The Unbelievable Truth

Adrienne Shelly is a depressed teenager waiting for the end of the world, Robert Burke is a mechanic with a history. Also starring Edie Falco from before The Sopranos, written and directed by Hal Hartley.

Hartley's debut film has the Hartley touch right from the beginning. No establishing shots and quirky dialogues. A small universe where the same people keep bumping into each other. Can you have faith in other people? People are only as good as the deals they make and keep. Hartley namedrops some of his heroes here: Molière and Victor Hugo. I believe the words ozone layer is mentioned in all of Hartley's three first films. It's the ozone layer triology? Why did Adrienne Shelly die so young and Paris Hilton is still alive, that's what I want to know. Hartley is an unfortunate name, because you can't say that Robert Burke is playing the typical Hartleyian hero. Or can you?

The quality of my dvd is pretty bad. The image is too bright. Strangely, some sequences from the film is repeated in the bonus Hartley interview, and there they look much better. Bit of a bummer.

Watching The Detectives

I now got 100 pages begun - they're in various states of being lettered, pencilled, half finished and finished. That leaves around 45-50 pages left. I hope to have the thing finished in May for publication in French next fall and in English in spring, 13.

I like the books of Raymond Chandler and have been wanting to do something within the detective genre. Originally I had thought about doing a story in the US in the fourties, but found it might be better to have some distance, so it's rather set today in France. Also, it's more of a playful take on the genre, it's not completely straight, so maybe something a bit closer to Truffaut's Stolen Kisses. That's what I hope, anyway. We'll see how that turns out when the book is done. And the title? The title is two words, the first word is: Lost

Mission Impossible

Tom Cruise is a secret agent, some people die and things blow up. Directed by Brian De Palma.

There's a new Mission Impossible film on the way. I'll probably go see it. I enjoyed the third one, even if Abrams obviously comes from tv and is used to commercial breaks every ten minutes. There was a lot of action, but not really much tension. For an example of tension, see the CIA sequence in this film. Possibly, kids today will find it slow and boring, but anyway. The second film... Actually, let's not talk about the second film. Let's pretend it never happened. The first film is clearly a "one for them" film for De Palma, it's less personal, but it's a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. The opening scene, though, with the tv image showing something that is a setup is very much De Palma. Apparently Cruise and the producer didn't allow De Palma to do any split screens. Oh, well... Tom Cruise is kind of a selfconfident prick in his role, but he's a moviestar, I'll admit. The helicopter in the tunnel sequence at the end is pretty ridiculous, but when the theme tune kicks in it's hard not to sit there watching with a big grin on your face.

Jason + Lewis

Illustration done with monsieur Lewis Trondheim for an interview in M, a Norwegian comic book, from 2007.

The Victors

We follow a group of soldiers in Europe during World War 2. Starring George Peppard, George Hamilton, Jeanne Moreau, Melina Mercouri, Peter Fonda, Romy Schneider, Albert Finney and Eli Wallach, directed by Carl Foreman.

I discovered this film by accident late one night on a French tv channel. I had missed most of the film, only getting the last half hour or so, but its bleakness made me want to watch the whole thing. Now, the dvd I have is 146 minutes, and apparently the film originaly was 175 minutes, so that's half an hour missing. A complete version would have been nice, thank you. It's actually a very interesting film, an anti war film in the style of the more famous Paths of Glory, and quite episodic: Characters disappear for a long time, then re-appear, without us knowing what has happened to them in the meantime. There are several memorable moments in the film. It shows an American deserter being executed, white American soldiers beating up black soldiers in a bar, even a soldier shooting a dog! Most memorable is maybe the scene of Wallach in the hospital, his face ruined. I don't understand why this film has fallen through the cracks, being so little known.

Alex Schomburg

I love these covers by Alex Schomburg, especially the science fiction one, where the woman has a 1940s hairdo. There's a collection of his illustrations, called The Thrilling Comic Book Cover Art of Alex Schomburg, published by Vanguard.

Half finished page

This is a page from the detective story. For the moment I have a lot of these, where the characters are more or less drawn but the background is still missing. This is usually how I work: the characters first, and then I'll go outside and find a street or whatever is needed and draw that in with pencil and then go back home and ink it. For you aspiring cartoonists out there, this is not a method that is recommended! Rather draw the setting first and then place the characters into that, okay?