Two More Fistfuls of Favorites! (Brad's Picks)

Two years ago, I finally settled on my Top Ten Favorite Films of All Time.  These are not The Great Films lauded by the AFI, Roger Ebert, or Sight & Sound.  These are the flicks that bring a smile to my face, or a race to my heart.  I don't believe in "The Best" - I only believe in Favorites.  I'm pleased to report that my films remain firmly set in stone.  I wouldn't switch a single number.  Unforgiven is certainly my #1 and Point Blank is certainly my #7.  Crafting the next ten, 11-20, was much more of a challenge.  I love so many movies.  What keeps Phantom of the Paradise on the list, but Lawrence of Arabia off?  Not exactly sure.  In another two years I'd safely bet my Top Ten is holding strong, but this Top Twenty will probably flip-flop a film or two.  Well, Dr. Jones is going nowhere.

20.  Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma, 1974):  I only recently fell in love with this Rock n Roll horror musical from the king of the Hitchcock steal.  Maybe only a half dozen watches, and I'm kinda shocked to see it on the list.  All that being said, Phantom of the Paradise is everything the Rocky Horror Picture Show wants to be - and more!  Struggling singer/songwriter Winslow Leach (the super sad & adorable William Finley) has his art stolen from him by the diabolical record producer Swan (sexual deviant Paul Williams) just before a tragic accident takes his face & voice.  The film mixes elements from The Phantom of the Opera & Faust but is steeped in all sorts of rock n roll - surfer, glam, metal.  And thanks to Paul Williams's pen, the songs are utterly brilliant.

19.  Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007):  There is no better police procedural than Zodiac.  Following the infamous investigation of eight murders surrounding the San Francisco area from 1968 to 1969 and possibly beyond, the movie really excels in its depiction of obsession.  Breaking the film up into three parts & three characters, the Zodiac killings attract the attention of Robert Downey Jr's Chronicle Reporter, Mark Raffalo's dogged detective, and Jake Gyllanhaal's curious cartoonist.  Like the best mysteries, the enjoyment doesn't come from the answers but the questions, and how these killings root their way through the souls of the protagonists.  I grew up reading the Robert Graysmith books as well as dozens of other sensational true crime novels, but none of them came close to touching the humanity found here.

18.  12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957):  The Great American Movie.  This film has the power to grant every audience member the courage of their convictions.  12 jurors file into a room ready to sentence a teenager to death, wash their hands, and race home to the ball game.  Henry Fonda stand up, "wait a sec", let's discuss.  One man can make a difference.  And 12 Angry Men should be watched every Fourth of July.

17.  Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997):  Maybe not the flashy game changer that was Pulp Fiction or as violently referential as Kill Bill, however, Tarantino's Elmore Leonard adaptation has one thing going for it that all his other movies don't....Elmore Leonard.  Tarantino is famous for his sponge style to filmmaking, the director can squeeze every scintillating drop from a hundred/thousand/million other lesser films of yesterday and mold them into staggering works of genius.  That fetishizing is certainly on display in Jackie Brown, but less so - the man lets Leonard do the hard work.  You've got smart criminals, dumb criminals, smart cops, dumb cops.  Pam Grier's money mule flight attendant finds herself up the creek, but uses the opportunity to free herself from the rut of her daily life.  Sam Jackson gives his All Time Great Performance as showboating gunrunner Ordell Robbie, and Robert De Niro is the ultimate expression of an Elmore Leonard character with his putz of a convict.  Not enough love has ever been properly thrown their way.  And yeah, Robert Forester, Michael Keaton, and Bridgette Fonda are in top form.  All expertly shot & executed by master movie man Quentin Tarantino.

16.  Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974):  Movies about movies, we love em around here.  And filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, The Coen Brothers, and Edgar Wright are virtuosos in cinematic dictation.  But the greatest movie about movies is Roman Polanski's Chinatown.  A love letter to the noirs of the 1940s as well as the hard boiled fiction of Raymond Chandler, Polanski's film is elevated by Robert Towne's paranoid, hateful screenplay and Jack Nicholson's escalating rage.

15.  Planet of the Apes (Franklin J Schaffner, 1968):  Whether you've seen the movie or not, you probably already know the story.  Charlton Heston's astronaut lands on a mysterious planet in which apes rule over man.  "Damn Dirty Apes" & Statues of Liberty ensue.  But similar to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, the film is much more than its quotes & twists.  Some of my favorite bits come in the first thirty minutes in which Heston, Gunner, & Burton explore the desert landscape and Chuck spouts his beautiful nihilism.  Then the horns blow, the hunt chases down our Earthly crusaders, and damn revelation tears our hero to shreds.  Planet of the Apes is some of the smartest science-fiction Athenaed from Rod Serling's skull, and I only wish the big, beastly blockbusters of our day bothered to mine the wit on display here rather than Ciffsnoting the climax.

14.  The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980):  What began as a Saturday Night Live showstopper quickly transformed into the greatest celebration of Rhythm & Blues ever.  But it's so much more than that.  Under the hyper enthusiastic direction of John Landis, The Blue Brothers reaches levels of cartoonish adventure worthy of the greatest Warner Brothers cartoon or, yeah, Tolkienian quest.  Jake & Elwood Blues are on a mission from God, and if they don't get the band back together then all the boys & girls of the Catholic Orphanage will go homeless.  Standing in their way are a caravan of hillbillies, a squadron of state troopers, the Illinois Nazis, and a bazooka packing Carrie Fischer.  The Blues Brothers is a madcap musical and totally badass.  Not too many of those around.

13.  Big Trouble in Little China (John Carpenter, 1986):  I was seven years old when I first saw John Carpenter's werido action, comedy.  I couldn't quite wrap my head around it.  Kurt Russell was all smiles and bravado, but he kept getting knocked on the ground while wearing ladies lipstick.  Russell's Jack Burton was boss, but he was also a dolt.  Of course, that's the whole point.  The John Wayne white man is the sidekick, and Dennis Dun is the chop socky badass fighting his way to the evil wizard.  Big Trouble in Little China is silly, goofy, and cool.  A combination hard for some, but absolutely in tune with the ITMOD sensibilities.

12.  Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah, 1973):  Two friends find themselves on opposite sides of the law; James Coburn's Sheriff is charged by local government to hunt down and capture Kris Krisstofferson's rabble-rouser, Billy the Kid.  Peckinpah's obsession with the closing West continues, but it plumbs new depths of depression as Garrett's soul is traded for easy living.  Melancholy has never been represented so fully than in the posture of Coburn's sell-out.  Not a fun night out at the movies, but as far as Westerns go, few achieve richer emotion.

11.  Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981):  Spielberg may have ushered in the new era of Blockbusters with JAWS, and George Lucas certainly solidified it with Star Wars, but it was Raiders of the Lost Ark that perfected the phenomenon.  Hollywood and its audience have been doomed ever since.  But let's not focus on the negative.  Harrison Ford is the king of self-depricating cool.  He's a real man's man with the grit of Lee Marvin and the charm of Cary Grant.  He can take a beating from a Nazi thug, but jump back swinging.  He can play drunk, asshole, or bastard and we still love him.   He's everything I've ever wanted to be and have absolutely no chance of achieving.  Toss in an epic quest to save God from Hitler and you have the ultimate adventure film.  Fortune & Glory.

So there you have it.  My favorite films from 11-20.  Again, if you're still interested in reading drivel, check out 1-10 HERE.

--Brad

Comic Review: Blacksad

This handsome hardcover volume collects three stories about the toughest, hard boiled cat detective out there, John Blacksad.  It’s the post War world of police corruption, Hollywood glamour, building racial tensions, Communists, and the Bomb.  And these stories are grimy with the human filth of Hammett, Chandler, and Spillane.  Written with pulpy flair by Juan Diaz Canales and rendered in gorgeous color by Juanjo Guarnido, it’s like someone blended the anthropomorphic world of Disney (Guarnido used to work for Disney in France) with the gritty world of Film Noir.  It keeps reminding me of the flashbacks to young Don Cornelius’ early days in America from The Godfather II.  Like a painting of a nostalgic memory, tainted with violence and betrayal.

Somewhere Within the Shadows introduces Blacksad.  His ex, a famous actress, has been murdered and he must deal with his feelings for her, while tracking down those responsible.  Something about this story reminds me of the movie Devil in a Blue Dress.  Not the story, but it has a kind of Easy Rollins vibe to it.  And they do such a good job of casting characters by way of animal choice.  Need a dirty rat?  Well, draw him as a rat.  A big boxer?  Gorilla.  That gross bartender?  A sweaty pig in a tank-top.

Arctic Nation deals with racism and the disillusionment beginning to grow in the aftermath of the post WWII economic and cultural boom.  Failed neighborhoods, white supremacists, the hypocrisies and abuses of power.  There’s a Chinatown element to this, but again, a dose of Easy Rollins.  Arctic Nation is probably the most sad or melancholy of the stories.  I think because it’s about so much failure.  Sure, it’s about racist skumbags, but it’s also about shattered dreams, haunting mistakes, and lives lost in the shuffle of progress.  The art throughout the volume is beautiful, but I find the snow shrouded suburbs especially effecting.

Red Soul is about Communism, fervent anti-Communism, fear of the Bomb, and the attempt to overcome past sins.  Blacksad has eyes for a pretty young intellectual, but with all that murder going around, he’d best be careful.  And nobody wants to be called a Red.  The Beats, protesters, spies, and bomb shelters.  There’s a lot going on in this story, and I’ll admit, I was a bit lost, a couple times and had to go back over a couple pages to keep everyone straight.  Probably my least favorite story of the three, it’s still quite enjoyable.

If you’re a pulp fan, or a film noir fan, this is one of the coolest graphic novels out there.  It’s well written and beautifully illustrated.  And it has a very different look than you might be used to.  European comics have their own thing going, and I like it quite a bit.  I’m constantly amazed by how much emotion Guarnido is able to get out of cartoon animal faces.  Top notch work all ‘round.

Blacksad
Author: Diaz Canales
Artist: Juanjo Guarnido
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
ISBN: 978-1-59582-393-9

-Matt

Dork Art: Oscars Legends

The Hero Complex gallery is gearing up to launch their Oscars Legends series this weekend.  Rather than showcasing this year's nominations, the gallery will focus on the Academy's past glories.  You've got your typical stuff like 2001 and Chinatown, but it's the spotlight on Bram Stoker's Dracula and The Incredibles that really got me smiling.  For more artwork and further info click on over to Slash Film.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (5/20/12-5/26/12)

    Kind of a rough few weeks, but I still got some good Dork Life in.  Only a few movies, but a bunch of reading.  And I’m semi-mobile again.  I’ve got my bike fixed and my legs are working about the best I can expect from them.


    Chinatown:  There is a big mess in L.A. and detective Jake has just put his foot in it.  Conspiracy, murder, money, and some of the darkest of family secrets unravel as Jake tries his darnedest to figure things out, and keep his head.  Colorful characters played by a cast of greats.  An amazing score.  Crackerjack dialog and direction.  Heck, it even seemed like Faye Dunaway had emotions.  After watching this, I want to grab a bunch of Noir DVDs off the shelf, read a couple Hard Case Crime novels, and listen to some swinging 40s music.  A great film, and a must see.  Thanks to Brad and the AFI Silver, I’ve now seen it on the big screen, which was a real treat.

The Running Man:  One of the great Arnold vehicles, it’s also pretty much what Susanne Collins lifted whole cloth from to create her Hunger Games novels.  A man unjustly accused is forced into a game show, where he must survive in a live blood sport.  It plays with the trends of TV at that time, which grimly foretell the reality of TV today.  Evil corporations, cynical audiences, the media run amok.  All filtered through the eye of the 80s.

Battleship:  When the villagers wanted to rape some angels, Lot said; “Look, I have two daughters who are virgins. I am ready to send them out to you, for you to treat as you please, but do nothing to these men since they are now under the protection of my roof.”  So, yeah, you know all that kind of really, really F-dup crap in the Bible?  The stuff the preachers don’t usually like to talk about?  Watching this was a lot like that.  We’re talking wheels within wheels and covered in eyes.  Balls of wings if you see inside your soul will burn.  Cities blasted into oblivion with little provocation.  Seven headed beasts with crowns and whores and such.  The sky turning black, temples collapsing on long haired guys, and lots and lots of things rending.  This film is abomination.  Stone it in the town square.  Old school stuff.

Erotikon:  Kind of a goofy comedy, it has some pretty clever gags.  It’s the oldest breaking of the ‘fourth wall’ I’ve seen, with the reference to what the film watching public enjoys.  Not a bad movie, but not especially good.  There is a brief, interesting discussion of Swedish silent film that places this movie in context, and reveals it and its creators’ effect on the film industry to come.  The film is well made and well acted, but I had a hard time getting into any of the characters or what they were doing.

Hellboy:  I’ve reviewed this film a few times, and I still love it.  It’s a great blend of Mignola and Del Toro, with a good balance of staying true to the comic while being an entertaining film.  Ron Perlman was born to play Hellboy.  For once, a tacked on romance actually works and works well.  And though it gives you a taste of hope, it still has that impending doom that should haunt Hellboy’s life.  Maybe not as much as it does in the comic, but it’s there in the film.  I just wish more of Mignola had made it into the sequel, which goes way off the mark.

Boardwalk Empire:  “We all have to decide how much sin we can live with.”  Crime, vice, glitz, and the behind the scenes oceanic flowing of power and control in Atlantic City and other dangerous warrens during the bloody and ugly years of Prohibition.  A fine cast, great production value, solid writing, and a good story.  This is excellent television, if not for the weak of stomach.  Occasional heroism peppers some grueling bouts of inhumanity.

    Ben and I watched the first disk of Hell on Wheels.  Pretty good.  It kept making me want to watch other stuff.  Got in the mood to watch Kung Fu and Ravenous right off the bat.  I’m developing quite the hankering to play some more Red Dead Redemption.  And maybe soon I can finally rope Brad into bringing Deadwood over to the Matt-Pad.

    I finished listening to the audio version of Christopher Hitchens’ autobiography, Hitch 22.  I really liked that it was read by him.  I should be writing and posting my review soon.

    Continuing my recent trend of finally reading various single issue comics I’ve acquired over the last few years, I read the 2011 Free Comic Book Day issue of Atomic Robo.  I do like that comic, as it reminds me of Hellboy among others.  Though I don’t think it’s as good.  Perhaps a bit too modern, with a few too many pop-culture references.  Still, it’s an enjoyable read and I am likely going to grab a full trade paperback one of these days.  Also included is a brief intro to the comic series Foster Broussard, which I didn’t much care for, and an exceptionally short teaser for Moon Girl, which has an interesting look and there’s something tantalizing about, but so little is revealed, it’s hard to tell how interesting the actual series might be.  I may have to look into a trade of that, if such exists.

    “You have to be @%$#ing kidding me.”  When at my local Laughing Ogre comic shop last year, I happened to see that IDW was bringing out a line of Godzilla comics.  Huh.  That’s crazy.  I’ve got the old Marvel run, which was…something.  I mostly picked it up, because they did a series of tailored covers, depicting the local shop getting stomped, which I thought was a clever gimmick.  And I do love Godzilla, and it is written by Eric Powell.  All that aside, it went in the pile and like so many single issues before it, didn’t get read.  Now that’s changed, and I’m glad.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.  The art isn’t amazing, but it’s good enough.  And just the idea of Godzilla rampaging again, especially as the monster he originally was, is kind of fun.  I may grab the first trade of this.

    Another Free Comic Book Day book from 2011 was next.  Super Dinosaur: Origin Special by Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard.  It’s from their kid-friendly line and seems like fun.  The writing is a bit strained, not quite capturing kid speech.  It’s more like typical cartoon show dialog.  But it’s not bad and the story about a genius kid and his dinosaur friend defending the hollow Earth is pretty cool.  It was certainly entertaining enough that I’m giving serious thought to grabbing the first trade, which I think just recently came out.

    More 2011 Free Comic Book Day stuff with an Avatar: The Last Airbender/Star Wars: The Clone Wars double.  Avatar was fun, with two short vignettes, one about Aang and some Airbender artifacts, the other about the philosophy of cleanliness (or not).  Sadly, the Clone Wars story is quite lame, with Opress (a yellow Darth Maul) and a Hutt and some blah blah.

    Staying kid-friendly with 2011’s Free Comic Book Day samples, I read a Kung Fu Panda/Richie Rich double.  The two Kung Fu Panda shorts were pretty good.  The writing felt about right, and the art was nice.  It’s brief, but fans of the films should enjoy.  I never liked Richie Rich.  When I was a kid, the cartoon used to infuriate me.  So, I didn’t have much hope/expectation for the short story here.  It’s OK kiddy stuff, but pretty broad and written like a 90s cartoon (read: not that well).  While I might be interested in reading more Kung Fu Panda, I would not follow Richie as they try and fail to make him into Johnny Quest.

    On the darker side of that same Free Comic Book Day was the Baltimore/Criminal Macabre double.  Regular readers will already know that I love Mike Mignola’s work, and this is no exception.  It’s short and doesn’t tell much of a story, but what’s there is very cool.  I really, really have to read the novel one of these days.  And the other stuff that’s out there on the character Baltimore.  Unfortunately the other comic, Steve Niles’ Criminal Macabre was not so good.  I found the concept and writing to be a bit too 80s and a bit too junior high creative writing class.  I’ll skip any more of that.

    Getting away from the free stuff, I read Jason Conquers America, a little selection of mad Norwegian comic artist Jason’s shorts and interviews with both the artist and his frequent colorist Hubert.  Dang, it’s a batch of crazy, as one would expect.  The strip about Jesus raking leaves seriously cracks me up.  The look on the Devil’s face is priceless.  And Darth Vader at the poetry slam…Yeah.

    Digging through boxes with old comics and stuff from previous years’ SPX and other comic cons, I came across a short comic called The Ravens’ Gambit.  It’s a super-small publisher comic that felt like it was based on someone’s D&D game.  Not my cup of tea.  The art is OK for small press stuff, but nothing wowed me.

    And then I found a tiny little Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into comic for the recent (last year?) re-launch of that line with original co-creator Kevin Eastman back on board.  It’s all right.  I feel like I’m too much of a poser when it comes to the Turtles.  I kind of like ‘em, and I’ve read a bit, but mostly I liked the cartoon and the Archie Comics version.  I’m trying.  Time will tell.

    Another discovery was Dynamite’s 2009 issue 0 of their Buck Rogers re-launch.  I’ll admit, I’m intrigued.  Generally, Dynamite hasn’t impressed me.  They tend to have glitzy production value, but little else.  Still, after my surprise enjoyment of their way-back set Burroughs’ Mars story, I’m a little more open to checking them out.  And I’m probably going to have to read the first trade of this.  The art is pretty good and there is certainly potential.

    More Free Comic Book Day stuff with 2008’s Hellboy, featuring the story The Mole, which is weird and gross.  It’s also got a short B.P.R.D. story and another brief one about a youngish Prof. Bruttenholm.  As usual, it’s all good stuff.  Can’t wait for the next Library Edition of Hellboy.  Soon.

    Back to some kid-friendly fare, I read 2010’s Owly and Friends! from Top Shelf.  Owly was, as always, very cute.  James Kochalka’s surreal Johnny Boo Does Something is…um, special.  Then there’s a Korgi short, which is beautifully illustrated, if not really my thing.  Overall, good stuff for young readers.

    I also found an issue 0 for Conan.  Looks like it came out in anticipation of the passing of the baton from Kurt Busiek and crew to Tim Truman.  I’d read this before, as it’s in the Conan trade volume 7.  Basically, an adaptation of the poem/short “Cimmeria,” with a brief story of Conan’s return to his homeland spliced in.  It does look nice, and is one of the better bits from Truman’s run.

    In my non-comic/movie life, I finally got my bike repaired.  I took a spill last summer, banged my legs up pretty good, and a month or so later, when I finally got back on my feet, I found that something was wrong with my bike.  Turns out a little thingy that holds the chain was bent real bad, and needed to be replaced.  So, that done, I got dropped off at the bike shop and rode home.  Now, the bike shop wasn’t all that close to where I lived when I purchased the thing.  I’ve since moved a good distance further away.  So, it’s a two and a half hour bike trip.  The up side is I get to spend about an hour of that trip on the W&OD trail, which if I were in a long term relationship, would be my mistress.  I love riding the trail.  It’s generally smooth and gentle, with varied scenery and lots of friendly folk (even got a complement on my Wyld Stallynz T-shirt from a young lady).  The down side is the hour and a half of the trip that wasn’t on the trail.  Unfortunately, I seem to live in a nearly perfectly bad spot to be a cyclist.  It’s 45+ minutes by bike to the nearest place that is at all enjoyable to ride a bike.  One day, I’ll get me a car and a bike wrack and all will be well.  ‘Til then, oh, W&OD, we’ll always have Vienna.

-Matt