Alan Moore's The Show.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Yeah it was great.

[Midas]

Anyone know where I can watch Show Pieces? Tried signing up to Shudder but AFAIK when logged in it just seems to be gone. Can't find it anywhere else...

[Tokyo van Ramming]

Anyone know where I can watch Show Pieces? Tried signing up to Shudder but AFAIK when logged in it just seems to be gone. Can't find it anywhere else...

It's £3.49 to rent on Apple TV or alternatively I have PM'd you.

[Pinball]

Please PM me too as I can't find this anywhere.

[Tokyo van Ramming]

Please PM me too as I can't find this anywhere.

Ok. My PMs are open if anyone else is in need.

[Pinball]

You are a star :-)

[Mister Six]

SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW AND POSSIBLY SHOW PIECES (although I haven't actually seen the latter)
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Watched The Show last night and as a very entertaining and funny diversion it worked fine. As a film, though, it... wasn't really a film, just a two-hour pilot for a TV show that may or may not come, complete with "Well, we've solved the immediate threat, but the greater danger remains!" ending.

As a result, the film is scattershot with wacky supporting characters who don't serve a huge amount of narrative purpose (and one, the online vigilante, who does absolutely nothing at all to aid the plot), and lots of hints and seemingly significant threads - the video game that's making kids kill themselves, the computer simulation talk, the painting of the oranges, the posters about a dream-eater - that don't go anywhere. Oh, and the film is obviously more concerned with all the weird shit than anything else, so when it builds the climactic confrontation around an Earthly Cockney villain who's been absent for most of the flick it feels like a weird diversion rather than the film's crescendo.

It also means that the film feels very thin and under-written for its two-hour runtime, rather than the grand, heavyweight cinematic tour de force you might expect from Alan "Watchmen/From Hell/Jerusalem" Moore.

That said, it is a lot of fun. The dialogue sparkles, the characters are all well-sketched and memorable, the odd stuff is very entertainingly so, and the two hours flit by. The cast are variable, but the core actors are all solid enough, and Moore does a decent turn as the moon-headed spectre haunting people's dreams.

I didn't watch Show Pieces, but it seems pretty obvious which bits were brought over from there. If you're interested in Show Pieces at all, I'd recommend watching then first, just because it sounds like the twist endings of those stories will (necessarily) be spoiled by this film.

So yeah, if you fancy watching something funny and idiosyncratic, this is well worth checking out, with the proviso that it's a part of a larger tapestry that might never see the light of day (although Moore has already written the first episode of the prospective TV continuation, apparently).

Not sure why the protagonist was a grown-up Dennis the Menace[nb]UK version, obviously.[/nb] or what Marc Warren was doing in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo rather than a bigger role. Secret backer? Mate of Alan Moore's? Add it to the mysteries.

[ImmaculateClump]

Yeah, I loved show pieces and this was disappointingly nowhere near as good.

[Noodle Lizard]

I finally got around to watching this, and then tracked down Show Pieces as a chaser.

SPOILERS

Erm ... I liked it, overall. It's not bad at all, but as someone else pointed out, it feels nowhere near as substantial as you'd expect from a writer like Moore. Now I think of it, a lot of Moore's graphic novels feature similar divergences into kind of irrelevant subplots that never really go anywhere, but I think it's more forgivable in that format. Perhaps because something like From Hell would take an average person a week or so to read with plenty of breathing room to reflect on it all, whereas in a two hour film designed to be watched in one sitting, you really do want everything to feel purposeful.

It might have been less of an issue if some of those sort of tangential sequences were really interesting in and of themselves, but bits like the singer who dresses like Hitler felt like something that would've been scrapped from Nathan Barley. Conversely, I really liked the Voodoo drug dealer, felt like there was something good in there, but then it was just gone for the rest of the film. Same with the flatmates; very well-observed characters (especially the stand-up, of whom I've met about a dozen) who were there for a lot of it but ultimately served no purpose. I didn't really like the kid detectives thing, felt like something out of a not-very-good sketch show. I'd also argue that having that kind of surrealism in the "waking" parts of the film made the eventual depiction of the "dream world" far less effective.

Moore himself was fantastic, I thought. It really surprised me how good that scene was, and I wish there had been more of that character (although they were probably wise not to let him outstay his welcome). Tom Burke was solid as the protagonist, but the reveal of him being Dennis The Menace was ... I dunno. I can't draw any interesting parallel between his depiction in this and the original character so it felt a bit worthless, which is disappointing given how well Moore has played with pre-existing characters before.

Watching Show Pieces afterwards ... I'm not sure if I would've liked it more if I'd seen it on its own merits, but I found what it was quite dull. Too blatantly Twin Peaksy (you can't use abundant red curtains in a "weird lounge" and get away with it), and the final bit where he's being tortured by Mr. Jolly went on forever. A couple of nice little moments or ideas in there, but ultimately a bit embarrassing and student filmy.

Them's my takes. I might change them. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing more from this universe, but I get the impression that it hadn't all been properly thought through.

[Mister Six]

I was mildly astonished to learn that the cast from this aren't all amateurs. I think it shows how important a good director is to getting quality performances out of some people. It was only Moxie from Auf Wiedersehen Pet who really sold it. Well, and Alan Moore, but Moore had the advantage of understanding the exact tone of the thing, whereas the cast all seemed to be floundering to a greater or lesser extent.