Colditz: "The Traitor"

It is 7 November 1972, and time for another episode of Colditz.

After several escape attempts in a row are easily foiled, it becomes clear there is a traitor somewhere among the prisoner's ranks. It turns out to be a Polish officer, who is immediately court-martialled and sentenced to death - unless Colonel Preston (Jack Henley) and the British Catholic chaplain (Patrick Troughton) can convince the Polish officers otherwise.

Asides from a failed escape attempt in the opening scenes, "The Traitor" keeps its focus solely inside Colditz and on the titular traitor that had helped to destroy so much of the prisoners' careful work. The hunt for the traitor's identity takes much less time than one might imagine, leaving the bulk of the episode to issues of forgiveness, honour and personal responsibility. As always it is superbly performed, particularly by Jack Henley and Patrick Troughton, who take up the bulk of the episode's focus.

Please Vote For Me (2007)

Three rivals stand for election. Politics are being discussed in corridors and washrooms. Dirty tricks are being planned, and campaign strategies sorted out. The competition is fierce and brutal. In a formal debate, one candidate hammers another so fiercely that she bursts into tears and runs from the room. Over-sensitive? Not particularly: all three candidates are eight years old.

Please Vote for Me is a riveting documentary that charts the election of a class monitor in a Chinese primary school. The students have been encouraged to engage in an election campaign as a lesson in modern democracy. Three candidates have been chosen – Luo Lei, Xu Xiaofei and Cheng Cheng – and there varying efforts to win the respect and admiration of their classmates forms the core of this unique gem of a film. It forms part of a series of political documentaries originally broadcast for the BBC's Why Democracy project. This particular film's funding comes from South Africa and Denmark, although its director Weijun Chen is Chinese.

Three (2016)

Dr Tong Qian (Zhao Wei) is an overworked neurosurgeon struggling to compose herself after a surgery goes terribly wrong. Before she can leave the hospital, the police bring in the violent gangster Shun (Wallace Chung). He has been shot in the head, but miraculously remains alive and conscious. Tong wants to operate immediately to save Shun's life. Police Inspector Chan (Louis Koo) wants to interrogate Shun first. Shun bizarrely refuses medical treatment, and instead seems set on escape - but how?

Three is the latest crime thriller from Hong Kong's masterful director Johnnie To. It is set entirely inside a hospital ward, although we hear of plot developments occurring outside throughout the film. It primarily follows three key characters - a surgeon, a criminal, and a police officer - as their lives cross over and interrelate. Everything in the film builds to a noisy, chaotic climax - but is the build-up any good, and is that climax worth the wait?

The Angriest: June 2016 in review

Another edition of the Pull List review column topped the list at The Angriest in June. In this case 22 June part 2 took the honours, with reviews of The Autumnlands (really, go read this comic), Doctor Strange, Darth Vader and Usagi Yojimbo.

Other popular posts this month included reviews of the excellent Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Darmok", and the significantly less excellent Terminator: Genisys.

This month I went a bit TV show crazy, particularly in regards to Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 5 is so good - and Colditz. It is Colditz that has impressed me the most: I had heard of the series for years but had never watched it before, and it is outstanding dramatic television, particularly considering it was made in 1972.

In June 2016 The Angriest featured reviews of two recent films (The Conjuring 2 and The 5th Wave) and nine older films, as well as 27 TV episodes, three anime episodes, 45 comic books, one graphic novel and six videogames. A full index of June 2016 blog posts is included below the cut.

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

Paranormal Activity is a hugely successful, lengthy horror film franchise that has almost entirely passed me by. I watched the original film back when it was released onto home video, already well-inflated by popular acclaim and commercial buzz. I found it engaging enough, although terribly back-loaded. It is a film about a demonic presence haunting a young couple, told entirely via hand-held camcorders and security cameras. For about two-thirds of the film it is something of a chore: an interminable experience rather close to being forced to watch someone's home movies. When it finally got going it was tremendously effective and creepy, but I did question whether the payoff at the end was worth the work it took to get there.

The world has moved faster than I have, and with six sequels been and gone it seemed as good a time as any to try and sample them. Paranormal Activity 2 presents another house and another couple - this one with a teenage daughter and an infant son. It offers pretty much the same story: something invisible and evil is haunting their house, and we see the situation turn frightening via camcorders and security cameras.

The Pull List: 29 June 2016

Let's talk about Spider-Man. Since its relaunch five issues ago it has focused on Miles Morales, who was the Spider-Man of Marvel's Ultimate Universe before they destroyed it as part of their Secret War event. I have a lot of affection for Miles. He is distinctive, goodhearted, fallible and constantly out of his depth. He's been written by Brian Michael Bendis ever since Bendis created the character, and he has benefited enormously from Bendis' keen ear for dialogue and characterisation. Miles has also received some outstanding artwork as well, with this current run being illustrated by Ultimate Spider-Man favourite Sara Pichelli.

Miles Morales has a problem though, and it is a problem shared by many of his Marvel Comics stablemates. It is event miniseries. They come along every few months, and the majority of Marvel's titles slavishly tie into them, and they throw up, switch and change around the status quo every time. More often than not they lead to half of the regular monthlies being cancelled and replaced with new editions. It's incredibly frustrating, because it not only interrupts the momentum of books like Spider-Man it often closes off intriguing story possibilities. Comic books are fighting a constant war of attrition: new titles are published every week, and old titles as a rule lose readers every month. On the one hand constantly rejigging and relaunching books seems like a smart idea, because it is constantly giving new readers an opportunity to jump onboard. At the same time it is also giving existing readers constantly excuses to jump off. This sense of what I'll call "volume fatigue" has already led to me dropping Thor. I'll probably catch up some day via collected editions. I'm pretty close to dropping Spider-Man as well, because while this issue was entertaining - Black Cat has Miles kidnapped, while Ganke further befriends the X-Men's Goldball - it ends with a proud announcement that next issue drops everything to tie into Civil War II.

I read superhero comics because I adore serialised storytelling. The more Marvel disrupts and interferes with that serial narrative, the less engaged with the book I become. It's a shame. This is a really entertaining book when Marvel aren't interrupting it. (4/5)

Marvel. Spider-Man #5. Written by Brian Michael Bendis. Art by Sara Pichelli.

Under the cut: Darth Vader, 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank, Jade Street Protection Services, 3 Devils, and X-O Manowar.

Cutie and the Boxer (2013)

Ushio Shinohara is an 80 year-old Japanese artist living in New York. He has made his reputation on the back of a prolonged series of abstract paintings that he creates by dipping a pair of boxing gloves into paint and then furiously punching the canvas. His wife of 40 years, Noriko Shinohara, is also an artist. In this fascinating documentary, director Zachary Heinzerling follows the Shinoharas around in the lead-up to a joint exhibition of their works.

Cutie and the Boxer is a great documentary for a couple of reasons. The first is that Heinzerling has found an exceptional pair of artists upon which to focus his attention. The Shinoharas are fascinating to watch. Ushio is brash, chaotic and easily distracted. Noriko is calm, patient and visibly long-suffering against her husband's whims and self-obsessed fancies. Even before their art is explored, they are excellent documentary subjects. A couple for four decades, they have visibly and by their own admission been imperfect spouses and parents. Of course when the documentary focuses on each individual's art and artistic process, another layer of intriguing material is introduced. Their respective works are poles apart, and yet one clearly works as a reaction to the other.

Where the documentary really excels, however, is in the way it presents itself as one kind of story and then gradually shifts over time to be about something else altogether.

Samurai Flamenco: "Capture Samumenco!"

It is 14 November 2013, and time for another episode of Samurai Flamenco.

With a huge reward out for anybody willing to unmask Samurai Flamenco, Masayoshi finds himself in an increasingly desperate situation. Thankfully scientist Jun Harazuka is on the case to provide Samurai Flamenco with the superhero technology he requires.

It has close to 18 months since I last reviewed an episode of Samurai Flamenco, such is my lax attitude to watching anime. Thanks to a DVD release by Australian distributor Madman, however, it has suddenly become a lot more convenient to watch. A quick recap of the series: Masayoshi Hazama is a young male model and aspiring actor who is such a fan of Japan's Power Rangers-style superhero shows that he has put on a costume, called himself Samurai Flamenco, and has started fighting small-scale crime on the streets of Tokyo. It's a decision that has already gained him a sudden level of celebrity, a sidekick (Flamenco Girl) and now a bounty for him to be publicly unmasked. It is sort of a Japanese animated take on Mark Millar's Kick Ass, only less distastefully violent.