Movie review by Dennis D. McDonald

The short film showpieced on this DVD is not Neil Gaiman’s (American Gods) best work. It is a fictionalized look at the artist John Bolton who in real life creates erotic paintings of nude female vampires. (Neil Gaiman also helped develop the English language version of Princess Mononoke.)

At one point Gaiman refers to the film as “practice” for work he hoped to do in Hollywood as a director. Maybe he’s serious. I guess the best thing I can say about this film is it is “entertainingly lightweight.”

The significantly more interesting part of this DVD is a series of filmed recordings of Gaiman reading and performing his works (short stories and poems) during an American tour to raise money for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Gaiman’s imagination and cleverness come through on these much more effectively than in the Bolton film, which I sadly found to be a bit sophomoric. But the quality of Gaiman’s writing definitely comes through on the other parts of this DVD.

This DVD is definitely worth a rent for Gaiman fans.

Review copyright (c) by Dennis D. McDonald