Chadzilla ROARS!!!

The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)

The Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) wants nothing more than to win the Pirate of the Year award.  Unfortunately, while he is a very beloved Captain, he is not all that successful as a Pirate.  Determined to spare himself from yet another humiliating defeat, the Pirate Captain redoubles his efforts at gaining a record amount of booty.

Once again, his efforts are less than successful.  Then, at what seems to be the Pirate Captain's darkest hour, he raids the scientific expedition of one Charles Darwin (David Tennat).  It is there that the Pirate Captain learns that the world's most valuable booty of all has been perched atop his shoulder for years.

It is his parrot, Polly.

The reviews that I write for this blog are, far more often than not, written weeks before they get posted.  There are a few reasons for this.  

Reason #1 is that, after writing this blog for almost seven years now, it has become something of an automatic habit for me to want to write down and share my thoughts about what I have been reading and watching of late.  

Reason #2 is that a single week does not go by where I have not watched at least two or three movies, or have read a book, perhaps even two.  So there is a large surplus of subjects (and I do not write about ALL of them) for me to blather and pontificate about.

Reason #3 is that I like having a surplus of forthcoming reviews.  Because, if I should happen to miss a day, or maybe even a week or two, due to illness, or a family emergency, or even a trip out of town, there will still be content going up on my blog every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, in between all of the carpet bombing of goofiness that I post every Saturday and Sunday.  That way my regular readers aren't left wanting for content.  This blog does have regular readers, right?

The downside to all these reasons, and there always has to be a downside, is that my Big Screen movie reviews aren't all that topical any more.  Sometimes a review of a movie won't get posted until the movie is almost finished with its theatrical run, long after anything I have said in this remote corner of the blogosphere could have had any impact on said film's box office performance.  I do have a handful of readers and, by Mythical-God, the ticket buying power of that handful is staggering!

But not even that staggering purchasing power could save The Pirates! Band of Misfits, though.  Being a huge Aardman Animation fan, I was looking forward to seeing it the moment I saw the trailer for the first time.  But it seems that no one else wanted to see it and, by the time that you read this review, the film will have undoubtedly already have been crushed and kicked aside by the approaching (at the time I first began writing this review) box office juggernaut that will be Marvel's The Avengers.  That is a pity, because The Pirates! is a cute and funny piece of lighthearted family friendly adventure silliness.

The saddening reason for The Pirates! under performance and (at the time that I am writing this) predicted rapid fade from the summer blockbuster season could best be summed up by something that my son said, when he was asked about the movie, "I liked it, but my Dad got a lot more jokes than I did."  Which is what is so wrong and so beautifully right about the movie.  Its humor is very smart (the movie expects the audience to know who Charles Darwin is) and, if being smart weren't damning enough, also very, very British.  The repeated parrot gags and ample cross-dressing jokes got me thinking that The Pirates! was what a claymation version of Monty Python's Pirates of the Caribbean could have looked like.  I loved just about every second of the movie.

Yet the reason I loved The Pirates! so much was because the film's jokes and humor were mostly for the grown-ups in the audience.  I doubt that all that many, if any, of the kids (American kids, that is) in the audience got the gag about stopping at a Duty Free Store.  I did, but only because I do International travel and could understand it.  Now that I think about it, the only audience members that were laughing during The Pirates! were the adults.

While I do not think that is a bad thing, the Mass Market Audience of the United States has erronously believed that animated films are only "Something for Children" for far too long.  They simply cannot see, understand, or appreciate that the unique storytelling energy and humor of the format can (and does) speak to all ages.  Sadly The Pirates! will not change that, because it was marketed as a Children's Movie and, since it is a smart movie for witty and whimsical adults, it will be considered an odd and unfunny failure by far too many ticket buyers. 

Three stars.

The Walking Dead #89 - 92 & 93 - 96 (A Larger World)

"An army of roamers is one thing...  An army of people is another."

Rick and company continue to rebuild the tattered remains of The Community.  The project seems to be going reasonably well, although they are running frighteningly low on certain supplies.

Then a stranger arrives.  One who offers a unique opportunity.  But can the man, and what he represents, be trusted? 

Let me tell you, after I went through everything the character named Jesus - a name that, like Chad, seems never a good one for a character to have - goes through, I would not trust Rick, at all.  But The Walking Dead is the ever ongoing story of Rick and company, not the saga of the besieged peaceniks that live in the Hilltop compound.  Why Jesus is okay with his treatment, I don't know.  

Having read The Walking Dead for almost seven years, and counting, I fully understand Rick's fatalistic paranoia and mistrust of the man called Jesus.  Rick looks at him and only sees a potiental sadist, not a potential savior.  But that mistrust and paranoia is dragged out over several issues.  Rick's distrust of, and abuse of, Jesus went on for so long that I started hoping that the crap would hit the fan and something interesting would get spattered across the page, because the crap I was reading was not only boring, it felt pointless.  When I finished issue 95 I wondered if I would even bother to try and read the book through to issue 100.  Somewhere among the last 25 or so issues I just lost interest in the surviving characters and their always collapsing world.  But I had one issue, #96, left to read, so I read it.  

And I knew that I would read The Walking Dead to issue 100.  Writer Robert Kirkman makes a plot turn that is so utterly insane, I have to find out what happens next.  While reading the last few pages of issue 96 I began giggling and, when I finsihed and closed the issue, I immediately started playing the theme to The Magnificent Seven.  If this plot turn plays out the way I hope it will, then it just might ressurect my dying interest in the book.

Christina's Hunt cover

Okay, this looks like the "real Christina".  The one that I remember.

Kingdom of the Spiders (1977): Peaceful Verde Valley - by Dorsey Burnette

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them - by Francine Prose

While reading Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them several memories, thoughts, and opinions rose in my mind and jostled each other, and the book, for my attention.

The earliest, but not the first, memory was of an old Mister Boffo comic.  One that I clipped from the San Francisco Chronicle and, for many years, had taped to the top of the box where I keep my ever growing collection of rejection slips.  Mister Boffo is sitting at a table, a typewriter in front of him.  He has just removed a page from the typewriter and is holding it up before him, so he can read what he has just written to Mrs. Boffo, who is sitting on the other side of the table.

"And they lived happily ever after," Mister Boffo reads aloud, with an obvious amount of tremendous pride, "how is that for a snappy ending?"  The caption punch line?  "Why writers should read."

The other memory, and the first to come to the top of my mind, because it is something that I have not only committed to memory, but that I also use as one of the bedrock foundations for my life, was a quote from Ray Bradbury, taken from his book Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity.  "Read everything," Bradbury advised.  "The good books will teach you how to write, the bad books will teach you how not to write."

Francine Prose makes almost as effective an argument for the necessity of reading, and studying all that one reads, in her book as Ray Bradbury did in his.  I say "almost" because Prose focuses exclusively on the benefits of reading, and learning to write from, good/great works of literature.  While that is not a bad thing, one can certainly learn how to write, and learn how to write very well, by reading and studying the works of the Grand Masters.  But I have also learned quite a bit about how not to write by reading the likes of Guy N. Smith and Rick Hautala.

I also found myself thinking about my own Two Rules of Writing.  Prose continually, and correctly, points out that there really aren't any "Rules" when it comes to writing.  There are only work habits and writing techniques.  Which is why I went and made my very own Two Rules of Writing.

Rule #2 is Write, of course.  Because if one does not write, then one can not, and never can be, a writer.  A more important Rule, however, is Rule #1, which is Read.  If I had not read, and read compulsively, as a child, then I would never have discovered William Goldman.  I would never have opened the hardback edition of his novel Magic, way back in 1978, while sitting in the back seat of my parents' Pinto station wagon, and discover all of the other books, all of the different kinds of books, that Goldman had written and feel bloom in my heart, in my soul, in the very marrow of my bones, the certainty that was exactly what I wanted to do with my life.  I wanted to be a writer.  A writer of books.

Like Prose, I have been a life long and voracious reader.  When I was younger I averaged about three to four books a week.  Today, as I stroll through my middle age, I average about a book a week, at best.  Sometimes it is less, sometimes it is more.  The speed with which I read a particular book depends on the narrative density of the text and my level of interest in reading it.  I do consider a book a week to be very slow reading, though.  Slow to the point of being embarrassing.

I do wish that Prose's book had been around twenty or thirty years ago, because the young me would have benefited from it more than the hours wasted in workshops and literature courses.  Because Prose correctly points out and persuasively argues that a would be writer will learn more from a close reading of a text, studying the writer's unique word usage, sentence and paragraph structure, dialogue, and the nuances and gesture than anything one could get from a circle of would be writers complaining that you wrote something they did not like.  I smiled and nodded my head at her sharing just how damaging the forcing of preconceived ideas about art, or the meaning of art, can be on a young reader or writer.  Her book should be required reading in any Creative Writing course.

My only real complaint is with the "Books to Read Immediately" list at the end.  Prose does not recommend a single work by William Faulkner, who is one of my favorite, perhaps even my all time favorite, Grand Master.  My Faulkner reading recommendations to the would be writer are Light in August, The Bear, The Hamlet, and The Wild Palms.  Add those books to the "Books to Read Immediately" list and, using Reading Like a Writer as a guide, you will have a year or two of truly rapturous reading to look forward to.

New Comic Book Day (5/9/12)

This week's haul:  Crossed: Badlands #5, The Walking Dead #97, and Lady Death #17.

Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005)

"You watch too many movies, baby.  That's bullshit."

A young boy named Giulio follows a mysterious woman into the woods.  The strange woman meets another and the two go into a small stone cottage.  Giulio spies on the two through a window, watching them kill a chicken in what appears to be some kind of ritual.  The young peeping tom is discovered soon after that and the two woman chase after Giulio as he flees.

Flash forward to "the present" (2005) and the now grown Giulio (Elio Germano) is studying film at a Torino University (or perhaps it is the University of Torino).  But he has not given up on his voyeurism.  He watches all of his neighbors, taking a particularly strong interest in the lovely Sasha (Elisabetta Rocchetti) and the troubles that she has with her obnoxious and abusive mother (Milvia Marigliano).

Giulio's obsession with spying on Sasha grows stronger when he sees Sasha befriend a woman named Federica (Chiara Conti) while browsing at a local video store.  The movie that brings the two women together?  Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train.

A short time later Sasha's mother is brutally murdered and Sasha has the perfect alibi, so she is ruled out as a suspect.  The spying Giulio, however, is convinced that the two woman have simply traded murders, just like in Strangers on a Train.

But who is Sasha meant to kill?  Or is there even a murder plot?

Long having been referred to as The "Italian Hitchcock", it is not at all surprising that director Dario Argento would eventually craft a homage to the man that he is so often, and so favorably, compared with.  Unfortunately, after a promising pre-credit sequence that is 100% percent Argento (i.e. it has a dreamlike feel to it), the "Italian Hitchcock's" made-for-television homage looks more like a stylishly made, and slightly better than average, direct-to-video "erotic thriller" from the 1990s.  The kind of direct-to-video "erotic thriller" that was more of a knock-off of Brian De Palma's "Hitchcock Homages" (i.e. Dressed to Kill, Body Double, etc.) than an actual homage to the films of Sir Alfred Hitchcock.

Before anyone that has actually seen Do You Like Hitchcock? begins to cry foul, I do need to point out, strenuously, that while Hitchcock and many of his films are slavishly referenced, of course, not a single one of Brian De Palma's films are ever mentioned or visually referenced during the film.  The only real connection between Argento's homage and De Palma's homages is the composer of the film's score, Pino Donaggio.  Well, that and the fact that Argento is not the least bit coy in showing that there is a component of sexual perversion to Giulio's compulsive peeping in on the always scantily clad Sasha (and others).

The Hitchcock films that Do You Like Hitchcock? continually reference (to the point of jamming them into the viewer's eyeballs) are Strangers on a Train, of course, Dial M for Murder, Vertigo, and Rear Window.  Many other films, most notably Psycho, Marnie, and even Frenzy, also make cameo appearances and/or cloud the film's "Which Hitchcock movie are we really recreating?" plot.

Argento, like Hitchcock, has always been a distinctive visual stylist, hence his almost career long comparison to the man.*  In Do You Like Hitchcock? Argento attempts to merge his own visual style with that of Hitchcock's.  This is most noticeable at the beginning of the film, where Argento pans across Giulio's Hitchcock memorbilia decorated apartment and, a very short time later, uses a montage of shots that introduce Giulio's neighbors in the same way that Hitchcock introduced the character of Jeff Jefferies (James Stewart) in Rear Window.  Hitchcock panned his subjective camera across Jefferies' apartment and introduced his neighborhoods in a series of voyueristc snap shots.  Also like Jefferies, Giulio has a girlfriend (Cristina Brondo) that does not believe his ludicrous murder theory, at first.  So Giulio, again like Jefferies, is determined to prove his murder theory correct, no matter what the cost.  The cost, however, just might be his own life.

There is only one sequence where Argento's truly distinctive visual style glows through the mostly muted looking film.  It is the scene where Giulio crawls up the side of a building, during a heavy rain, to spy on Federica.  The rain soaked night is a dark blue, but Federica's window glows a blood red color.  That image was like something out of Suspiria or Inferno, and it took my breath away.  Other than that one moment, though, Argento stays remarkably close to Hitchcock's visual style throughout the entire film.  

But that unique moment (and what follows immediately after it) only draws unwanted attention to how un-unique the rest of Argento's Hitchcock homage is.  Which brings me back to the homages of Brian De Palma.  Argento unwisely draws upon many of the very same films (Rear Window, Vertigo, and Psycho) that De Palma did.  He also gives Giulio's peeping a perverse quality (Sasha and other woman that Giulio spies on are all seen naked, or clad in loosely fitting lingerie, and Giulio's girlfriend calls him on it) and that only gives Argento's homage a character far too similar to De Palma's homages.

In both Argento's and De Palma's films, the voyeurism and perverted sexual desires of the hero are used for black comic effect.  But neither Argento or De Palma attempted to blend that perversion with Hitchcock's favorite plot MacGuffin, the wrongly accused innocent man who is trying to outrace both the authorities and the criminal that has framed him.  A concept that Hitchcock himself only toyed with in his final classic, Frenzy.

The closest that De Palma ever allowed himself to get to that dark underbelly was in Body Double, when the voyeur hero is rightly dismissed as a pervert by a police detective.  "You make it all sound so dirty," the hero mutters.  The irony, uncommented on in the film, is that the supposedly sympathetic hero is a disgusting pervert.  De Palma's film argues that his hero's voyeurism and perversion is something healthy and good, because his spying uncovers a horrible wrong.  Despite the hero pointing out that it was his own perversion that allowed the horrible wrong to happen.

Wait a minute, when did this become a review of Body Double?

Argento seems to be doing much the same in Do You Like Hitchcock?  Or so it seems, at first.  But as the story unfolded, Argento continuely made a point of showing how clumsy Giulio was as both a peeper and as a would be detective.  He routinely gets caught in embarrassing and humiliating situations and it soon becomes clear that Argento wants to ruthlessly punish Giulio for his spying.  The best example of this is a painful (and painfully funny) sequence where Giulio, having been discovered spying through Federica's window, falls and breaks his ankle.  The "poor student" then frantically tries to escape on his moped, but he cannot balance himself and he keeps falling over and injuring himself more and more.  All the while the enraged man that has caught Giulio spying chases after him.  That scene alone, which had me almost doubled over with laughter, made the whole film worth sitting through.

Two and a half stars.

*Argento, also like Hitchcock, routinely makes memorable cameos in his own films.  In an Argento film the killer always wears gloves and it is Argento himself, not the actor playing the killer, that is wearing the gloves. 

Concordian Review: Love Bites (Vampyres of Hollywood II) - by Adrienne Barbeau

This review originally appeared in the October 2011 issue of the Digital Concordian.

Actress turned author Adrienne Barbeau brings back her bestselling Vampyres of Hollywood for another snarky and entertaining adventure in Love Bites.

In case you don’t know, vampyres (and not the vampires of falsified legend) react favorably to Hollywood film stock and lighting, so many of the Industry’s brightest, biggest, and greatest Hollywood stars and legends are, in fact, vampyres.  The ruler of the Vampyres of Hollywood is Scream Queen and studio chief Ovsanna Moore, a vampyre whose cultural background and professional history has a lot in common with Barbeau’s.

Love Bites pretty much starts right where Vampyres of Hollywood left off.  Two weeks have past since Moore waged a vicious battle to the death with the ancient evil that coveted her position of power in Hollywood, and she is still considered a “person of interest” (i.e. a suspect) in the “Cinema Slayer” case.  Something that is complicating her burgeoning romance with Peter King, the Beverly Hills Detective assigned to the “Cinema Slayer” case.

But all that turns out to be the least of Moore’s worries, as Love Bites opens with Moore getting attacked by a vicious and foul smelling creature she calls a “were”.  “Weres” aren’t just werewolves, though.  They are a creature or person capable of shape shifting into another creature, but only just that one kind of creature.  Most vampyres, however, seem to be able to change into whatever they want to.  “Most vampyres” because it depends on which clan the vampyre was either born or converted into.

As you can tell, Barbeau did not skimp in creating rich alternative mythologies and histories for her otherworldly creatures.

If an attack by a foul smelling “were” weren’t enough, Moore also has to deal with the melodramatic temper tantrums of Maral, her girl Friday and personal blood bank.  Maral hates that Moore has struck up a romance with Detective King, and the jealous woman isn’t above using some Black Magic to try and get rid of her vampyre’s new man, for good.

Although the start is a bit uneven, since Barbeau doesn’t seem to know what to do with her characters, and the romance between Moore and King feels more than a bit forced, once Love Bites gets moving, it becomes an entertaining and amusing enough monster romp for readers with a nostalgic love of 80s horror movies (especially the 80s horror movies that starred Adrienne Barbeau.)

Classic Moment of Cinema: Escape from New York (1981)

Jamie Lee Curtis explains the world of Escape from New York.

Escape from New York trailer

Escape from New York (1981) poster

Escape from New York: Main Title - Music Composed and Performed by John Carpenter, in Association with Alan Howarth

The Month in Writing: April

On Monday, April 9th, I submitted my review of Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President to the Digital Concordian.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes...

Jack a dull boy.

All work...

...and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All Work and No Play makes Jack a Dull Boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play...

...makes Jack a dull boy.  All work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Yeah, it was that kind of month.  You want to know what I wasted several days, almost an entire week, doing?  Cleaning up and streamlining the categories on this blog.  Really.  Sheesh, all that writing time wasted.

But I was wasting time long before my little doodle project.  Using all of the personal hardships of a recent family event (with a wee tad sprinkle of international travel tossed across the top) was a great excuse/distraction from writing.  One that I have both used and abused.

I hid that abuse by changing my weekly writing updates to monthly writing updates.  But even the most cursory glance of the postings in the My Writing category will show you that I have not been doing anything for the past few months.

Sure, cleaning up and cleaning out (not to mention streamlining to 0% Posting Fat) all of my categories gave me a false sense of accomplishment, but I knew it was false.

So, I picked myself up, dusted myself off and refocused on my writing.

Wednesday, April 25th: 732 words.

Thursday, April 26th: 555 words.

Friday, April 27th: 191 words.  309 words beneath my temporary 500 word quota.

Sunday, April 29th: 456 words.

Monday, April 30th: 604 words.

No new stories were submitted or published in April, and I am still waiting to hear back about the two that are still out there.  There WILL be more writing to report on next month, I promise.

New Comic Book Day (5/2/12)

Only one purchase this week:  Hack/Slash #20.

CORRECTION:  While organizing my comics, I realized that I missread the cover.  It is Image Comics' 20th anniversary, the new issue of Hack/Slash that I purchased was actually #15.  So it goes.

Lockout (2012)

CIA operative "I have no first name"* Snow (Guy Pearce) is shot up into outer space to rescue the President's daughter (Maggie Grace), who has been taken hostage inside of the world's first maximum security prison space station.

People skydive off of a space station.  

Really.  I am not making that up.

Two people jump out of an exploding space station, in outer space, zip into the Earth's atmosphere without even getting all that hot, and then they pop open parachutes and float down into New York City.

Good Mythical-Lord, the reviled James Bond adventure Moonraker had a more believable conclusion than Lockout. 

Needless to say, but watching that moment felt like I was getting kicked in the nuts and in the head by a pair of really pissed off donkeys.

Up until that point I thought that Lockout was nothing more than a generic and workmanlike exploitation clone of John Carpenter's Escapes from New York and L.A.  Albeit one that was moderately entertaining in its own goofy and characterless way.  The movie moved from cliche to cliche (i.e. the ruthless leader has a pain in the neck psycho partner that just so happens to be his baby brother, the hero thinks that he has sent the President's daughter to safety, but, SURPRISE, she is still there, etc.) and from action set piece to action set piece with a brisk and visually style free efficiency.

The movie wasn't good, but it wasn't insulting or boring.  It was just... there.

What helped make the pre-skydive stuff so inoffensively stupid was how clear it was that no one involved in making the movie was taking it the least bit seriously.  Everyone knew they were in a generic chunk of science-fiction genre junk food.  But at least they were all being professional about it.  Especially Guy Pearce.  I swear he had to have channeled all of his obvious contempt at having to star in a such a brain dead and disposable piece of cinematic crap as Lockout and used it to make his comedically laconic wise ass of a character almost seem credible as something similar to a human being.  Almost.

But then they had to go and skydive off of a space station.  That changed everything.  I had suspended my disbelief so the ludicrous premise could work, but I did so with the expectation that my intelligence would not be insulted.  Hell, I might have given the movie one and half a stars because, while Lockout was clearly a dumb, bad movie, it was not a boring or insultingly bad movie.

Then Pearce and Grace had to go and parachute off of a space station.  That is both dumb and insulting.

One star.

*Which is the set-up for a cute, albeit predictable, gag.

The Making of Star Trek - by Stephen E. Whitfield

The primary reason that the story of The Making of Star Trek - from the genesis of the series, to its creator's struggle to fit his optimistic vision of the future into the constrained format of a weekly television series, and the battle to keep the show on the air - is so very well known to even the most passing fan of the science-fiction genre is due in very large part to Stephen E. Whitfield's almost hagiographic history of the original series creation and its production.

To this very day the original Star Trek remains one of the most beloved of high water marks for televised science-fiction, and The Making of Star Trek, first published in 1968, makes it very easy to understand why that is so.

Series creator Gene Roddenberry used a "Wagon Train to the Stars" style action-adventure series format sales pitch to sell a science-fiction series that would be unlike any other on television, at the time.  Roddenbery wanted to create a science-fiction series that was not only firmly rooted in believability, but that was also optimistic.  A vision that inferred that "we" (the entire human race) would eventually overcome our various tribal differences, unify, and reach out into the stars to meet and interact with new lifeforms and new civilizations.

Roddenberry wanted a series that explored and examined the nuances of the human condition with the honesty and insight that only a science-fiction series seemed capable of doing, once again, at the time.  To put it another way, and to paraphrase a comment that Rod Serling made about the social commentary that he managed to put into The Twilight Zone, "I could have a Martian say something on television that no human being would ever have been allowed to."

A wonderful idea, to be sure, but how does one create whole new worlds, entire civilizations and/or species within the constraints of a weekly television series production time and budget?  How do you deal with writers (science-fiction or not) that think they can write whatever they want, just because it is a genre show?  How do you populate a starship in the completely unified 23rd while producing the series in the racially segregated and blatantly sexist 20th century?

Hell, what is a 23rd century starship even supposed to look like?

Whitfield's book - despite a bit too many declarations of a certain individual's brilliance, and that certain individual is not just limited to "co-author" and Star Trek series creator Gene Roddenberry - answers each and every one of those questions (and many more a reader or fan might not even think of asking) in this copious-to-the-point-of-almost-becoming-boring detailing of every single level of Star Trek's production.  

Although there were quite a few sections that tried my patience, such as the detailing of every last costume, set, and prop design, or (to this 21st century reader) the biographical information of all the series characters and the actors that portrayed them, nonetheless the book was an excellent and fascinating study of all the painstaking and back breaking work that went into making the show.

There is not a Star Trek fan out there that needs to be told that this book is required reading for a fan of the show.  But if you aren't a fan and want to have some understanding of the whats and the whys that made (and continue to make) Star Trek so addictive to entire generations of fans, then this book is worth reading.

 

Christina's Fantasy cover

Wait, that's not the same Christina as before!  Fake Shemp!  Fake Shemp!

Non Ho Sonno [a.k.a. Sleepless] (2001) - Music by Goblin

Star Trek: New Frontier #12: Being Human - by Peter David

The Excalibur may have been rebuilt, but its original crew remains fractured.  Shelby is now in command of her own ship, the Trident, and Ambassador Si Cwan has gone with her.  Xyon, the child of Burgoyne 172 and Dr. Selar, is up to amusing, albiet also irritating, rambunctiousness.

And Zak Kebron's suspicions regarding Mark McHenry's paranormal abilities, suspicions that were aroused when McHenry proved capable of warding off one of Q's pranks, are confirmed when the goddess Artemis, McHenry's one time childhood friend, and former lover, arrives to claim him.

It was bound to happen, eventually.  After gulping down eleven New Frontier adventures I finally read one where I felt completely lost.  The reasons for that are quite simple, really.  While I have, to date, only read the "numbered" books in the series, there have been several ancilliary and/or crossover adventures as well.  I have not read any of those books.  But the events in those unread books shade and color the decisions and actions of numerous characters and, because of that, like I said, for the first time I felt as if I had missed something important.  

Author Peter David did a good job of filling me in, making references to past events and such, but, nonetheless, my not having read the Captan's Table, Double Helix, or Gateways crossover books caused more than a bit of consternation and confusion for me.  So many new characters, and new conflicts between them, have sprung up out of "nowhere" for me that, as I said, twice before, I felt lost in the series for the first time since I started it.

Like a great many books in the series, Being Human reads like a chapter in a longer, ongoing work and not at all like a stand alone novel.  Many conflicts and confusions arise, or have arisen, but most, if not all of them, are not resolved in anything approaching a satisfying manner.  The TO BE CONTINUED tag makes it clear that any and all resolutions will be forthcoming in future installments of the New Frontier saga.

But that is not to say that the book is entirely without resolution.  Far from it.  All the various soap opera subplots orbit around a compelling and, to quote a famous Vulcan, fascinating central story.  The secret behind Mark McHenry's paranormal abilities is revealed, and that secret goes all the way back to an Original Series second season episode, Who Mourns for Adonais?

Because the very first New Frontier story that I read was the IDW comic book mini-series Turnaround, I knew that Mark McHenry was fated to undergo some rather interesting character development.  This development is nicely introduced and threaded throughout the entire Trek mythology with David's usual style, panache, and intelligence.  What makes the story work best is that David not once treats his characters as talking props, but as real beings with emotions and belief systems that, if not all that easy to relate to, are easy to understand.

So, despite my feeling of having missed an important episode or three, I still enjoyed and recommend the book.  I also, as always, am looking forward to reading the next book in the series, Gods Above.

New Comic Book Day (4/25/12)

After being away for far too many weeks, I finally managed to make it out to my local comic book shop and clear out all the issues that were clogging my save box.

The haul: Hack/Slash #20*, Crossed: Badlands #2, 3, & 4, Lady Death #16, Lady Death: Origins: Cursed #1, The Walking Dead #95 & 96, and Kolchak: The Night Stalker Files #3.

CORRECTION:  I misread Image's 20th Anniversary cover design.  The Hack/Slash issue I bought was actually #14.

Masters of Horror: Jenifer (Season 1, Episode 4 - 11/18/2005)

"You don't know what she is!  You have no idea!"

Truer words of warning were never shouted.  But police officer Frank Spivey (Steven Weber, who also adapted the teleplay from an original comic book story written by Bruce Jones and illustrated by Bernie Wrightson) does not hear them.  He only sees a deranged man with a meat cleaver threatening a helpless teen-aged girl (Carrie Anne Fleming, giving an exceptionally strong performance) that he has taken captive.

Frank shoots and kills the deranged man, saving the captive girl's life.  But he will soon wish that he had not.

The girl's name seems to be Jenifer, and she appears to be mentally disabled to the point of being non-verbal and childlike.  Jenifer also has hideous facial deformities that make her appearance monstrous.  But the body beneath that hideous face is sexually ripe and eager to please the man that saved her life.

Frank pretends to fight against his growing sexual obsession, telling himself, his increasingly estranged family, and his worried co-workers that he only wants Jenifer to be taken care of and given a chance at some kind of normal life.  But as Jenifer reveals that there is a monstrous nature lurking behind her monstrous facial deformities, Frank's obsession and his life both spiral out of control and whirl down into madness.

My recent trip to Italy has, and this should come as no surprise whatsoever to any long term reader of this blog, put me in the mood to revisit the work of Dario Argento.  I started to do so while in Rome, where I watched his masterpiece Deep Red for the umpteenth time, and I am finally getting caught up on the few Argento films that I have missed.  

Argento's two superlative episodes of Masters of Horror, however, are not among the ones that I have missed.

But I do consider his two episodes to be more than worthy of inclusion on a list of his best works (a list that includes the aforementioned Deep Red, Suspiria, Tenebre, and Phenomena, to name but a select few) and I was more than happy to kick off my Argento binge by watching Jenifer again.  

Argento's first season episode for Masters of Horror contains almost all of his visual and story telling trademarks.  There is the gentle lullaby that serves as a harbinger of horror, a narrative that has the slightly off kilter logic of a vivid dream, moments of shocking and unsettling graphic violence, as well as a scrumptious selection of beautifully framed shots and images.

My favorite moments in this particular episode are the very beginning and the very end, bookends that give the story the unending cyclical feeling of a fable.  Favorite moments that are between the bookends are when Jenifer licks her distorted lips after she meets young Amy in a backyard, when Frank visits, and then "rescues", Jenifer from the Asylum, Frank's teenage son's reaction to seeing Jenifer for the first time, Frank's reaction to what Jenifer has left in the refrigerator, and Jenifer's reaction to Frank's reaction.

My list can go on, but I would much rather you see the episode.  But, if you haven't already, I recommend that you track down the original story by Bruce Jones and Bernie Wrightson, and read it before watching the episode.  That way you can better appreciate how both Stephen Weber's script and Dario Argento's directoring eye stay remarkably close to the original story.  There are numerous shots that are taken directly from the comic book.  Nonetheless, because the episode had to be an hour long, Weber's script does add some events and characters, especially in the second half, that were not in the original story.  But the additions work and do not feel like padding.  

But it is Argento's visual fidelity to the source material (it is surprising just how many shots and sequences are framed and blocked exactly like Wrightson's orignial drawings) and how he is able to meld those copied images perfectly with his own visual ideas (i.e. Jenifer appearing in a dream, unblemished and beautiful, and calling and beckoning to Frank to come to her) is just one example, of many, of Argento's utterly unique and impossible to deny, or to ingnore, directing talents.

Twins of Evil - by Shaun Hutson (Based on the screenplay by Tudor Gates)

Mircalla Karnstein is back.  Sort of...

The vampiress with lesbian leanings only makes the briefest of cameos in this more or less concluding chapter to Hammer Studio's popular Karnstein trilogy.  She appears before Count Karnstein, a male descendant, after he sacrifices a woman atop Mircalla's tomb, and turns the man into a vampire as a kind of thank you for the gift.  Then she disappears from the Count's story.

But the Count's story itself is not the real focus of Twins of Evil.

No, the central story concerns orphaned identical twins Maria and Freida (portrayed in the film by real life twins, and Playboy Playmates, Mary and Madeleine Collinson) who have come to live with their Aunt and Uncle, Katy and Gustav Weil.  Gustav (portrayed in the film by a stern and haunted looking Peter Cushing) is a devout Puritan, one obsessed with cleansing evil from the blighted township of Karnstein.  He does so by accusing attractive young women of practicing witchcraft, and then burning them to death.

Good twin Maria tries her best to make peace with her Uncle, but bad twin Freida rebels by seeking out the company of the wicked Count Karnstein.  Freida's rebellion leads to her becoming a vampire, which then leads to an "unfortunate" case of "mistaken" identity with Maria.  Can heroic schoolteacher Anton Hoffer (David Warbeck in the film) save innocent Maria from her Uncle's misguided attempt at purifying the wrong twin of evil?

What do you think?

This after the fact novelization of the Hammer Studio's 1971 cult classic is the third novel by Shaun Hutson that I have read.  Although the man is said to have written well over 50 books, the only other books by him that I had read prior to Twins of Evil were Slugs, which, I believe, was Hutson's first published book, and its sequel, Breeding Ground.  Where among Hutson's 50 books Breeding Ground falls numerically, I do not know.  But his novelization of Twins Of Evil is both a better written and a slightly duller book than either of his somewhat notorious killer slug opuses.

On the better written front, Hutson's prose is clean, his pace tight, and he even manages to give the story some interesting nuances, at times.  On the slightly duller front, those interesting nuances become fewer and farther between as the story progresses towards its action packed finale.  Granted that is a routine issue with most, but not all, film novelizations.  As the book dragged on, and Hutson's creative license with certain characters became more and more infrequent, it became more unsatisfying reading.  I found myself wanting to put the book down and just drop my DVD of Twins of Evil into the player and watch the movie, rather than try and finish the book.

I used to be a novelization junkie.  Back in the days when video tape recorders and video rental shops weren't on every street corner.  Back when you couldn't collect movies like bottle caps, comic books, or paperbacks.  Back when owning the novelization was the closest I could ever come to owning (or perhaps just seeing) the actual movie.  Back then I had an entire shelf of horror, science-fiction, and fantasy movie novelizations.

But those days, and most of those books, are long gone.  Reading Twins of Evil was just a bittersweet reminder of why the need to have and read those novelizations has become a thing of the past for me. 

Classic Moment of Cinema: Suspiria (1977)

Suspiria (1977) trailer

Suspiria (1977) poster

Suspiria (1977) - Music by Goblin

Blue Gold - by Clive Cussler & Paul Kemprecos

An investigation of how a pod of grey whales came to be boiled alive in the Pacific Ocean uncovers an industrialist's nefarious plans to control the entire world's supply of fresh water.

Which also has something to do with the Great White Goddess that is rumored to be lurking in an unexplored (and quite deadly) region of the Amazon rain forest.

And yes, the book is every bit as silly as the above description makes it sound.  Perhaps it is even sillier.  There were plenty of moments while I was reading the book where I found myself thinking, "Man, this thing sure is silly."  But, in the end, it is that very silliness that makes Blue Gold so much fun to read.

I thought that Serpent, the first book in the Clive Cussler/Paul Kemprecos penned Kurt Austin/Numa Files adventure series, while an entertaining read, wasn't all that good.  I remember getting a tad confused by the mystery, losing track of what was going on, and not really understanding the hows and whys the various plot threads came together at the end.

I had no problems following Blue Gold, though.  The connection between the mystery of the dead whales and the mystery of the Great White Goddess, the former investigated by Kurt Austin and his wisecracking buddy Joe Zavala, the latter by a Nick and Nora style husband and wife team of science-adventurers, is quite strong, and both plot threads come together quiet nicely during the action packed finale. 

The fact that, despite my now having read two books in the Numa Files series, I cannot even remember the actual names of the Nick and Nora style husband and wife team of science-adventurers could be considered, by some, to be embarrassing.  But I think it just serves as a wonderful example of how disposable these potboilers truly are.  

I read and enjoyed Blue Gold while I was reading it.  But, less than a week after having finished it, the book has already fading from my cluttered memory.  All I remember from the book are its plentiful action scenes.  The dead whales causing havoc at a charity boat race, the exploding tortilla plant, Nick, Nora, and the Great White Goddess trying to escape a blood-thristy Amazon tribe, the identical twin hitmen tooling around on motorcycles mounted with spears, and the fist fight Kurt and Joe have with the Big Bad, an almost seven foot tall Nordic Ice Queen, inside of her Viking ship decorated lair.  

But all that stuff is what's supposed to be memorable, because those things are the sole reason for the book to exist.  Whenever I pick up a Clive Cussler novel, I am not expecting literature.  I am expecting a fun ride.  Blue Gold was a very fun ride, while it lasted.

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

"Am I on speakerphone?"

Every Horror Movie Fan knows the story and knows it quite well.  A group of five or so college buddies pile into a car and head out to an isolated cabin in the woods, where they plan to enjoy a weekend of partying.  But the woods they are in are cursed.  Bad things, very bad things, are said to happen (or to have happened) there.

Yes.  From Friday The 13th all the way to The Evil Dead and all the way back again, every Horror Movie Fan knows this story, and knows it quite well.

But nothing in this version of the story is what it seems to be. 

Wow.  Just sitting and trying to think how to best phrase this review without 1) overpraising the movie and 2) "spoiling" the so-called "surprises" the movie has to offer only makes me start chuckling and nodding my head.  Because I start thinking about the movie, you see, and just how much fun it was to watch and, afterward, to think about.  

That's right.  The Cabin in the Woods is not just a fun movie, it is also a smart movie.  A very smart movie.

So let me state, right now, that I no only believe The Cabin in the Woods to be one of the smartest, funniest, and most entertaining horror movies I have seen in years, perhaps even in decades.  But I also will go so far as to say that The Cabin in the Woods is one of the smartest, funniest, and most entertaining horror movies that I have seen in my entire life!

How is that for hyperbolic overpraising?

Then again, I am almost at the very center of the film's demographic target: A lifelong horror, science-fiction, and fantasy fan.  I grew up (and have begun to grow old) watching (and reading) countless variations of the film's meta-story.  So my point-of-view is biased towards favoring the film's literally countless pithy in-jokes to every conceivable horror/monster genre character and/or story template.

Which brings me back to the film's meta-story.  The trailers pretty much "give away" that the group of college buddies are unknowing (and unwilling) participants that have been lured into some kind of simulacrum, where they are tricked into acting out the familiar behaviors of the archetypal (or stereotypical) characters that frequent the "Spam in a Cabin" movie that The Cabin in the Woods seems to be making fun of.  

But the real surprise (and this is not a spoiler, either) is how the running of the simulacrum allows screenwriter/producer Joss Whedon and co-screenwriter/director Drew Goddard to satirize the very way these mythic stories (at least from the viewpoint of a screenwriter, a television show runner, and a film director) are consistantly recycled and repeated for its hungry audience.  It is the satire on this level that truly kicks the movie up into the highest stratosphere of genre brilliance.

And no, that is not hyperbolic overpraising.  The movie really is that funny and that smart.  Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard put The Evil Dead into a blender with the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the results are a true genre classic.

Whoops, I just might have said too much there.  I can only hope that I did not "spoil" the movie's delightful twists and turns for you.  But I really don't know what more I can say to encourage you to go out and see it, and to see it as soon as possible.  

I know that you'll be glad that you did.

Four out of four stars, Best of the Year list maker.

The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah - by Stephen King

"O Discordia."

Starting a very short time after the end of Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah, the sixth book in Stephen King's seven plus book epic fantasy saga, finds the fractured remains of Roland's ka-tet attempting a dangerous rescue mission.

Eddie's wife Susannah, pregnant with a mysterious "chap" and, thanks to a desperate bargain with Mia, the spiritual surrogate mother of said chap, has become possessed and has fled to points unknown with Black Thirteen.  If that were not bad enough, the dark forces of the Crimson King have tracked down Calvin Tower and the man must be saved if Father Callahan is to survive to meet Roland in the Calla.

There is still magic in the cave where the doorway stands, though.  Not a lot, but just enough to allow Roland and Eddie to search for Susannah, while Jake and Callahan try to save Calvin Tower's life.

Well, that's their plan.  The magic in the cave where the doorway stands has a different kind of plan, though...

Wolves of the Calla ended with a neat little meta-fiction surprise, Father Callahan learning that he is a fictional character from a novel ('Salem's Lot) that was written by a man named Stephen King.  The twist itself is not as surprising as how it plays out in Song of Susannah, though.  King has always been fond of having characters and locals from various books pop up in unrelated stories.

In Song of Susannah, however, King doubles down on Father Callahan's meta-fiction surprise by having Roland and Eddie meet a young Stephen King in the when of 1977.  For it is Roland and Eddie, and not Jake and Father Callahan, who have been sent to Maine to save the supposed to be in hiding Calvin Tower.  It is a ballsy move on King's part and he is as merciless to his fictional self as he is to many of his fictional characters.  

Some readers might be angered, frustrated, or confused by King putting himself in his own story.  Not me, though.  I love meta-fiction and, seeing how King has toyed with it throughout his writing career, I thought it was only a matter of time before King went from making references to himself and/or certain characters and locals to actually putting himself into one of his own stories.  And, of all the stories that he could have written himself into, none are more suited to his doing so than his Dark Tower saga.  It is the series that truly defines him as a writer.

Save for the cliffhanger ending of The Waste Lands, the third Dark Tower book, every other book in the series could pretty much be read as if it were a stand alone novel.  Not Song of Susannah, though.  This book reads like the middle part of a trilogy, which it is, and, if you have not read Wolves of the Calla, then the book will probably make little to no sense to you.  The book's story is deceptively light, for King spends most of the book weaving together the various threads that were left dangling at the end of the previous book with the threads that have been slipping and sliding through the entire story arc.

But King does not weave them into a nice little bow.  Instead he just puts everyone in position for a seemingly apocalyptic finale and then dares to end with a cliffhanger that is even more infuriating and frustrating than the cliffhanger for The Waste Lands.  Song of Susannah also ends with a meta-fiction shock that is considerably darker and meaner, albeit more fascinating and inspired, than the one that capped the ending of Wolves. 

The Dark Tower now looms in the distance.

Or does it?

Classic Moment of Cinema: Titanic (1997)

Only one video clip truly seems appropriate for me to post today, on the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

This moment, the final "quiet" before the Titanic shudders and spasms in its final death throws and slides beneath the surface of the Atlantic, is arguably the most emotionally and gut-wrenching moment of the entire film.  I think this moment alone is probably what got James Cameron his richly deserved Best Director Oscar.

A Night to Remember cover

Beneath the Dark Ice - by Greig Beck

A small plane filled with monster food (a.k.a. people) crashes in the Antarctic.  A rescue team is dispatched to, um, rescue them.

The rescue team vanishes, too.

So, a rescue team for the rescue team is dispatched.  Because, "When at first you don't succeed, then you try, try again," I guess...

The second rescue team is led by a brain damaged super soldier (think Captain America with some Incredible Hulk style rage issues) and an arrogant scientist.  In the caves "beneath the dark ice" of the Antarctic, the second rescue learns of the horrifying fate met by all those that have entered the caves "beneath the dark ice" before them.

What sounds like Captain America at the Mountains of Madness reads more like The Descent married Deep Rising and they had one weird looking kid.  That weird looking kid being Greig Beck's stupefyingly silly (albeit somewhat entertaining) monster novel, Beneath the Dark Ice.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, (and again, and again, and again) I love monster stories.  If I discover a book about some kind of giant or mutated whatsits, then I am going to read that sucker.  But just because I love them, doesn't mean I harbor any reality defying illusions about them.

All monster stories are formulaic to the point of being predictable.  Whenever I pick up a monster novel I know that I am going to be reading a variation on a theme that I have read (or seen) countless times before.  The secret to enjoying a particular sub-genre is not in the story beats themselves, but in how those story beats are played out.

You see, genre storytellers are a lot like jazz musicians.  Each one as his or her own particular style.  Some are cool, some are hot, some are smooth, some are acid, and, well, I think you may have already gotten the point.  It isn't the beats and themes so much as how they are played that makes the genre so much fun to revisit.

I know that I have had to have written this before, in another review, but, sometimes, it just needs to be repeated.  My reason for doing so in this review is that there is not much to be said, good or bad, about Beneath the Dark Ice.

The novel is workmanlike, at best.  It glides smoothly from one familiar set-piece to another with an almost clockwork like efficiency.  That makes it a fast read, but not a particularly memorable one.

There are a few moments where the book does come alive.  All of which involve the various monsters infesting the caves dispatching some poor, unfortunate soul in some horribly gruesome fashion,  But these moments are too few and far in between.  Also not helping is how a threat is introduced, but then moved past and forgotten after it kills a member of the group.  Instead of a feeling of growing dread and ever mounting danger, the book reads more like a fun house tour given by a tired guide that has had a long, exhausting day and who just wants to go home.

The book has a cool monster, though.  A really cool monster.  (No pun intended.  Honest.)

Wrath of the Titans (2012)

Perseus (Sam Worthington) journeys down into the Underworld to save his father, Zeus (Liam Neeson), from the diabolical Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and the tantrum throwing Ares (Edgar Ramirez).  Video game style action ensues.

Oh, I felt the wrath, all right.  Boy, did I ever feel that wrath.

"How could you give that thing two stars?!"  That question was asked to me by my shocked and cranky wife last Friday night, while we were standing outside the theater, after having just sat through the unnecessary sequel to the unnecessary remake of Clash of the Titans.  She had just finished grumbling to me about how godawful the movie was, and how it even manged to rival The Tree of Life in the intellectual and emotional pain inducemed while watching it department.  That is not mere hyperbole, belive me.  My wife was literally writhing during most of Wrath of the Titans one hour and thirty-nine minute running time.  There was even a time where she leaned against me and pounded her head against my shoulder.  

Thus her shocked and cranky question in response to my telling her that I was thinking of giving the movie two stars.  My defense for my original planned for rating?  "The movie wasn't boring."  Hefty praise, I know.  But that was the best thing I could really think to say about it.  The movie wasn't boring.

It was not all that interesting, either.  Nor did it take too long for it to feel like I was watching someone else playing a video game.  There would be a chaotic and somewhat entertaining action sequence, then there would be the cinematic equivalent of a video game cut scene.  A character would show up and woodenly vomit exposition off of the screen and onto the audience.  Then Perseus and company would trot off to the next action sequence.

Of the early action scenes, the best is one involving the group doing battle with a pack of cyclops.  It is not a great scene, but it is a cute scene.  One that is rendered unintentionally hilarious by a visual cap that is lifted straight out of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy: a line of people strolling across the top of a mountain while majestic music plays.

Which brings me to the other thing about Wrath of the Titans that kept me from following my suffering wife's lead: making fun of the blatant thefts from other, better science-fiction and fantasy films.  The most odious and eye rolling of which is when Perseus, before heading off into yet another battle, looks at his son and says, "I love you."

Perseus son's reply?  "I know."

Really.  That is exactly what the kid said.  My jaw fell open, and it continued to hang open for a few good seconds, at the shock of seeing a pedestrian, not to mention emotionally hollow, recreation of one of the most iconic moments from The Empire Strikes Back played out before me.  When my shocked reaction faded enough for me to move again, I leaned over and whispered into my wife's hear, "Kid, you are no Han Solo."

The only thing more shocking than that was that neither my wife or I came up with a running Princess Perseus gag.

Then there is the moment, just before the Big Bad that is Cronos the Titan is unleashed (Cronos the Titan is a giant lava man that seems a tad confused about how it managed to wander off of a 1980s heavy metal album cover and into this movie), where Zeus and Hades put an end to their sibling rivalry in a manner not all that different from the moment where Darth Vader saved his son Luke Skywalker from the dread Emperor Palpatine, in Return of the Jedi.

But the most painful shout out is to the original Clash of the Titans.  Bubo the Mechanical Owl makes yet another sad cameo in Wrath of the Titans.  Sad in that it only calls attention to the complete and utter lack of emotion and magic in both the film and its special effects.  There is no emotion, character, or even goofy charm to any of the monsters.  Even the cute cyclops.  They are all just video game images scampering around a debris cluttered and smoke filled screen.  Seeing Bubo the Mechanical Owl on the screen again might have made me smile.  But it was a sad smile, filled with longing.  I miss what Bubo respresents to a fan of my generation.  I miss the magic and the joy that no amount of computerized photo realism can capture, and I want it back.

The light changed and my wife and I crossed the street and started walking home.  I told her that many times my rating of a movie would change as I wrote a review and gave it some critical thought.  We discussed Wrath of the Titans and she argued strenuously and emphatically for me to the give it the one star rating she thought it deserved, and I almost did.

But one star ratings are reserved for bad movies that also bored me and, while Wrath of the Titans was a disappointing and hollow and pointless viewing experience, it did not bore me.

One and a half star out of four.

La Dolce Paura

My wife and I went to Italy last month, visiting both Rome and Venice, and had the most wonderful time.  Rome and Venice are cities drenched with fascinating history that can be seen and, in many cases, even touched.  There is one church (San Clemente) where you can walk down a flight of stairs and go back centuries in time.  Doing so was a breathtaking and fascinating experience for us both.

But the best thing for me?  The one thing that I was most looking forward to doing?  The place that we headed to the moment after we had dropped off our luggage at our hotel?

Dario Argento's Profondo Rosso store.

The very first place any life long fan of horror, science-fiction, and fantasy would want to go to while in Rome.

At the store I got the (possibly once in a lifetime) chance to not only geek out in an almost embarrassingly childish manner, but also to meet and speak with Luigi Cozzi, the writer/director of Star Crash, Alien Contamination, Lou Ferrigno's two Hercules movies, and several other entertaining pieces of joy filled cinematic geekiness.

Once I got over the shock of him being in the store (I had thought he would be retired by now and someone else would be working the counter) I gushed about how much I enjoyed all of his films and what a huge fan of Star Crash I was (am) and so on and so forth.  He chuckled and said thank you, then he chatted with my wife while I went down the spiral staircase, into the dark basement, and paid a visit to The Museum of Horrors.  Which is a small collection of props from some of Argento's films, as well as some of the genre memorabilia that Cozzi has collected over the years.  (Cozzi could, and should, be considered Italy's version of Forrest J. Ackerman.)

Here are two pictures of the entrance to the exhibits.

I took a lot of pictures, many of which did not come out all that well, and I do not want to post them all (although it is very tempting to do so).  So here are my three favorites:

The deformed killer from Phenomena.

And two items that will be very familiar to anyone that has seen Profondo Rosso (Deep Red).

A mirror...

and a painting...

I had hoped that Argento's Dracula 3D would have been released by the time we were in Rome, but the film is still in post production.  Cozzi told me that the final sound mix had just been finished and they were now focusing their work on converting the 3D effects.

He also told me that Dario Argento was planning on making an appearance, for a media interview, at the store in about two days.  He encouraged me to call and confirm the time so I could come to the store and meet Dario Argento.

That, I am sad to say, did not happen.  I did not get around to calling the store to verify times because, just to be blunt, there was so much else to do and see while we were in Rome.  I had made my pilgrimage to the store and met Luigi Cozzi, which is all that I had wanted to do.  Meeting Argento, and the possibility of getting a pic with him, could have been a nice feather in my fanboy cap, but it did not work out that way.  I just could not motivate myself to break away from the other sights and sounds and get back to the store.  

Now I know that could get my Team Argento card revoked in certain circles of fandom, so it goes.  I remain quite content with having met Luigi Cozzi, having bought a somewhat sizable bag of goodies, and having taken my pictures.  My visit to the store was as close to being a perfect fan experience as it ever could possibly be.  I have no regrets, only fond memories.

The only other thing about the Rome leg of our trip that falls within the spectrum of horror, science-fiction, and fantasy interest was our visit to the Capuchin Crypt.  Where, for a small donation, you can view several deliciously creepy (and goose bump inducing) mosaics made from human bones.  That place gave me the willies.

As far the Venice leg of our trip goes.  The only real science-fiction, fantasy, and horror highlight that I can share is whem my wife and I strolled around the Piazza San Marco, and tried to figure out the route Roger Moore had driven in his Gondola:

It was quite easy to figure out, actually.

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) trailer

This full trailer, again with narration provided by Norman Rose, is what I think an acid trip would look like.

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) teaser trailer

Narrated by Norman Rose.

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) poster

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) - Music Composed and Conducted by Ennio Morricone

Concordian Review: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - by Jamie Ford

This review was first published in the September 2011 issue of the Digital Concordian.

While I love my country and what it stands for, there are times where I simply cannot take pride in it or its actions.

How is that for a review opener?  Intrigued?  I certainly hope so.

Jamie Ford’s aptly titled love story, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, is a wonderful example of one of those times where it is well nigh impossible to take pride in the actions (no matter how “well intentioned” it may have seemed at the time) of the United States.  At least for those of us that were raised to believe that the term “all men are created equal” means exactly what it says, that ALL men are created equal.  (That being said, let us set the semantic arguments regarding gender and such for another, more relevant book review, okay?)

For most of Bitter and Sweet the year is 1942, the place is Seattle, Washington.  Young Henry Lee, the only child of a fierce Chinese nationalist immigrant, is made to wear an “I Am Chinese” button, both for protection and as a statement of cultural pride.  Unlike the other Chinese children in the neighborhood, Henry has been enrolled in an all white elementary school.  Because of this Henry is taunted and bullied mercilessly by his supposed peers.

Things get better, though, when another Asian child is enrolled in the school.  A lovely and patriotic young American girl named Keiko Okabe.  Keiko, unlike Henry, has been raised to be the natural born American citizen she is.  This is different from Henry’s more isolated upbringing, as he was raised less as a naturalized citizen and more as an expatriate Chinese national that just happens to also be a natural born American citizen.

Despite the cultural differences that would seem to separate them, Keiko and Henry become more than just good friends.  But the simmering hatred for the Japanese, both in the city and in Henry’s own home, challenges their friendship.  The hardest test comes when all the American citizens of Japanese ancestry are forced to “evacuate” to internment camps.  Henry then must make a painful decision as to who he is and what he stands for and believes in.

Although a sweet (if a tad too idealized) story of first love, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet also shows that the bitterness of hatred and injustice can not only be survived, but it can also be overcome. 

 

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012)

"Road kill."

Former stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze (a surprisingly pedestrian Nicolas Cage) has been tooling around the globe for years, trying to outrun his horrible curse.  Said curse turns him into the soul sucking Ghost Rider whenever there is True Evil afoot.  If there is no True Evil afoot then a simple wrong doing, like pirating a movie, or maybe even a little White Lie, such as "No, that outfit doesn't make you look fat, dear," will suffice.  The Rider, you see, is hungry for Sin, and no Sin is too big or too small when the Rider is hungry.

Blaze's curse is the result of selling his soul to the Devil, who is currently tooling around in the body of one Mr. Roarke (a shamelessly slumming Ciaran Hinds).  No, it isn't the Fantasy Island Mr. Roarke, either.  Although it certainly would have helped if there had been a wheezy voiced midget running around screaming, "The Rider!  The Rider!" every now and then.

Mr. Roarke's body is wearing out (it seems the Devil can't use His mojo while in a human vessel) and he needs a new one.  So he makes one, in the form of a boy named Danny (Fergus Riordan).  If the Devil succeeds in transferring itself out of Roarke's body and into Danny, then nothing on Earth will be able to stop him.

It's a good thing then that the Ghost Rider is not of this Earth. 

Okay, what the hell is wrong with me?

I knew that Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, the unwanted sequel to the 2007 Ghost Rider movie, which also starred Nicolas Cage, was a bad movie.  The kindest description I had read about the film described it as, and I kid you not, a "flaming turd".

So why the hell did I go see it?

I don't know.  Maybe it was what Stephen King referred to as the Siren Song of Crap, or maybe I just wanted to see if it was that bad, or maybe I wanted to start an annual tradition of putting a winter released Nicolas Cage movie on my annual Worst Movies of the Year list.  I just don't know.  Because, less than fifteen minutes in, I was hating myself for having talked myself into seeing this cinematic dung heap of a movie.  There is nothing whatsoever about it I can recommend to the curious viewer.  

The acting, save for a delicious performance by character actor Ciaran Hinds, is wooden to bad.  Cage, who has made a career out of playing delirious characters, practically sleepwalks through the entire movie.  He wastes valuable moments, whenever Johnny Blaze is battling the Ghost Rider within, where a special little tick or twitch in his performance could have made all the difference in the world.  Instead his inner battles just look like he is suffering from abdominal cramping while laughing at a good joke.

As with most action-horror-fantasy movies, what little story there is just serves as an excuse for a string of action sequences.  Sadly all of the action set-pieces are dull and uninspired affairs.  Even worse, all of the stunts are staged and shot poorly.  So even during sequences that could have made the movie a "dumb fun" viewing experience, it is impossible to get excited about what is going on.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, should you ever choose to watch it, and please don't, is the closest you will ever come to seeing what a movie co-directed by Hal Needham and Uwe Boll would look like.

You have been warned.

Half star out of four.

To Rome With Love trailer

Judging from this trailer, it looks like the creative magic that made Midnight in Paris so much fun has followed Woody Allen to Rome.

 

 

The Month in Writing: March

I really wanted to start the month off with a sale.  But that didn't happen.

On Sunday, March 4th, I got an email telling me that Battle Seance, one of the three short stories I currently have making the submission rounds, had been rejected.  So it goes.

Sunday, March 18th, I shot off my review of Sheri Holman's novel Witches on the Road Tonight, for the April issue of the Digital Concordian.

TV Stuff: Garth Marenghi's Darkplace: Once Upon A Beginning (Episode #1)

A Moment of LOL: John Carpenter's The Thing: The Musical

The House of Secrets #146 (Volume 20, June/July 1977)

Two chilling tales of suspense and horror...

Snow Ghost:  Prospector Roger Curtis murdered his partner for the gold they found clutched in a dead man's hand.  So why is the murdered man's ghost helping Curtis to get down off the snow covered mountain?

Snake's Alive!:  Wealthy Judi McGraw regrets bringing suave playboy Denton Yates onto her yacht, to join her on a South Sea cruise.  Denton pretty much regrets it, too.  When they discover an uncharted group of islands, Denton thinks that it is a gift from god.  Dry land, at last!  What Judi and Denton do not realize is that the island's inhabitants see their western visitors as a gift to their god.

Wait just a minute.  There are only two stories in this issue?  Oh, come on!  That is such a rip-off.  There would have been plenty of space for a third story, if all of the teasers for upcoming comics and the space gulping advertisements had been trimmed just a tad.

Deep breath.  Sigh.

Okay.  Of the two stories, Snow Ghost holds up the best.  It is both a wonderful example of the traditional ghost story (i.e. the one you would tell around the campfire) and an entertaining interpretation of the classic E.C. horror comic anti-hero getting what is coming to him.

Snake's, however, is a tad bit weaker than Ghost.  It is another fine example of the E.C. horror comic anti-hero getting a richly deserved punishment.  But the final reveal just did not work for me.  It was not that it was badly handled, for it was handled rather well, I think.  The quality of the storytelling in the book is quite good.  I am also certain that the target audience (i.e. young and tween children) were suitably chilled by the (quite literally) monstrous twist at the end.  

No, my problem was that the story was not all that different from Robert Bloch's classic yarn, Edifice Complex.  In fact, it was practically the same story.

And no, I am not accusing, and will not accuse, writer E. Nelson Bridwell of some kind of heinous intellectual theft.  I am just saying that I had read a far more entertaining variation of the yarn s/he told.  That is all I am saying.

And all I have to say, for now...  I will have more to say, at a later date, when I make another return visit to The House of Secrets.

The Secret World of Arrietty (2012)

Arrietty (voiced by Bridget Mendler in the U.S. version) is a young Borrower (thumb-sized people that live inside of human houses and "borrow" un-missed necessities, such as sugar, water, tape, etc.) that yearns to venture out into the world and explore.  Her very first "borrowing" does not go as planned, though.  Arrietty is seen by Shawn (voiced by David Henrie in the U.S. version) a young boy that will soon be undergoing surgery to mend a "problem" with his heart.

Although being seen by a human always leads to tragedy for a borrower, Arrietty cannot resist Shawn's desire to find and befriend her.  All humans can't be dangerous, can they?

Few films truly achieve a feeling of absolute perfection, The Secret World of Arrietty is one of those few.

Starting a review with such hyperbole may not be the wisest of ways to begin an amateur critique of the film, for there is nothing to build upon as the review progresses.  There is nowhere to go but down, which might lead to someone thinking, "Hey, if this movie is so frakking perfect, why are you grumbling about this, that, and the other?"  

But there really isn't anything for me to grumble about, which is even worse.  That could lead to copious amounts of overpraising in the review.  Which could then lead to someone seeing the movie and thinking, "Well, it's an okay little movie, but perfect?  Really?"

So let me just point out that I wrote a feeling of perfection.  That sense of perfection comes from the way The Secret World of Arrietty manages to recapture (or recreate) a young child's sense of wonder and joy at discovering the world around them.  A world that appears to be huge, because it is made by and for adults.  A world that constantly alternates between being magical and being menacing, between being awe inspiring and terrifying.

Arrietty's first "borrowing" is a hypnotic and breathtaking journey through the house.  A long and almost dialog and music free sequence that gets across both the joy and the terror Arrietty feels as she sees, for the first time, just how BIG and dangerous the world outside of her home truly is.  That is no small feat, pun unintended, since there had been an earlier scene where the arriving Shawn first glimpses Arrietty in the bushes outside the house.  A scene that ends with Arrietty narrowly escaping being caught by the pudgy (and adorable) house cat.

The reason both scenes work so effectively together is that the film acknowledges that Arrietty sneaking out of the house and being allowed out of the house might be two different things. in terms of emotional perspective, but the world will always remain the same giant and dangerous place, no matter what.

This was the first Studio Ghibli film that I have been able to see on the big screen, and I cannot think a better, more perfect, film to start with.  Not because I think it is better than some of the classic Studio Ghibli films, no.  My first big screen Studio Ghibli film could have seen Tales From Earthsea, if it had played anywhere near me, that is.

No, what made the movie such a breathtaking and magical viewing experience on the big screen is probably what drew (yet again, the pun is unintended) Hayao Miyazaki to the project to begin with.  The continuous and constant changes in visual perspective, from "normal" to "small" to "huge" and back again, and again, and again.  The film is evey bit as much a feast for the eyes and it is for the child within us all.  

Four stars out of four.  Best of the Year contender.

The House of Secrets #139 (Volume 19, January 1976)

Three chilling tales of the macabre...

The Devil's Daughter:  Matt Kingston believes that his stepdaughter Marianne is a witch, but he cannot convince anyone else that the girl is truly evil.

A Real Crazy Kid:  Womanizer Vic Beaumont always gets the girls, so his love life has become more than a bit boring.  His wish for a real romantic challenge comes true, but he forgot to be VERY careful of what he wished for.

Instant Rebirth:  Amos Walters, an Assistant Professor of Archaeology at the State University, for 35 years, discovers an incantation and a flagon that will make him the most powerful being on Earth.  There is just one, small catch...

Wow, here is an issue (from 1976) of a Bronze Age horror comic series that manages to read the way (I think) an issue of a horror comic series should: Dark, mean, and funny.  

Each of the three stories concludes with a well thought out and executed (pun intended) twist ending.  Twist endings that many would consider to be in the classic E.C. horror comic tradition.  Namely that each of the victims meets a horrible (or horrifying) fate, but it is their own poor behavior or decisions that results in their meeting a bitter end.  

The Devil's Daughter is the darkest and meanest story of the three.  Unfortunately it is also the one story that has its shock twist ending (there is an easy to figure out fake out twist) spoiled by the story's host narrator.  But that doesn't stop the final reveal from chilling the reader's blood, after its has had a chance to sink in and be thought about.

Crazy Girl is a comedic build-up to one hell of a black humored punch line.  One that I actually found to be chuckle inducing.  I also appreciated that the humor did not veer into the silly or cartoon like, the way it does in The Witching Hour series.

Instant Rebirth is the shortest of the tales, and it is just another variation of the "Quest for Ultimate Power Ending In Ironic Tragedy" morality play.  But it is well done, for the format and era, and I also got a kick out of how much Assistant Professor Amos resembled a certain Crypt Keeper.

After knocking around several Bronze Age horror comic series, searching for the issues that I remember freaking me out as a child, I believe that I have finally found a series that will make the search a far more entertaining and rewarding one.

Classic Moment of Cinema: Tenebre (1984)

A house, a camera, a large crane, and a single take set-up to a double murder. Dario Argento during his film making prime.

Tenebre (1984) trailer

Tenebre (1984) poster