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[The Outfit]

The Outfit (2022)

A widowed tailor who prides himself on using traditional techniques, gets caught in the middle of an old school gang war. Over the course of the night he must make the Don's somewhat useless son look his best and hide multiple corpses as the bodycount increases.

Now, if you're thinking this sounds incredibly similar to dear old Jacob Sardini from The Taxidermist, you are not alone. Watching on Netflix, I had to pause to look and Google if the writers were a couple of Squaxx sailing just this side of a plagiarism lawsuit.

Overall pretty good and very atmospheric, almost channeling Rope in that every scene takes place within the three rooms of the tailor's studio.

I only watched it a few weeks ago too - I liked it a lot.  The gradual revelation of the complexity of the tailor's character and history was fascinating.

I hadn't thought of the Sardini connection, but now you say it... 
Though Jacob had to rely on a lot of dumb luck, and while the tailor in the film had to as well, his own wits played a huge role too.

No bother at all, it was more a response to Nxylas the Unpronounceable than anything you said.

Edit - though I will say, for the record,  I'm not a fan of April Fool's pranks or any other kind for that matter - the small ones like yours are harmless of course,  but I've had a couple of mischievous friends cause me huge amounts of anxiety or disappointment through elaborate hoaxes that nobody but the orchestrators found funny.

I thought the same.  I like that artists are given so much freedom to adapt Dredd's look - remember Frazer Irving's spherical helmets? - but I'm not pushed about this version.

 It might grow on me, though, and it's way better than Tom Carney's Stallone helmet and straggly beard, mind you. Or Frank Miller's thankfully sole attempt at Dredd.

Me too. I remember my late best mate texting to say he'd sent our admittedly shite sitcom script to the Father Ted writers*, and they wanted to meet us tu discuss it. I excitedly told my parents then began to plan my new high-flying life as a comedy writer, then found myself very close to tears when he reminded me what day it is.

Still, he's gone forever now, and I miss the fecker something rotten despite it all.

*this was before Linehan started acting the twazzock on Twitter, of course.

Yep, I was thinking of that alright. Great actor, awful script.

Two Scottish Roberts, now I think of it.

Last night's YouTube nostalgia watch was Cracker; specifically the episodes where Robert Carlyle is Albie the homicidal Hillsborough survivor.  Between Carlyle and Coltrane, here were two Scottish actors at the very top of their game. 

Not a bad prog.  Thistlebone wrapped up nicely, even if nothing spectacular happened - The whole story was more a series of connected creepy events than a cohesive plot, but it worked for me.

I liked Dredd, though was also a bit confused by Dredd's decision at the end.  Nice art but there was something very strange about it - it was kind of like the artist had never seen a Dredd strip before but someone read a few of them out to him. The Lawmaster's skinny wheels were particularly weird; it gave it the look of my very unimpressive 125cc Suzuki.

Rogue was a decent little tale but I like my Rogue strips morally ambiguous, rather than a white hats / black hats dynamic like this.  The whole idea that Southers never commit atrocities sounded like Rogue was drinking the Milli-com Kool-Aid.  Bagman had a pretty brave stab at it at the end of Cinnabar, though maybe that hadn't happened yet in the timeline.  I like Paul Marshall but I don't think he's ever bettered Firekind, and Rogue's torso and arms fit together a bit oddly.

I'll get back to the rest of the prog soon.

The first time I watched The Department, over half the film had run by the time I realised Matt Damon and Leonardo diCaprio were two different people.

I like Austin's portraits of Devlin - he brings out the bastard.

Now you mention it, that is an intrinsic part of Devlin's character that seems to have been lost a bit, and that I'd forgotten myself.  He truly is, as you say, a bastard - for all his airs and graces he's a violent sadist at heart.  Becoming a vampire didn't shake him all that much, as he was already the type who'd torture someone with a blowtorch to the face to get information. 

A DIY / Domesticated themed cover this week, Dredd looks like he's been doing a bit of painting the back drop and he's been using his big stick to stir the paint pot.

That backdrop definitely needs a second coat, too. 

Snidiness aside, I love that cover.  John McCrea is one of the old school now, and has never stopped developing his style, so spanner-festooned hats off to him.

Nah, pretty boring in all honesty.

(JBC, did you get the tickets to Stonehenge yet?  Know they're only one way and don't worry about luggage, so long as you've got your robes, you'll be fine ...)

Ooh, I can't wait. Is there going to be cake? I like cake.

A very quick review of the bits I read.

Dredd - I'm not really a fan of these 'Dredd-fights-a-scary-monster' strips.  I don't really see him as much of an action hero any more; more a very old copper and soldier who involves himself in politics.

Devlin was fine, though basically just a fight with wordy captions.  Did anyone else notice the stitching in Devlin's back pockets?

Harrower - I'm not crazy about Yeowell's modern style but I really like this strip.  Not sure why but it ticks a few boxes for me.  An otherwise familiar area turned into a bizarre post-apocalypse nightmare - I like it.  And good to see that Slush Puppy will still be sold at least up until World War 3.

The text stuff was interesting - Dan Abnett being a mate of Stewart Lee's was a pleasant surprise for me (see my other thread on this).  David Micheline, well, interesting to know there's been a creator droid who's been uncredited for decades.  Shame about the creations.

Warwick Fraser-Coombe's mixed-media thingy - I don't know what the feck it is, but I like it.  It's either MC1 or the Cursed Earth, or both, or neither.

Well feck me pink. I've got a bit addicted to Lee and Herring's old stuff so stuck on an old episode of Tiswas for a break from it. Twenty minutes in Sally reads out a joke from Stewart Lee from Solihull, who's trying to win an Ultravox album.  A little bit of research confirms it's very probably the same Stewart Lee. There's no escape.

And here he is again, in the pages of the latest Megazine.  He's a mate of Dan Abnett - who knew?  (Him, I suppose, and Dan Abnett.)

I've seen him do routines about his Hulk comics collection - little did I know that our Dabnett got him back into reading them.

Fair play.  I remember my Mam in the 80s pouring scorn on our Spectrum games, all of which she said were variations of the theme of 'little men running along shelves' (and in fairness, there were a lot of Jet Set Willy clones back then).

She's 80 in a few weeks and these days she's Candy-Crushing away with the best of them, along with many other phone games.