Seoul Station

Seoul Destroying

Seoul Station
South Korea 2016
Directed by Yeon Sang-ho
Studio Canal Blu Ray Zone B

Where to start with Seoul Station. Well, technically it’s a prequel to the live action movie Train To Busan, by the same director, which I reviewed here. Although, I think he started working on this well before that movie, since this one was released only a month after that first film was released (to much success... which I suspect helped get the distribution deal pushed forward to let this one out of the gate). So I reckon that the correct point of view is probably that Train To Busan is actually a live action sequel to the animated movie Seoul Station but, whichever way you say it, since it’s set the day before the events in the other film, it makes it chronologically the first part of the trilogy which ended (to date), with Peninsula (another movie which I’ve not seen but thanks to the price of a fiver in Computer Exchange, I should be watching that one too fairly soon).

Now it’s been ages since I saw that first movie and I can’t remember much about it but, like most zombie movies, it gives no explanation of how the zombie virus actually got started. In this film, you see an infected homeless man pass away in the titular station and then start off the wave of zombies that are already unleashed during the events of that follow up (or whatever you want to call it) movie. 

However, don’t expect to find out what caused the zombie outbreak in the first place because, again like most tales in this genre, although you’re a little closer to ground zero in this movie... you still will be none the wiser as to any explanations for this plague. 

Now, the animation is nice enough and doesn’t look too cheap. Although, if my dad* is to be believed, it’s even worse than a 1970s Filmation cartoon in terms of animation... he bailed on it after a quarter of an hour. It’s... not as bad as 1970s Filmation but, it’s not Disney or Fleischer studios either. It just is what it is and in terms of the art of the ‘cartooning’ on this thing... I didn’t mind it.

But here’s the thing. It has more going for it than just the undead biting people up. It’s character driven... to the point where I thought the first half an hour was relentlessly slow and dull (it gets better) and it has a proper story which included a really neat twist near the end which, I honestly did not see coming. However, due to the way the characters are portrayed, not to mention the consequences of that surprise reveal, which I thought was visually going to be something much different to what it turned out to be... it’s also unrelentingly bleak. Much grimmer than the story portrayed in Train To Busan. Which is perhaps hard to believe given the unstoppable onslaught of people-munching going on throughout that particular movie but, trust me, though it’s not quite as gory as the live action counterpart... it’s vastly more cynical in its outlook. 

The film follows the exploits of a down-on-her-luck young lady who breaks off with her boyfriend, who is trying to pimp her out to pay their rent money. So they are split up and the outbreak leaves them unaware of each other’s locations. Meanwhile, the girl’s father catches up to the boyfriend and threatens him into helping him to find her. Then the zombie pandemic begins and the film cross cuts between the girl and the chaotic experiences she finds herself in... and the boyfriend and father trying to locate her. And it’s... not too terrifying, it has to be said but, like I said, it’s unrelentingly dark. Especially in terms of redeemable characters, for sure. 

My primary criticism of the movie... and this seems to be a more blatant trope of horror films lately, it seems to me... is the unrelenting stupidity of the main protagonists to not keep themselves out of trouble or improve their situation. If you are on the phone to your girlfriend, for example... and she’s just given you her location, you don’t wait on the phone for five minutes to hear how the carnage is playing out on her end of the line... you get in your car and you rescue her pronto, right? Well, apparently not, in the case of these characters, it seems. And, surely, if you are running through buildings, away from zombies who want to eat you... maybe shut a few doors behind you on your way? I mean, the actions of these characters do not endear me to the idea of ever standing beside them if I was ever in a zombie apocalypse. Their choices are just really stupid.

But, it’s an okay film and, that final twist, which makes room for even more bleakness, more than makes up for some of the film’s deficiencies. I mean, yeah, Train To Busan is by far the better, more watchable picture but, I dunno, Seoul Station is so unwavering in its cynical outlook (and has very strong language throughout) that I found the whole experience quite enticing for a while.

But, yeah, that’s me done on Seoul Station and, if you like Train To Busan then you will probably enjoy this one, to some extent. It has so much more going on for it than just being another zombie movie, I reckon. 

 * I wrote this review early last year, when he was still with us. 

Spider-Man - Into The Spider-Verse

Morales Dilemma

Spider-Man - Into The Spider-Verse
2018 USA
Directed by Bob Persichetti,
Peter Ramsey & Rodney Rothman
UK cinema release print.

After a sequence from this movie played by way of a second post-credits scene in Venom (reviewed here) I was really not that into bothering to go see Spider-Man - Into The Spider-Verse at my local cinema. After all, this film looked from the trailers like it was going to be focusing on the Miles Morales version of the character, with Peter Parker as a secondary character and, I have to say that, for the most part (with a few minor exceptions) I have pretty much only ever read the first ten years or so of Spider-Man’s comic book adventures, starting from his first appearance in an issue of Amazing Fantasy (which is nicely parodied as an alternatively titled comic book in the version of reality in which this movie is set). So I have absolutely no idea who Miles Morales is.

Two things changed my mind. One being that the score for this one has been composed by one of my favourite ‘new’ composers Daniel Pemberton and, frankly, I expect what he does to be exceptional (this movie score is certainly that).

The other reason I finally decided to give this one a go is that the film has been getting some exceptional word of mouth on Twitter, with some people citing it as their favourite movie of the year... and I didn’t want to get left out. So I went and saw the thing and... yeah... I didn’t regret it.

This film manages to do a lot of cool things and get most of everything it juggles just about right. It has many separate different versions of Spider-Man from multiple dimensions that have crossed over... including two versions of Peter Parker (one of them played by Chris Pine), Spider-Gwen (the spider powered version of Gwen Stacy), Spider-Man Noir (a black and white one from the 1930s, played here by Nicolas Cage), a strange manga/anime based looking version called SP//dr (consisting of a girl, a robot and a spider) and everyone’s favourite Spider-Pig, Peter Porker - The Spectacular Spider-Ham... there’s even a Spider-Man 2099 cameo too but... yeah, I won’t say too much about that. And, of course, Miles Morales, whose story we follow in a little more detail than the others although we get some incredible back story flashbacks for all the other characters by way of a running gag which, frankly, really works well.

As you can tell from the diverse character cast consisting of different tonal styles, the film is trying to juggle a lot of balls in the air as it switches from moving drama to broad humour and all the things in between at a fair pace. The amazing thing, though... perhaps even more amazing than The Amazing Spider-Man... is that it manages to tell a story of a team of Spider-Heroes working together in all these different styles while being as post-modern as can be and with a fairly quirky, bordering on very surreal, animation style and it doesn’t at any point lose you and, frankly, it all meshes together very well. Which seems to me to be very against the odds.

It’s fast, it’s colourful and there are some really great compositions as several source references often fight for space in the frame... this is an incredibly detailed movie and I know I’ll notice a lot more when I catch up to this one again. There’s quite a lot of the syntax of comics throughout history used, all colliding with different styles and a wonderful use of typography all clamouring for attention. In fact, even the blink and you’ll miss it typography hits have some nice jokes in certain parts which reference each other. There’s also some visual references to off-set litho print being off-register in a few cases (if I’m reading the intention of the filmmakers correctly... at first I thought there was something going wrong with the projection).

Another really great thing in this is that the non-stop cleverness never lets up and is with you right from the start. Since the nature of the film is about several universes colliding and constantly going out of phase in terms of the characters when they’re in Miles’ version of the universe, even the Columbia Pictures logo and the Marvel logo at the start of the picture are doing some dazzling things (including a nice little shout out to Cat Ballou, of all things). The logos are even followed by a nice big ‘Approved By The Comics Code Authority’ stamp... which should have a lot of people my age tripping down memory lane (are those things still on modern comics?

As you would expect, there are lots of metatextual references to various things in the Spider-Man comics and also, from very early on, quite a few references to the various Spider-Man movies over the years... but there’s also a lot of little jokes about other things making their way in there too (I loved the Shaun Of The Dead parody poster they kept flashing up in the background) and, of course, the usual nice cameo from the now departed Stan Lee (I believe it was the last ‘voice performance’ he recorded... which I suspect means we’re far from done with the cameos in the live action movies at the moment).

And, yeah, the glue which makes all this possible in terms of keeping it all together as one coherent experience, as far as I’m concerned anyway, is Daniel Pemberton’s wonderful score, which should be swinging it’s way on a shiny disc to my letterbox in a week or so, fingers crossed. I can’t wait to hear this thing as a stand alone listen.

So, all in all, glad I went to see Spider-Man - Into The Spider-Verse (the film with too many hyphens) to find out what all the fuss was about. One last thing before you rush to your nearest cinema, though. If you’re a fan of the old 1960s Spider-Man cartoon show, not to mention internet memes, then you’ll really want to wait until the end credits are over because... well, just watch it. You’ll see what I mean.

It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

 

The Beagle Has Landed

It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
USA 1966
Directed by Bill Melendez
Watched on YouTube

I rarely watch anything on YouTube, it has to be said. I much prefer owning the stuff I watch rather than streaming or renting from a source which can just turn around and deny me the ability to watch what I want, when I want it any time it likes. However, I thought I’d make an exception this year because Varese Sarabande has just reminded me this gem of a cartoon exists by releasing the first CD issue of the soundtrack. Now, it has to be said, I did try and order a UK DVD or Blu Ray of It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, only to find that this thing seems to be totally out of print over here. Now normally in that situation I would just order the US edition but, alas, I knew that if I’d gone down that route then it was probable I wouldn’t even receive it until after Halloween this year... which kinda defeats the object. This is definitely a seasonal TV special and soundtrack and playing it past 31st October just seems like really bad luck, to me.

I remember that I never saw this one as a kid. Halloween, it has to be said, was not something that children in the UK in the 1970s or before... or even the 1980s for that matter... really participated in or knew much about. Trick or Treating was not a thing over here until maybe the mid to late 1990s and the way it’s mutated into some kind of aggressive tricksterism...as well as a totally cynical exercise in merchandising scary, seasonally appropriate merchandise to the kids and their financially challenged parents... is probably not something I should go on about at length here.

So yes, I was certainly aware of Halloween as a kid from only one source... The Observer magazine that got delivered to my parent’s door every Sunday. This used to run the Peanuts strip in colour near the back and, every October, you’d get the odd Halloween installment published. That was my only exposure to Halloween, not to mention The Great Pumpkin and so the bizarre culture shock I experienced when, in later years, I saw Halloween rise in popularity over here, spreading like a virulent celebration of destructive anarchy, made me wonder if our country had become just another state of the USA. I used to watch and love the odd Charlie Brown specials on TV as a kid (and later) as did everybody but I don’t know if this one even got shown on UK TV, truth be told. According to the IMDB it was only ever broadcast in the US and in Finland for some strange reason so... maybe it really never aired over here.

Anyway, I found myself with a spare half an hour for lunch and I found a few versions of this on YouTube. A couple were questionable in quality but I did quickly find an HD version and away I went.

It’s a little crude in style but most of those early Peanuts cartoons were and they were no worse for it. They’ve always been about the little pearls of wisdom that Charles M. Schulz used to inject into his strip and all of the ones I’ve seen (although I’ve seen nowhere near all of them) are primarily about promoting strong messages of right versus wrong. They are sometimes quite surreal (another reason to like them) and certainly very cynical at times but they always have a lot of heart in them and I suspect that’s why they’re so well loved around the world.

It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown tells the short story of what happens when the Peanuts gang go trick or treating while Linus and Sally (who has a crush on Linus, if you recall), spend all night in the ‘most sincere’ Pumpkin Patch that Linus can find, fruitlessly awaiting the appearance of this peculiar figment of Linus’ imagination. There’s not much to write home about in this one, it has to be said but... it is a slice of pleasant, heart warming Charlie Brown goodness once again and, in terms of the animated specials, it also has a couple of firsts.

For example, this is the first time an animation had been done of Charlie Brown attempting to kick a football and landing on his back after Lucy pulls it away from him. Even in this first animated manifestation, though, it’s already being treated by the characters as a running joke.

The other famous first here is that this is the first time we get to see the animated Snoopy playing around as the World War One flying ace, in pursuit of the Red Baron. Most of the classic elements of those flights of canine fancy are in place here already such as, even when he’s doing a loop the loop, you never see anything other than the top of his dog kennel standing in for his Sopwith Camel and both the flying sequence and his progress returning home behind enemy lines is done with a deft touch which carefully rides the line between Snoopy’s imagination and what’s happening in the real world. The only thing which seems a little false here is that instead of Snoopy’s inner voice narrating his adventures... you never get to hear Snoopy’s thoughts in the cartoons... we instead have the surrogate voice of Charlie Brown narrating on the soundtrack. This almost but, doesn’t quite, work and it seems a bit false. I think this was something they dropped in later shows but I’d need to watch more of them to find out how quickly this element was ditched from the franchise.

The whole show is, of course, scored by the late, great Vince Guaraldi and this is always one of the best reasons to watch the early, classic Peanuts shows. This one has some nice variations on his famous Linus And Lucy theme going through it too which, frankly, I'm really looking forward to hearing when I can get around to giving the new CD a spin. It's good jazz scoring from a truly remarkable composer.

And that’s me more or less done with It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown which, frankly, any fan of the Peanuts gang will surely love. I say more or less because there’s a little epilogue to my review here. When the end credits were rolling I noticed that the cartoon was released in 1966, which rang a little alarm bell in my head. I remembered that a couple of years ago I bought a DVD called The Peanuts 1960s Collection, which is also now sadly out of print and which I haven't had a chance to watch yet. When I looked at the box when I got home I realised that It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown was on this all along. So I really needn’t have spent so much time and energy trying to get hold of this one and neither did I need to resort to YouTube to watch it. Sometimes the things you want are right on the end of your nose so, the moral to take away from this story, I think, is this. Whatever you do, don’t get as old as me... it’s no fun.

Batman - Gotham By Gaslight

Gas Expectations

Batman - Gotham By Gaslight
USA 2018 Directed by Sam Liu
Warner Brothers Blu Ray Zone B

Well... my blood is still boiling after watching this new, animated feature which purports to be an ‘adaptation’ of the brilliant one-shot comic Gotham By Gaslight. I can’t imagine what the creators of the original, Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola, think of this travesty but I do feel for them.

That original comic was one of the first, possibly even the first, Elseworlds comic by DC. I’m not sure if my old copy from 1989 even has the Elseworlds logo included on the cover but it was a popular imprint (with me at least) and DC’s answer, or so I assume, to what Marvel were doing with their What If? comics.

Okay, so people who know me have probably figured out that I find it quite interesting when characters and situations from different sources or universes come together and are cross pollinated to give an alternate feeling to the familiar elements of their individual stories. There have always been comics where some of the characters 'separated by time', for example, have come together in a single story. I might mention The Shadow debuting for DC in the pages of one of the Batman stories (Batman Issue 253) or my favourite of the Marvel Two-In-One comics featuring The Thing from The Fantastic Four alongside Doc Savage (kind of). One of the more interesting titles that Marvel used to put out was What If?... which literally took famous moments or characters in Marvel history and said... well hang on, what if that hadn’t panned out that way at all? So you had some great issues like What If Conan Had Walked The Earth Today? and What If Elektra Had Lived? Of course, Elektra did live... or she got really confusingly reincarnated at any rate... but at the time they brought that issue out she was still very much dead in the comics.

Anyway, as good as this long running comic book series was, when DC finally decided to get in on the act, they came up with the Elseworlds series of one shot comics (and occasional mini series). Their explanatory blurb on the front or back covers was always pretty much the same... “... where DC Comics heroes are taken out of their usual setting and put into alternate timelines or realities.”

So I have some great comics like Metropolis, where the idea of Superman was literally displaced into a version of the famous Fritz Lang movie of the same name. Or Batman: Red Rain.... where Batman goes toe to toe... or is that fang to fang... with Dracula. Or Amazonia... where a Victorian era version of Wonder Woman takes on Jack The Ripper etc. There were quite a few of these things published in one format or another and Gotham By Gaslight was where a Victorian version of Batman took on Jack The Ripper, who had journeyed to America. It was a great little tale and even inspired a sequel, Batman: Master Of The Future, which the makers of this hideous mis-step of a cartoon have also slightly plundered for their own take on this story.

Frankly, as I was watching this new animated version, Batman - Gotham By Gaslight, I could barely remember any of the events, characters or situations I was seeing portrayed on screen as being in the comic. I had to go back and check that I didn’t imagine the original incorrectly but, there you have it, there are so many liberties taken with this one it’s pointless calling it by this title. I know a movie adaptation has specific demands that make it essential, in most cases, to change a few things to help the flow of the film but this one goes way beyond the old and dubious scapegoat of artistic licence. In fact, it feels like ‘artistic licence’ met ‘art’ down a back alley sometime and anally raped said masterpiece before slicing it up with a chainsaw and then jumping up and down on the bloody remains of what was, in this case, a once great story.

I can barely write these words without being enraged as to what they have done to this, in all honesty. There is a slight similarity in the costume that the Batman variation wears in this (which was my favourite costume variation in the comics, to be honest) and the killer is still Jack The Ripper... but even that is not as it seems because the person who ‘was’ Jack The Ripper in the comic is not who it turns out to be in this travesty of a cartoon version. Seriously, it’s like what the producers and writers of the James Bond franchise of movies used to do more often than not... just buy the title and then come up with their own story, characters and situations with absolutely no regard or, as in this particular case it seems to me, no respect for the original material.

Honestly, I can’t stress how different from the original source material this movie is. In this version, Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) is one of the main players and... yeah, you guessed it, she’s not even in the comic. The Joker was referred to in the comic but... oh, right... makes no appearance here. Instead you have throwaway versions of characters like Poison Ivy, Harvey Dent and Adam Strange. This really has got nothing to do with Gotham By Gaslight people! And there were so many other things from the source they could have thrown into the mix, like Sigmund Freud but... no... we have something far less interesting here.

I remember the artwork in the original comic being fairly gritty and very ‘Victorian’ish and it all worked really well. In this cartoon, however, everything seems so 'xerox smooth' and flat and it just seems like the most simplified, child-like version of 'Batman Victoriana' you would ever hope to stumble upon in your worst opium nightmare. They’ve managed to take what was an impressive story and not only completely change it so it’s barely relatable... they’ve also managed to make it look as bland as possible. I just don’t understand this approach. All the animation looks kinda slow and somehow cheap. Like a 1970s/80s Filmation cartoon.

Also... why the heck is this a 15 rating? There’s a modicum of blood in it and the occasional ‘slightly naughty word’. This is not worthy of an adult certificate... especially since it seems like it was made by a kid. Honestly, it’s like a bunch of stuffy old conservatives got around a table and put their hands over their mouths while grinning as they put in a swear word or two. This is beyond childish and not anything close to adult oriented entertainment.

Okay, so good things?

Well... the fist fight choreography was kinda okay. It was mildly entertaining although, it has to be said, Batman never actually wins any fist fight in this thing and even in the last one, he only escapes fiery death by using a trick he learned from Houdini. 

Okay, so other good things...

No, wait. That’s it.

There are no other good things and don’t let me get started on that awful song which is desperately failing to sound like the period its trying for. I bought this Blu Ray because I loved the original comic book and now I feel like I’ve been completely hoodwinked by Warner Brothers. I thought I was buying a version of Gotham By Gaslight but it turns out this is in name only. There should be a huge disclaimer on the front cover of this thing telling people that any event or characters portrayed in this movie are completely incidental and in no way meant to resemble the one thing it’s supposed to be an adaptation of. After seeing two amazing Batman animations (reviewed here and here) by the same company putting this one out, I’d have to say they should hang their heads in shame at committing this atrocious misrepresentation of a great Augustyn/Mignola work. Don’t bother with this one... go read the comic instead.