Arm-Wrestling to Horrify

The Cabin in the Woods is one of those films where the less you know about it beforehand, the more you will get out of your first viewing. (I’m not actually inclined to believe there is any other kind of film, or any other kind of story-oriented experience – but it’s particularly true in this case.) So if you haven’t already seen it – stop reading at this point, and go and see it!

I’ll be sidestepping the big reveals as much as possible, unlike certain other reviews floating around out there (I’m looking at you, Village Voice, with your ruin-the-entire-ending opening sentence), but this piece really is meant as a talking point for people who’ve actually seen it.

(Continued in full at Bleeding Cool.)

Alan Moore on HardTalk

The BBC's interview with Alan Moore this week is surprisingly revealing for a mainstream news network. Moore is asked seriously probing questions of a sort that are rarely put to him: he is rigorously challenged about the more controversial elements in his work (particularly on whether Lost Girls constitutes child pornography), his own attitude towards the comics industry in general (and what he calls its "gangster ethics") is put to task, and - something I've never seen happen to Moore before - the interviewer actually ties him into knots when it comes to his ever-evolving stance on film option money.

There's a good selection of transcribed quotes over at Bleeding Cool but here are a couple of the things they left out that I thought were interesting.

On the rise of the term 'graphic novels':

    "I suppose in the 1980s there were a few comic books that were actually handling more adult material, not necessarily in terms of sex or violence, but actually more intelligent ideas. There were only a few of them, but the comics industry tended to seize upon them and come up with this casual phrase of 'graphic novels', but with the best will in the world, a load of collected Spider-Man stories is not a novel."

And on taking film option money:

Moore:    "Originally, I was under the illusion that the way that films worked was that you got a lot of option money, and then after a couple of years they decided that they weren't going to make the film. Which was the perfect result, the film didn't get made, you got the money. Then they actually made a couple of my films, and at that point I decided, well, I'll just distance myself from them as much as is possible."
Franks:    "Why?"
Moore:    "Because the films have got nothing to do with my books, and because the books themselves were actually written to show off what the comics medium can do that films can't."
Franks:    "Why did you sell the film rights in the first place then?"
Moore:    "Well in the cases of From Hell and LoEG, this was basically sold on the assumption that the films probably wouldn't get made."
Franks:    "Well, I mean... (laughs) you were trying to get money for old rope-"
Moore:    (agreeing) "Trying to get money for old rope."
Franks:    "Then you can hardly complain when they do actually then make the films."
Moore:    "Well I can complain about how those films turned out. Originally I was trying to take the position of, I will not go to see these films, but I wish them well. Then when I actually heard about them then I kind of realised that these were absolutely nothing to do with my books --"
Franks:    "But just to be clear, you've never SEEN these films?"
Moore:    "Never seen them."
Franks:    "Well how can you pass judgement on them?"
Moore:    "Well I do prefer to criticise things from a position of ignorance."

I'm sure there are a fair few people in Hollywood who will cite this exchange as evidence of hypocrisy on Alan Moore's part. He does seem to be having his cake and eating it too. But then, as one of comics' foremost (probably the foremost) writers, with a hugely impressive body of work that has brought joy to millions and generated a lot of money for a lot of people, perhaps he has earned the right to take that kind of approach to his own material. And it's not even as though his disowning of film projects based on his work has actually deterred Hollywood from adapting more of them, is it?

(Although thinking about it, there's been nothing since V for Vendetta and Watchmen, the two he had his name taken off...)

Quick response to Donal Blaney on wealth taxes

Just in case this doesn't get through comment moderation.

The campaign that is being led by Big Government Conservatives for a wealth tax (be it in the form of higher council tax for larger homes or a property tax on homes worth over £2m) is distinctly unconservative. 

No country has ever taxed itself into prosperity and no economy can properly grow if its wealth creators are strangled by a combination of personal, property, business and investment taxes, regulations and a climate hostile to success that class warriors have fought for years to bring about.

(Source.)

You're being disingenuous. For the most part, the Tories who advocate wealth taxes do so on the basis that it should replace some element of income tax. Not an additional tax on top. And surely it can't be the very principle of wealth being taxed at all that you object to, as you acknowledge in this very article that there are already forms of wealth tax in the United Kingdom. Or are you saying that something that has already been the status quo for many years should be seen as wholly unacceptable by "real" Tories?

Selection of my Huffington Post articles

Jacob Rees-Mogg Wants Somerset Clocks Turned Back Fifteen Minutes
Chris Huhne's Political Career In Pictures
Rebels With A Cause: The Biggest House Of Lords Rebellions
Honours Controversies: The Big Names That Snubbed The Queen
MPs Call Scrap Metal Dealers 'Weak Link' In Railway Theft Crackdown
Lord Malloch-Brown Attacks Foreign Office For Not Forseeing Arab Spring 
Britain's Best and Worst Political Nicknames 
Ministry Of Defence Lose £527,879 In Items Over 10 Months  (research)

Not a follow-up to Iron Man

Should a film detailing Margaret Thatcher's dementia be released while she is still alive?

"The Iron Lady" seems, as a piece, to be making the point that the greatest minds succumb to the ravages of time. I can think of no worthier subject. By differentiating those points in her life so distinctly it becomes a portrayal that both strengthens her stature as a political icon and humanises her as she is now.

Though it would understandably be difficult for her family and friends to watch, from everything I've seen about the film it seems like a wonderfully imaginative way to tell her story.

And why should they wait until she's dead to release it when the creative world would otherwise see fit to drag her name through the mud at every possible opportunity...

Comics I've Written

Decap Attack

• Good Luck Chuck

Sonic the Hedgehog

• The Elephant In The Room
• Many Happy Returns
• The Tale of Cream the Rabbit
• Robotnikat's Sunday Funnies

Riposte II

Is this a spoof?

Regarding your four reasons for trusting Cameron, Osborne and Hague:

I will concede that the first reason, that they have sound judgement. (Albeit, as Iain Martin reminded us yesterday, this sound judgement usually arises only after a three year delay.)

I suppose I cannot deny your second reason, that they are courageous. (The most feeble election campaign in history, the slowest and smallest cuts programme imaginable, a disproportionately pro-Lib Dem coalition, ceding the terms of debate to Labour - all brave, ambitious decisions I'm sure.)

 I will wholeheartedly agree with the third reason that they are all profoundly patriotic (even if Cameron will sometimes refer to the English as Little Englanders, cede powers to the EU when we're not looking, and publicly belittle our standing in the world).

And as for your fourth and final reason, that they are "in possession of the facts"... I've got to wonder what it is they aren't telling us.