This Week In TV Year II (Week 3, cont.)

As promised yesterday, more of the same.

Potential Plagiarism of the Week:

This week's big scientifical revelation in Fringe, that some ill-defined bad guys are using a mode of tech-lepathy called The Ghost Network, sounds awfully like something Warren Ellis would cook up, right down to the cyber-hip name. It sounds so much like one of his ideas that it gave me deja vu that persists days later. Has Ellis come up with this concept before? Did they rip him off? He's so prolific that can't keep track of every mad thing he has come up with, so until someone sets me right, I'm going to fret about it.

Actual Plagiarism of the Week:

Tim Kring has been eager to stress that he doesn't read comics, thus making any similarities between the show and anything in any comic ever a total coincidence. So does this mean he's now going to say in interviews that he's never seen Cronenberg's The Fly?


Our jaws dropped at the shockingly obvious plagiarism of Suresh's transformation into a wall-climbing superhuman shag-beast whose body is turning into something slimy and unpleasant (much like his original personality). It was just like the movie, even down to the shots of him staring into a mirror in horror, and scaling the walls of his loft before ravishing the nearest hott woman.


Still, even though this means, as Canyon pointed out, we've had to put up with way too many shots of Suresh coated in lard, it does mean we'll get to see him pontificate on insect politics before having his head blown off by a sobbing Maya. I'll get the popcorn ready for that turn of events.

Self-Plagiarism of the Week:

Announcing the season arc for Heroes with a flourish of impressive special effects, we were unfortunately treated to some not ao impressive ideas. Just like the first season, Hiro travels into the future and sees a city (this time Tokyo) destroyed by an enormous explosion.


I mean, this is a joke, right? Or there's more to it. There has to be. Maybe it's a bomb that has the Shanti virus in it, just to rip off the second season as well.

Fashion Faux-Pas of the Week:

Outside the Heroesverse it was either the new, relaxed Daniel Meade, who is only a backwards baseball cap away from total Durst-ocity...


...or Michael Le Traceur and his military beret that looks way too much like a moob stuck to his scalp.


Inside the Heroesverse it was either the futuristic angry garb of Peter "Greaser" Petrelli...


...or Maya Goopez who, as a Hispanic woman, is obviously required by TV law to dress like Hilda Suarez from Ugly Betty.


The costume department couldn't think of any other way to dress her? I guess part of it was so that BrundleSuresh could yank her clothes off and have his way with her at a moment's notice, but otherwise, it's unimaginative and a bit insulting.

Bitchface of the Week:

Robin Tunney spent most of the running time of The Mentalist rolling her eyes and looking really hacked off.






Whereas House's antics exasperate those around him, they still respect him and his intelligence. The cops that work with Patrick Jane, aka The Mentalist, seem to just hate him, and barely even appreciate his Amazing Powers of the Brain. It's enough of a difference to make the formula work without seeming to be more of the same.

Mystery of the Week:

That subtitle makes it seem like I'm really fascinated by the big mystery in Fringe, i.e. who or what is the CEO of Massive Dynamics, what is his connection to Dr. Walter Bishop, and should the company's name be spoken a la Alan Partridge, with the emphasis heavily on the MASSive? To be honest, I'm only mildly intrigued by this (and what The Pattern is), especially when compared to the WTFness of Lost's pilot, with its many fascinating mysteries. However, the Fringe questions are definitely interesting enough to keep me tuning in, and that's before we get to Dr. Walter Bishop and the soothing voice of Anna "Vanatron" Torv. So, here are my guesses for who William Bell, CEO of MASSive Dynamics, is.

The clone of Dr. Walter Bishop (this is a popular theory on the internets).

The male clone of Olivia Dunham.

A miniaturised man operating Nina Sharp's arm from a little operating booth within said arm, as a homage to box office titan Meet Dave.

The Fringe universe itself (with the various characters representing different aspects of his personality).

A steam-powered clockwork robot constructed by Alexander Graham Bell, Charles Babbage, and Michael Faraday.

A swarm of black nanobots that can be repelled by a sonic fence.

Doktor Sleepless.

Albert Einstein after drinking from the Fountain of Youth.

A heckuva guy!!!

A cloud of living thoughts in a jar, made crazy in isolation and now plotting revenge.

The secret child of Rock Hudson and Doris Day, conceived at the behest of a cabal of Cthulhu-worshippers, and fated to bring about the return of the Elder Gods, Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

An unholy genetic hybrid of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Rupert Murdoch, Masaru Ibuka, and Andy Dick.

Keyser Soze.

I demand prizes if any of these is right.

Passive Aggressive Jerk of the Week:

Upon being confronted by his annoying mother about being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Greaser Petrelli snaps, "Sorry mom, I'm too busy saving the world right now."


We were hoping he would follow that up by saying, "Saving it with string, mom. String!"

Unedifying Sight of the Week:

Paula Garces, who spent a period on The Shield being unbearably snotty and unprofessional to everyone else working at The Barn while being groomed by Dutch Wagenbach in a particularly depressing subplot, has taken a break from appearing in televisual excellence to be treated like a big sexpot on Knight Rider. Seeing her disembark from a car with gullwing doors from a seat that is way too low was utterly depressing. It's not her fault, obviously, but did no one realise that showing a hott spy struggling to get out of a car had the opposite effect of that intended, i.e. to get the teenage boys at home all excited?







The series of pictures above range across about five minutes of screentime. (This is a lie.) If you could see it in motion you'd understand why it's so awful. Poor Paula Garces, forced to dress like someone from an Austin Powers movie.


Still, at least she inspired Jerell when coming up with a pop-style outfit for the odious and bratty Kenley on this week's Project Runway.


Lose, you whiny brat, LOSE!

Career Move of the Week:

An end to our pain...


Run, Stephen Tobolowsky! Run for the hills! And if they want you back for a flashback or dream sequence, just say no.

Gupta of the Week:

Zoe, the button-pusher in Knight Rider, is so ill-conceived, mean, and relentlessly smug, that it shows up the entire awful show for the mistake that it is. There is no charm here, no humour, no excuse. Lowlights include:

Reacting to the imminent fiery death of Michael Le Traceur and Sarah Blandhott by sleazily delivering the line, "This just got interesting."

Reacting to the lucky escape everyone gets from being killed by a napalm-coated morphing supercar crashing into a closed door by saying, "That was awesome." She trots out another awesome when her colleague, Billy, "comically" passes out.

Saying "Owned!" to Billy after KITT chides him in Kilmeresque monotone. That one was for the kidz!

Sneering at a highly stressed Billy that, "You'd better hope this works, because if it doesn't..." meaning, "...our two colleagues will burn to death," all the while smiling at some fixed point off camera, which is the least inspiring comment ever given to a rapidly-typing computer nerd during an emergency.

Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to put a catty bitch in this cast? Is she meant to be funny? Sassy? All she is is a skinny burr under our mind-saddle. It's like someone wandered into the Knight Rider HQ from an America's Next Top Model photoshoot. There is no scenario conceivable that makes this decision work.

Silliest Exposition of the Week:

While going through a list of supervillains, Noah Bennett tells newly glum daughter Claire what each of their superpowers are. The German is Magneto, Pyrokinetic Man is Pyro, and Jesse... Well, you don't want to know! Except that anyone with the superpower of being able to read can see that his superpower doesn't sound so bad.


So, basically he's Paul Oakenfold.


I'm shaking in my boots.

Over-Used Plot Device of the Week:

Brain surgery! It's grisly, it's scary, it's slowly becoming boring. If it's not Chase the Moron poking around in Felicia Day's medulla oblongata...


...it's Dr. Walter Bishop moving a blob of liquid metal around Bill Hicks-lookalike Zac Orth's visual and auditory centres...


...or it's Sylar doing... well, something nasty to Claire's brain.


I love that Tim Kring said we would get an answer to the question of what Sylar does to brains in order to acquire powers. Well, now we know. He does something nasty. Thanks Tim!

Improbable Transformation of the Week:

After an act of stupidity so profound that it drove Canyon into a fit of rage, Betty ends up renting the worst apartment ever without viewing it first because of an attack of plot-contrivitis.


As if that wasn't annoying enough, in the final scenes Hilda, Justin and Ignacio save the day with about eight hours of decorating, leaving the apartment looking so good Betty and her heinous stockings have a little dance to celebrate.


I have to keep reminding myself that this is a fairytale, and that in the Ugly Bettyverse, nothing can trump The Power of Family. Still, though.

Intensity of the Week:


It almost burns, the intensity.

So, a busier week than I expected, but with a bit of actual entertainment, a promising new show, and lots of unintentional humour. So what does Brian Michael Bendoom think?


That's some dastardly indifference right there.

Watch Me Slap Myself In The Face With A Glove

For many moons now I've been planning to write about Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, a film that seemed to have difficulty finding an audience upon release. It sounded a gong in my head when I saw it, but I never got around to blogging about it. So why now? Partially because I recently watched a documentary about the great man on Sky Arts. I had hoped it would be as illuminating as I've Been 12 Forever, the superb documentary on the Michel Gondry music video collection DVD, which had been as playful as his music videos. Sadly, as directed by a former colleague of his, it was a charmless and incoherent mess, with Gondry seemingly annoyed by the process. Except for some fun B-roll footage from the Science of Sleep shoot, and some rough and ready early animations, it was not very interesting.


Mostly I feel compelled to talk about Be Kind Rewind because it's been playing on my worry-addled mind. Compared to the poor saps who have been sold a lie about The Market being a Perpetual Motion Machine, and who are now staring terrible defeat in the face, my woes are pretty much inconsequential, but of course, from where I'm standing, they're pretty bloody awful. Job insecurity has been plaguing me for a long time now, and has become worse in recent months. With the rest of the world in a bad place, a steady job is a necessity.

Unfortunately uncreative jobs make me feel dead in the soul (I'm certainly not the only one, and would never presume to be unique in this respect), and this state of affairs has been getting me down for as long as I can remember. As with most people who have their own blog as a repository for their amateur writings, the possibility of a life as a writer is the dream that excites me (and Canyon). Of course, with nothing published already and inspiration hiding behind a cloud, it's almost as frustrating as it is heartening, which tends to retard the growth of any ideas. Why else would I try to manhandle a dream into some kind of movie featuring persecution of atheists and elderly pervert Allan Quatermain?


Even so, Be Kind Rewind remains important to me. The DVD of Michel Gondry's video work has long been one of my very favourite things, not just for the staggering imagination on display within those videos, but because Gondry's imagination and urge to create is so irrepressible. While I vacillate and complain, Gondry just does his thing. During the I've Been 12 Forever documentary, while being interviewed Gondry is constantly drawing, and the film is punctuated with little videos made by him and his family, often featuring some corny humour but all with endearing lo-fi visuals. That Gondry is able to have an idea and commit it to film and paper almost instantly, without doubt or excuse or fear, lifts my spirit more than almost anything.

Which is why I enjoyed Be Kind Rewind so much. Though I appreciated that The Science of Sleep was probably equally as personal a movie, it was also a pretty bleak critique of his own impulsive psyche and the gap between his childish worldview and the unforgiving reality. Rather selfishly, as I usually take a great deal of pleasure from Gondry's work, I reacted badly to Science of Sleep, as it attributed the ill fortune of Stephane to an overindulgence of that wonderful imagination. That's not a message I'm willing to absorb.


Be Kind Rewind, on the other hand, shows two characters forced by circumstance to rely upon their ingenuity to survive, though at first only to replicate the work of others, a plan that is wrecked by the intervention of a team of outlandishly rapacious and evil lawyers headed up by Sigourney Weaver in one of the funniest cameos of the year. The movie ends with a lovely sequence, as the town comes together to make and appreciate their own art, their stories told by themselves with no corporate interference, and featuring some astonishing ideas. It's the most uplifting expression of Gondry's personal philosophy yet made, and it made me came out of the cinema with a spring in my step, just as I had hoped. If I want to have a creative life, there is no impediment except my own bullshit. Say what you like about his movies, and you might hate them, but it cannot be denied that Gondry is the perfect example of someone who is living an artistic life. Though I can't animate or draw or build anything, I still envy him. He's doing what I wish I could be doing. So why am I not doing it?

It's fear, obviously. Fear is the mindkiller, as all Dune/Kyle MacLachlan fans will know. Pitiful though it might seem to the readers of this blog, but while I'm fine blapping away on here about how much I hated Happy-Go-Lucky or how much I want everyone to listen to the new album by Bound Stems (it's a corker!), I'm not really doing anything new. Though the urge to dissect the latest episodes of various shows is strong, the urge to make something new is even stronger, and yet I don't. It's apt that I write this long-pondered post this week, as my first real attempt at a book, a long time back, was scuppered by David Foster Wallace, who tragically committed suicide last weekend. A promising crack at writing a novel was scuppered when I read Infinite Jest, after which I gave up on any writing plans for ages.


My modest ambitions were shown up completely by this vast, terrifyingly complex work of baffling brilliance, something so bold and uncompromising and utterly breathtaking, that I ran from my word processor in terror and hid for a few years, waiting to be hit by an idea so good that it could tempt me back. Of course, as time has passed I realise now just how wondrous Infinite Jest is, how its scope and fearlessness shows just what can be done with fiction in the right hands. I'll never be able to write anything even as good as the better footnotes in that book, but I should at least give it a try.

So I did, once more, return to the keyboard, but the slow pace of my creative process ruined my plans again. Another attempt at finishing a book hit a brick wall after I stumbled across a newly published book with a plot so similar to the one I was working on that I would be hit with a fat lawsuit the moment I tried to get it published. The mortification, frustration, and brainfreeze I suffered after that was enough to stop me trying to write anything longer than a blog post ever since.


The urge doesn't disappear, though. The thrill I get from watching Gondry at work is enough to get me dreaming of creating, and by doing it in such a lo-fi way makes me think that it might be possible to do something even more ambitious than writing a few pages of turgid prose before giving up. It gets me out of this mindset that you can only live the creative life once you have been granted access by some panel of impassive, heartless fraternity presidents who give precedence to friends and family members while turning away strangers. The internet has made it easier to just throw this stuff out there, and video cameras are easy to come by. I mean, we have one sitting around the house, and all it needs is a power adapter that I can buy from eBay for about $20. I know because I've searched for it. And yet, I never bought it. Fear again? Laziness? The thought that $20 would buy me a copy of Speed Racer? (Available now, kids!)


Hell, who needs a camera? I could just go video sniffing and create something with that. Or construct something using found footage, just grab some free archived footage and figure out a way to tell a story with them. The software to do that is easily available. Or, if I'm unwilling to do things the easy way, I could take out a huge loan and buy a proper digital camera from Red, who make cameras so amazing apparently they "render obsolescence obsolete", which is pretty impressive, and surely worthy of my custom (note to Canyon: I'm just spitballing!). The question then is what would I make with it, but with the right connections, anything is possible. Just this week I saw the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society production of The Call of Cthulhu, which was, again, an inspirational experience. The movie itself featured some shaky writing; I don't think it's possible to get away with a flashback within a flashback within a flashback even when pretending to be making a film in the 1920s, though it might be following the narrative line of the original story. It's been a while since I read it so I can't be 100% sure of that. Here it is if you want to check it out. Nevertheless, in terms of the quality of the production, the imagination on display, and the scale of the thing (especially considering the miniscule budget), it's a huge success. Here's the trailer if you don't believe me.



The production feature on the DVD shows some amazing moments. The utterly convincing swamp miniature (I do not exaggerate when I say I was sure it was the real thing), the beautiful props, the slick use of digital compositing, and my favourite of all, the city of R'lyeh, constructed in a backyard from scaffolding, hardboard, canvas and a sheet covered with glitter to serve as the sea. It might not be a huge, complex set, but it's impossible not to be impressed by the ingenuity and devotion shown by all involved. (Note to Canyon: I have no plans to erect an enormous model of the resting place of Great Cthulhu in our backyard!)


Even if the thought of making something visual does not appeal, there is a market for creating trinkets and doodads and other assorted gubbins. Until last week I had never heard of Etsy, but it has become Canyon's new obsession. It's embarrassing to admit that I have become so used to the concept of product created by the monolith that is the corporate-owned and run manufacturing industry that the thought of these individualised, hand-made objects is startling, just as the thought of just saying, "I want to create something that other people might like, and I'm going to do that right now, without agonising over it first and without seekign the permission of anyone else," thrills me and terrifies me at the same time. Of course, considering how bad I am at making things with my hands, I doubt I'll be adding things to Etsy any time soon, and yes, this admission makes a joke out of my claim to be inspired by the handiest of handy-men Gondry, who could probably make every prop and set in his films, given the chance, while I would end up a miserable paralysed blob of glue and cardboard. So perhaps it will all boil down to writing, and me getting over my fear of coincidental similarities or the wonder of the literary world that is Infinite Jest.

It's going to happen one day. I'm sure of it. I'll just snap and bang out a shitload of words one day (it's happened before). Maybe I'll follow Warren Ellis' advice and start small. His exhortation to "Be Short, Be Bold, and Get It Done" is a pithy clarion call, echoed by Russell T. Davies on BBC Breakfast yesterday, yelling, "If you want to be a writer, write, now, do it today!" Or I could take it as a sign that this week The Guardian is including a series of booklets on writing, featuring advice from many knowledgable writers. RL and online friends have always been nice enough to suggest I should go for it (and many thanks to all of them for saying so; you all know who you are), and Canyon has been unbelievably, wonderfully supportive and insistent that I should, even though the doubt remains, and the one idea I have is way too similar to M. John Harrison's Viriconium series for my comfort, and my brain is addled with worry and excuses excuses excuses excuses!!!

Fuck it. Consider this a public shaming that will hopefully get me off my arse. My first project will be a fourteen part science fiction tale set in our house starring our cats, of such complexity that it will make The Amory Wars look like a traditionally underachieving episode of Torchwood. Or a screenplay about Nathan Fillion saving atheism from murder by ninja-biker. It's now or never, I guess, otherwise I might end up like a character from a Charlie Kaufman movie that has yet to secure a release date in the UK and therefore will only be reliably shown twice during the London Film Festival and might not end up seeing at all which is a fact that brings out the cold chills across my back.



I'm so desperate to see that film I'll write, finish, and try to sell a book or screenplay despite my fears and doubts if it means I might someone finagle a ticket!!!

The Power Of Hellboy Compels Me (To Praise Him)

I come not to bury Hellboy II: The Golden Army, but to praise it, and it comes as an enormous surprise. Don't get me wrong, I like Guillermo Del Toro's movies a lot, and think he is a stand-up tip-top A-1 kinda chap, with the nerdery and the vision and the amusing personality. I would like to have a beer with him and shoot the shit about pressing nerd issues. However, and this is a piddling thing to be bringing up but it has to be said, as much as I've liked his movies in the past, I've never loved one. Not even my personal favourite Del Toro movie Blade II, even though it featured Dr. Wesley T. Snipes hanging out with Donnie Muthafukken Yen and fighting a superpowered and evil version of that chap from Bros.


Of course, I appreciate his imagination and attention to detail, and love his committal to fantastical cinema, but especially with his English language films, I've always been unable to fully embrace them. I've agonised over it, as everyone fell over themselves to praise Pan's Labyrinth, which I thought was very good but not great (on the other hand, Canyon loved it to pieces). My suspicion is that his pacing, which can be bordering on lethargic, is the key to my resistance. Slow pacing is fine, but it still has to have a proper ebb and flow, and his movies often stop when they should start, and bolt forward when the audience is ready for a rest. It's not a total dealbreaker, but it does bug me.

With the world in his pocket following Pan's success, it was a pleasant surprise to see he was willing to use that cache to resurrect his Hellboy sequel project, that had languished for so long that I figured it was pointless to wait for it. Mind you, it would have been an even more pleasant surprise had Del Toro used that clout to get his At The Mountains Of Madness project up and running. Though there are some interesting film adaptations of Lovecraft's work (especially the wondrous From Beyond), right now the best visualisation of squirming Lovecraftian gods is in Hellboy itself, hinting that Del Toro has a better grasp on what constitutes a squamous, undying monstrosity from beyond space and time than the makers of The Dunwich Horror, a filmic nightmare I endured recently that reduced the sickening and vast terror of the multitude of unholy Old Gods to a bunch of rubber snakes filmed in negative and waved at the actors. I guess Del Toro is more attached to working on Mike Mignola's creations than those of a despicable sexist, racist Luddite fucking prick asshole of a person (who wrote a bunch of entertaining and influential novels, but still).


(Quick note: it seems The Dunwich Horror, featuring a hatstand performance from Dean Stockwell aiming the full force of his Aleister-Crowley-esque lechery at Sandra Dee, was co-written by Curtis Hanson. I am aware that this might only be interesting to me, especially as who on earth has seen The Dunwich Horror? And who else would own up to it? Wicked Les Baxter soundtrack, though.)

It's been said many a time that Hellboy represents Del Toro's most personal movies, which I always thought to be a bit rich seeing as how Mike Mignola created the character, but his passion for the character (of which the effort to bring the sequel to the screen is proof enough) certainly seems genuine. That still meant that I was not excited about The Golden Army. The first movie was busy but lifeless, filled with pleasing moments that amounted to not that much. It was a movie I wanted to love but just couldn't, though I did like the casting of Ron Perlman as the titular character, and some of the imagery was stunning. At the time, prior to my realisation that Del Toro's movies didn't affect me as much as they seemed to affect others, I figured it was just that I wasn't a fan of the comic, and had trouble warming to the character, whom I just could not picture as a living thing in my head. Is he humourless? Is he tough? Compassionate? Though Mignola's art is rightly lauded, the stories lay dead on the page in front of me. (I know, heresy, right?)


Perlman's incarnation of Hellboy as a cocky and insecure teenager in a large demon body was good enough for me to finally understand where Mignola was coming from, meaning I now read the comics with Perlman's voice in my head in much the same way as I read Batman comics with Kevin Conroy's voice in mind. Nevertheless, the appeal of the character eludes me. He's big and strong, sappy and impulsive, and will probably destroy the world one day. That's all fine, but though numerous other characters with those traits entertain me, Hellboy still strikes me as the germ of a good idea that has not yet been fully fleshed out.

To make things worse, the first movie was saddled with the distracting casting of David Hyde-Pierce as the voice of Abe Sapien ("Why does that fishman sound like Niles Crane?"), Rupert Evans as the deeply unlikeable Myers, and Selma Blair as Liz Sherman (her monotone grates on my ears). Even Jeffrey Tambor's inclusion as the officious Manning and a lovably sincere performance by John Hurt wasn't enough to make the difference. Just like the comics, the movie refused to come alive. I've seen it a number of times, and I never have the good time I am hoping for.


It was a slew of good reviews, and an early preview screening cleverly scheduled by Universal to generate word of mouth, that prompted me to try the sequel out, though I will say that even if I'm not as crazy about Del Toro's movies, I don't think there will ever be a time when I decide against seeing them at some point. As usual, though, I had reservations. Uninspiring jokes fall flat throughout, dialogue sounds like first-draft fill-ins instead of polished lines, the pace is stop-start (and, disastrously, grinds to an almost total halt one scene away from the big reveal of the Golden Army), too many events are packed in, and the transparent first act set-up of the final showdown doesn't mitigate the fact that the heroes "triumph" because of a deus ex machina-like get-out clause that is desperately overused in fantasy and sci-fi cinema. The best that can be said of that is that, as Hellboy II is about the death of myth by modernity, hewing so closely to a tried-and-true folk tale plot is understandable, but that didn't stop a groan from escaping my lips as it was introduced.


What's worse, there are some horribly difficult choices made by the characters in the final act, and the last scene, with the BPRD coming to a decision about their future, may be intended as a response to the aftermath of their choices, but it's not enough to balance out the consequences of their actions. Considering how overstuffed and stretched-out the movie is, it's ironic that the final scene, which really needed time to breathe, is suddenly over almost as quickly as it started, crashing into one of the ugliest end-credit crawls I've seen in a long time. It was like being woken up with a bucket of hot water in the face. Plus, the amount of editing wipes used was only exceeded by the amount of times Luke Goss, as Prince Nuada, swishes his big extendy-spear around like a big show-off. Yes yes, he's very good with his big stick thingy, but we don't need to see him flashing it about in ever scene. He can't even pull it out of his belt without adding some flourish or other. Stupid cocky elf-prince thing.


And yet, and yet... This might be the first Del Toro movie I love. I'm not sure yet. I need to see it again, partly to test out the hypothesis, and partly to see what the movie is like without one of the worst audiences ever assembled. If the crowd I saw The Dark Knight with was one of the best ever, this was the polar opposite, with noisy assholes, eardrum-splitting amounts of snack bag rustling, the presence of a woman wearing all the bangles in the free world walking in and out (thus generating a sound like the concept of jewellery having a fight with itself), and, best of all, the thoughtless slimecreep sitting in front of me whose phone rang four separate times about an hour into the movie and who offered to knock my face off when I poked him and told him to just, please, pretty please, just shut the fuck up goddamnit!!! Luckily he left before the end of the film, so I didn't have to have a bigass ruck. I may not be the streetfighting kung fu panda/human hybrid I imagine myself to be at times, but I can kick balls like a motherfucker.

Why did I love it even though it frustrated me continually? It's pretty simple. The slapstick tone of the movie, though not actually backed up by many functioning jokes, is endearing, and with Doug Jones doing an excellent job voicing Abe, Selma Blair offscreen for the majority of the movie, and Myers exiled to Antarctica (hah!), the good-natured chemistry between the non-human freaks wins out. Even better, though I am no fan of Family Guy, Seth McFarlane's work as ectoplasmic tight-ass Johann Krauss charmed my socks off. His inclusion provides many of the film's highpoints. Sadly Jeffrey Tambor doesn't get much to do, and what little he does is not that amusing, but it's enough just to have him around. Whenever the movie relaxes its grip on you, or a joke falls flat, the enthusiasm of the cast and the jovial air will win you back. At least, until things get more serious.


It's been noted that the tone shifts a lot, and that can't be denied, but the darkening of the film, at the end of a huge setpiece next to the Brooklyn Bridge, doesn't overwhelm the rest of the movie, serving instead to depress Hellboy enough to make him reckless enough to battle Prince Nuada without realising he is outmatched, setting in motion the final act. That crisis of conscience also sets up a terrific scene between Hellboy and Abe, drunkenly singing along to Can't Smile Without You. Sure, having tough hero characters crooning a Manilow song is nothing new (see also: Angel and his love of Mandy), but it still works beautifully. With this movie, you're never far away from a light moment that will leave a smile on your face, even if it never makes you laugh all that much. And yes, I'm aware that is the most faint-praise comment either, but I mean it sincerely. If you see the movie, you might see where I'm coming from.

The thing that definitively tipped me over into affection for the film, however, was what the astonishing design, from the costumes and sets to the menagerie of incredible creatures. Yes, this is what Del Toro does best, but what Hellboy II represents is Del Toro doing what he does best about 500 times more than he usually does. I cannot believe how much there is going on in the movie, with almost every scene filled with jaw-dropping detail, all of it rendered with such love and care that it is impossible not to be drawn in. Even better, the use of physical effects and practical make-up means the world is much more appealing than the thin 2D CGI worlds we usually see. Now, I love CGI and am excited to see it used properly, but the physical effects on display here (enhanced by some elegant CGI, of course) are utterly magnificent. You can tell those scenes have been crafted with pure love from everyone involved. I especially liked the faux-stop motion sequence in the opening fairy tale, which must have been CGI but looked hand-made. It's an aesthetically perfect sequence.


The rightly lauded Troll Market sequence is where I stopped being annoyed and began to fall in love with the movie. The cascade of fantastical imagery is overwhelming. When I buy the DVD (yes, it's a certainty), I'm hoping there will be a five hour documentary about the making of that scene. There are so many astonishing creature designs, flashing past the camera faster than the eye can comprehend, that I need to spend time picking out every detail. There is so much going on, much of it on set (as far as I can tell), that I cannot begin to figure out how the crew could have made it work, and that's before we get onto the subject of the $85m budget. How did Del Toro manage this wealth of imagery on that (relatively low) budget? Every other film I've seen this year, many of which are far more expensive, look pitiful next to this. Only The Fall (directed by... TARSEM!!!) stands a chance of being more ravishing, but I will have to wait until 3rd October to catch that (yes, it finally has a UK release date). I'm hoping that, next year, Hellboy II sweeps the technical Oscars. I certainly think it has Visual Effects, Make-Up, and Production Design sewn up.


Speaking of CGI, the best scene in the film comes right after the Troll Market sequence, with Hellboy battling a huge and beautifully realised forest god under the Brooklyn Bridge. I had spent the majority of the Troll Market scene trying to figure out how it would be possible for me to adequately express how breathtakingly beautiful and surprising the film had suddenly become, knowing that words could never hope to sum it up. It was just as Hellboy and his team leave the market that a shorthand way to describe it came to me; it's like a live-action Miyazaki movie. Seems I'm not the first person to make that leap; A. O. Scott said much the same thing here. The bizarre fairytale logic of Del Toro and Mignola's world was reminiscent of the unique but seemingly familiar rules that govern the worlds of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, though sadly Hellboy II's rather formulaic plot seems all the more disappointing considering the peculiar turns Miyazaki's movies take (at least to this Western mind).


That was okay, though. The forest god design evoked the forest spirit Daidarabocchi from Mononoke (just as the Tooth Fairies reminded me of a hostile version of Miyazaki's design for the Kodami tree spirits), and the battle between this enormous ethereal yet deadly green monster and Hellboy is already entertaining before the misguided and murderous Prince Nuada pricks our hero's conscience, playing off his fear of rejection by humanity, and his seemingly unstoppable loneliness. For the first time in the movie, Hellboy's actions have real weight. It's at that point that the movie becomes about his growing understanding of his untenable situation, torn between two worlds that don't welcome him. It's only fitting that he spends the next few scenes trying to get drunk, not realising that he is soon to find out that not fitting in is the least of his problems, if the beautifully realised Angel of Death is to be believed.


Hellboy II's wondrousness is so great that I'm strongly considering reappraising the comic and maybe even getting the second animated Hellboy DVD (even though the first was merely okay). It has made me hesitantly excited about The Hobbit, which I thought would be a flawed prequel to one of my favourite movie trilogies ever. As I said earlier, Del Toro's scripts are never as good as his visual flights of fancy, and so I'm hoping the two movies will be scripted by the killer team of Jackson, Walsh and Boyens, which would increase its chances of being super-awesome. In the meantime, if you're in the US, you should have seen this by now. If you're outside the US, the movie is being released internationally at a snail's pace. As soon as it lands on your shores, go see it immediately. Even if the narrative leaves you cold, and that exasperating pace jolts you back and forth like a bus with a faulty engine, those stunning visuals will make your eyes vibrate with joy. Hopefully the international box office is sufficient to get a third movie greenlit. I never thought I would want another Hellboy movie, but this flawed yet thrilling installment has changed my mind on that. When it is released properly, I look forward to watching it again, hopefully this time without the threat of violence from phone-wielding assholes.