Miskatonic Film School

Am I the Only One?

2008-08-10T23:04:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else stopped frequenting Newsarama since they gave their site a facelift? The previous, clean and easily navigable design was user-friendly and to the point. The new design is just busy, with the images distracting from the headlines to the extent that I can no longer tell if there's an article I want to read just by scanning the main page. And if I do sift through the site with greater concentration, I find that their articles are much more Hollywood-oriented and a lot less comics oriented. It's like they're turning into Wizard Magazine.

If I wanted movie and TV news, I'll read imdb or Aint It Cool. I want comics news, damn it, and their site used to be my favorite source. Now it's Comic Book Resources for me... which, in all fairness, was always a close second.

Is that just me? Am I the only one?

I'm a True Believer

2008-08-10T19:44:00.001-07:00

At some workplaces, a guy on his last day gets a cake. At cooler workplaces, he gets a stripper. Me?

I get Stan "The Fucking MAN" Lee.

Crappy cell phone photo, but still... Thanks, Barnes & Noble.

Earth X is Love

2008-08-10T01:41:00.000-07:00

My last day at the bookstore ended a few hours ago. Weird to end a chapter in my life, but even more weird to consider 9 months working at a bookstore an entire chapter. The new job equals awesome, although I am still adjusting to having a regular weekly schedule and the stress of having my actions at work actually matter.

I was discussing Alex Ross & Jim Krueger's outstanding Earth X trilogy today with a friend and the rarely-viewed short film Ross included in a low-print run hardcover edition came up. I was bemoaning the fact that I had never seen the thing when, suddenly, out of the blue, something occurred to me...

Youtube.

Earth X is one of the greatest single accomplishments ever to come out of Marvel comics, tying together a mythology created haphazardly over decades by writers and artists with no master plan into a single narrative that, suddenly and brilliantly, makes everything seem to have been crafted for a reason. And that reason is Earth X. All the plot holes, all the out of character moments suddenly come crashing together into perfect sense in a tale that, on its own merits, stands as one of the most involving and dramatic storylines in all of Marvel canon. Universe X is a worthy follow-up, as is most of Paradise X (although its ending sure does seem rushed), but Earth X in particular is one of those rare books that I make a point of re-reading every year or two just to remind myself of how good comics, and superhero comics and Marvel comics in particular can be. Just remembering the scene where Peter Parker teaches his daughter the importance of quipping in the face of impending doom still gets me kind of misty-eyed (although that scene was from Universe X - bite me).

But man, this video is actually pretty lame. It's interesting to see Ross's models in costume, but to put them together in such a melodramatic way sure brings to the foreground all the less-than-flattering touches he smoothes over in his artwork. From the fake beards to the awkward facial expressions, but mostly from the bad music to the lack of any sense of Earth X's wonderful narrative (the video's just a series of models in costume standing around), this hardly seems worth including. I'd love to see a documentary with this material - seeing Ross's artistic process, how he puts together first-hand reference material for out of this world characters - but to put it together like some kind of trailer does a disservice to the entire material. A couple of the shots are kind of neat, though.

I don't want to harp on - Ross himself says the project was ill-conceived - but still, it's an odd let down after years of being interested in seeing this thing. I thought Ross was just being too hard on himself, but I'll give him credit... he's a fair self-critic. Still, now that we're getting Marvel animated movies - and pretty good ones too - I think it's time someone gave Earth X the DC's New Frontier treatment. As long as they can have the running time they deserve this time (did New Frontier feel choppy or what?).

SUPER NERVOUS SUNDAY REVIEWS!

2008-08-03T23:05:00.000-07:00

I start my new job tomorrow morning. Normally, this calls for little more than a clean shirt and a shave, but for the first time in about four years I really want to excel at my new position, so I am actually really nervous. To expel this nervous energy, I am now blogging.

MOVIE REVIEWS:

ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968)

I rewatched Rosemary's Baby this week for the first time since high school. I wasn't planning to, but the lovely girl who returns my affections had never seen it and so it was rented. My initial viewing was met with a mixed reaction. While obviously a quality production, the film left me cold at the age of 16. At the age of 26, however, I found myself incredibly affected.

Rosemary's Baby is a classic, and you certainly don't need yet another film critic (not that I define myself as such) telling you the same. Critics have a tendency to build certain films up too much. The Exorcist, for example, is a film that a lot of people claim is "the scariest movie ever made." But to modern audiences, "scary" is frequently equated with "gory," or at least "shocking." While the crucifix scene is still pretty fucked up, the actual horror in the film comes from the mundane, particularly the mother's plight of knowing her child is sick, but finding herself incapable of helping her in any tangible way.

Rosemary's Baby, unlike The Exorcist, has no shocking moments of violence for modern audiences to latch on to. At its heart, it's simply the story of a woman who's pregnancy is... wrong. She isn't gaining weight. She's in inexplicable pain. And all the people who should be in her corner - her husband, her doctor - refuse to listen to her. It's like they want her to suffer, and she just can't figure out why. By the time she comes to the conclusion that there is a very real plot against her, she can't get anyone to see her side of the scenario. "But there are plots against people, aren't there?" she asks a disbelieving doctor, to which even his objective mindset has to agree. Yes, there are, but most of us have never actually seen one.

Pregnancy is scary without the threat of cultists. A person's body goes through unusual changes, and every little thing can seem to threaten the health of not just the conscious adult, but an innocent unborn child as well. Seeing Mia Farrow wasting away when she should be at her most vital is painful to watch, but in the best way possible. An adult would have to be completely heartless not to die a little inside with every passing scene. It's emotionally devastating in a way that few horror films even attempt in this day and age, and a must watch if you haven't, or were a little too young to appreciate it the first time out.

NEVER BACK DOWN (2008)

"Who knew?" is the question I asked myself after watching Never Back Down, a blink-and-you-missed-it release from earlier this year. Little more than The Karate Kid with mixed-martial arts as a plot synopsis, the resulting film is a clever take on the familiar American fight genre. New kid in town, has something to prove (mostly to himself), gets his ass handed to him by some jerk dating the girl he likes, takes martial arts classes from a wise master with a troubled past of his own, eventually learns to control his anger and loses his desire for a rematch, but eventually finds himself in the ring against his will. Been there, done that, and too cool to wear the t-shirt, right?

But it's the smaller moments that make Never Back Down worth watching. The screenwriter, Chris Hauty (whose only other IMDb credit is Homeward Bound 2: Lost in San Francisco), knows his stuff. His script hits all the familiar beats that resonate on an emotional level, but when he finds one that has become a cliche, he hits it from the side. The moment where the hero forgives the girl who has wronged him because she too has a troubled past? Well, he's smart enough to know that she's using her backstory as an excuse, forcing her to actually earn his trust through her actions. That works. I'm also fond of the final fight, an underground tournament where we know our hero and our villain will duke it out in the final round, only for their names to be called in the first elimination round. It's simple change, but so logical that it borders on profound. The odds would are equally good that in a tournament they'd fight early on. But by the time it registers, they pull a switcheroo. The hero's generic name was actually called as a result of typo, and we're going to have to wait a while longer. Clever. Not ingenious, but clever, and this kind of storytelling keeps the audience on their toes in what should be well-trod territory.

Never Back Down is not the best movie of the year; not by a long shot. But it may turn out to be the most surprising. I popped the DVD in expecting a one-star movie at best, and ejected it having watched a solid and entertaining three-star film instead. Well worth a rental, believe you me.

VICTORY!!!

2008-08-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

I just got a new job starting Monday, and I really wanted this one too. It's back in the film industry, doing something I actually care about. Only one song will do:

MAKE IT HAPPEN TRAILER

2008-07-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

Save the Last Dance, have you met Coyote Ugly? Coyote Ugly, Save the Last Dance? I mean, seriously, the try-outs sequence looks exactly like Save the Last Dance. It's spooky.

I love a good dance movie, although they're few and far between. One of the hardest elements in a dance movie trailer, however, is somehow making giving dancing dramatic weight beyond, well, getting freaky. This trailer tries twice, as near as I can tell. First, it emphasizes the difficulty of bookkeeping. "The other bookkeeper? Lasted about week." Damnnnnnnn... Sounds hard.

The second comes when Mary Elizabeth Winstead tries out a second time (!) for the big... dance... thing that she wants. Seriously, that guy's all like, "Bitch, make an appointment!" And she's all like, "I took three buses and a train to get here! I'm hijacking this motherfucking stage and by God you will watch my pelvic thrust!"

Here's hoping the movie ends with the snooty guy saying, "You have certainly learned a lot of new dance moves, but you are apparently a total diva so I'm afraid we will once again have to pass on your application and have your car towed." "But I don't have a car anymore!" "We'll wait."

Another recent favorite dance trailer was for Step it Up 2: The Streets, which for all its various degrees of popping and locking all boils down to one line of dialogue, 1:29 into the video:

"You realize with those competitions you are risking everything!"

Everything? I almost paid good, or at least unnecessary amounts of money just find out what exactly she's risking. Everything? Do the losers get shot in the head? If she dances for "urban" kids will she be kicked out of school? Will she forever lose the ability to become pregnant? Wow, everything. That's a lot.

ODDS AND ENDS

2008-07-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

1. Haven't blogged in approximately FOREVER and if anyone actually read this I might even apologize. Sigh...

2. Been spending a lot of time with my new girlfriend (GASP!), who is totally awesome and I adore her. So there's an excuse right there for ignoring my legions of non-existent readers.

3. Didn't go to Comic Con AGAIN this year. A friend of mine said he'd try to pick up some stuff for me. I asked him to pick up CHOCOLATE, the new action film from the guys who made ONG-BAK and TOM YUNG GOONG, and L, the spin-off film from DEATH NOTE. Hopefully I'll get them.

4. That said, I COMPLETELY forgot to ask him to pick up the new SCOTT PILGRIM merch they have available this year, and I don't have his number since he's a casual work friend so there's no way in hell I'm getting any. It's literally eating me up inside.

(I would have settled for these damned buttons. Oh well...)

5. THE DARK KNIGHT was built up pretty badly by the surprising number of people I know who got to see it early, so my expectations were pretty high. These expectations were thoroughly trounced when I finally saw the finished product. There may be a couple of loose ends here and there (Batman basically abandons the Joker in a room full of his friends and associates to rescue Rachel early on, which feels like a mistake to me), but these are the definition of nitpicks. One of the best movies I've seen in years, although WALL-E comes damned close.

6. Work is KILLING me, Smalls. Usually when I'm stuck at a job I find boring I spend most of the time coming up with screenplay ideas, but now I'm hitting 2 or 3 good ones a day, then talking myself out of writing them by the time I get home because I'm neurotic like that. That said, I've got a couple new reasonably low-budget horror ideas in the last few weeks that I may try to just pump out in the coming months to add to my portfolio.

(Expectations? Exceeded.)

7. Reading the new ZOT! trade paperback by Scott McCloud. UNDERSTANDING COMICS practically changed my life when I first read it back in high school, but despite that I always wondered who this Scott McCloud guy was and what made him so qualified to define comics for a generation. Now that I'm reading ZOT! I am convinced that he's the real deal... someone who can DO, not just teach. Check out the trade paperback if you can, it's worth the read. And if you can find it in a back issue bin, read the Superman mini-series he wrote a few years ago called SUPERMAN: STRENGTH. It stands alongside some of Grant Morrison's finer issues of ALL-STAR SUPERMAN as my favorite Supes stories of all time.

(Maybe he's an asshole, but at least in this one he's a likable asshole.)

8. Finally got around to watching PAYBACK: STRAIGHT UP, Brian Helgeland's director's cut of that Mel Gibson revenge movie from the late 90's, and it's a much better film. They undid that atrocious color-timing that took a well-shot movie and made it look, well, blue. REALLY blue. It was pretty oppressive and helped ruin my enjoyment of the film the first time around. Also, the score, the tone and the ending are vastly improved. I know I'm a little late on this, but if you hadn't heard of it or were simply uninterested before, I'd recommend checking it out.

(There's an entire book to be written about Erig Bogosian's performance in UNDER SIEGE 2, but I sure as hell don't want to write it...)

9. I've been reading Vern's SEAGALOGY, and it's a pretty entertaining examination of the action star's oeuvre. B-Movies are frequently disregarded in the critical community as being beneath their scholarly attention, and while Vern may not have proved them wrong, he does provide a nice counterpoint.

10. In related news, a critical studies book I myself have been ruminating for some time may finally start getting typed out in the next few months. I don't want to say too much about it on the off-chance it doesn't get written (as is likely to happen with me), but I've been pretty frustrated at my lack of output lately and trying something different like an actual BOOK-book may be just the ticket. I'm debating starting a new website to feature the material I come up with to help promote the book, but again, this is all probably a long way away.

11. A screenplay I beated out earlier this week went from being a fairly clever idea for a low-budget revenge movie and became this pretentious rumination on loss and redemption. As a result, all the fun got ripped out of the idea and I'm probably going to scrap it altogether, as there's no point in making an action movie that will depress an audience more than IN THE BEDROOM.

12. A similar project got stalled when a sexually charged horror movie born from my own frustration with the opposite sex lost all of its appeal to me when I finally found romance again with a member of the opposite sex. All that anger I had reserved for the page got smooched out of me, and while it's still a really good idea and I am likely to return to it someday, I'm just not in the mood anymore right now.

(Great book. Maybe I'll finish it one day.)

13. UNFINISHED BOOK #102398 - HOMICIDE: A YEAR ON THE KILLING STREETS by David Simon. I loved THE WIRE and almost meant to read this thing, so I picked it up from work and fell in love with it... then got distracted and forgot to read it for a while. I may not get back to it anytime soon, which bugs me. I also picked up Shirley Jackson's WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, which I'm excited about because I love her work and it's short enough that I may actually finish this one.

(I have judged this book by it's cover, and it is very, very good.)

14. Had my first run-in with "image retention" on my plasma-screen TV. I just about had a heart attack. Luckily, the problem was relatively minor and I was actually able to fix it(!) using the "SCROLL BAR" function on the TV's menu screen. It took about an hour longer than it was supposed to, but at least I got it to work. Thanks for thinking up a solution to that little SNAFU, Panasonic.

(I approve.)

15. Loving the t-shirts coming out of the ASTROBASEGO website for the new VENTURE BROS. season on Adult Swim. Well, most of them. I ordered an ORDER OF THE TRIAD shirt and that ugly grey one with the brown letters that says DEAN! on it. Fans of the show may remember that shirt being mentioned on one of the commentary tracks for the DVD releases. I thought they were just spitballing, but I'm glad they remembered it because it was and still is a pretty funny idea. Now if they'd just arrive in the damned mail...

16. I figured MOTHER OF TEARS would be in theaters for more than a week, so I missed my opportunity to see it on the big screen. As an Argento fan who has never been able to see his work in the theater, I'm pretty danged bummed about it. I'm still hoping the New Beverly will have a double-feature with INFERNO or SUSPIRIA sometime soon so I can fix that problem, however.

17. Everyone's talking about the WATCHMEN trailer, and while it does look a lot like the book, I do have some reservations, but also some potential for forgiveness. My initial concern arose when I recognized the SMASHING PUMPKINS song from the trailer. Did anyone else catch that it's from the BATMAN & ROBIN soundtrack, and was used in pretty much every commercial for that film? Is that really what Zach Snyder wants to evoke here? And the Joel Schumacher-esque quality of Ozymandias' uniform is pretty disturbing, although almost thematically appropriate given that he's the hero who sold out and made himself into an action figure. If that's where they're going with it, I can cut them some slack.

TO ALL STANDARD DVD USERS

2008-03-31T17:59:00.000-07:00

I was once among you, living and breathing in blissful ignorance of the true power of my DVD player... until this weekend.

Having come into some money recently, I decided that I would finally find myself a nice HDTV and settle down. I had been enjoying a standard tube-based television, a gift from a close friend who moved a few years ago and didn't need it anymore. The screen was pleasantly large, and my DVDs appeared just fine via a standard red/white/yellow video/audio cable. Over the past few years, however, standard wear-and-tear began to appear. The power button on the front of the set broke, but the remote control was all we ever used and worked fine, so I ignored this as a cosmetic deficiency and, hey, the price was still right. More annoying were the speakers, which had begun to blow out creating a noticeable but ignorable hiss whenever the TV was set to a reasonable volume.

Then I got myself an HDTV, and the difference is remarkable. DVD is nothing when it isn't connected via component cables - this is a simple fact. I had no idea the image from my seven year old DVD player could look so good. So it's nice to know that even though a PS3 is in my near future, I don't actually have to replace my already massive DVD collection (which was annoying enough when I had to convert from VHS to DVD in the first place).

So, standard DVD player looking great. Took me about a day before I realized that I hadn't reset my DVD player to display anamorphic (I thought the formatting looked off). The real joy has come from my XBOX 360, now displaying at 1080i. HOLY FLURKING SHNIT. Bioshock is now the prettiest thing I have ever seen that wasn't a woman.

As a test, I downloaded episode 2.01 of Lost off of XBOX Live and borrowed a friend's DVD to compare the image between standard, already impressive anamorphic DVD and HD displays. The reduction in digital noise and deep, rich blacks are the biggest eye-grabbers. It's a marked improvement, even at only 720p on a set capable of 1080p, and cements my need to get a Blu-Ray player soon.

I was going to wait, but God bless the Best Buy Rewards system. After buying my TV, I checked how many points I was awarded (accumulate a certain amount of points and receive a coupon for X dollars off). Lo and behold, I'm getting a $250 coupon. That PS3 is practically payed off already. This in addition to the ridiculously low price I received on the TV (about $600-750 off comparable sets elsewhere), and Best Buy's policy of matching and improving upon price differences between local competitors (knocking off an additional $360), and boy, can you get a good deal on these things.

To make a long story short (too late), HDTV is completely worth it. There are a lot of fantastic deals you can find for yourself with a just an hour or two of research online, and the difference in quality is intrinsically obvious with even your existing DVD player. I knew I wanted one, but I didn't fully realize how much until I got one home.

FINAL THOUGHTS (FOR ANYONE MAKING THE CONVERSION):

1. DON'T FORGET TO ADJUST THE DISPLAY MODE ON YOUR DVD PLAYER TO ANAMORPHIC. It's easy to fix, and easy to forget about if you've had a standard 4:3 television for years and never had to fiddle with it. While you're at it, don't forget to adjust the settings on any videogame settings as well. They'll automatically look better already, but they'll look at least twice as good using their maximum output.

2. CUSTOMIZE YOUR VIDEO DISPLAY YOURSELF. When I purchased my HDTV, I asked about the video displays at the store. They're automatically set to factory default setting that pumps up the contrast and the color to a degree that is literally painful to watch when you look at it for too long. When I asked about configuration, the salesperson offered a service in which a professional comes to your home and adjusts them for you... for 300 dollars extra. I didn't pay for this extra, but was slightly concerned when I got home that I wouldn't be able to get the display to look right. WRONG. There are several settings available automatically on my set, and it only took the slightest tweaking to get the image to look as natural as can be.

3. GET AS MANY COMPONENT/HDMI INPUTS AS POSSIBLE. Trust me, once you see the difference, they're all you'll want to use.

If I discover any other extras or defects I'll update later, but if anyone reads this who doesn't think there's a difference in video quality between your standard TV and HDTV, you genuinely don't know what you're talking about.

Wow.

Dreamcasting 1.01 - The Fantastic Four

2008-03-24T16:46:00.000-07:00

I'm avoiding work on this comic book script, and not the one I'm supposed to be working on either. So that's twice as much procrastination as usual! Anyway, I think dreamcasting is always kind of fun, so here's the first installment.

According to Chris Evans, it looks like Fantastic Four 3 is out of the question now, and since Marvel has no qualms about restarting even the most recent of franchises I figure someone over there has to be thinking about doing FF correctly. I think we can all agree that whether you hated or tolerated Tim Story's two "Fantastic" films, neither of them were anywhere near as fantastic as they could have been.

The rules? No actors can return from the original films, even if they were good the first time around (sorry Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis). Also, no actors who have starred in prominent roles in other superhero movies (sorry Christian Bale and Tobey Maguire). And since this is an ensemble cast, no huge stars can be present, as they would either distract from the team dynamic or become too cost-prohibitive to cast en masse.

Let the dreamcasting begin!

REED RICHARDS = PAUL BETTANY

Paul Bettany has played a number of intellectuals already, is considered reasonably attractive though never quite the leading man, making him kind of perfect. And he's lanky enough to be called "Stretch" before his powers even kick in. Although older than Hollywood would perhaps like to make Mister Fantastic, the character was kind of an old stick-in-the-mud when he appeared, and was popular enough to sell more issues in a single month than most Hollywood movies can sell tickets these days. So there has to be something to the "old charm."

SUSAN STORM = CLAIRE DANES

Beautiful, intelligent and a plausible blonde, Claire Danes fits Susan Storm to a "t." She's also about 8 years younger than Paul Bettany, which once you reach your late twenties is just enough age difference to be a plot point, but not a creepy one. She's got her action movie chops (the under-rated Terminator 3), but most importantly she has a strong, confident on-screen presence that will help prevent her character from being the token, damsel-in-distress woman that basically happened to Jessica Alba in the first two movies.

JOHNNY STORM = BEN FOSTER

Slightly younger than Claire Danes, check. Same ethnicity so they actually look like they could be siblings? Check. Blonde? Check. Bad-ass rising star who should have been nominated for an Oscar for 3:10 to Yuma? Check. Foster's going to be one of the hottest commodities within the next few years if talent is any indication, so the time is now to snatch him up to play the flighty, flamboyant and flambe Johnny Storm. And yeah, he already played Angel in X-Men 3... for about two minutes. And pretty much every human being has strived to forget that movie anyway, so I think the slate's fairly clean.

BEN GRIMM = ADAM BALDWIN

Adam Baldwin redefined "rough on the outside, cuddly on the inside" in Joss Whedon's Firefly, and has continued that career path on the surprisingly entertaining series Chuck. Sure, we've never seen him attempt a genuine Yancy Street accent, but he's a professional. Hell, he's worked with Stanley Kubrick. He has it in him.

ALICIA MASTERS = ZOOEY DESCHANEL

Alicia Masters is lovable, pure and simple. Naturally beautiful (that is, I don't think she spends too much time in front of a mirror), but she has to have a quality that makes everyone immediately recognize what a wonderful person she is. It is this quality, after all, that eventually saves the damned planet. Can't think of anyone better than Zooey Deschanel, the adorable star of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Tin Man. Though perhaps a bigger name than the role suggests, she's still not getting any major lead roles at the moment, so instead of distracting the audience with her smaller role, she should instead make audiences see her as a more intrinsic part of the core dynamic.

VICTOR VON DOOM = KARL URBAN

The trick with casting Victor Von Doom is that, as much as you'd want to cast Gary Oldman, Viggo Mortensen, or any of those other wonderful actors with a bigger-than-life presence, he still needs to be the same age as Reed Richards. They were, after all, in college together. So who, then, has a dark charisma, and preferably a career of being an also-ran despite an enormous amount of skill to help the actor stay in character? Karl Urban, so charismatic in The Two Towers, yet so incapable of finding a decent starring role (Doom, The Pathfinder), is perfect. And we already know that he's comfortable wearing a full suit of armor.

HARVEY RUPERT ELDER = RAY WINSTONE

A minor villain, but when the Fantastic Four reveal themselves to the public for the first time, they certainly can't A) defeat Doctor Doom, because the FF can never really defeat him anyway, and to do so in the first act would utterly diminish him as a franchise villain, or B) fight some chump, or faceless group of terrorists. The Mole Man's appearance, tied in directly with the Negative Zone portal built by Richards (we're using the Ultimate Origin, incidentally), as a wrangler of inter-dimensional monsters kicks the action off with a bang, and allows Ray Winstone to go nuts as the underlord of Manhattan.

ANNIHILUS = GARY OLDMAN

At the end of Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom can't be defeated or his presence over the sequels won't hold any weight. So instead, he has to be set back. The best way to do this is to use a villain that even Doom wants to defeat, forcing an uneasy alliance between our heroes and their greatest nemesis. After a perceived "first strike" by the Fantastic Four against the Negative Zone, Annihilus invades Earth in retaliation. And the only way to top a well-written Doctor Doom is to have the top villain in Hollywood, Gary Oldman, play his greatest threat.

What do you think, sirs?

Meet Snake-Eyes in What is Apparently a Dark Alley

2008-03-23T23:41:00.000-07:00

My response to the new stills of Snake-Eyes in Stephen Sommers' G.I. Joe?

Well, at least Snake-Eyes looks right. It's nice to see that filmmakers have realized that it's important to see costumed live-action characters in interesting lighting when introducing them to an existing fanbase. Remember those X-Men pics that everyone hated, with flat lighting, flat backgrounds, that made some eventually really sweet costumes look like utter crap?

Is THIS the face of Scott Pilgrim???

2008-03-19T01:08:00.000-07:00

(Hmmmm...)

A few years ago, now, Edgar Wright attached himself to direct a feature film adaptation of Scott Pilgrim. This is, quite frankly, the most perfect filmmaker/comic book pairing in the history of such things. And as a matter of course, I will state matter-of-factly that Bryan Lee O'Malley's Canadian manga stands as one of the crowning achievements in comics to date, so I'm not a neutral party here.

Now, according the Hollywood Reporter, Juno's Michael Cera is in negotiations to star as the titular character.

(The greatest line of dialogue in comics history. Possibly the greatest page in comics history. Easily the greatest use of swearing in the history of the English language. For reals.)

Not sure I see it. He's talented, sure, but can he pull off the awkward, yet all-encompassing charm? Can he play bass, but not very well? And can he kick massive amounts of ass?

Looks like we have a "wait and see" on our hands, folks. I'm not sold yet, but if Edgar Wright can see it, then I'll give him the benefit of the doubt...

For now.

Anthony Minghella, I Mourn Thee with Mixed Feelings

2008-03-18T23:31:00.000-07:00

Tragedy struck this week when Anthony Minghella, the Academy Award-Winning director of The English Patient, died at the age of 54. Too soon... Too soon...

With any remembrance, the tendency is to focus on all of the positive things about the person in question. Of course, I didn't actually know Anthony Minghella in any particular way aside from his movies. But even that was a rocky affair, with highs and lows, and I feel that any serious discourse on his passing should take the bad with the good. And Anthony Minghella was a lot of both, to me.

A minor SPOILER ALERT for each film discussed below.

TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY (1990)

(The DVD cover for Truly, Madly, Deeply - surely one of the worst DVD covers of all time. Try and guess what the hell is happening to Juliet Stevenson up there. Is she laughing? Did she just see a rat in her kitchen? Did she just spot Justin Timberlake? Damned if I know...)

I first met Anthony Minghella when I found a VHS copy of Truly, Madly, Deeply at the 99 cent store in Pasadena. I had heard of the film previously via my copy of "The Entertainment Weekly Guide to the Greatest Movies Ever Made," an indispensable volume that, though immediately dated (like all "Best of" books truly are), has never steered me wrong in over ten years. So, seeing little harm in spending 99 of my mother's cents I convinced her to purchase me the British weepy in question. My mother didn't bat an eye at my choice, as she knew me very well.

Though at the time relatively unfamiliar with the concept of genuine loss, I was nevertheless struck by the film's quiet, peaceful examination of the subject. Anthony Minghella walked me through the stages of grieving along with his protagonist, played by an immensely likable and plausibly attractive actress named Juliet Stevenson. The man she loved has just passed away, you see, but she can't move on. To cope, she imagines that he still looks out for her in all the little ways that the truly, madly, deeply in love do. He reminds her to brush her teeth the right way, and walk safely in the streets at night.

It's a tender dementia, both understandable and forgivable, but one day she finds out that she wasn't really crazy after all. He's waiting for her at her apartment, the same as always, and they resume their relationship. It's not as if nothing has happened. He tells her a bit about the afterlife, though always remaining vague, and occasionally has his living-impaired friends over to watch videos. The problem is that he can't ever seem to leave the apartment, and no one else ever discovers that he's back.

There's an reasonable interpretation that the entire thing is in Nina's head, but being fanciful as a rule I prefer to think otherwise. Nina discovers by continuing her relationship that perhaps she was wearing rose-colored glasses since his passing. Their love, while genuine and sweet, was not perfect and perhaps was not meant to last in the first place. By living as if he were still alive, she manages to move on with her life and eventually meet someone new... someone who perhaps isn't better, but at least equally sweet and perfect for her new outlook on life.

Her lover is played by Alan Rickman, in one of the few roles where he doesn't play either a villain or someone who at least acts as such. As far as I'm concerned, it's the greatest role the actor ever had. He is at turns charming and carelessly flawed, and to see his character for even the briefest of periods is to understand Nina's affection. To know see him over longer periods, however, we begin to understand him as an individual - as needy and imperfect as even the finest among us.

The film is understated to the point of being almost plain, but the effect is one of the most believable worlds captured in cinema from the last 30 years. It is, by far, my favorite Anthony Minghella film.

MR. WONDERFUL (1993)

(Matt Dillon in a movie I actually hate far more than Mr. Wonderful. That's damning with faint praise, though...)

But then, Minghella followed it with this. Trite Hollywood romantic mish-mash of the highest (read: lowest) order. Matt Dillon can't get a loan on a business because his alimony payments are bleeding him dry, so he tries to get his ex-wife married, and stat. It's one of those concepts that sounds cute on paper, but even the most casual of examinations reveals it to be a hollow premise for a film, and ultimately a rather mean-spirited one that depends on a protagonist trying to control a former loved one's life in a comparatively disgusting way. I haven't seen this movie since it came out, and frankly it left such a bad taste in my mouth - not just because of the plot, but because of the overall blase demeanor of the filmmaking as a whole - that I have no desire to ever see it again. Strike 1.

THE ENGLISH PATIENT (1996)

(The only scene anyone actually remembers from The English Patient, and that's only because of the parody from the Academy Awards.)

And I'll never understand this film's popularity. Actually, "popularity" should be viewed as a relative term here, because despite a surprise Oscar sweep, it never made much money or found too significant an audience. But this film always manages to polarize those viewers who do make the effort to watch it. Some are enraptured by it, but everyone else hates its ever-loving guts.

I'm in the latter camp, incidentally. There's quality work to be found here in individual scenes and performances, but none of them - none of them - are in any way involved with the A-plot, in which an army nurse cares for a wounded man with no name and a mysterious past. Of course, we discover his past throughout the course of the film, only to discover at the end (MAJOR SPOILER) that he left his one true love to die in a cave. Sure, he tried to get back there, at the cost of betraying his own country, but yeah, that's what we're left with.

Ouch, right? That would be a truly tragic ending if we felt a sense of urgency as he struggled to get back to her, but we don't. It's pretty unemotional stuff at that point. In fact, despite a few overly choreographed love scenes we never really feel the connection between these two people at the heart of The English Patient, resulting in a fairly painful experience made occasionally tolerable by supporting players Naveen Andrews (TV's Lost) and Willem Dafoe, in roles so engaging that you quickly begin to wonder why the movie wasn't about these characters instead. Tying everything together is Juliette Binoche in compassionate performance as a character with ultimately quite little to actually do.

Back when I worked at the website The Tuesday Night Movie Club, we would force the loser of the annual Oscar pool to watch and then review The English Patient as punishment. I never lost that particular pool, but never heard the end of it from the poor bastards who did. This is a painful film, both saccharine and heartless, and after Mr. Wonderful and this I had just about written off Anthony Minghella as a director.

THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY (1999)

(Remember the good times...)

Luckily for me, Minghella followed his Academy Award-winning opus with The Talented Mr. Ripley, an adaptation of the first in Patricia Highsmith's remarkable series of Ripley tales. Highsmith's Ripley is an impenetrable man who uses everyone around him in cunning, cruel and outright sociopathic ways to achieve whatever his ends are at a given time. It's captivating to watch him work, and the suspense frequently derives from hoping he gets caught, instead of the other way around.

Minghella, however, took the source material and made a film about why Tom Ripley does what it is that he does. In one of Matt Damon's very best performances, Ripley constantly finds himself sacrificing what he truly desires in order to fulfill what he thinks he wants. He manipulates and consumes lives for the illusion of happiness - to have others see him as successful and desirable - but sacrifices relationships with the people he truly cares about in order to do so. Frequently through murder. The great tragedy comes not from this dilemma, but in a fatal flaw in his very character. Ripley is too damaged and incomplete a person for anyone to truly like him for who he really is, whatever that means in his case. So the murder and con games, and the fleeting moments of vague satisfaction that they bring, are as happy as he will ever get.

This emphasis on character takes what would in most hands be a quick, pot-boilerish film noir to a running time of 2 hours and 39 minutes, but the plot is crisp enough and the suspense unbearable enough that it doesn't feel like your time has been wasted. It's a remarkable film that had me thinking that Minghella as a director is completely bi-polar, and only capable of making films that I love dearly or utterly despise.

As a side note, 2002 brought us another adaptation of one of Highsmith's Ripley novels, with John Malkovich taking over as the lead. Ripley's Game takes a less empathetic look at the character, but Malkovich's performance provides all of the nuance needed to find a human being inside the monster. It's one of the best films ever made that never saw theatrical release, and I recommend it with absolute confidence that you'll thank me for it.

COLD MOUNTAIN (2003)

(I couldn't find any pictures of the albino acrobat sharpshooter, but let's try to take this movie seriously anyway, all right?)

Minghella's last film (that I saw, at any rate), proved me wrong on that count. Cold Mountain is an over-long, melodramatic mess of a movie, and like The English Patient, the various asides and subplots are on the whole far more interesting than the love story they are supposed to support. Jude Law loves Nicole Kidman. Jude Law goes to war. The war is hell, and the initial battle sequence is one of the best scenes Minghella ever shot, so Jude Law leaves to walk home.

The problem is that home is apparently over 50 billion miles away, leading to a frustrating number of montages showing Jude walking, and walking, and walking while some amorphous singer drones over and over again, "I'm going to FI-ind my true LO-ove." Look, we get it, okay? But along the way, he encounters a large number of characters who - with generally only one or two scenes each - are fascinating and dramatic enough that you forget that, once again, you really don't care about Minghella's protagonists. Phillip Seymoure Hoffman, Giovanni Ribisi, Cillian Murphy and Jena Malone still come vividly to mind as I recall this film, and all in remarkably positive ways.

Less positive are Nicole Kidman and Butterfly McQueen's story, which we cut back to at regular intervals. At least, I think that was Butterfly McQueen. When she's in whiteface she sure looks a lot like Renee Zellweger, doesn't she? Zellweger's performance in a role clearly designed for a racial stereotype inexplicably won an Oscar that year. And for the record, I like Renee Zellweger, but man, Minghella was trapped in another period of storytelling at unusual interviews throughout this film. All of the female driven melodrama, complete with a far-too-broad for any modern movie villain, all feel like they were ripped directly from a D.W. Griffith film. And the villain's trusty albino crackshot acrobat sidekick? Where exactly does that come from?

My on-again, off-again relationship with Anthony Minghella probably stops here, with a mixed-bag of a film that alternates between the director's finest work and his worst, and while it certainly is a tragedy that he died far, far too young, it almost seems like an appropriate capper. Minghella gave me characters and films that both enlightened and infuriated me, frequently within moments of each other. While I prefer to remember the good times, in order to move on I need to also come to terms with the bad. Anthony Minghella taught me that, and I'm thankful for it.

WALLACE AND GROMIT: A Matter of Loaf and Death

2008-03-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

Everyone with a heart in their chests has a soft spot for Wallace and Gromit. The animated duo have starred in a trio of classic shorts, and one classic feature film, bringing Aardman Animation's touching, understated and human sense of whimsy to appreciative audiences around the world. After the tragic fire that recently decimated Aardman's studio, along with most of their Wallace and Gromit models, I was worried that it might be some time before we saw more W&G, but...

Empire announced the following:

"Wallace and Gromit have a brand new bakery business, ‘Top Bun’. Their whole house has been converted into a granary with a ‘Wallace patent-pending’ old-fashioned windmill on the roof. Although business is booming, Gromit finds himself having to run the whole operation single-handedly as Wallace is ‘dough-eyed’ in love with the beautiful Piella Bakewell, former star of the Bake-O-Lite bread commercials.

But Gromit is not so enamored of Piella - her ‘woman’s touch’ at 62 West Wallaby Street puts the dog’s nose out of joint. What’s more, a dozen local bakers have disappeared in recent months and Gromit is worried that Wallace may be next. Gromit turns sleuth and the duo soon find themselves drawn into a sinister murder mystery - it’s ‘A Matter Of Loaf And Death’."

Okay, that's cute, but isn't that the same plot as A Close Shave? Wallace and Gromit have a new business, but Wallace gets distracted by a new, pretty clearly doomed lady love who is involved in committing crimes? Anyone? Anyone? The Holly-Smoot Tariff Act which, anyone? Anyone? Raised or lowered...?

Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends thoughts

2008-03-16T00:40:00.000-07:00

So writing about Spectacular Spider-Man got me thinking about this classic series from the 1980s. In watching the old intro on Youtube, two things came to mind that always bugged me.

1. Peter's apartment weirds me out. Pulling on a football trophy causes supercomputers underneath Pete's couch to appear? How does Aunt May not notice this? Has she never dusted that trophy? And how long until she realizes that he nerdy nephew never played a game of football in his life? And how do the people living beneath them feel about having a super-computer on their ceiling every day, except on those rare instances when there's a couch instead?

2. Yellow is not Dr. Doom's color.

I'm famous (again and again)

2008-03-16T00:27:00.000-07:00

To those who don't know:

I was recently interviewed for both Viral on Veoh and Jonathan London's Geekscape podcasts about Bus Pirates. On Geekscape, I also got to go all Tarantino-like and review some movies, comics and videogames. Here are the links, hope you enjoy them, blah blah...

VIRAL ON VEOH:

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v6234985a7Fk56je?searchId=2381827141820972017&rank=6

GEEKSCAPE:

http://www.pod.geekscape.net/Geekscape065.m4v - Right click and Download and watch it in Video!!

http://www.pod.geekscape.net/Geekscape065.mp3 - Right click and Download the magic in Audio!!

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=211000351 - Click for iTunes video and all the action!!

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=212023196 - Click for some iTunes audio, baby!!

Da Fug? Spectacular Spider-Man is good?!

2008-03-16T00:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't see this one coming...

If you haven't checked out Spectacular Spider-Man on "Kids WB" (and I really hate writing that), then you should. It looks like Marvel finally has a decent animated series to their credit.

And before you argue, shut up. Have you actually tried watching X-Men: The Animated Series or the 1990's Fox Spider-Man series lately? I too have rose-colored glasses hiding in a drawer somewhere that I used to put on when talking about these shows, then I actually tried watching a few episodes. The writing was "eh" at best - good for Saturday morning, pale in comparison to the Bruce Timm-iverse. And the character models were so heavily detailed that the actual animation quality suffered as a result. Way too hard to make those characters move when each one always has to look "just so."

Spectacular, on the other hand, is shaping up quite nicely after a slightly rocky start. The art style is slightly mangafied. In fact, I'd venture far enough to say that the creators are probably big "Scott Pilgrim" fans judging from the character models. The result is a fluid, youthful feel that's very inviting once you get used to it.

From a story perspective, they're actually creating a very cohesive universe between episodes. Character arcs continue as the show progresses, and they're dovetailing a lot of characters' origins into plausible narratives that are faithful to the comics without being beholden to them. Granted, a few of the costumes leave a little to be desired. Electro in particular is something of a disappointment, but each villain also has a fair amount of pathos to them, keeping the show from being a "villain of the week" series and instead creating done-in-one plots with people you actually care about.

That said, it's a little annoying that villains keep "naming themselves" after something someone called them off-handedly only once. I wouldn't have noticed if it didn't happen twice in only three episodes.

Still, a list of things I appreciate:

1. Surprisingly infectious new Spider-Man theme song. Weird the first time you hear it, but it genuinely grows on you.

2. Gwen Stacy is one of the main characters. Apparently Mary Jane is showing up later, but the show's creators decided to use Gwen even though she hasn't been a series regular in any major Spidey series in years/decades.

3. The series really shows Spider-Man screwing up Peter Parker's life. The old series had Peter being late for dates and such, but in this one there are consequences. Peter has a curfew as a result of Spider-Man related activities, and so frequently has to call Aunt May in the middle of fighting for his life. Peter keeps trying to get pictures of Spider-Man to sell to the Bugle, but they always suck for one reason or another (blurry, or a window reflects the flash making it unusable, etc.) And the one time he does get a good picture, his byline proves that he was out taking pictures when he should have been helping as Peter Parker, making him lose his job. This is good stuff, people.

4. Armpit webs. Haven't seen 'em in action before, to the best of my knowledge. My roommate didn't even know Spider-Man suppose to have those.

And some flaws:

1. The naming thing is a little lame, as discussed above.

2. Every episode ends with an establishing shot, in which a spider web is super-imposed over the sky. Retro, but distractingly so.

3. Making all of the origins cohesive leads to some distracting coincidences. Two monsters in two weeks, both stemming from Doctor Connors' lab? Might be time to pack up shop, Doc. That place is cursed.

Still, even these problems are all a result of over-thinking rather than under-thinking. It is weird that people would name themselves something villainous, so they try to explain it away. And it's almost more of a coincidence if all of these failed scientific experiments are completely UNconnected, so I'll let that slide too. And at least the spider-horizon is a cute idea in theory.

Once again, however, I have to say that this is officially a TV show worth watching for Spider-fans and casual viewers alike, and I went in thoroughly expecting to hate its ever-loving guts too.

Go Spidey, Go!

WE ARE HAVING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES... PLEASE STAND BY!

2008-03-06T01:49:00.000-08:00

Stay tuned for more comics reviews and unrequested opinions very soon!

Comics Reviews: Week of 11-07-07

2007-11-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

In what I intend to be an ongoing series, here are my comics reviews for titles that shipped on November 7th, 2007, in alphabetical order.

A few notes going in:

A) I only review comics that I either buy or read in their entirety. Since it's coming out of my own pocket, this means that I'm really only reviewing comics that I'm interested in. If I seem to have a general tendency towards positive reviews, then that's why. I'd review a lot more books, good, bad and in between, if I had the money to spend on them.

B) I'm not reviewing every single comic I buy. I'll try to stick to notable titles or issues that I take issue with.

C) I'm also going to try to keep these reviews short. I know, I know, it's going to be an uphill battle. But I swear I'm going to try.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #23 (Marvel)
Writer: Joss Whedon
Penciller: John Cassaday

Whedon's and Cassaday's run on X-Men ranks among Claremont's and Morrison's as my favorite runs on any x-related title, but the sporadic shipping schedule has indeed hurt the book. Joss Whedon - possibly my favorite writer, period - has crafted a series of memorable tales with spot-on characterization and a number of surprises, but his organic pacing suffers a bit when you don't clearly remember what happened last because it's been so long since you read the last issue. I guarantee you, however, that this thing will read like gangbusters in trade.

In this issue, the Breakworld saga continues, Cyclops gets to kick ass (which, let's be honest, he's hardly ever done outside of this series), and Whedon recycles a plot device from Season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Normally that's something that I would complain about, except that it's such a good idea that he actually tricked me with it both times. As always, Cassaday proves that he's probably the best damned artist in the business today, and probably one of the best ever.

B+

THE EXTERMINATORS #23 (DC/Vertigo)
Writer: Simon Oliver
Penciller: Darick Robertson

Some critics make a big deal about whichever comic is at the top of their pile each week - the one book that they just can't wait to read. Me, I make a big deal about what I keep at the bottom of my pile. That's the book that I'm confident will make every other thing in my buy pile look bad if I don't save it for last. And every time it comes out, that book is The Exterminators.

If you haven't been reading it, issue #23 is not the issue to start. Actually, The Exterminators is one of those books that really need to be read from the first issue to be fully appreciated. The manner in which Oliver and his team of artists has taken a seemingly slice-of-disgusting-life series and turned it into an apocalyptic tale of survival is nothing short of a marvel.

In this issue, the battle continues, having officially begun a few issues prior. It's the Bug-Be-Gone boys versus an army of Mayan Hissers (giant cockroaches) and their messianic resurrected human leader. The most action-packed issue of the week is from Vertigo. You don't get to say that very often. Classic stuff.

A

FREDDY VS. JASON VS. ASH #1 of 6 (DC/Wildstorm)
Writers: Jeff Katz and James Anthony Kuhoric
Art: Jason Craig

Based off the unused screenplay for the film everyone on the planet (who counts) wants to see, this mini-series brings us the long-awaited face-off between Ashley J. Williams, Jason Voorhees and Frederick Krueger. It just doesn't bring it to us in the first issue. Sigh...

Playing like a direct sequel to Freddy Vs. Jason, the story opens with the two surviving cast members from that film returning to Crystal Lake because, as Ash himself admits, they're idiots. We're then introduced to the new status quo. Jason continues to haunt Camp Crystal Lake, but he's haunted in turn by the decapitated head of Freddy Krueger who torments him with some pretty horrific visions. Freddy himself posits a solution - Jason needs to acquire a copy of the Necronomicon to free both unstoppable monsters from their torment. On the last page, Ash (who has been narrating this whole time) shows up. Presumably, he's going to have something to say about this Necronomicon business.

I'm cutting this issue a little slack. Normally, decompression is a frustrating storytelling style in comics (I'm looking at you, House of M), but given that this series is supposedly based pretty closely off of a screenplay it makes a certain degree of sense that this is the structure we're getting. Aside from the a-little-overused voice-over, this issue plays like the beginning to what might be a very fun movie. I just hope that they get to actual "versus" part of the title soon.

B

GROO: HELL ON EARTH #1 of 4 (Dark Horse)
Writers: Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier
Art: Sergio Aragones

Groo is back! This is a good day for people of the world everywhere who know how to A) read, and B) find a comic book store. In this latest mini-series, Groo finds himself in the Kingdom of Uslip, currently suffering from two princes arguing over who deserves to reign. Prince Buco, who has managed to actually become king, spends all of his energy on building weaponry, even though there aren't any wars at the moment. Prince Guco spends his energy bitching about not being king, and warning the people about the effect all of the new factories are having on the environment.

The people listen to Guco enough to be dissatisfied, but not enough to change their lifestyles. Meanwhile, neighboring kingdoms hear that Uslip is building weapons, so they start building weapons too. Everyone is preparing for war, but no one knows why.

If those metaphors are pretty on-the-nose for you, that's because they are. But the delight of Groo is the way Aragones and Evanier manage to tackle topical issues head-on without ever feeling like, oh, I don't know... Crash. It's deft and it's funny, albeit in a smile-to-yourself constantly manner more than a laugh-out-loud one. And Aragones art is pleasantly cartoony whilst at the same time being insanely detailed. The spread on pages 2 and 3 holds up just as well as some of Hitch's crazier issues of The Ultimates, and that's not something that can be said lightly.

Oh yeah, Groo is in this issue too. He hasn't killed too many people yet, but the mini-series is still young.

A

HOWARD THE DUCK #2 of 4 (Marvel)
Writer: Ty Templeton
Penciller: Juan Bobillo

Someone asked me recently why anyone gives a damn about Howard the Duck when the Marvel Universe has Spider-Man, the Avengers and X-Men vying for our attentions too. The reason is simple: In the Marvel Universe, filled with iconic heroes, villains and anti-heroes, gigantic space battles and Civil Wars, the only voice of reason is a anthropomorphized talking duck. That's how insane the Marvel U is these days (and, if you think about it, always has been).

This latest mini-series got off to an entertaining start, but as of the second issue I'm a little concerned. The writing is spot-on and Juan Bobillo cements his position as one of the best unsung artists in the biz, but with all of the craziness going on in the world - both real and fictional - it seems somewhat anti-climactic to use a Howard the Duck book to comment on fame and viral videos. Still, it's not fair to judge the book based on something it's not trying to be, but it does lose points for - at the moment - being more-or-less completely disposable.

B

THE NEW AVENGERS: ILLUMINATI #5 of 5 (Marvel)
Writers: Brian Michael Bendis and Brian Reed
Penciller: Jim Cheung

So after four issues of showing how the Illuminati dealt with previous major Marvel events, we get an issue setting up the next Marvel event. And it's pretty good. After Spider-Woman brings the Skrully corpse of Elektra to Tony Stark (which isn't very well explained in the issue itself, so it helps if you've been reading New Avengers), he gathers the Illuminati to discuss the ramifications, and to determine if Earth is truly at war... and possibly already conquered.

Then *SPOILER* Black Bolt talks without destroying the planet. Apparently, he's been a Skrull since shortly after the Kree/Skrull War. Didn't he use his vocal powers between then? I might need to read Paul Jenkins' Inhumans mini-series and Silent War again, but hasn't he? And speaking of Silent War, does this mean that the Skrulls want Maximus the Mad in control of the Inhumans? How could that possibly help anyone's cause, besides Maximus of course?

Decent questions. Marvel has a history lately of asking decent questions, then failing to give us interesting answers. Civil War and M-Day never satisfactorily dealt with most of the ramifications of their events, at least across the line (a few series did a decent job, but they were exceptions, not the rule). So we'll see where this goes. Still, that's the future. This issue? Bang-up job by everyone involved. Great writing (it's nice to see Tony Stark openly doubting himself for a change, and basically echoing everything Luke Cage has been saying since Civil War ended), excellent pencils. If Secret Invasion fails to impress, this issue of Illuminati might suffer in hindsight, but as it stands:

B+

SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP: MODOK'S ELEVEN #5 of 5 (Marvel)
Writer: Fred Van Lente
Penciller: Francis Portela

One of the shinier gems of the year ends on a high note - full of unexpected twists and turns, yet never hard to follow. Excellent characterization, quality art. If you missed this series, you'd better get the trade. I mean it. I now realize that I don't have much else to say here besides a general praise for everyone involved with this series. As usual, one of Marvel's ancillary titles has again outshined most of their flagship best-sellers.

Series Rating: A

WELCOME TO TRANQUILITY: ARMAGEDDON #1 (of 1) (DC/Wildstorm)
Writer: Christos Gage
Pencillers: Neil Googe & Horacio Domingues

Confession time. Aside from the aborted runs on The Authority and WildC.A.T.S., the only two Wildstorm titles I've been reading are Stormwatch P.H.D. (now passed) and Welcome to Tranquility. So when the writer of Stormwatch pens an issue of Tranquility, I'm in, but skeptical. Original characters are increasingly sacred these days, with only Brian Michael Bendis attempting to tell stories with new characters once their originator is done with them. Frequently, this is because writing characters using their popularized voices if very difficult. Would you want to write a Y: The Last Man issue, knowing that you're just going to be compared to Brian K. Vaughan?

Well, Christos Gage steps up to the plate and knocks Tranquility out of the park. This issue feels almost exactly like an issue of the regular series. It's a bit more dense than usual (that's Gage for you), but the characterizations are spot on and fit comfortably into the word Gail Simone originally created. No easy task, particularly for a writer as talented as Simone.

In this issue, Maximum Man - the elderly hero who turns into a young Greek God at will, and at the start of the issue is enjoying it immensely with all of the young women in town - gets sent to the near future, where a sudden attack from all super-villains past, present, and possibly future has left all of the world, with the exception of Tranquility, in ruins. Maximum Man does what he can to help the world, although an interesting conversation with Acolyte raises some doubt. Isn't the world supposed to end someday? Who are we to prevent it?

The rub comes at the end of the issue, which almost makes it a disposable Elseworlds title (Superman kills Lois Lane? It's okay, it's just Elseworlds!), although given that the issue advertises that we should read Wetworks: Armageddon next, I guess it's an Elseworld destined to pass, although the story we just read might have almost no relevance to it except as a teaser. If this issue does contribute to the story later on, I'll be very pleased, but given the uncertain possibility that it won't...

B

Y: THE LAST MAN #59 (of 60) (DC/Vertigo)
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Penciller: Pia Guerra

All good things come to an end. It's been argued, however, that the good things in Y: The Last Man actually came to an end 5 or 6 issues ago. It's true that this series lost a bit of much-needed steam after the revelation of why all the mammals in the world with a Y-chromosome died (an explanation which, as of this issue, is in still in dispute in the comic itself), but there are some surprises to be found. Namely, the ending of the last issue, which managed to shock the hell of out everyone I know who has been reading the book.

The follow-up, however, is a little anti-climactic, making a key character's death seem a little less significant than it probably should have been. Add to that the unexpected revelation of why Alter has been so obsessed with finding Yorick Brown all these years, which I think a lot of people forgot was even in question (if you think about it, it was never really even set up as a mystery... maybe this issue would have been more effective if it was). It was interesting, but lacked the dramatic heft that would really have helped the series truck to its finale. It does make a certain degree of sense, and deftly ties into an earlier (seemingly stand-alone) storyline, but for what looks to be the last big revelation of the series... it lacks "oomph."

Still, Y: The Last Man remains a quality series, even if the last 6-7 issues play more like an extended denouement rather than a climax. Maybe Vaughan can pull this all together in the last issue to really make the ending sing. If anyone can, it's definitely him.

C+

(Note: No DC U books this week. Weird...)

Film Theory 1.02

2007-11-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

Cellular phones have killed movies.

Not in the way you think, either. Sure, we all hate those complete assholes who neglect to turn off their phones in the theater, so that halfway through a movie you might very well be enjoying, you have that annoying "DUN-nuh-nuh-nuh-DUN-nuh-nuh-nuh-DUH-nuh-nuh-nuh-NUH" noise coming out of nowhere. (And yes, I have occasionally been that asshole - but it was an accident, I swear.) I'm actually making the argument that the invention of cellular phones has had a massive, and largely negative, impact on the films themselves.

No really, think about it. The popularity of cellular phones in real life makes it outright implausible that any character in a movie wouldn't have one. As a result, they have the instantaneous ability to call anyone for any reason. Trapped by zombies? Call someone. Susan's husband is a murderer? Call her. "Hey Susan, you're husband's the murderer." "Oh, thanks!" Cellular phones would be the answer to practically every suspenseful problem ever created... and so they must be stopped at all costs.

Screenwriters are constantly forced to work around this frustrating device with the following lines of dialogue. Try to remember how many times you've heard them!

"Damn, I can't get a signal!"

"My battery's run out."

"They shot my phone!"

Every single time you hear one of these buzz-phrases, or variations thereof, think about the scene you're watching. If the character's cellular phone worked, would the suspense be dead? Would the movie, in fact, be over? Overwhelming odds point to yes.

I was doing some research on the original series of Star Trek recently, and I discovered an interesting factoid about the Starfleet communicators they invented for the show. Apparently, Gene Roddenberry created them specifically so they could break down or lose their signal, because he knew that otherwise, Kirk could just call for backup at any given time and that would be the end of the episode. Cell phones were a problem for screenwriters before they were even invented! (Another interesting tidbit is that the original Starfleet communicators were flip-phones, exactly like most cellular phones on the market today. Coincidence? Geeks working for Nokia? Or just prescient sci-fi? You decide.)

Very few movies or television shows actually embrace the possibilities of cellular phones to further their plotting, rather than work around them because they're a hindrance. 24 would be a very difficult show to write if Jack couldn't call Chloe at the drop of a hat to relay information, or receive blueprints of whatever abandoned warehouse he's breaking into this week. I'd very much like to see a season of the show in which Jack doesn't have his phone, and is constantly forced to borrow quarters in order to check in with CTU.

Another favorite of mine is the film Cellular, an already forgotten genre film in which Kim Basinger plays a kidnapping victim who calls Chris Evans at random, and needs to keep him on the phone throughout the entire film in order to save her family. Cellular actually uses cellular phones in varied and interesting ways from a storytelling perspective. Signals get crossed, so Chris has to steal someone's phone. His battery is dying, so he needs to steal a charger at gunpoint. He needs to stay silent because the kidnappers are in the room, so someone drives up next to him blaring their car stereo. Clever stuff. The film is basically a one-trick pony, but it's clever enough to keep finding new ways to milk its conceit for the full running time.

One of my screenwriting professors in college used to talk about popular movie cliches. For example, the shot of a character at a bus stop, about to leave town. The bus pulls up between the camera and the character, then pulls away, and he's still there. Yeah, it's a cliche, and yeah, we've seen it a hundred times. But as my professor said, "We keep using it because no one's thought of a better way to do the scene."

I know you writers are on strike, and I support you wholeheartedly. I just want to point out that you now have plenty of time to discover a better way to incorporate cell phones into your narrative, rather than find excuses to pretend like they don't exist. If someone ever figures out a way to ensure that cell phones always have a decent signal, it could mean the end of scripted entertainment as we know it (or they might decide to make every new film a period piece).

(Strange but true: Film actress Hedy Lamarr actually co-developed the wireless communications patent that eventually led to the invention of the cell phone. That's Hedy...)

Hollywood? I'm just going to make this clear: I swear that if I hear the line, "I can't get a signal" one... more... time...

I'm going to know that you got lazy.

(See this? This is you.)

I-Tunes Shuffle

2007-10-26T15:50:00.001-07:00

(For some reason, the above image from the remake of Gone in Sixty Seconds came up when I typed "Music Stuff" in a Google image search. Angelina needs to go back to those dreads, don't you think? No, I'm being serious.)

The Onion Audio-Visual Club has a regular feature in which they ask musicians or other random celebrities to put their MP3 players on random, then talk about the first five songs that come up. I don't know why, but I find this strikingly interesting.

I'm not going to check out any albums just because Seth Rogen is listening to them, but it is a nice little insight into the day-to-day lives of people who - like it or not - are part of our cultural identity. They're people too... they're just famous people whose sex lives frequently seem more important than our own.

And since the goal of this blog is to eventually reach more readers than those who already know me personally (stifle that laughter, guys), I thought it would be an amusing way to do the same, as well as a fairly low-intensity means of adding a post today when I don't have terribly much to say about anything else at the moment.

So, a brief insight into who I am begins in 3... 2... 1...

"Artists Only" by The Talking Heads

(Awwwwwwww... Look at how young they were!)

I was introduced to Talking Heads via Stop Making Sense, a film I initially watched only because Jonathan "Silence of the Lambs" Demme directed it. Then I realized how many of the songs I've always loved were all from the same group, and that they were talented and dynamic as hell. It's still my favorite concert film of all time, and during the unfortunately common periods of my life in which I have worked at video stores, it's one of the most common DVD's that I am likely to put on the background. (Dark Star and Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas are probably the two others.)

Like most Talking Heads songs, "Artists Only" is about something other than big messages or that girl the lead singer loved who dumped his ass. I admire any artist or group of artists with something to say that doesn't end up just being whiny. David Byrne did note, however, that he wrote one love song for The Talking Heads, but added pointedly that in Stop Making Sense he sings it to a lamp.

"You Belong to Me," sung by Rose McGowan on the soundtrack to Planet Terror

(I have no idea what to make of this photo. Sexy? Silly? Disconcerting? Probably all three.)

Surprisingly, she has a pretty good singing voice. Soft, raspy, with just enough of a "Marilyn Monroe" lilt to keep it sexy in a song that always comes across a little sad. I didn't buy the soundtrack for this track, actually, and for the life of me can't remember it actually appearing in the film. It might just be there as a love note from Robert Rodriguez to his star (or vice-versa), with whom he started a relationship during the course of the film.

The rest of the soundtrack is a predominantly John Carpenter-esque affair, which is fitting since Carpenter was supposedly supposed to do the soundtrack himself. This didn't pan out, but it's still a solid listen with a number of memorable tracks, particularly "Cherry's Dance of Death," which has an almost record number of listens on my I-Tunes.

"Dropkick Me Jesus" by Bobby Bare

(No, I don't own a signed picture of Bobby Bare, but I did get my albums a signed Eddie & The Cruisers record for Christmas once. Five bucks - I don't even think Rhino Records knew that it was signed. Sweeeeeeeeeeet.)

I don't like country music, but I love Bobby Bare. He's a brilliant lyricist and storyteller. I have a wide variety of memories of listening to Bobby Bare in the back yard or car with my father, who has a wonderful tendencies of repeating the lyrics he finds particularly clever or amusing after he hears them.

This song in particular is a great song about football and Jesus, a pair of subjects I don't spend terribly much time thinking about. Here are some lyrics:

"Dropkick me Jesus, through the goalposts of life.
End over end, neither left nor to right.
Straight through the heart of those righteous uprights.
Dropkick me Jesus through the goalposts of life.

Make me, Oh make Lord more than I am.
Make me a piece in your master game plan.
Free from the earthly tempestion below,
I've got the will, Lord, if you've got the toe."

I don't think "tempestion" is a word, but it should be.

"Heart-Shaped Box" by Nirvana

(No idea. Google image search strikes again. But hey, it's got Christopher Lambert in it. It's gotta be pretty good, right? Right?)

I had literally no idea what most of the words were to this song until I played the vastly inferior cover in Guitar Hero 2. The song doesn't make any more sense to me, but at least I know what's supposedly going on behind Kurt Cobain's scratchy screaming.

Yeah, I love Nirvana. Most people love Nirvana. We romanticize the band because Kurt died so tragically and so young, but even so I'm a little surprised that there hasn't been more of a backlash. It's very rare, in my experience, to hear anyone talk about them being over-rated. That's pretty special in the ever-so-fickle popular culture in which we are currently embroiled.

One final note: My mother did and still does have a huge crush on Kurt Cobain, and genuinely likes his music, which, when I was younger, almost killed the band for me. Your parents aren't supposed to like the music of your generation - that's practically the whole point of rock and roll. I've listened to a great number of stories about my grandparents bitching about the Beatles, but my parents? "Oh, he's just dreamy." Not cool, Mom. Not cool.

"Smack That (Dirty)" by Akon featuring Eminem

(More adventures in Google image search. This one? "Smack That." Link's all about the smack down, so I'll cut this one some slack, but...)

No, I'm not embarrassed. Shut up. I went through a period of a few months earlier this year in which I listened to more Hip-Hop/rap/whatever than I ever had before, and I do in fact like it as a musical style/genre. But I am endlessly amused by how simplistic a lot of subject matter can be. Contrast that with my Talking Heads conversation above, and you can see just how confused I am deep in my brain parts. Apparently, the writers of these songs enjoy sex and dancing... a LOT.

But hey, when I'm having sex or dancing (neither of which happens very often lately - *single manly tear*), this is my soundtrack.

I hope that was illuminating.

Where the hell have I been?

2007-10-26T00:54:00.000-07:00

(Self-explanatory, I think.)

Howdy everyone!

I've been on a bit of a sabbatical for the last week. Already? I know, I know. I'm beginning to feel a bit like Bill Watterson. Not that talented, mind you, just in need of more sabbaticals than most deem appropriate. And my apologies.

What have I been doing? Well, besides generally getting my life together (which we will not speak of, since this isn't one of those blogs), the last week has consisted primarily of getting to know The Orange Box better than the last girl I dated and finishing my first feature length horror screenplay.

(Bill Watterson predicts my early 20's with astounding accuracy from the year 1980.)

We'll get to the screenplay in a minute. Right now, I'm wondering if anyone else is encountering a hell of a learning curve on Team Fortress. No tutorials, no single-player, Team Fortress 2 just throws you into the deep end of the pool and expects you to figure out the rules to water polo. No dice, guys. I get the general principle, but my interest is already waning. Luckily, I still have Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 & 2 left. That should keep Valve in my good graces... For now.

As for my screenplay, "Bad Science" is officially a first draft and not some incomplete mass of black space and dialogue taking up small amounts of nevertheless valuable space on my hard drive. I'll be shopping it around shortly, as soon as a few close friends and associates have a look at it. It's either an enormous piece of shit or, in its way, the best thing I've ever done. Probably both.

(Bill Watterson provides a textbook example what will surely be Hollywood's reaction to my latest screenplay.)

A conversation with my roommate got me thinking today about learning how to read. Amazing, isn't it, how we turn large numbers of strung-together abstract symbols and consider it a language? A part of me also finds it hard to remember a time when learning to read was a goal, not a memory. I used to annoy the hell out of my elementary school teachers, begging them to finally teach us how to read, when in fact I'd pretty much figured it out myself. But on what?

(I agree, Bill.)

It chagrins my mother a bit, but the very first things I ever consciously remember reading were a pair of comic books, poured through back-to-back. These issues were a "gift" of sorts from my brother. Specifically, they were books that he no longer wanted or considered disposable. My brother's tastes and mine began to veer in different directions from that very point onward.

(No slight to Sergio Aragones' pencils, but Cheetara - not Chakaal - was my first cartoon crush.)

First, if I remember the order correctly, was issue #51 of Groo the Wanderer, by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier. In it (if memory serves), Groo - the stupidest and most deadly man alive - tries to impress brave female warrior Chakaal by helping her rid a village of helpless citizens from two warring factions. Chakaal's plan is to send messengers to both armies, each message ostensibly from the other side, enticing them to engage in battle at a certain location beneath a dam. Once they were in place, Chakaal and the villagers would destroy the dam, killing both armies in the ensuing flood. Easy, right?

Groo, in an attempt to impress Chakaal, intercepts both messengers and is shocked to discover that both armies are giving up the war forever. Infuriated that Chakaal's plan will fail as a result of them declaring peace, he murders each army single-handedly. Realizing that he screwed everything up, Groo explains everything to Chakaal and the villagers, who are already in place beneath the dam. Chakaal marvels at Groo's ability to solve the village's problem single-handed, and starts falling for Groo. Everything ends well... until Groo remembers they forgot to implement the last part of Chakaal's plan. Groo destroys the dam, flooding the valley and killing all of the villagers he was supposed to try to save.

Yeah, a few words slipped by me here and there, but the first thing I ever read dripped with more cleverness and irony than "Go, Spot, Go." I think that's a good thing, don't you?

(20 years later, I still think this cover is bad ass.)

Next came G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #52. In this issue, the Joes are off on a training seminar when Stormshadow - the king bad ass of my childhood - crashes the party. After breaking crossbow bolts in mid-air and fighting off an entire squad of trained soldiers, he reveals that he has seen the error of his ways and wants to defect from Cobra (or something to that effect). And he would have said as much, had the Joes not attacked him on sight! His rival, Snake-Eyes - the other bad ass, who in this issue cuts a statue in half so skillfully that it stays intact until he stamps the ground - takes pity on Stormshadow and offers him his cabin in the woods to hide and find himself.

Meanwhile, Zartan is looking for new recruits for his gang of mercenaries. Placing all of his candidates in a "last man standing situation," in which the survivor gets to join, a bevy of ultra-violence ensues (well, ultra-violent for the Comics Code era, at least). The victor finally reveals himself to be the guy who stood back, let everyone else kill each other, then blew up the seeming winner. I'm not sure what I learned from this, except maybe to fight dirty should the need ever arise. Thus far, it hasn't come up. But I'm waiting...

(True for almost any art form, I think.)

The above cartoons, aside from the comic book covers, are from Bill Watterson, and were discovered at the following delightful web site: http://ignatz.brinkster.net/cbillart.html

Bill Watterson's work on Calvin & Hobbes was probably the third anything I ever read, and has been massively influential on me both as an artist and a person. When I was extremely little, I sent Bill Watterson a crudely written letter telling him how much I loved his work. I included my phone number, just in case he wanted to call. (He didn't.) I guess my parents must have mailed it somehow, because a few months letter I got what I now realize was basically a form letter from Bill telling him how much appreciated that I loved the strip.

Both the letter and the envelope it came in had drawings of Calvin and Hobbes on them, and were probably printed en masse, but the gesture was nonetheless appreciated and - eventually - both were framed and reside at my parents' house along with the bulk of my comics and the few other important heirlooms of my life. My parents go through a cleaning frenzy about once a year, after which I usually discover that at least a few of my things have been given away to Good Will or some such. And I'm fine with that, but if they ever get rid of this letter, my umbrella (I'll talk about it another time), or my comics, I will have to murder them. My childhood consisted of moments, days, weeks and years that are now largely lost to me (my memory can be hazy at best), but nothing makes them more vivid than the stories I read when I was just getting influenced to become the man I am today (for better or worse).

Sorry for the delay in postings, you three people who actually read this. I'll try to keep up with this self-inflicted workload more often now that my time has been freed by the clutches of my own ridiculous imagination, shooting out of my brain in screenplay format.

Legends Never Die #1

2007-10-17T19:14:00.001-07:00

(Urban Legends: Final Cut - The only film directed by famed editor/composer John Ottman. No, I have not seen it.)

Over the course of my studies I have uncovered a large number of amusing and occasionally unbelievable stories and anecdotes from all over the entertainment industry. For years I have shared these stories with my friends and colleagues, and now I have decided to share them with the world (or, at least, anyone who reads this blog).

Some of these tales were originally reported in interviews, books or documentaries, but a lot of them came from the horse's mouth - or at least, one of the horse's friend's mouths - so I have added a meter to the end of each story demonstrating the extent of their credulity.

10 = Proven, or at least from a highly credible source that I can document if necessary.

1 = Total urban legend. No way of proving the story, or heard from a disreputable source.

(Once again, these posts are labelled "Urban Legends" for a reason. Over time, these stories - even if mostly true - take on a life of their own and can occasionally veer from total accuracy. If I have posted something you believe or know to be inaccurate, please let me know and I will gleefully edit the post to reflect the new information.)

All right, I'm coming up so we'd better get this party started!

LEGENDS NEVER DIE #1: Stanley Kubrick won an Academy Award for Spartacus.

Standard film geekery insists that Stanley Kubrick only won a single Academy Award during his lifetime, for the visual effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

(2001 is also the only Kubrick film that director preferred be seen on home video in widescreen. Much to the chagrin of cinephiles everywhere, one of the greatest directors in history actually found those black bars distracting.)

If you want to get technical, however, this was the only reward that he received.

(Kirk Douglas also confounded the industry by insisting upon hiring blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo to write the script, and blacklisted actor Peter Brocco to play "Ramon." Some historians credit Douglas as helping to effectively end the Blacklist Era by doing so.)

After director Anthony Mann was dismissed from directing Spartacus after the start of production, Stanley Kubrick was brought in to replace him at the behest of Kirk Douglas, who both starred in and co-produced the film. Kubrick and Douglas had worked together before, on the incredible anti-war film Paths of Glory, and Douglas felt that Kubrick could do an equally incredible job of finishing the film. The lack of control Kubrick experienced as the result of being completely uninvolved in the pre-production process led the director to insist upon total control over any film he helmed from that point on, as well as to generally disown Spartacus as a film, despite its obvious quality. (Kubrick has actually disowned three of his films - Spartacus and his first two films, Fear and Desire and Killer's Kiss, which he considered "learning experiences.")

(Unlike my father, some photographs do exist of Stanley Kubrick without his trademark beard.)

Still, Kubrick attempted to control as much of the production as possible, not the least of which the cinematography, eventually dictating practically all of D.P. Russell Metty's lighting, framing and lens choices. Metty, himself a formidable cinematographer with Touch of Evil already to his credit, eventually got sick of the director's meddling and asked, "If you're just going to tell me how to do every part of my job, why don't you just do my job?"

Stanley Kubrick responded, reportedly immediately and without thinking about it, that he would. After the first few weeks of production, Metty was officially out, and Kubrick finished shooting the film himself as both director and director of photography. Metty, however, was contractually obligated to be given solo credit for the film. Kubrick's opinion of this is, to me at least, unknown.

(Elizabeth Taylor won the 1961 Best Actress Oscar for Butterfield 8, and not, as some have reported, for this dress.)

Cut to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, April 17th, 1961. The 33rd Annual Academy Awards are presented outside of their usual venue, the Pantages Theater (due to the theater being reconfigured in order to adequately show - what else? - Spartacus), and Russell Metty wins the Academy Award for Best Color Cinematography.

Apparently, he didn't give it to Stanley Kubrick.

Urban Legend-O-Meter (10=True, 1=WTF?): 10

(Talented Italian director Sergio Corbucci directed Son of Spartacus, the last "sword-and-sandal" film to star Steve "Hercules" Reeves. The film's initial title, Spartacus 2: The Return of Durant never made it past the development stage.)

Film Theory 1.01

2007-10-15T14:27:00.001-07:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, in particular, are just plain bad Batman movies.

(From 3 dev Adam, also known as Captain American and Santo vs. Spider-Man)

Watch the films with a Spanish language track, however, and you will discover that they are, in contrast, amazingly entertaining big-budget Luchadore (Mexican Wrestler) movies.

Santo vs. Bane? I'd watch it. Oh wait, I have.

Discuss.

[My heartfelt thanks go to Telemundo for airing Batman Forever in Spanish last night, and turning these dated misfires in to timeless classics for the all-ages.)

Not Halloween Time... ADVENTURE TIME!

2007-10-12T19:19:00.001-07:00

My hat... IS AWESOME!!!

Ditching the Halloween Theme to present the one of the happiest cartoons ever made. Watch all of it - it gets exponentially better with every passing minute.

ESPECIALLY if you're high.

Skeleton Frolic!

2007-10-11T23:14:00.001-07:00

(Some of you may remember this short as appearing with The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.)

Classic cartoon from Ub Iwerks. If the man had ever mastered basic plotting, he could have been as big as Disney.

Inferno

2007-10-11T00:19:00.001-07:00

So for the first post with actual content, I thought I'd plug a horror film since it's, like, October or something. I am sure that you're all shocked. Both of you. (And you're both probably my Mom, checking the page twice.)

I did this once before at the Tuesday Night Movie Club, where I briefly worked as a film and TV critic about seven years ago. Man, I feel old, although I think that's probably because I had to review Crossroads while I was there. Head on over to their site. Good guys.

At the time, I pompously assumed that I would be able to post a review of one horror movie a day for all 31 days of the month of October. I'm not even going to check to see how many I actually reviewed. I think it may have been about 9. So I'm not even going to attempt that number here, although that may be because I'm starting on October 11th.

I have learned nothing.

Anyway, we'll start with Dario Argento. For those who don't know, Dario Argento is pretty erroneously called "The Italian Alfred Hitchock," even though they had very little in common, apart from their talent of course. Hitchock made suspense films of all shapes and colors. Dario Argento generally makes gialli - a fairly unique Italian genre that combined elements of mysteries and slashers. Some non-Italian films that sort of qualify, for the uninitiated? Try Wes Craven's Scream, or the criminally underseen Cherry Falls, directed by Geoffrey Wright (who also directed Romper Stomper, the film that got a young whipper-snapper named Russell Crowe noticed for the first time).

Some of Dario Argento's best gialli include The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red, and my personal favorite, Opera. We are not going to be talking about any of these films.

Instead, we're going to be talking about Inferno, the second in his Three Mothers trilogy that started with the uniformly praised Suspiria and ends, 30 years later, with Mother of Tears, which is slated to come out in the states sometime in 2008. These films are not gialli. They are fucking nightmares with graphic murders in them. And the first two, at least, are wonderful. (I haven't seen Mother of Tears yet, but supposedly it's a return to form for the director, who hasn't directed a truly great film since 1996's The Stendhal Syndrome.)
Inferno is about... something. Hard to say what, exactly. Unlike Suspiria, which for all its fever dream madness did have a plot of sorts revolving around an American girl trapped in a German ballet school run by witches, Inferno's plot is much more complicated, to the point of being inconsequential. It begins with a girl reading a book about "The Three Mothers" - ancient witches who live in three haunted buildings spread throughout the world. The first was the German ballet school in Suspiria. The other two are in New York and Italy. This girl thinks the apartment building she lives in is one of them. Then, horrible things happen and we cut to her brother in Italy.

So, it seems like we have a structure. A guy's sister undergoes some horrible events, and then the rest of the film follows her brother, right? Well, not so much. The film somehow features stream-of-consciousness protagonists, and constantly flits between focusing on one character to another for extended periods at a time. Usually until one of them dies. For true film aficionados, Inferno is a must-watch for no other reason than that it may have the most complicated structure of any film I've seen since Last Year at Marienbad.

(For the record, I'm pretty sure I'm the first person who has ever compared these two films.)

For everyone else, it's a must-watch because it will seriously freak your shit out. My favorite scene? The old antique dealer with no legs, who insists on using crutches instead of a wheelchair, decides he has had it with all the cats coming in from the strange building next door and breaking his valuables, and decides to gather them all up in a large burlap sack. He then proceeds to a large pond in Central Park, where he walks out into the middle of the body of water to drown these poor defenseless cats. Just as he finishes this ghoulish task, he tries walking away, and one of his crutches lands in a too-deep part of the pond, causing him to fall as comically as Buster Keaton could imagine. As if things couldn't get any worse, an army of man-eating rats starts to descend upon his helpless upper body en masse. He's being eaten alive, and starts calling for help to anyone within earshot. A butcher, working for some unknown reason in Central Park, hears him in the distance and runs to his aid. Then...

Just watch for yourself in the link at the top of the page. It's in the first 6 1/2 minutes of the video.

Inferno is a complicated movie. Maybe it's a great film. It's certainly unappreciated. Fans were confused by it, critics were not impressed, and only just recently is it starting to find the true cult following it deserves with special edition DVD releases from Anchor Bay and Blue Underground (hint: it's the same content, different companies). If you ever wondered what would happen if David Lynch decided to make what he would consider a "straight-forward horror movie," this is probably pretty close to what you'd end up with.

Until next time, you stay frosty out there, people.

Inaugural Posting - Buckle Your Seatbelts, It's Going to be a Bumpy Blog

2007-10-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Miskatonic Film School.

This blog is the home of William Bibbiani, screenwriter and filmmaker, who hasn't actually sold a script or even completed a short movie in 3 years. So naturally, I know what I'm talking about.

What am I saying? Of course I know what I'm talking about. And so do you. Forget what the pundits say - people are more literate now than ever. They're just literate in film. Think for a moment: Even if you're a casual fan of films and/or television, how many cinematic narratives have you watched in your entire life? If you're counting movies, TV, music videos and even flash cartoons, you're likely to end up in the hundreds if not thousands before you just give up. (Actually, odds are you're going to give up quite a while before that.)

What does watching thousands of movies say about a person? Most would say it means that you have no life. But if you told them that you read thousands of books and short stories, they would be impressed! You'd probably be just as qualified to teach English as whoever your actual English teacher was in high school or college. Since film is an art form, that means you're an expert. You just might not have thought about it a whole lot.

How many times have you watched a movie and recognized a pattern? "Oh, this is the part where the main character is going to do so-and-so." That's you, being smart.

I remember watching Alien vs. Predator for the first time. They get to the disheveled whaling outpost in the middle of Antartica (which we're going to ignore for the moment), and Sanaa Lathan tells everyone to stick together, because it's dangerous out here. So I turn to my best friend, who suffered through the whole sickening experience with me, and said, "Ewan Bremner is going to go off on his own, they're going to build up a lot of suspense, then it's going to turn out to be a penguin or something. Then he's going to turn around and Sanaa Lathan's going to surprise him, and remind him not to go off alone." Within a minute and a half, that's what happened. (He will testify to this.) Okay, in this case that's not as much me being smart as it is the movie sucking, but I think you get my point.

So this blog is for me, and it's for you. It's about film, television, and knowing me, it's probably going to be about comics - the truly maligned art form in Western society. We're all experts, and our opinions do always matter, as long as we're reasonable about how we present them. I just happen to have a blog for them now.

No one is likely to read this, of course. The internet has too many blogs as it is. So I'm just going to use my last sentence to say something stupid because no one will hear it.

Penguins... Damn it, I liked them before they were cool.

William out.