IZ239

The latest issue of Interzone (#239, March-April) includes my 'Laser Fodder' column of DVD & blu-ray reviews.

Here's the line-up, with ratings:

The Shrine (3/10)
We Need To Talk About Kevin (5/10)
Straw Dogs - remake (4/10)
Take Shelter (6/10)
ID:A (5/10)
The Revenant (7/10)
Mardock Scramble: The First Compression (7/10)

HULK

My book-length critical study about Ang Lee's movie HULK (2003), is due to be published this July by Telos.

Here's a blurb:

From its 1962 comicbook origins in The Incredible Hulk by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, director Ang Lee’s classic movie Hulk (2003), updates and re-invents the story of how scientist Bruce Banner is transformed into a giant rage monster, and becomes a new antihero for the 21st century. This book reviews the movie’s narrative complexity and its varied genre elements, which include science fiction, tragic drama, action thriller, doomed romance, and a modern fairytale with mythological references, energised by an artistically innovative editing style, and realised by groundbreaking visual effects. 

As a neurotic ‘puny human’ changes into the unstoppable ‘Angry Man’, Hulk offers a study of dysfunctional family relationships, and monster-movie rampages with tank-busting, helicopter-crashing mayhem in ‘hulkgasm’ adventures, that results in a final confrontation of cosmic proportions. A unique aesthetic spectacle, and extraordinary makeover for Hollywood blockbuster cinema, Hulk is the greatest screen adaptation of a comicbook and it rediscovers the enduring legacy of a green-skinned ‘superhero’ without a costume.

Ordering details here: Telos - HULK.