Scoville Units Unite » Buffy http://agraham.org/blog reviews, rants and random chilli ratings Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:37:36 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc Let the right one in http://agraham.org/blog/2009/05/13/let-the-right-one-in/ http://agraham.org/blog/2009/05/13/let-the-right-one-in/#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 12:04:03 +0000 Alan G http://agraham.org/blog/?p=364 Let the right one in is a Swedish vampire movie which has just been released in the UK. I had been interested in it since I read about it late last year and finally had the chance to see it when it was showing at DCA.

Unusually for a vampire movie the vampire and main character are both pre-teens. The dialogue was sparse with most of the characters feelings being expressed through their actions, the way they touched each other, glances, tapping on walls to communicate, little notes left – it is surprisingly sweet. No doubt this is part of the reason Hollywood is already remaking it – what do you mean there’s no witty sidekick or party scene!.

That was mostly the romance side of it, the vampire lore was excellent. I have been getting sick of vampire movies which have to be different by introducing new rules or breaking conventional ones. Sunlight was a killer, blood was required, a minion watched over the vampire during the day (who slept in a bath covered in layers of thick material with the windows covered), cats were not happy, those bitten were infected.

The best of all was the title piece – what happens when you are not invited in – excellent and unexpected interpretation. I had been so used to invisible barriers from watching Buffy.

Really worth the wait, I especially enjoyed it as between Genna and I being ill over the past month it’s been a while since we touched any non-English films in the unwatched pile. Neither of us fancied reading loads whilst watching. Even though the film was close to two hours long the dialogue was so sparse that it wasn’t too much of a strain to ease back into the habit.

The other amusing part of the night was that on the other side of me from Genna was another couple. The woman kept jumping and gasping at all the semi-shocking bits, including a hit in the face for Oskar. It couldn’t have been more cliché if they had stood up clapping and cheering at the end. I had never experienced that before suppose I am so desensitised to horror and horror tropes* that I had forgotten some people do this.

* Whilst watching two horrors last week I kept going now or fake when the trope or twist on the trope was away to be used. Some of them were so appalling and cliché.

]]> http://agraham.org/blog/2009/05/13/let-the-right-one-in/feed/ 2 Random Reads http://agraham.org/blog/2008/12/18/random-reads/ http://agraham.org/blog/2008/12/18/random-reads/#comments Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:08:20 +0000 Alan G http://agraham.org/blog/?p=110 Last week I finally managed to pick up the much delayed issue of Buffy the comic, it was quite good. The cover art was amazing. I also grabbed Solomon Kane and the Underworld 2 parter, both of which were quite enjoyable although I think the Underworld story was covered in the second movie.

I also managed to read through a short Buffy novel Doomsday Deck. I picked it up for about a quid and it was quite enjoyable. I am always a bit weary of TV tie-in books but they are easy to pick up and carry on from, so perfect for reading on the bus early in the morning. Unlike the TV show though you already know that character A is not going to die and character B manages to escape without injury, especially ones set before the current time line in the universe. Ho-hum, it wasted some time and was a change.

I don’t know what my reading list is next year but Tayside Recyclers 10p specials have yielded me quite a varied bunch, I think for comedy’s sake I have to start the new year with Kilroy Silks autobiography from the 80s. It’s going to be baaaaaad.

]]> http://agraham.org/blog/2008/12/18/random-reads/feed/ 0 New magazine day! http://agraham.org/blog/2008/11/27/new-magazine-day/ http://agraham.org/blog/2008/11/27/new-magazine-day/#comments Thu, 27 Nov 2008 21:21:38 +0000 Alan G http://agraham.org/blog/?p=75 It’s that time of the month again: SciFi Now Thursday!

I started getting this about issue 6 (now 22) and it’s really good. The movie reviews are focused on SciFi/Fantasy/Horror/World Cinema type stuff so really covers most of my main movie interests. So far I haven’t noticed any signs of the reviews being biased by ads, they’ve been quite accurate for the most part. Quite the opposite of bought by adverts actually, they did a huge exclusive preview spread drooling over 30 Days of Night and then slated it in the review the next issue.

Today’s other new release is Viz. After really going down hill for about 8 months the last 4 or 5 issues have been superb. Last issues Profanisaurus was excellent.

The other release of this week which I won’t actually get for another fortnight is Buffy Season 8: Issue 19. The concluding part of the Fray arc of the Buffy comics looks to be good and after being hit by the curse of Fray and delayed so long it better bloody be.

I had never been a big comic fan (He-Man when I was young excluded) but Buffy Season 8 really sparked my interest. I have been getting Buffy, Angel, Spike, Serenity and a few other random TV related comics randomly. I obviously picked up the Watchmen and from one of the Angel staff got Everybody’s Dead which is a really silly/cool Zombie short series. I got Conan for a while then dropped but am enjoying Solomon Kane. Other random pick-ups have been X-Files and Lost Boys, I noticed there is an Underworld series coming out so I may pick that up to see what it’s like.

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