The Fractal Hall Journal

Today’s cuteness is brought to you by Galactus the Devourer. And also my knees.

Brother of Roulade (whom long-time readers have seen already), the Gadge is a cat with a thousand names, who contemplates many things beyond our ken. One thing we can all contemplate along with him, however, is the specialness of tomorrow.

Why is tomorrow special?

Because tomorrow, my friends- tomorrow is X-Day.

     Feed

Brief, yes. Very brief. Unacceptably brief, one might say. But on time, at least.

Right, first of all, while the Penguin Book of Ghosts is a very good book, it’s unfortunately (for me) a collection of the ghost stories already published in The Lore of the Land, so back off to Amazon it goes. Also, I’m getting 404 errors on the Telegraph links from the other day while the other newspaper links still work, so no more clicky for them. Is this right-wing newspaper punishing a left-wing blogger? YOU DECIDE.

More on the hotbed of spectral activity that is Ludlow (Ludlow?).

And returning to the Fair Country, a couple of months ago an NHS trust in North Wales apologised to a patient after (amongst other things) one of her nurses claimed to have seen a ghost.

And finally, a video link. Turns out the place where Byker Grove was filmed may be haunted. It’s already cursed ground, of course, having launched the careers of both Ant and Dec.

     Feed

An X-Files Update

Series 9 will probably go up next week. I’m halfway through it now, so I should just squeak in ahead of the UK release, but there’s no point rushing it because, well, it was released in the US last week anyway. Speaking of which, I’ve been avoiding spoilers but I have heard the vaguely negative buzz from everywhere but hardcore fandom (and isn’t it always the way?). I’m not quite sure what to make of the reports, in that the two major criticisms are there’s too much relationship stuff between the leads, and there’s not much that’s cinematic on-screen (extended episode syndrome, essentially).

On the former point, I’ve just watched nine years worth of stories involving these characters. You can bet I’m emotionally fucking engaged right now. I’m likely to join in with any teary reunion or relationship discussion at this point. As for it just being an extended episode, to be honest that was all I was expecting, anyway. What was the budget, $30 million? That’s what, £15 million quid? You can barely make an episode of Coronation Street with that these days. When you factor in the hee-uge chunk that Anderson and Duchovny would have demanded to go back to the well one more time, then there’s not much left to spend on, you know. Giant transforming robots.

If that sounds like a rationalisation, that’s because it completely is. Because as much as I’m sure I’ll enjoy the film regardless, the best outcome would have been future films, which isn’t going to happen if the film is (justifiably or otherwise) perceived to be a flop.

A (Slightly Longer) Comment On The Dark Knight

There’s really not much for me to say about this. It’s brilliant, full stop. In going back to reviews I skipped to avoid spoilers, I found this one by novelist Cherie Priest (huge spoilers at the link). She makes a cracking point about [SPOILERSPOILERGREATBIGFUCKOFFSPOILER] whether or not Batman chose to save Dent (and thusly his city) over the love of his life, regardless of what he yelled to Jim Gordon. I like this explanation, partly because it plays into the overall grimness of the film, the theme of impossible, soul-destroying choice, but mostly because it shows he’s not a complete divot who couldn’t figure out the Joker was playing with him. I know the films don’t play up to it much (and I’ve made my peace with that now, honest I have), but he is meant to be the world’s greatest detective. At least he got to do a bit of crime scene detectin’ in this one, even if they fell back on the lazy Bat-Writer’s shortcut of getting the Bat-Computer to do all the thinking for him. [SPOILERS END]

     Feed

The Dark Knight: Effing Awesome.

     Feed

[A couple more posts from the old blog, lightly edited again.]

September 22nd, 2005

All of Human Life is Here

Canton is a neighbourhood of Cardiff, and is a lot like every other small town that’s been absorbed by an expanding city. It’s centred around a main road lined with shops. It’s got a few laundrettes, grocers, butchers, pubs, chapels, a Tesco, the Cardiff Communication Worker’s Union, a police station, some hardware shops, about a million cafes and coffee houses. I had a coffee and a muffin in one of them. I considered joining the Communication Workers Union. I considered joining the Police. I considered buying a tool, and sort of regret that I didn’t.

You see, Canton also has a Kwik Fit. My car had ended up with freshly ground rear brake discs and had to be Seen To. The mechanic was helpful, friendly, and completely wrong in estimating that the service would only take an hour or so. I ended up on a day trip to a part of town that’s about ten minutes walk from my flat.

There’s a model/RPG shop called Dice & Disk on the main road that I never knew existed. For some reason, it sells a ton of comic book back issues from the early 90s. There’s a sex shop called Lovecraft that may or may not have inspired the title of the Super Furry Animals’ last album. It’s got a product in the window called Joy Jelly that sounds like those wobbly sweets in plastic packets moulded after cartoon characters; I particularly remember the Ghostbuster ones. I doubt anything in Lovecraft has ever appeared free on the cover of the Beano, although we’re in a whole new Century now so you never know. I know for a fact you can still get the jelly sweets in Woolworths, for Canton has one of them too. I went there and bought House of Flying Daggers for seven quid. Note it’s more expensive on their website. I’m supposed to be cutting down on impulse buying, but fuck it, it was a long day and it was seven quid. It could have been worse. I almost walked with a Batman Begins Utility Belt and 3 in 1 Power Gauntlet.

I whiled away the hours in the library, which is situated on Library Street, which a wonderful name. I want to live on a Library Street. A little further on is Chapter, the contemporary arts centre. There was a woman outside with a posh camera taking a picture of a drain cover, which is how you tell how arty it is. I stopped there for a cup of tea (which was 50p) and a fruit tart (which was not).

September 5th, 2006

If you can’t say it in three and a half minutes, it’s not worth saying

I think the above is a quote, but I don’t know who said it or, frankly, in what context. Hopefully, it wasn’t a Nazi.

Three and a half minutes is supposed to be the optimum length for a song. Not so short that it’s easily missed, nor so long that it gets boring. It’s the target length for most bitchin’ pop tunes aimed at The Kids, the gold standard for craploads of tracks from Motown to Slade to Christina Aguilera.

But in all honesty, I think 3 to 4 minutes should be the optimum length for any band’s tracks. It should be the bricks and mortar in whatever Wall of Sound you may be constructing. It’s a nice basic unit to use, because I think it forces you to selectively edit the work, to cut out the weaker bits, the same way a word-limit or poetry metre works on a writer.

Sometimes, it’s the limits we impose on ourselves that create the most interesting things, that force you to find interesting solutions. A film set entirely in one room, a tv series set on one single day; difficult, certainly, but isn’t making it difficult for yourself the point? After all, when faced with the possibility of writing absolutely anything at all you want, no limits whatsover, most people freeze and end up writing absolutely nothing. Maybe that’s why I’m not keen on modern, unstructured poetry (or modern, unstructured anything, whether on film or on canvas); I fail to see the craft, although that may be due to my own lack of insight or interest (and forgive me for using the farty old Daily Mail “modern” shorthand for anything new and rubbish. I’m currently drawing a blank on a better description.)

What it comes down to is this; I’m really aware that, if I’m busting out some super-fly, face-melting guitar work which is the very definition of freaking awesome, I never want it to end. And when you’re embedded in the heart of freakish awesomeness, it’s easy to assume that everyone’s enjoying it as much as you are.

They are not.

This goes for floor-stompin’ house choons and wildly improvisational jazz, too. Keep it concise, and you keep it interesting. If you positively have to break the barrier, ask yourself why you’re doing it. I can only think of a few extra-long odysseys off the top of my head that were worth doing, and a lot (if not all) of them stay interesting not because it’s the same three chords for eight minutes, but because they incorporate different movements. The big honking obvious one is Bohemian Rhapsody, perennial botherer of Greatest Rock Hits Charts; this one famously takes its cues from “classical” music, and incorporates several different movements.

The other track that springs to mind is Hey Jude. Now, there’s no seperate movement structure here, but this track is a very, very rare example of a song so good no-one ever wants it to end.

(As an aside, the above sentence is hyperbole. I know not everyone likes the Beatles but a huge amount of people do, and a huge amount of people like Hey Jude despite its length. Let’s just take it as read that a) everything here carries a “subjective” disclaimer, and b) lots and lots and lots of people like Bohemian Rhapsody and the Beatles.)

Example Number Three that occurs to me is Stairway to Heaven, which is kind of a mix of different movements and a track you don’t want to end. On a personal note, I also think In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 by Coheed and Cambria is an awesome long-song, but I concede that Emo-Prog Epics about interstellar war are not of universal interest.

The short version of the above is this; you are unlikely to write something like the above tracks at all, never mind on your first time out, and people are unlikely to thank you for trying.

In particular, the grouchy old band you’re supposed to be supporting.

     Feed

[The infamous mouse saga, lightly edited, originally posted on the old Blogger account three years ago. Crazy to think it's been so long.]

September 2005

On Rodent Extraction.

Due to the arrival of an unexpected guest in my bedroom (and not in a good way) everywhere I look I see movement out of the corner of my eye. It’s like being in a 50s B-movie called Watch the Floor. I’m twitchy enough as it is, having spent far too much time playing Ghost Recon, hunched down in bushes scanning the skyline for wretched Commies.

Despite my uncomprimising Marine-style outlook on life, I’m not actually fantastically keen on summary execution of small mammals. Invertebrates? No problem, murderise the fuckers. Except spiders. Spiders eat flies, which makes them the Good Guys, and they also share a name with one of my favourite superheroes. It’s this kind of arbitrary judgement you can make while at the top of the food chain. Bwa ha ha.

Much as I’d like to just open the kitchen door and let the chastised mouse scurry out, shamefaced, it’s not going to happen so Steps have been Taken. I headed for B&Q’s Animal Extermination aisle. Point; the packaging for the rat-traps show a picture of Civilisation’s sworn enemy, the viscious, plague-ridden rat, hackles raised, teeth bared, hellfire glowing in its eyes. The mouse traps have a fuzzy-furred big-eyed innocent, more at home in a child’s loving arms than chewing through my fucking stuff.

So I bought a couple of plastic supercharged doom-killers, Les Mmes Guillotines. Using scientific curiosity and a pen, I estimate the bite pressure of the mechanism to be c. 2 tons per square centimetre, i.e. slightly less than that of a Great White. As my flatmate pointed out, he is likely to be woken in the night by a cracking noise and a warm rain of arterial spray.

The Great Hunt

Current mood: Foiled

Stuart Little 4, Human Beings 0.

The fucking thing had no less than four pieces of Dairy Milk off the traps without setting them off. I have now smeared them with chocolate mousse in the hopes that it will get its nose stuck in. Don’t fear the Reaper, little one. At the moment, we’re doing little more than feeding the bugger. In all honesty I expect to get back home to find it licked clean with a note requesting something other than chocolate for tomorrow’s supper.

Oh my Giddy Aunt

The call came early in the evening, during my exile at my parent’s house. My sister is convinced I’m the biggest wuss ever as I abandoned flat and stayed somewhere I’m 90 percent certain won’t have mouse urine spread over any kitchen utensils. My flatmate, the indomitable Mr T, had been left to his own devices. The conversation went something like this:

Mr T: We’ve caught it.

Me: Excellent news.

Mr T: Not really. It’s foul. It’s just dangling there, and I’ve got to make my tea.

[Pause]

Mr T: Are you coming home soon?

I explained that, unfortunately, I was unavoidably detained while having my own tea prepared for me, and he’d have to be the man on this one. And to his credit he was indeed the Man, and had disposed of the corpse by my return. I entered the flat with a song in my heart (Hey Mickey, You’re So Fine, to be exact), to find the T-man hunched over in the shower, whimpering about how the blood would not wash from his hands.

My good humour was short lived. Before bed, I’d set the traps again just incase. And we caught another, this time with me on disposal duties. (”Oh God, I think that’s a bit of guts- no, wait, it’s the strawberry syrup we used when the chocolate mousse ran out”.)

That’s right. We have Mouse Plural.

And that’s it for a bit; I am off to Cornwall for a week, leaving my dear friend on rodent watch.

They Call Me The Hunter

Hello, my friends. I have returned from my sojourn.

I have had a fine, rodent-free week in deepest Cornwall in the arms of my lady-love and the grip of fine clotted-cream fudge. We observed much extraordinary scenery before walking over most of it. It is with a heavy heart I return to find out if my stuff has more holes in it now than when I left.

Halfway through the week I received a phone call from the incorrigible Mr T, flatmate, gentleman and raconteur.

Me: Anymore mouse encounters?

Mr T: Nah, nothing on the traps. But…

Me: Yes, yes?

Mr T: I can hear something scrabbling around at the back door.

Me: Well, not much I can do here.

Mr T: I know. I just had to tell someone.

I haven’t seen him yet. I can only hope I haven’t overlooked his chewed-up corpse hunkered down in his wardrobe. But anyway, no sign of the meeces inside, though one seems to have chewed through the plastic bin on the fire escape. It must have been lurking in a bin bag when last we disposed of the rubbish, and then had to gnaw it’s way out.

     Feed

Time for a short break here at the Journal. I’ve been away at various times over the past few weeks which has eaten up the post buffer, and since everyone seems to be off on their holidays anyway I figure it’s time for a recharge. Also, apologies in advance if this means I’m slow in getting back to people over the next couple of weeks.

What does this mean for you, Friend Internet? Does it mean no content? Of course not. Would I do that to you?

For the next couple of days, I’ll be posting the best bits from the blog that came before this one. There wasn’t much on it, but I’ve been meaning to transfer over a few things that are worth saving for ages, and this seemed like a good time to do it.

I haven’t quite decided on next week yet, but I suspect it’s going to be a little less wordy than the usual. I was hoping to have the X-Files Series 9 reviews up in time for the new movie, but I can’t see myself hitting that target. At the moment, I’m three episodes in with 16 to go, which means I’ve just about got time to watch them, if not write about them.

Finally, a link to a fascinating article about black drug dealers in Baltimore using white supremacist legal theries as a defence tactic.

     Feed

Or, to be specific, superhero films.

Haven’t seen Hancock yet, and it’s looking more and more likely I won’t find the time to. What can I say, the film has been irrevocably tainted for me by the revelation that it isn’t about East Cheam’s most famous resident.

The Big One is just around the corner, and I’m properly looking forward to it. One thing did occur to me about the first film this week, and I thought I’d bring it up here. The writers made a big thing about Batman’s gliding ability, the whole stiffening-of-the-cloak device. It struck me as a little odd last time I watched it, because I always think of Batman as a rope-swinger rather than a flyer or a glider.

I have no idea why I brought that up.

The thing is, the World (i.e., me) has been crying out for a Batman story that’s just purely a Batman adventure. That doesn’t involve the stifling crossoverness of multiple Bat-titles, the DCU’s Crises, wretched convoluted backstory, everything I’ve ever had a damn good whinge about. The exact same World (i.e., me) has not been crying out for Watchmen. The film serves no purpose, fills no gap. I’ve heard the argument that we need something to comment on cinematic superheroism the same way the original commented on comic book culture, and my answer is no, we do not. It doesn’t have to be done. Maybe if there was something fantastic and new, an original concept rather than an adaptation, that had something to bring to the table it would be worth doing, but there isn’t.

Besides, there’s one thing that I just can’t get past at the moment. I haven’t seen the trailer yet, but I’ve seen the character pictures and the magazine cover that shoes them. And they look shit. I’ve seen people say the Comedian looks tough as nails, that Manhattan looks as odd as he needs to be, and every other justification in the book. The truth is those costumes look crap and cheap. I do not give a fuck about any argument that goes “Ahh, but they’re meant to look crap and cheap as a comment on Batman and Robin.” It doesn’t make them any less laughable.

What I mean is, say what you like about the leather fetishism of the X-Men, or how Superman’s fucking cape was the wrong shade of burgundy, or how they’ve essentially dressed Batman in a tyre.They all look like someone spent time, money and effort in their design work. The Watchmen costumes don’t. When you deliberately make something look shit, you can’t be surprised when people think it looks shit.

Speaking of laughable, I’m really uninspired by The Spirit stuff. I know I’m not saying anything new, plus it’s not like I’ve got more than a passing acquaintence with Eisner’s work, but considering such a big deal was made about the faithfulness of Sin City and 300 to Frank Miller’s work, it seems a bit disingenuous for Miller’s new movie to be so much in his personal style than in Eisner’s.

I see that DC’s had a big meeting about making superhero films. Not hugely difficult. You just have to find someone as good as Christopher Nolan and let them make it. I never said the solution was an easy one. And also, Louis Letterier is not the right choice for a new Superman film just because The Incredible Hulk was alright and you can’t prise Favreau away from Marvel. Thus concludes the imparting of my great wisdom.

     Feed

So far, Series 8 has turned out to be better than I expected, even if it did stink a bit at first. Doggett has finally turned out to be a pretty cool character, even if the banter between Scully and Mulder is badly missed. I have to stay, it’s still a very well-written show, much better than most things on the box.

Mulder’s return is perhaps a little underwhelming. It’s not that it’s been handled particularly badly (certainly not as badly as the S8 openers), it’s just that we know he’s going to be going again, so it’s a pretty hollow return. And like I mentioned in the last X-Files post, all his antagonism towards Doggett does is alienate both of them from the viewers, a huge mishandling of the situation considering that the very premise of the show was changing, and that Chris Carter was on record as saying that the show could continue to run even without the two lead characters.

Here’s the question- could the series have continued without Mulder and Scully? Without having seen the final series yet, I’d have to say a cautious yes, even if Reyes’ appearances have been underwhelming. Doggett could certainly have carried the show, but it would have been a very different thing. Then again, I’ve said more than once that the middle-third of the show’s run was hugely different to the very first series.

There’s two things that scuppered the X-Files’ future on TV- three if you include the September 11th attacks. For a while there everyone lost their taste for portentious disaster programming, and would rather get behind their government than endlessly question and mistrust officials. Subsequent events have shown that there’s no more important time to be doing those things than in the wake of horrific events, of course, and I suspect it’s no coincidence that a new X-Files movie’s on the cards now that recent years have proven that the politically powerful have no problem with lying, frequently and outrageously, to get their way.

The other factors were the alienation of long-term fans following the departure of the lead characters, something that was handled very poorly and without much enthusiasm, but also I suspect there was some fatigue on the part of the writing staff. After all, how much can you write about aliens and monsters week in week out before getting sick to death of the whole thing? The show would probably have needed some new blood to continue, and I’m not sure how likely that would have been.

“Empedocles” has Reyes returning, along with her (ugh) psychic power, but does at least give us some insight into Doggett’s past. Again he comes to blows with Mulder, and there’s a little subtext here about why Doggett can’t bring himself to believe in weird X-Filey shit (because it would suggest he didn’t do everything he could’ve to save his own son) but it’s an unsatisfying episode overall, with very little resolution offered to ongoing mysteries (such as Scully’s difficult pregnancy) or the central mystery of the episode- was Doggett’s son really killed by the personification of infectious evil?

“Vienen” is a far better episode, again showing the writers at their strongest when they isolate the characters in some way, this time on an oil rig. Oddly enough, it’s also the last episode I can recall seeing before the Nostalgia Trip began, when it was shown on FX in the daytime sometime last year. Doggett and Mulder are forced to work together against an outbreak of Purity/Black Oil, with Mulder finally learning to trust Doggett, and that the X-Files themselves are in the right hands now that Mulder’s finally got himself booted from the Bureau for essentially causing an international incident. The handover scene is handled well, and overall it’s a success, even if all the plot threads don’t hang together (why did the bad guys torch the rig at the end? Did the alien craft turn up to carrying them off as was hinted at?) and it’s not really clear why Mulder’s decided he can trust Doggett just because “he’s seen it now”.

“Essence” and “Existence” finish off the series, and are absolutely cracking. The negatives first: the plot isn’t completely comprehensible. It’s not clear at all what the motives of the bad guys are, here. It would seem that the alien replacements (which Mulder almost became) are “super-soldiers”, Terminator-style baddies that will stop at nothing to blah blah, etc. They appear to be working with Kersh and Krycek against the remnants of the old Syndicate’s hybrid project, presumably in league with the alien colonists. But if that’s the case, and that Scully’s baby is also some kind of super-human that pose a threat to the invasion, why do they let the child live? There’s a lot here that relies on the unstoppable bad guys just deciding not to carry on killing Our Heroes, which isn’t fantastic writing. Agent Reyes returns and, once again, just comes across as a hippy with mild psychicness.

But, I’m happy to leave all that to the side because there’s so much to like.

The thing is, these could easily have served as the final X-Files episodes ever. In fact, they really should have. Yeah, the super-soldier arc would have been left dangling, but beyond that the series has already given closure to the Syndicate and Samantha’s disappearance, and they were the important things. We’re still left with an impending invasion, but the hints are that Mulder, if not Scully’s son William, holds the key to humanity’s survival. That note of hope is more than enough, really. The alien replacements’ motives can pretty much be written off as serving the colonist’s purposes. Anything else would needlessly complicate matters, considering the producers have spent every season since the first movie streamlining the confusing arc story.

The resolutions offered in the final episode are perfect for all the main characters. The Lone Gunmen get a short cameo as three wise men bringing presents to the new child. The replacement Billy Miles is the antagonist, which is a great way of tying back to the very first episode. Even though the whole light-in-the-sky leading Mulder to Scully and William is cringeworthy, it’s at least in keeping with the show’s religious and UFO themes. And in one of the most satisfying scenes, Skinner finally gets to blow Krycek away, the man who’s been tormenting him for years. It’s a great exit for a great bad guy.

And had the show ended here, Mulder and Scully would have got their happy ending, united with the child that, while not explicitly revealed as Mulder’s son, belongs to both of them.

In conclusion, the series started poorly, got loads better in the middle, wobbled a bit around Mulder’s return, mishandled every character at one point or another but just about managed to stay on track, and had an ending strong enough to have adequately capped the whole show. A continuation was largely unnecessary, but continue it they did. Only one more to go, folks.

     Feed

It turns out that Britain really is in the grip of a UFO invasion. At least, it is according to the Torygraph (via Warren Ellis). Now, I’m pretty sure the (ahem) “quality” daily isn’t owned by Murdock. Or, for that matter, Marvel. And they’re usually pretty hostile towards the BBC. So we can rule out advertising stunts for the X-Files, Secret Invasion and Doctor Who, respectively. Strange shit is indeed afoot (or aflight), although I haven’t heard of much in the way of abductions, implantations or probings. At least, no more than usual for Cardiff on a Saturday night.

The rest of the papers are getting in on the action, too. The Guardian recently featured a ghost-busting weekend in Ludlow (Ludlow?) as a recommended activity holiday. The Indie’s ran an article on ten scary tales from folklore, and if we hop back to the Telegraph for a sec, we’ve got Civil War ghosts showing up on camera.

Man, I could eat this stuff up with a spoon. I should turn the Journal into a Paranormablog.

The Independent article is particularly interesting to me because it’s written by Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson, who authored the absolutely indispensable book The Lore of the Land, one of the most comprehensive volumes of English folklore I’ve ever seen. It was recommended by Neil Gaiman on his site a couple of years ago, and it’s one of the best suggestions I’ve ever got from the internet. Yes, even better than instructions on how to use Mentos to blow up Diet Coke. The article includes extracts from The Penguin Book Of Ghosts, so you can bet that just jumped to the top of the buy list. Sorry, hardback collection of The Rise And Fall Of The Shi’Ar Empire.

One of my major ambitions has been to contribute to a great work of reference (stop giggling at the back, I’m being serious. You all know this site is an official nerd-haven). I’d love to tackle a book like the one above that dealt with Welsh folklore. Even though the whole lack of focus and short attention span thing may well get in the way.

The Haunting Breaks mentioned in the Guardian sound pretty cool too. Long term readers may recall a trip to Edinburgh I mentioned here last year. We actually went on one of the Edinburgh ghost tours, into one of the vaults beneath the streets. It was pretty effing scary, even for people not as easily terrified as I am.

The only problem with the tour was the vague worry that an actor would jump out on the tour group for a cheap scare. It didn’t happen, which I was glad for, because you don’t pay your money for a ghost train, you want to get creeped out by spooky stories, stone circles and dark rooms. The whole point of going is for the chance of maybe seeing a real ghost, and cheap tricks would have really soured the experience. Then I found out not long ago from a mate who lives in Edinburgh that some of the tours do have “jumpers” on them, which is seriously disappointing.

Returning to the Telegraph one more time, Archaeologists are planning on opening a long-sealed chamber beneath a Mexican pyramid. I don’t know about anyone else, but with all the weird shit above, is this a fantastic idea? I mean, I’m jumpy enough about the Large Hadron Collider as it is, but after watching The Mist, I’m somewhat concerned about the consequences of anything that may lead to tentacled insectile monstrocities roaming over the planet.

In other, lighter news, and as a palate cleanser to the end of the world as we know it, I caught Kung Fu Panda the other day. Damn, it’s a great film, way better than any of the Shreks or the Cars or the Monster Houses we’ve been plagued with recently. It may well be my favouritest CGI cartoon ever, although that may change as soon as this Friday, what with Wall-E’s arrival on these shores. And impressive CGI aside, I’d actually have rather seen the entire film done in the stylised animation form that the initial dream sequence was made with. The best thing about the movie, and I know it’s been said by many people before but it bears repeating, is that it’s a genuinely great action film, as well as being hilarious. Seriously, the bad guy’s escape from prison was absolutely riveting. Speaking of which- Lovejoy as the voice of an evil snow leopard? Who saw that one coming?

     Feed