Memories of plasma

The Lovely Bones director Peter Jackson “should forswear sugar next time and reintroduce himself to plasma, brain matter, puke, shit and intestines; all the elements that gave his earlier, sicker, funnier films their kick”, writes John Patterson of the Guardian, who includes Jackson’s films Bad Taste and Brain Dead as examples of “vomit-eating aliens” and “rabid grannies”. “He could use a return to those economies of scale today: as with all great directors, they prompted greater inventiveness and creativity from him in his early works. Jackson has now spent a decade making gargantuan movies but, sadly, The Lovely Bones does not mark his return to modesty and control.” Patterson once wondered “how the near-decade he spent on The Lord of the Rings cycle would change Jackson’s work, whether it would impart megalomania or wisdom to his work. After all, their creation did also involve Jackson almost singlehandedly reinventing the national film industry of New Zealand, which is the kind of thing that might go to a guy’s head.”