STACK #121 Nov 2015

EXTRAS

LAST MONTH

visit www.stack.net.au

Focus on RICK ANDMORTY

STACK takes a look back at what you may have missed. By Zoë Radas

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.

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

Grand Piano

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

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.

NOT SEEN ON AUSTRALIAN TV U S P - 3 9 1

Yours on 6November at

FEBRUARY 2014 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifionline.com.au *WHILE STOCKS LAST

072

© 2014 Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Australia Pty Limited. All Rights Reserved.