A couple of movies I’d like to see

Paste Magazine reports that director Terry Gilliam may return to filming The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, his take on the Miguel Cervantes’ classic. Several years ago I saw the great documentary Lost in La Mancha (at the Brattle Theatre of course!), the equally hillarious and painful to watch depiction of how this film turned into a fiasco that had to be abandoned. All indications though it that should the film ever be completed it would be a great movie.

Gilliam has a long history of making low-budget films that became big hits and blockbuster-budget films that flopped. He has a particular vision and style that makes anything he directs at least enjoyable (with one exception). He started out as the animator/American guy on Monty Python’s Flying Circus and co-directed their first feature film and directed a humorous short preceding their last movie. His best work on his own of the movies I’ve seen would be Brazil, The Fisher King, and Twelve Monkeys. I hope he gets this project done.

Closer to home, the Jamaica Plain Gazette has a story on the documentary Jamaica Plain Spoken. According to the artice the movie features residents of JP answering a set of questions, and is developed to show Jamaica Plain as a microcosm of American society. As grandiose as that claim may sound, I think they have a point. JP is an amazingly diverse and wonderful place and everyday I consider myself lucky to live here.

Book Review: Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughn and Niko Henrichom

Pride of Baghdad (2006) by Brian K. Vaughn and Niko Henrichom is a graphic novel based on a true story of four lions escaping the Baghdad Zoo after an American bombing raid. Unfortunately the premise is better than the execution. Mind you, the illustration for this book are gorgeous in their detail, even in the grim and gory parts. In my little experience with graphic novels it seems that more time spent on the art the less the story is fleshed out in an interesting way. That seems to be the case here as the anthropomorphic big cats head out on their adventure into somewhat contrived situations and corny dialog. It’s not as bad as all that, it’s a great story, I just think it could be better.  I don’t want to give things away but the most moving part for  is simply the words imposed over the last two page spreads.