Neil Gaiman and Sin City

Three posts in a day to make up for the shocking lack of updates in the last month or so!

Last night Crip and I went to see Neil Gaiman do a book reading/Q&A/book signing that was being held at the uni. The only Gaiman book I've ever read is Good Omens, which he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett (of Discworld novels fame). But it seemed like a good opportunity, and well, it was free.

And I have to say, I'm so glad I went! Gaiman was a fantastic speaker - engaging, funny, and just the right balance between strange anecdotes (the disintegrating muppet was particularly good) and detail about what he's been up to. The quote of the night however came at the very end, when his agent/assistant/MC person was wrapping up the talk and remarked that when Terry Pratchett was here last November he had said that Canberra was probably aboriginal for 'Avant Garde City'. Gaiman quickly responded with 'I thought it was aboriginal for Milton Keynes'. Classic, classic.

Anyway, you can read what Gaiman himself thought of the event here on his blog. In case, you know, you're dying to know.

After Crip got his copy of Good Omens signed and I got my ANU student diary signed (I actually do own a copy of his book American Gods, but it's in Launceston and I haven't read it) we went into Civic to see Sin City.

First off, let me say that this is easily the most violent movie I have ever seen. It might be stylised, it might be slightly 'comicy' in nature, but it's still over-the-top, blood everywhere, limbs flying violent. But don't let that put you off seeing it! Unlike anything I've ever seen, and something I'm unlikely to ever re-watch, it's a fantastic movie. It's beautiful to look at (even the blood, when it was flying around, was rather stunning in a freaky kind of way), and the use of black and white with the occasional feature picked out in colour was wonderfully done. The dialogue was consistently atrocious, but was certainly in keeping with the comic book feel I suppose. Great performances from all involved - even the female actresses managed to do something with their almost uniformly 2-dimensional characters.

So yeah, Sin City is cool. Just be prepared for a lot of violence!