Brad's Two Weeks In Cap! (3/30/14-4/12/13)

It's all been building to this.  Every couple of months I fall into obsession - well, let's be real, I'm in a constant state of obsession but that Large Obsession develops into multiple mini-obsessions throughout the year.  When we first started ITMOD Matt & I were obsessing over Hobos With Shotguns, and since then you've seen me ga-ga for Star Trek, Shatner, Heston, Dirty Harry, Batman, Jim Brown, Avengers, Avengers, Avengers, and Avengers.  The hype building up to Captain America - The Winter Soldier has been typically intense across the internet.  Not quite to the level of when The Avengers super movie hit, or even when Pacific Rim flopped all over last year's Summer, but as April 4th got close and closer I found myself all a tingle with anticipation.  Of course, it didn't help that I was rereading Ed Brubaker's monumental run on the Marvel Comic - yeash, I barely got through it all in time for the movie.  When all is said and done, Brubaker's Winter Soldier & Death of Captain America arcs are TOPS while the rest is compiled with schizophrenic peaks & valleys.

But I've managed to squeak in some non Cap stuff as well.  AFI Silver screened David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, Darren Aronofsky dropped his wacky Old Testament saga, Cheap Thrills hit VOD, Angelika had the kill crazy rampage of The Raid 2, and Ben Wheatly's magnificent mondo horror A Field in England just hit glorious blu ray.  And yeah, Captain America lead me into a mini-blaxploitation marathon which is proof positive that Winter Soldier is simply too cool for fools, folks.  Here's the breakdown -

Mulholland Drive:  "Maybe it's not me."  I'm almost fairly certain this was not the first David Lynch film I ever experienced (surely, I saw Blue Velvet some time during high school), but it was most certainly the first one I saw on the Big Screen.  And it is the film that propelled me through the rest of his catalogue in which I would eventually discover Lost Highway and Twin Peaks and forever question the realities we establish around us.  Mulholland Drive begins like a typical L.A. Noir.  A limousine crashes alongside a twisting road, a woman stumbles from the wreckage with no memory of who she was before, and a wannabe starlit plays detective.  A Nancy Drew styled investigation begins with sinister side characters popping up to send shivers down spines.  Who is the cowboy?  What horror lurks behind the diner?  What. Is. In. The. Box?  Those seeking answers or simple, tidy resolution should not bother.  You could probably crack some plot out of the script, but it's best to approach Mulholland Drive as an experiment in tone, style, symbolism.  There might be answers, but they're not going to be nearly as interesting as the act of Lynch's Hollywood deconstruction.  This is hard boiled poetry.

Captain America - Two Americas, No Escape, & The Trial of Captain America by Ed Brubaker:  After resurrecting Bucky Barnes and killing Steve Rogers, it felt like Ed Brubaker pretty much said all he had to say about Captain America.  With The First Avenger debuting in the Marvel Cinematic Universe alongside Robert Downey Jr and the billion dollar promise of Joss Whedon's Blockbuster, Rogers had to be put back under the cowl in the comics.  I hated, hated, hated that cold hard fact at the time, but upon rereading the series I found myself really enjoying the comic book silly of Reborn.  And that's probably where Brubaker should have left.  Every story he crafted after that was a bit of a letdown.  Two Americas has its moments as Bucky Cap battles the Captain America of the 1950s while Steve Rogers goes off to have spin-off Super Soldier adventures.  It's decent.  50s Cap is a sadsack tidbit in comic book history worth exploring.  No Escape pits Baron Zemo Jr against Bucky Cap and the climax is emotionally confusing and utterly blah.  And after removing Bucky Barnes from the equation offscreen in Matt Fraction's abysmal Fear Itself event, The Trial of Captain America concludes The Winter Soldier storyline in a boring, run-of-the-mill prison escape.  The murky world of Cold War paranoia handled so exceptionally by Ed Brubaker and Steve Eptiing concludes with some half-assed/half-hearted storytelling.  It's rather depressing.

Iron Man Three:  "Take me to church!"  This film will always suffer in the eyes of fanboys as the followup to The Avengers.  I hate hearing the complaint, "Why doesn't Stark just call up the Super Friends?"  It's a question you'll never hear from comic book geeks.  I'm sure we could spend hours/days/months/years concocting a reason why Captain America doesn't appear to kick The Mandarin's ass, but the simple fact is that every movie cannot be The Avengers.  Cap was busy.  Deal.  I think that Iron Man 3 is an exceptional emotional sequel to Joss Whedon's extravaganza.  Director Shane Black brings in as much of his personality as he can, and delivers a banter heavy buddy film in which Tony Stark battles his inner demons (PTSD here instead of that classic Demon in a Bottle) while navigating the shadowy world of domestic/corporate terrorism.  And I'll never understand the hate for Ben Kinglsey's Mandarin.  You wanted Yellow Peril?  You thought Fu Man Chu was a badass comic book villain?  No you didn't.  No one liked The Mandarin five years ago, and don't pretend this twist on the character is not genius and the only way the MCU could have gone.  For my money, Iron Man 3 is easily the best of the trilogy, and leaves Tony Stark in a fascinating predicament for Avengers - Age of Ultron.

Thor - The Dark World:  I really enjoyed the first film's romcom approach to super heroes, and it remains my favorite of the Phase One Marvel Movies.  With Jane Foster now coming to Asgard, I was hoping for some more of that fish-out-of-water comedy, but it doesn't seem like Marvel was interested in staying small and character centric after The Battle of New York.  Not as successful in moving forward as Iron Man 3, The Dark World still succeeds more than it fails thanks to the neverending charm of Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston.  When Thor & Loki are on screen the audience is having a good time.  When Dark Elves and Aethers are filling exposition the audience is yawning.  Not a bad movie, and certainly not the worst film in the MCU cannon (cough, cough, Iron Man 2), The Dark World certainly doesn't thrill as much on repeat viewings.  Alan Taylor managers to craft a fun world hopping action sequence for the climax, and Mjolnir has never worked better then it does here playing catchup, but ultimately I feel that Thor 2 is simply a stopgap on our way to the next adventure.

Ultimate Spider-Man #200:  I don't really talk much about single issues on the blog anymore.  Frankly, as I struggle to keep these Weeks in Dork flowing on time, I just don't have the energy to ramble on about every floppy that gets my attention.  That being said, I just need to take a moment and gush about Brian Michael Bendis' latest bit of Ultimate Spider-Man goodness.  Peter Parker is dead.  I hope he stays that way.  I'd like to say that in the Ultimate Universe dead is dead, but that Carnage Gwen Stacy monstrosity is walking around and there's a retcon that doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should - gross, gross, gross.  But hopefully Ultimate Petey remains in the ground...at least as long as Bendis is writing the book.  Writer leaves, I leave.  The 200th issue (I guess if you count all the relaunches and the Cataclysm event that makes sense) revolves around a memorial for Peter Parker.  Aunty May is there.  Gwen Stacy (again, Carnage, again, gross) is there.  Mary Jane.  Kitty Pryde.  Miles Morales.  Ganke.  Kong.  The whole supporting cast.  Each one is given the chance to imagine what the world would be like if Parker hadn't died.  Their splash pages are wonderful.  Kitty's page is heartrbeaking.  This is the type of melodrama that Spider-Man comics do so well, and Bendis reinvigorated my love for the character.  Just keep 'em coming.

Noah:  I enjoyed it.  More than I thought I would.  But I really haven't thought about the movie since I left the theater.  Russell Crowe's Noah is one tough hombre.  He's burdened by visions of God's watery wrath, and decides to construct an ark to hold the innocents of Earth - aka the animals, no room for man here.  I really enjoyed the first half of the film with Crowe partnering up with rocky fallen angels and defending his earthship from Ray Winstone's marauding sinners.  However, once the rains come and the family psychodrama takes over, I checked out.  The Genesis flashback is pretty cool, and when the film gets nuts, it really gets nut, but I never connected with Noah's pain.  This is more the kind of film I want from Aronofsky, but it's still nowhere near as engaging as his earlier films.

Captain America Volume 6 Issues 1-17 by Ed Brubaker & Cullen Bunn:  What a whimper.  As stated above, the best Captain America comics occur under the direction of Ed Brubaker, but his final run on the series is a tremendous letdown.  For the first five issues, Brubaker is joined by Super Star Artist Steve McNiven and he kills it...until he disappears from the series and the Operation Bravo storyline is rushed by the pedestrian work of Giuseppe Camuncoli.  Ugh.  And Operation Bravo???  Way back when in WWII, Cap & Bucky lose a military operative in a child's imagination where he partners with Hydra lackeys and..............snooooooze!  Bravo sticks around for the rest of these issues where Cullen Bunn finishes Brubaker's plot involving a floating Hydra base and Jack Kirby's Mad Bomb.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  Along the way D-Man gets a 90s makeover and Diamondback gets catty with Agent 13.  It's hard to believe this is the same guy responsible for The Winter Soldier.  Brubaker was on his way out from Marvel and it's painfully obvious during his final moments.  A real comic book tragedy.

Captain America - The First Avenger:  It's hard not to focus on the missed opportunities when discussing Cap's first appearance in the MCU.  Raiders of the Lost Ark + Marvel (should) = The Greatest World War II Nazi Smashing Adventure Film Ever Made!!!!  Sadly, the film looses itself (& WWII) through a series of limp montages as it propels Steve Rogers into the future where he'll contribute to the Damn Yankees of Comic Book movies, aka The Avengers.  Pretty much ignoring Hitler and his SS Goons in exchange for the toy friendly Hydra, The First Avenger screws itself when it comes to the villain threat.  The Red Skull is the most terrifying villain in the Marvel Universe, and he's tidied out of the plot with a couple of punches and an inexplicable (although extremely opportune) touch of Asgardian teleportation.  I'm still crossing my fingers that The Skull will redeem his villainy in Captain America III, and if enough money/sandwiches are thrown Hugo Weaving's way I'm sure he'll supply his Herzogian razzle dazzle.  What the film does get right is Steve Rogers.  The First Avenger is easily the most successful of the cinematic origin stories, and there is more heart in Chris Evans's performance than in all of his Super Friends combined.  His final moments with Stanley Tucci's Dr. Erskine reduce me to tears every single time - that index finger to the heart...gosh...heart in throat. Movie Audiences can be a cynical bunch of eye-rollers these days, and it's truly impressive that a golly-gee "Truth Justice & The American Way" kinda super hero can snatch their attention.  I only wish Warner Brothers had that amount of trust in their audience when it came to their gritty, modern Man of Steel.  So, for that first hour alone, Captain America The First Avenger ranks as one of my very favorites in Phase One of the MCU.

Captain America - The Winter Soldier:  Ten minutes in, the film had me.  No other studio on the planet would open their giant franchise blockbuster with a character beat.  Steve Rogers, the Man out of Time, runs laps around the Washington Mall and has a chance encounter with modern day soldier Sam Wilson.  The two bond through their Military Experience and Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man soundtrack. Captain America, The Falcon, & Mr. T! Does it get any better than that!?!?!?!?  Oh my goodness, YES!  From their we get a S.H.I.E.L.D. Assault on a hijacked ocean liner, a wannabe Bourne ass kicking of Batroc The Leaper, a Downtown DC Nick Fury beatdown at the hands of the not-so-mysterious Winter Soldier, a cold war bunker full of War Games, and a climactic trilogy of action straight out of Return of the Jedi.  Did I enjoy The Winter Soldier as much as The Avengers?  No, I don't think so.  There will always be something special about The Avengers - it was the first to put Cap, Thor, & Iron Man on the same screen.  It's hard to top.  Is The Winter Soldier a better movie than The Avengers?  Maybe.  It certainly contains the best action sequences we've seen in the MCU so far.  Cap's shield has never been more comic book perfect.  The film absolutely understands the sadness behind the Man Out Of Time concept, as well as the hopefulness of The Greatest Generation Warrior.  If I had one complaint about the film is that since the Bucky Barnes character was horribly underused in the first movie then those in the crowd without a built-in investment for their friendship might not fully grasp the tragedy of The Winter Soldier device.  Of course, despite the subtitle, Cap 2 is less about the brainwashed villain and more about the Cold War Conspiracy infecting the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Who is Captain America when America is no longer America?  Old Fashioned Values vs. Post 9/11 Freedom Isn't Free Morality.  It's a juxtaposition of ideals that writer Mark Millar plunged exceptionally in both his Ultimates run and the Civil War saga, and it's exactly where Captain America belongs on the big screen.  The Winter Soldier leaves Steve Rogers with a friend to rescue, and his own humanity to uncover.  This Cap fan couldn't ask for anything more.

Trouble Man:  Shaft, Foxy Brown, and Black Belt Jones might get more attention, but for my money there is no better example of the blaxploitation genre than Ivan Dixon's Trouble Man.  Robert Hooks is Mr. T, a pool hall fixer hired by Paul Winfield to prevent a ring of thieves from knocking over his clandestine poker games.  Of course, things are not what the seem, and T is framed for a killing he did not commit....and proceeds to commit plenty of other killings to get to the bottom of the inner city mystery.  Robert Hooks is the coolest cat on the planet.  Every line of dialogue is delivered with icy confidence.  Men want to be him, and women want to be with him - I'm sure men would take a shot too if T swung that way.  Ernest as all hell, Trouble Man has no room for your irony.  Criminally underrated, if you want to understand the appeal of blaxploitation look no further than Trouble Man.  And as The Falcon already knows, the Marvin Gaye soundtrack is stellar.

Cheap Thrills:  Brutal.  Ugly.  Gross.  Funny?  Not really.  If you've seen the trailer then you've pretty much already seen the movie.  Pat Healy is a down-on-his-luck husband & father.  He's just days away from eviction, and recently unemployed.  He stumbles into a bar instead of facing the crying baby at home.  There he encounters a former high school friend and a peculiar couple flashing wads of hundred dollar bills for any poor sap to take notice.  Drinks are bought, coke is snorted, and a vile game of Truth or Dare (mostly Dare) ensues.  What starts off as Slap That Waitress for $200 escalates into Chop Off Your Pinky for $15000.  There's not much to it.  Blood.  More blood.  Death.  More death.  You get the idea.  The story feels a little bit like a modern day Roald Dahl short story without the Twilight Zone whimsy.  Not a bad movie, but it left me empty.

Rodan:  Pretty much the same story as Godzilla or Mothra, but instead of a giant lizard or a giant moth you get a giant pterodactyl.  When he appears later in the series, I love, love, love Rodan.  He's a giant hunk of rubber that loves to flap his wings and tear down buildings.  Sometimes he even does it for good!  But for his first outing, I just couldn't find enough unique properties to separate him from his progenitors.  The film starts off with some nifty giant insects, but their terror disappears once the big bad shows up.  This film could have really used some Kaiju on Kaiju action.

Three Days of the Condor:  After listening to the Russo Brothers discuss their influences for The Winter Soldier on the Empire Podcast, I felt like it was high time that I saw this seminal example of espionage cinema.  Robert Redford is a low level CIA analyst who steps out for lunch one day only to return to an office full of corpses.  After contacting the higher ups, Redford flees from Max Von Sydow's trenchcoated assassin and into the arms of Faye Dunaway's passerby.  The thriller aspects of the plot are exceptional, and Von Sydow is as chilling as he is inconspicuous.  However, I have no idea why Dunaway is in this movie.  Is it simply a Hollywood requirement that all films must have a love interest?  She's utterly superfluous, and every moment she's onscreen subtracts from the film's tension.  Other than that, solid flick.

The Raid 2:  This was quite simply the most violent, horrible, disgusting, violent, insane, grotesque, mean-spirited, violent, deplorable, violent, gratuitous, violent, over-long, badass, and violent thing I've ever seen.  Yowza!  Having watched and thoroughly enjoyed the first film, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into.  Instead of an hour and forty minutes of asskicking and bloodshed, there would be two hours and forty minutes of asskicking and bloodshed.  Yeah, that's kinda accurate.  But "bloodshed" doesn't do the film justice.  What spawned from a siege assault action picture bloats into a Godfather/Serpico wannabe in which Iko Uwais's Rama infiltrates the Indonesian underworld by selling his soul to the morally bankrupt police department.  What once took an hour to fight his way out, now takes years.  The film has the slimmest of plot, just an excuse to pause fifteen minutes between bone shattering action set pieces.  And I Loved Every Second Of It.  I cannot believe the film squeaked by with an R rating, and it certainly won't be for the masses, but if you're a fan of blood, guts, and limbs flying action than The Raid 2 is absolutely an essential film watching experience.  You'll be out of breath by the time the credits roll.

3 Dev Adam (aka Turkish Captain America):  "Adios Mafia!"  Here's one that simply needs to be seen to be believed.  A thief dressed in a thrift store Spider-Man costume pillages the rich of Istanbul to sell antiquities to the richer of North America.  This catches the attention of both the American & Mexican government who hire Captain America & Santo to take down the Turkish villain.  At least that's what I think is going on.  It's nearly impossible to discern the plot thanks to incoherent subtitles, and seemingly random plot developments.  What is certain is that 3 Dev Adam is an absolute blast to behold.  Whether it's The Spider's endless deaths, or his terrifying puppet orgasms - this Turkish Captain America has to be one of the best unintentionally funny films I've seen.  Projected from a shoddy VHS, the Alamo Drafthouse delivered the goods for this latest Video Vortex selection, and guaranteed my butt in the seat for whatever the dare to screen next.  Bravo.

Hell Up In Harlem:  "I've got some funerals to attend."  At the end of Black Cesar, Fred Williamson is gunned down in the street by the murderous agents of Whitey.  Dead is Dead?  Yeah right!  Hell Up In Harlem opens with Williams brushing himself off, stumbling into a hospital, and - All Better.  I'm not really a big fan of the original film; it's a rather rudimentary retelling of The Godfather.  However, this sequel?  Jeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzuuuus.  Forget Don Corleone, Hell Up In Harlem is all Scarface, and Fred Williamson is never cooler than when he's looking for a little payback.  And it's a sweet, weird ass revenge.  You've got Pimps vs Ninjas, A Long Island Scuba Assaults, Mammies With Machine Guns, and what might be the longest distance fist fight ever - yeah, it's takes a whole continent for The Hammer to satisfy a beatdown.  But then Williamson quickly finds the show being stolen away from him by Julius Harris as his father gone wrong.  Big Poppa!  He goes from disapproving patriarch to tommy gunning flesh trader.  The transition of character makes absolutely no sense, but it's a whole heap of entertaining.  Hell Up In Harlem comes close to being my favorite blaxploitation film, and it's certainly one of my all time favorite sequels.

Truck Turner:  "She's a middle class broad...and you're one gross son of a bitch."  This is a bizarre movie.  Not the typical black hero vs. white devil, Truck Turner is a vile, cat-piss wearing bounty hunter targeted by a ring of pimps & prostitutes lead by Nichelle Nichols & Yaphet Koto.  Isaac Hayes seems to relish his big chance to spout heinous profanity and commit savage acts of violence.  Truck Turner embraces its exploitation in ways that its contemporaries seem to only scratch the surface.  Sometimes that makes for some uncomfortable bits of awkwardness, but for the willing audience member, that political incorrectness is also Truck Turner's charm.  Where does it stand next to the greats?  Not sure.  Every time I watch this film I forget how gross & weird it is, but I'm now thinking that it's time to put it into a yearly rotation.  It's a trip.

Slaughter:  Trouble Man is numero uno.  Slaughter is a close second.  After his parents are murdered by the mob, Jim Brown's badass cop leaves the badge behind and descends into the hell of Mexico to take down the demons responsible.  Part Dirty Harry, part Death Wish, all Jim Brown - Slaughter is an exceptional example of tough cop cinema.  But every hero needs a great villain, and Slaughter fills that order grotesquely with Rip Torn's rat-faced hitman.  Even when he knows better, he cannot help but spit venom and hate.  Torn would rather die in a wreckage of gasoline & flames then say one last nice word - "Yeah, I did that."  The rest of the film is peppered with a perfect supporting cast: Stella Stevens's mafioso playmate, Don Gordon's sideburned sidekick, Norman Alfe's confusingly afroed kingpin.  An exceptional cast of oddballs, and a leading man of total cool & confidence separate Slaughter from the rest of the pack.

Captain America & Bucky by Ed Brubaker, James Asmus, & Francesco Francavilla:  When a comic book creator is popular that inevitably leads to Spin-Offs! Spin-Offs!  Spin Offs!  Ed Brubaker's Captain America & Bucky series originally started out as another way to explore their WWII past, but quickly transformed into just another Cap book.  I didn't stick around for long.  But since I'm loosing my mind with the star-spangled super hero this month, I thought I would give the series another shot.  At least the trades illustrated by pulp maestro Francesco Francavilla.  Old Wounds revolves around a series of terminator androids leftover from Cap's Invader days.  Robots & Human Torches?  Just perfect for Francavilla's pulp noir style.  The story is so-so, but Francavilla sells it.  Not the highest recommendation, but it's a fun stop on your way to the real gem...

Captain America & Black Widow by Cullen Bunn & Francesco Francavilla:  When Bucky left the Marvel Universe for the second time, this series became a revolving door of Captain America team-ups.  Brubaker is gone, but The Sixth Gun's Cullen Bunn steps in to fill those mighty big clown shoes.  Cap & Black Widow are warped into the wacky concept of multi-universes, and have a series of run-ins with steampunk tripods, Lizard/Doctor Octopus Hybrids, and diabolical doppelgangers.  High art?  No.  But this is exceptionally comic booky!  And it's a shame that Francavilla only had these two tiny arcs to play in the Captain America sandbox.

A Field In England:  "I am my own master."  Three viewings now, and after each one I love this film just a little bit more.  If I was redoing my Top Ten List from last year, A Field In England might even squeak ahead of The World's End, The Act of Killing, & Only God Forgives at this point.  That seems crazy to me in some ways, but this latest Blu Ray addition simply floored me at the end of the week.  I find myself less entranced by the oddity of the film - that Monty Python cast wondering into the madness of HP Lovecraft.  Yeah, that still fits, but with each rewatch I become more and more enamored with Reece Shearsmith's bumbling alchemist and his transformation into a real-deal Solomon Kane.  Ben Wheatley made a couple of solid flicks in Kill List & Sightseers, but I'm starting to see a masterpiece in A Field In England.  I may even rank it up their with Zodiac & The Proposition as one of my very favorite films of the last fifteen years.  There certainly is nothing out there quite like it.

--Brad

A Fistful of Westerns! (Matt’s Picks)

    I’m a latecomer to this whole Western thing.  I grew up seeing those old White Hat/Black Hat movies on TV and I hated them.  I’ve always had a particular hatred for Country music, never liked cowboy hats, loath John Wayne, and dislike Texan accents.  For a long time, the only Western I liked was the Gene Autry serial The Phantom Empire, and I don’t think that counts.  Especially since I only really liked it once they got to the underground super-science kingdom.  But then I saw Unforgiven sometime after it came out on video.  That’s when things began to change, though it took a long time.  In fact, it was the meeting of co-Dork Brad that led me to more diligently explore the genre, and thus to find many more examples to enjoy.

    A couple years ago, I even enjoyed a Western month, which included a great many movies, some TV, and a surprising amount of time playing the video game Red Dead Redemption (I’m not really much of a video game guy).  And I enjoyed the heck out of the whole thing.  Sure, I saw some dogs.  But I also saw some very cool movies that have fed my hunger to find more good ones.  And, luckily I live in a time where Westerns may be a rare thing at the multiplex, but those few that do come along are typically quite good.

Video games have changed, man.

    So, with the release of this week’s The Lone Ranger, a new interpretation of a character that always represented exactly what I didn’t like about the genre, we’re looking at some of our favorite Westerns.  The shocking thing about The Lone Ranger is that I actually enjoyed the heck out of it.  It’s weird and action packed, without the annoying close-up shaky-cam crap that has become the new industry norm.  Anyway, here are five of my favorites.

5.  Appaloosa:  There have been a bunch of very cool Westerns made in the last few years.  Django Unchained, True Grit, even Open Range.  But Appaloosa captures a lot of what I love.  Yeah, it’s got the heavy, some shootouts, a shrill monster woman, and all that.  But at its heart is a great friendship.

4.  Jeremiah Johnson:  This is a Mountain Man movie, more than a Western, but whatever.  It also features one of my all time least favorite actors, Robert Redford.  Yet, this story of isolation and escape, of a lone guy on the very outer reaches of what could loosely be called civilization, is surprisingly captivating.  The only problem is the awful and out of place folk music soundtrack, which is extremely distracting.

3.  100 Rifles:  Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, and Raquel Welch are all in top form as they battle their way through Mexico (Spain) in this very cool movie.  It’s late in the days of the ‘Wild West’ and we see hints of the future in Dan O’Herlihy’s car.  But there are still bloody bandits, outlaws, and all the things you expect.

2.  Once Upon a Time in the West:  One of the great Western epics, it combines grand storytelling with the bent sleaze of Spaghetti Westerns.  Awesome cast, great music, nasty behavior, everything you want and need in this kind of thing.

1.  The Outlaw Josey Wales:  Along with Unforgiven, this was one of the first Westerns I really responded to, helping me to realize the genre wasn’t all John Wayne and Custer films.  Eastwood obviously has a rugged, tough-guy appeal, but the story and the side characters were good, too.  And the setting was captivating.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (5/19/13-5/25/13)

    On Sunday morning I read Alan Moore’s Skizz.  It was an OK bit of fluff.  Then I read three graphic novels by Jason.  Dang, that guy’s a genius…of some kind.  Between Jason books, I read Animal Man volumes 1 and 2.  Not genius.  And on Wednesday night, I finished Christa Faust’s first Fringe tie-in novel.  Good stuff.  Later in the week I read the Poul Anderson short story The Problem of Pain.  Interesting look at an alien religion through the eyes of a religious human, and how concepts of God and ethics vary.

Surveillance:  “You know how people get out here, Captain.”  Some dark, dark things are going down in Middle America.  At a rural police station, some cops, some witnesses, and a couple F.B.I. agents come together to piece together the facts of a series of brutal murders.  Everyone’s got a secret.  Tensions are high.  And as the stories come together the madness ramps up.  Broken and twisted people.  Monsters hiding behind human faces.  Director Jennifer Lynch came back after a long absence with this gleefully bizarre descent into human horror.  Who would have thought someone could make French Stewart terrifying (‘I’m all about safety.  That’s how I do it.’)?  And he ain’t the half of it.  Julia Ormond, Bill Pullman, and a whole cast of excellent second or third stringers help pull this absolutely awful business through hell and beyond.  Actions these horrendous shouldn’t be this much fun to watch.

The Talented Mr. Ripley:  “I always thought it’d be better to be a fake somebody, than a real nobody.”  Can you ever trust someone?  Where does friendship end and dangerous obsession begin?  The dark side of friendship comes to light with this thriller about young, pretty Americans living the ex-pat life in Italy.  A young man who tells lies like breathing goes to Europe to bring a wealthy scion back home.  Things get pretty intense as Tom Ripley drowns himself in the life of Dickie Greenleaf.  But nothing lasts forever.  Tom is a caterpillar approaching his moment, when he will become a butterfly, birthed in the blood of a man.  Patricia Highsmith’s devilishly charming archvillain Tom Ripley begins his career of mischief and mayhem in this beautifully stylish film.  It recreates an era of post-War Europe where the wealthy could live lives of beauty and frivolity that casts its spell to this day.  This is the life that would give rise to the Bond films, to all those romantic capers, to the advertising campaigns of Mad Men.  Light a cigarette, slick back your hair, put on a nice jacket, and get ready for some swinging jazz…and murder.  I’m profoundly impressed by how the film somehow makes you empathize with a murdering nutcase.

The Slams:  Jim Brown crosses the mob for a ton of dough.  He  goes to prison, but it’s OK.  He can do his time ‘til it’s time.  But everybody wants to get a piece of him, or a piece of his action.  He befriends the African Tom Jones while getting in trouble with James Coburn’s giant twin.  Every character actor they could find has been crammed into 91 minutes.  It has some good moments, and I love Jim Brown.  But I don’t like prison movies and this one didn’t win me over.

Calendar Girls:  “Flowers of Yorkshire are like the women of Yorkshire.”  This extremely cute and heartfelt comedy centers around a group of older women who wish to honor a friend in a way that raises more than a few eyebrows.  An excellent cast and a light but touching script takes the viewer through numerous awkward encounters and cheeky misunderstandings.  But it’s all very recognizable.  These are people we know.  They’re the people we’ll soon become.  Mortality, aging, abandonment, grief, and the simple joys of love, friends, and family.  If you’re in the mood for a nice, adult comedy that isn’t just about fart jokes, check this one out.

The ABCs of Death:  Anthologies are tricky.  Any anthology.  Anthology films are really tricky.  This features 26 short films, each based off a word from a letter of the alphabet (D is for Dogfight, W is for WTF?, U is for Unearthed, etc.).  Some are really neat.  Some are really lame.  A bunch are in the middle.  There is absolutely no consistency in tone, style, or strength of content.  Some look professional, others like amateur hour.  Some have some very strong gore or extremely wrong behavior.  Others are just good clean fun.  If you’re a horror fan, you should find at least a few to enjoy, and none of them are so long that you can’t sit through ‘em.

Star Trek:  “I like this ship!”  In 2009, something fairly surprising happened.  A movie came out that was at once a sequel, and a re-launch of a venerable TV and film franchise, that was fun and entertaining while being true to much of the spirit of the original, that brought in new fans on an unprecedented level, yet managed to mostly please a legendarily picky and unhappy fanbase.  By creating an ‘alternate timeline’ the writers were able to go back and revisit the most popular characters of the Trek universe, without being hamstrung by decades of established history that was more bloated, contradictory, and minutia-weighted than the Bible.  Star Trek is an exciting film that manages to balance action, emotion, and humor without letting one get in the way of the other.  And when it ended, the universe was wide open for a really thrilling and new story to be crafted…Of course, after having watched Into Darkness, it turns out the universe was wide open for shoddy rehash.  Sad.  Still, this movie is a blast for all but the most cynical.

They Live:  “I believe in America.”  The Alamo Drafthouse recently opened a location here in Northern Virginia, and I was glad to get out this week to see one of my favorite 80s movies, and one of John Carpenter’s greats, They Live.  It’s filled with amazing quotes, ultra-heavy-handed moralizing, kickass Carpenter scoring, and so much Keith David.  And it has one of the all time great fistfights, which must be seen to be believed.  Just when you think it’s over…it’s just begun!

Furious 6:  It deeply saddens me to say that this movie is not nearly as amazing as Fast 5.  It’s fine, I guess.  But there’s a magic missing; and that magic is the sweaty, Jesus-loving sexual tension that permeated every scene between Vin and The Rock.  Yeah, they had their various dames, but their hearts belonged to each other.  That much was obvious.  This time around, it’s just not there.  Also, the middle gets pretty danged dull.  Where Fast 5 kept the adrenaline and idiocy pumping from moment one, right through to the tag, this one flounders a couple of times.  Still, for extremely dumb, meathead action and gratuitousness, this one should have enough to enjoy.  Some cast members are missing, some come back (from the dead).  And a few get shorted on action and screentime.  But it still has plenty of good bits.  Man, Vin gets uglier and uglier as time goes on.  Kiefer Sutherland and Brad Pitt aged into their weird faces.  Vin has become more and more monstrous, like some terrible Clayface.  It’s awesome.  Look, these movies are hysterical, but part of what makes them so awesome is how serious everyone involved takes themselves.  This is heartfelt, sincere stuff, and it’s terrible…But wonderful.  I don’t give a hoot about street racing or cars in general.  But the stupid caper and car battles make for tasty cheese.

Exorcism:  Jess Franco is like Orson Welles with this turn as actor and director.  Except he sucks.  The story is stupid, the dubbing childish, the gore lame.  Some of the women are pretty and there is wall to wall nudity.  For a Franco film, it‘s not too filled with technical flaws.  The music sucks.  The frustration I run into now is that Franco worked on so many movies under so many assumed names, I keep seeing his films, even though I’m trying not to.  Ugh.

Actress yawns her way through a scene.

Grand Hotel:  “Nothing ever happens.”  An all star ensemble cast (a groundbreaking idea at the time) comes together in this 1932 classic.  Great performances abound, as does the cracking dialog.  It’s funny and sad, with some great romantic moments and some very melancholic bits.  Garbo is beautiful, but I was surprised by how pretty young Joan Crawford was.  I think I’m just used to older, crazier Crawford.  And the Barrymore brothers are fantastic.  Good stuff all around and a must for fans of the classics, and of good movies in general.  I can certainly see why it won Best Picture.

John Carter:  “John Carter of Mars; sounds much better.”  After a hundred years, with many starts and stops, a film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Martian adventures has finally hit the screen and it’s…well, OK.  The story takes bits and pieces of several Mars novels and reworks them into a kind of bland and typical sci-fi adventure.  Now, there are obviously going to be things that seem familiar to anyone not living under a rock, because nearly every science fiction, superhero, or fantasy film made owes a little something to Burroughs and John Carter.  But it did have something unique, and that magic does not make it into the movie.  Or, very little of it does.  Sadly, the awkward and wooden Taylor Kitsch was cast in the title role, which he doesn’t botch, but doesn’t succeed in capturing.  But the saddest thing of all is how Disney itself became this film’s worst enemy.  After putting up a good deal of money, with the director of one of the best recent science fiction films (Wall-E) at the helm, they spent at every ounce of energy at hand to abandon, flee, and burry the film, obscuring its content and driving away everyone who might want to see it.  I read an article that talked about how Disney assumed a huge audience as a matter of course, and spent its advertising budget not on making people want to see it, but on trying to hide any and every aspect that might make someone not want to see it (even changing the name from John Carter of Mars to the completely lifeless John Carter, in case someone thought Mars might scare someone off), which backfired, making nobody at all give two craps about the film.  That sounds about right.  This is a film I’ve been wanting to see for almost 30 years, and by the time it came out, Disney had nearly convinced me not to bother.  Getting back to the movie itself, while it hits several of the right beats, it feels entirely too restrained, never fully daring to go as crazy as the source material demands.  The growth of Tars Tarkas from closet doubter of his people’s cold and brutal ways to openly sympathetic is a great arc in the book, but here is skipped entirely.  Sad.  Time and again the movie goes a little crazy, but time after time it didn’t go anywhere near crazy enough.  I just wish it had done well enough to warrant a sequel, where they might be able to get more on the right track.  Unfortunately, even though its actual box office take was pretty good, it was considered a bomb for whatever reasons movie studios consider movies bombs.

Fast Five:  “You know I like my dessert first.”  After watching the slightly disappointing Furious 6, I figured I had to go back and recharge the love.  This muscle and steel charged heist movie is as dumb as it is sincere.  And believe me, it’s one danged sincere flick  Plus, you add Dwayne Johnson and you know I’m on board.  Silly stunts, a good villain, lots of muscles and sex-faces.  A frickin’ awesomely terrible and fun movie.  While not as homoerotic as pro-wrestling, it’s certainly got more guy-guy chemistry than Brokeback Mountain, as the touching romance between Vin and The Rock unfolds (“I will find you.”).  Sure, Vin has a hot Brazilian girlfriend, but you know he and his family have enough love to go around.  And the way they work in the obligatory street-racing scene…oh, man.  Though the one in Furious 6 is even more entertainingly stupid.  So much hoochie.  And the action sequences are better done, especially the totally ridiculous finale.

Love.

Rabid:  “I decided to try a little experiment.”  I love this movie.  I love its tone, its look, and its shattered dreams.  Plastic surgeons have developed a new experimental technique (basically stem-cells) to repair catastrophic damage.  When a pretty young woman is horribly injured in a motorcycle crash, she gets the treatment.  It’s a Cronenberg film, so you know things aren’t going to go well.  It doesn’t take long for an armpit vagina to shoot out a spiked penis that infects people with a super-strain of rabies, and she goes completely feral.  That old story.  I especially love the opening.  That rotating shot of Marilyn Chambers is gorgeously moody.  And motorcycle riding sequence that follows is nice, reminding me a bit of the driving footage in Mad Max (not in content but cinematography, I guess).  And that gorgeous, cold Canadian desolation is like a bare tree covered desert.  Every time I see this it makes me a little sad that Chambers wasn’t able to make the transition to mainstream film.  She isn’t an amazing actress, but she has a quality, a sort of open sweetness with just a dash of danger that I think could have been cultivated.  Frank Moore who plays her boyfriend is like the Canadian Christopher Walken…only really bad.  His crying phone meltdown is some epic Shatner level stuff.  The rest of the cast is all over the place, from good to bad.  And there are elements of the final act that could have been better with a bigger budget.  But a good, uncomfortable film.

    And that was pretty much it.  Finally, on Saturday, the sun really came out, though the temperature also dropped back into unseasonably cool.  That’s been the last 6 plus months here in the greater DC area.  Autumn turned cool very early, Winter dragged on too long, and Spring stayed cool until it got super-hot.  And rain all the time.  Starting to feel like I’m back in Maine.  With all the rain, I’ve spent a lot of time indoors, watching movies and reading books.  Now, I like those things.  But I also enjoy riding my bike, taking walks, and going places in the sun.  Hopefully the Summer gets better.  I don’t want to have to look into moving out west.  That does not appeal to me, but if it doesn’t stop raining, I’m going to have to do something.

-Matt

Brad's Week In Dork! (2/17/13-2/23/13)

Blaxploitation Month never really happened.  I'm starting to wonder if I have these epic movie marathons in me anymore.  My brain is just so scattershot; right now I can't seem to focus on one particular concept or idea - I want to jump all over the place.  Oh well.  I cranked out another batch of Jim Brown flicks and I think I'm gonna continue with the man well into March.  Dying to rewatch Dark of the Sun, Black Gunn, and Slaughter.  And I've been youtubing his final martian showdown in Mars Attacks over and over and over.  The man is just so supremely badass.

But the most fun I've had this week, and the program that has kept me from rabbit holing into the Blaxploitation genre, is David Milch's Deadwood.  I have been downright giddy lavishing over the first season with The Wife, and I cannot begin to describe how lovely it is to be married to someone who appreciates the word "cocksucker" as much as I do.  Huzzah, I say!  And to witness The Wife's transformation from an Ian McShane hater into one of his proud, dirty flock has been a great reward.  We've also been picking away at LOST & the last season of Supernatural, but it's Deadwood that has really stuck in her consciousness.  And that's beautiful.

A Good Day To Die Hard:  Yippee Ki-Yawn.  That pretty much sums up my feelings for this fifth and hopefully final entry in the Die Hard franchise.  I really loved the silly, smiley trailer as well as the general concept of Papa McClane devastating the USSR - I mean Russia (so awesomely 80s!) as a means of reconnecting with his 007 son.  And Jai Courtney is pretty much a spot-on spawn of Bruce Willis.  He's got the head cock, the smirk, the general blue collar attitude.  However, director Stuart Moore just sucks the life right outta the action.  A Good Day to Die Hard is nearly 90 minutes of continuous (PG-13 clothed in R) violence, but the camera pathetically mimics the Paul Greengrass style with too-tight closups and never-settle editing.  The result is a snooze; I checked out ten minutes into the initial bumper derby car chase and never got back into the story.  I opened my eyes for a couple of F Bombs as well as Cole Hauser's pointlessly brief G-man.  So if Willis can't score with his go-to Die Hard franchise, Schwarzenegger & Stallone might as well hang up their icons.  Time for these beasts of the 1980s to reevaluate their twilight years - you can't go home again, move on, find new parts to play.

Deadwood - Season 1:  When does Deadwood become my favorite thing ever?  I'm talking books, movies, comics, tv.  Deadwood reigns supreme in my heart.  The first episode directed by Walter Hill is a bit of a clunker.  It's not terrible tv, but the actors don't have their characters just yet, and David Milch & company are still developing the outlaw nation setting.  It takes a few hours - Wild Bill needs to be executed so reluctant sheriff Seth Bullock can complete his hero worship.  The Dude has to reconnoiter the rim and shuffle (get chucked) off this mortal coil.  But once the pieces fall into place and the Shakespearean horror takes full bloody effect, Deadwood climbs to the top of My Favorite Things list.  We all know how much I love Timothy Olyphant's Raylan Givens, and the deep buried rage of Seth Bullock could very well be his great grandfather.  It had been far too long since I visited the Black Hills.  This show pretty much birthed my enthusiasm for Westerns.  Sure, Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven was the beginning, but I didn't understand that film until I rewatched it through the prodding prism of HBO's mesmerizing psycho drama.  And that Best Picture reexamination led to Glendon Swarthout's novel, The Shootist, and the obsession with oaters was complete.  The Wife doesn't quite hold the show in the extreme esteem that I do, but I was pleasantly surprised to see her fall hard for this foul world.  On to the second season.

Warm Bodies:  This was fun.  Cute.  I'm just so darn sick of the Romero knockoffs; it's nice to see a zombie film approach the genre from a different angle even if it is the Teen Genre (I can't believe it's actually become a genre).  Nicholas Holt narrates the film as our reluctant flesheater, his body returns to life after eating the brains of Teresa Palmer's boyfriend - the awkwardly eyebrowy David Franco.  While digesting a little knowledge his heart begins to beat again and the ultimate family friendly necropheliac film is born.  You gotta love how wonderfully prepackaged this sickie has been presented to the public and it's much better than it has any right to be, especially when you compare it to other teen hits like Twilight and The Hunger Games.

The Walking Dead Season 3 - "Home":  Definitely a stronger episode than the last, but the bad taste of "The Suicide King" is still swamped on my tongue.  It annoys me how no one at the prison is addressing how crazy brains Rick has become.  The man lost his shit last episode and when we find his crew again they're just arguing amongst themselves like usual, but not one brings up the specter attuned Rick - who wobbles away to shout at the woods.  The Governor & Andrea bicker as well, & the crybaby dictator launches a meek attack on the prison.  I dig his Trojan Horse assault, but this war better reach epic heights before the season ends.  I hate to continue comparing this show to the comic book series, but where are Robert Kirkman's balls?  That man loves to punish his characters but AMC seems scared to create no-turning back scenarios.  Weaksauce.

Savage Wolverine #2:  Still fun.  But I want more Frank Cho Shanna and less Frank Cho Wolverine.  But since this is a Logan title I guess I just have to accept that as an impossibility.  A new guy (ugh, more ladies please Frank) shows up with some techno force field, but the mystery doesn't deepen it just gets more foggy - I have no clue what's going on or why I should care.  But I'm sticking to it for Frank's She Devil, and I'm thinking she's going to have Logan wrapped around her thong - I mean, finger, in no time flat.

Captain America #4:  Unless something drastic happens, this is the last time I write about Rick Remender's Captain America.  I'm going to keep on reading cuz I love Cap so much I will torture myself with horrendous plotting.  The first page reads: Eleven Years Later.  Captian America still has a Zola living in his chest, and that makes the parenting of his clone baby a little difficult.  I guess I can appreciate how balls out bananas this title has become, but it's just so damn stupid.  And ugly.  I'm no longer amused with JRJR's renderings, all his beasts look the same and his kids are a bunch of balloon heads.  I'm done with this Marvel Now horror show.

Nova #1:  I don't know anything about Nova - only that he belongs to a space corps that looks pathetically similar to DC's Green Lantern Corps.  But I've enjoyed Jeph Loeb comics in the past, even the books in which he's partnered with Ed McGuinness.  Sam Alexander is a bratty teenager living in a dirt heap of a town reminiscent of The Last Starfighter's trailer park hell hole.  His lifetime has been filled with his father's stories of space war and he's sick of it.  But when pop goes missing and Rocket Raccoon appears at the end of his bed, Alexander is given the chance to suit up.  A fun enough intro, I'll keep going.

BPRD 1948 #5:  I'm not sure I loved this mini as much as the previous BPRD prequels - I'm gonna need to read it as a whole before I pass judgement.  But right now I can confidently state that I enjoyed the tiny moments with little Hellboy than I did the big plot with Professor Bruttenholm.  The kid's B story regarding his appearance is some of the most heartfelt storytelling to come out of the Mignolaverse.  Anyone who has ever asked "What are those goggles on Hellboy's head?" should look to this miniseries for their origin.  Artist Max Fiumara perfectly captures the sadness behind this moment.

Saga #10:  Gah!  Brian K Vaughen why must you keep killing off my favorite characters in this book!?!?!?  If you're not careful I'll jump ship cuz the main Romeo & Juliet couple are not enough for me to keep reading; it's the crazy alien beasties that I really want to explore.  The moment Prince Robot or The Will are gone so will I.

The Split:  Easily the weakest movie adapted from a Richard Stark novel (this time out it's The Seventh), The Split nevertheless has one of the most fascinating casts ever assembled.  You've got Jim Brown up front as the Parker stand-in.  Ernest Borgnine, Jack Klugman, Warren Oates, and Donald Sutherland bickering amongst themselves as Brown's goon squad.  Gene Hackman is the local law enforcement.  And James Whitmore is the psychotic outsider threatening their big score.  That is one hell of a cast.  So why does The Split fail so miserably?  Well, it's boring!  And lifeless!  And so damn frustrating.  Brown & Borgnine do have a pretty badass brawl in the middle of the picture and the cast makes it worth a watch if not a purchase, but when this film should be exploding with character actor rage, The Split sputters to a climax.  A real Hollywood bummer.

The Slams:  This is a little bit better than The Split, but still not the exploitation classic you want it to be.  Jim Brown is arrested after a nasty little double cross heist and lands behind bars with an array of Roger Corman savages (this is brother Gene's production).  There he must fend for himself in the laundry rooms and the metal shop while big burly dudes try to pummel the missing million dollar loot from his memory.  Brown concocts an escape plan with his girlfriend and an outsider pimp, but the violence never gets as extreme as it should for this kinda picture - I feel like Gene Corman and director Jonathan Kaplan are attempting a more classic approach to this cheapie production when it should just throw itself into the muck of its setting.  Frankly, the poster is better than the movie.

Justified Season 4 - "Money Trap":  Jody, the dirtbag criminal with a weakness for airbags last seen in the first episode of this season, returns here as the cold blooded killer of Raylan's ex.  There is some Elmore Leonardy side story  involving a wannabe filmmaker and the ridiculously named Jackie Nevada but this Justified entry succeeds thanks to another classic climax confrontation.  Not to mention we get some serious Papa Arlo hate in the last few minutes.  This season is burning towards its climax but we don't feel any closer to the Drew Thompson mystery.  Still, it's nice to get a breather from the plot and have a moment for Raylan to showdown.

The Island:  The film starts off in the vein of a Friday the 13th slasher, with some rich yucks on a yacht getting hacked apart with a variety of cutting tools.  But this is as gory as it gets - The Island might be a part of the Scream Factory label but it totally belongs in the seafaring goofiness of Peter Benchley.  Michael Caine & his brat kid crash land on a LOST-like island; there they encounter a savage race of pirates led with despicable charm by the garish David Warner.  Caine takes five minutes to defend his groin from a muddy pirate lady but quickly succumbs to her nether regions.  Ah, romance.  This is just a weird damn film.  And Caine is the perfect lead for this nutter.  The man is the master of the agape stare and he can match sleaze for sleaze when battling prehistoric pirate villains.

El Condor:  "If my mother was a whisky cow the milk from her tit couldn't be any sweeter than that."  Oh man, Lee Van Cleef is a degenerate louse, goofily grimacing his way into our hearts while plundering for gold with calvary killer Jim Brown.  El Condor is a strange buddy cop Western with both Van Cleef and Brown playing for laughs and miraculously succeeding.  El Condor is peppered with fun bits of weirdo villainy and violence, as well as decent amounts of B Movie nudity.  Unlike The Split & The Slams, El Condor is a lost should-be exploitation classic - And a Western to boot!  So good it sent me running to that other Jim Brown cowboy classic -

100 Rifles:  Jim Brown is a Marshall down from America hunting the bandit smile of Burt Reynolds.  But once he finds his man, he also discovers the bosom of Raquel Welch and the next thing he knows he's wrapped up in a Mexican Revolution.  100 Rifles is packed with typical Burt Reynolds hijinks, but its more Sharky's Machine than Cannonball Run.  Everyone is happy to be committing violence and it's all for a good cause; we can smile along with our trilogy of leads, even when the tone jumps to the shockingly tragic.

--Brad