction theme. The poster immediately caught my eye, with its cool sci-fi typeface, and some guy in a trenchcoat carrying a sword. 

The original Highlander poster in all of its glory!

Looked pretty epic, but I had no idea what it was about until I paid my ticket money at the box office. 

Often, the best movies are experienced like this. I had seen some very brief ads on the TV for The Matrix before going to see it, completely unaware of what it was about. Sometimes, in fact often, not knowing can be part of the fun.

That said, the legendary tale of immortals battling through history until only one is left, can be confusing when you first approach it. The publicity images mixed 80's New York with scenes that are better suited to Braveheart. There's about three words said in the first ten minutes, and it's not until over forty minutes into the movie that you discover why we keep flashing back to the Scottish glens and the clan MacLeod. I always remember a classic TV listing for the movie in the Radio Times calling it a "time travel epic". Well, I guess the characters do travel through time, but linearly and at the same speed as everyone else! Maybe that guide's reviewer didn't get that far.

The Kurgan (Clancy Brown) all restored and imposing.

As a teenager, I was hooked. Amazing visuals, one of the coolest and most iconic villains in cinema with Clancy Brown's gravel voiced Kurgan. A fantastic soundtrack peppered with Queen songs. And Christopher Lambert playing the hero who mouths off to the cops, takes crap from no one, and has mastered the art of hiding a katana in his trenchcoat.

What's not to love? 

The more you look at the movie, the more you appreciate the visual flair of director Russell Mulcahy. From the opening panning shot swooping over the audience of a wrestling match at Madison Square Garden, long before the existence of drones that make such shots so easy now. To the brilliant transitions from present to past, from aquarium water level to Scottish loch, from the incapacitated and dying form of MacLeod in ancient Scotland suddenly being the subject of police camera flashes. Everything about it is beautiful, inventive and brilliant.

Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) about to square off against Fasil.

I bought the novelisation, bought "A Kind of Magic" Queen album, and did fencing in school sports, shouting "There can be only one!" before the teacher reminded us that foils were not supposed to be held two-handed and swung around our heads. (Wasn't long before we were at it again, shouting "You're not my father" while making lightsaber noises).

Highlander was one of those movies that stayed with you. I watched it so many times on VHS that I could quote it almost word for word, and eagerly awaited the release of Highlander II. I remember asking a girl out to go and see the second one, but she turned me down. I think she dodged more than one bullet that day...

When I met my future wife, and discovered she could recite the movie just as well as me I knew it was destiny. Our first real holiday away together we drove to Scotland and took in the locations, from the stunning Glencoe, to Castle MacLeod itself, Eilian Donan. We were both so sad to cross the border south again on the way home. 

The previous releases of Highlander have been less than perfect, with the bluray before looking like an upscaled VHS that looked so grainy that you wondered why you bought a bluray player to begin with. 

MacLeod and the Kurgan fight for the prize in the newly restored version

Thankfully, the new 4k restoration is glorious. While I don't have 4k capabilities, the bluray release of this restoration is as clean and clear as if the movie was released yesterday. Sure, you can see the wires during the finale (though not as bad as the initial release) but making up for that is the picture quality that really shines in both the rainy New York scenes and the epic vistas of Scotland. It just made me want to pack up and move to the middle of nowhere again, to hide from the world in that amazing landscape. One day, Debs... One day...

There are plenty of extras too, including a nearly two hour making of, interviewing the producers and writers, as well as new interviews with director Russell Mulcahy and Christopher Lambert, deleted scenes and a commentary by Mulcahy. 

It was wonderful revisiting Highlander, like being reunited with an old friend and discovering they are just as cool as when you last saw them. Now, if only they'd release the TV series on DVD in the UK... 

Highlander, the 4K restoration based on a 4K scan of the original camera negative, and restored by Deluxe London, under the approval of director Russell Mulcahy, is available on DVD and bluray on the 11th July 2016, marking the 30th anniversary of its release. God, I feel old now...

With thanks to STUDIOCANAL for letting me review it.

Seriously, you've all seen Highlander haven't you? If you haven't, here's the trailer for the restoration. Do yourself a favour and check it out.

Until next time, stay multiclassy. There can be only one!

They're gonna put you in the movies!

One of my great sidelines and distractions in the past has been film reviewing and publicising. I've always had an interest in movies, as you'll probably have noticed from my blog posts in the past. Even before my fascination with gaming I was enjoying the thrill of Bond movies, the spectacle of the first Star Wars, and a wealth of TV scifi and action.

I took my love of movies through to my academic years, studying film, film language, and even writing my dissertation on the differences of film language and rules compared to another medium - comics.

Taking this interest in film to the internet was an obvious choice, and I ended up blogging for the SyFy Channel UK (though they removed all their blog posts so I can't link to them), for the Tor Books UK site, and more recently for the Geekologists.

I've gone to premieres, the press conferences for things like The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor and Ant-Man.

I've interviewed amazing people like the Soska Sisters about their careers and awesome movies.

Hell, I've sat within feet of Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson!

But now I've found myself without a site to write movie / TV stuff for. I kinda thought about doing it here, on this blog, but I know that most of the time I write about tabletop RPG stuff.

But is it really that different? A lot of the time, my movie / TV experiences can be connected to gaming. The last time I tried this, I was sent a link about the remake of Carrie by the lovely people at the various film companies that ask me to review things, and I promoted the trailer and talked about my experiences meeting the legendary Stephen King. (Yes, I know the trailer is missing now... the internet is only so big, they probably had to delete it to make room for another trailer or something*).

Most of the time when the publicity people send me stuff, it's links to trailers and things that - by the time you've gone to the effort to post something about - someone has usually beaten you to it. And by someone, I mean people who actually do this sort of thing for a living and get paid for it.

I got sent a link to the new Ghostbusters trailer today, the new international (and improved) trailer. I was thinking about posting it, and what I thought about it (for the record, I didn't hate it and will reserve judgment until the film comes out - I just hope there's some sort of acknowledgement of the original movies in there) and my love of the original Ghostbusters (and especially the West End Games RPG). I've discussed my Ghostbusters history before, how I tried to get into game writing with an old electric typewriter and a head full of bad ideas for Ghostbusters adventures.

Part of me really wants to keep writing and reporting on geek news, movies and TV - it's a good way to keep writing when otherwise the gears get rusty and I don't feel like tapping the keyboard. But I'm also thinking "should I bother?" - shouldn't I be writing the games? And there are so many other things I have circling my head - a podcast of a dramatisation of the WILD novels, a webseries of the Role Your Own Life blog entries...

All of these things are a distraction. But without those distractions, I would never have had such fantastic encounters with the movie world.

What to do? I don't know... but the future's already around the corner.

* Yes, I know that's not how the internet works.