Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises

What do we want from a Superhero movie? The huge success of Marvels recent films seems to indicate that flat-out, wall-to-wall fun times is the order of business, with none of this brooding in the shadows nonsense cluttering up the mood. On the other hand, the success of the current Batman films seems to indicate that we want our superheroes bound to the real world, with none of this ridiculous over-the-top, punching giant space worm fantasy. And it's an interesting serendipity that the culmination of both of these visions are hitting cinema screens within a couple of months of each other, first with Joss Whedon's no-holds-barred quip-and-action-fest Avengers Assemble, and now Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy rounds off with The Dark Knight Rises. These are two films so different in outlook that their common words and pictures heritage is hard to fathom.

DVD Round Up July 2012

Well one of the perks (ha!) of breaking your Elbow and then flying long haul on the same month is that you get to watch a good few movies. So it's time for another round-up!

India!

Well, as some of you (and the chances are, if you reading this, you'll know) I've spent this past week on a Business Trip to Ahmedabad, India. I've been emailing around some thoughts to interested parties, but here they are, collected for wider amusement.

Games Review: Diablo 3

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I remember Diablo 2 very fondly -  a game I played a moderate amount on my own, but a hell of a lot in crowded LAN parties and over an earlier, less user-friendly incarnation of the internet. Not a complex game, really, but one that was great manic fun in company, its comparative simplicity allowing for some strange compulsive alchemy of destruction. But that was in another house, and besides, the Diablo is dead.

Except now we have a sequel, at the cutting edge of modern gaming, right?

Comics Review: Atomic Robo: The Ghost of Station X

Along with my increasing tendency to miss shows on TV, and catch up with them on box-sets, I've also long since stopped buying "floppy" comics and started getting collections of series that I like. This has three main advantages - the first is that I can exert some degree of budgetary control over what I buy, rather than just buying pretties in a comic shop every week. The second is that I actually re-read them, because pulling them off a shelf in an single volume is easier than digging out a pile of issues, although it's less kinethestically satisfying. The final reason is that I can pick up stuff on recommendation, which means that these days I read very little "Big Two" and a lot more small and indie-press stuff.

I've mentioned Atomic Robo before, and how wonderful it is, and the new trade is something I've been looking forward to for a while. It's also been billed here and there as "the darkest Atomic Robo story yet", which is an interesting line to take for a series so keen on being accessible and all-ages friendly. I can't deny that I'm sufficiently jaded on "dark" for anyone using the phrase to give me a slight chill.