STACK Magazine November Issue 121

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RICK ANDMORTY
EXTRAS LAST MONTH
Adult Swim has given us some of the
most random and excellent shows out:
Bob’s Burgers, Aqua Teen Hunger Force,
Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, The Mighty
Boosh, Tim and Eric Awesome Show ,
Great Job!, Robot Chicken and so on
and so forth. Now they’ve released
the first season of Rick and Morty, a
charming chunk of offbeat animation
which balances family issues with
intergalactic adventures. Rick is an old,
alcoholic scientist who often ropes his
grandson Morty into helping him battle
aliens, travel through time, and build
bizarre contraptions intended to better
their world.The rest of the family are
usually blissfully unaware of Rick and
Morty’s exploits, and instead bicker
with one another over dinner or chores.
Cute and strange and heaps of fun.
STACK takes a look back at what you may have missed. By Zoë Radas
a real Sin City vibe to it, so maybe
Cassidy’s got herself a franchise...
we’ll see where the undeniably cult
ambiance of the thing takes her.
Did you love The Talented Mr Ripley (1999)?
It was originally a novel written by one of
the oddest figures in literature (and there’s
no shortage of eccentric writers out there):
Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995). Famously,
she pretty much hated everyone, and once
went to a party with a head of lettuce and a
hundred snails in her handbag because she
preferred the company of animals to idiots.
Another of her complex, beautifully intriguing
novels has been adapted: TheTwo Faces of
January, starring Kirsten Dunst and Viggo
Mortensen. Like Ripley, it’s got the same
veneer of shift dresses and nice hats amongst
polite Mediterranean holiday society, hiding
scandalous and bloodied truths underneath.
Michael Winterbottom really hooked a live
one when he decided to send Steve Coogan
and Rob Brydon off on a semi-scripted tour
of Northern English restaurants in 2010.
The television series, The Trip, did so well
that it was edited into a feature film and has
prompted a sequel, TheTrip to Italy, in which
FEBRUARY 2014 JB Hi-Fi 072
I ' m no concert pianist, but
I’ve certainly performed on
the ol’ ivories several times
in front of an audience. And let me
tell you: it requires every little
skerrick of noodle power you’ve got
concentrated into your fingers, but
also a certain sort of emotional
trance so that you can feel the
music and give it life. Is that too
languid a description for you? All I’m
saying is we should all be extremely admiring
of Elijah Wood’s ability to perform an
‘unplayable’ concerto (with orchestra, in an
enormous, packed concert hall) while also
desperately texting a hidden killer who has a
sniper rifle pointed at his face. Even though the
practicalities of Grand Piano are absurd, it
actually doesn’t really take away from this
extremely stylish film. And the premise is kind
of fun – if Elijah plays a wrong note, he’s dead.
If he tries to call for help (presumably by
mouthing ‘HELP’ towards the conductor), he’s
dead. It’s Phone Booth meets Shine , and it’s
wonderfully suspenseful.
It’s about time we had a fresh new gothic
vista to adore, seeing as Underworld is
getting a bit long in the tooth. (Not Kate
Beckinsale though – she remains absolutely
vital and awesome.) Enter The Scribbler, a
new psychological thriller based on a graphic
novel about a young woman named Suki
(Katie Cassidy) who has Multiple Personality
Disorder. She’s committed to a godawful
mental institution and has to work out why all
the patients are dying weird deaths, before the
same happens to her. The Scribbler has
the boys do the same thing but, obviously,
in Italy. Don’t miss these two nerdy misfits
noshing it up.
And in other nerdy misfit news, there’s been
a lot of talk about Frank – but the consensus
seems to be that Michael Fassbender is
brilliant whether you can see his face or not.
He plays a kooky musician who wears a big
paper-mache head, based on the absurdist
Frank Sidebottom persona of comedian
Chris Sievey. We’re into it.
Grand Piano
© 2014 Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Australia Pty Limited. All Rights Reserved.
* Yours on 6November at
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