Matt’s Week in Dork! (4/20/14-4/26/14)

    Oh, the perils of a social life.  Didn’t get a lot of Dork business done this week.  I was out on the town, having a blast.

The Asphalt Jungle:  The dingy underbelly of urban life is exposed in this nasty bit of work.  Sterling Hayden is but one of the film’s monsters, bent on filling his belly with hate and greed.  It features a lot of the usual Noir dialog, plot twists, and ugly characters.  And it features a pretty good heist.  The characters are a lot of fun, and there are a surprising number of them.  Even a young Marilyn Monroe shows up as a sympathetic floozy.  John Huston knew how to make a mean movie, tinged with grit and sadness.

Smiles of a Summer Night:  I guess I had this realization last year some time.  But yup.  I’m an Ingmar Bergman fan.  I love how fun this film is, how bawdy and funny it is.  And I love how sexy it is.  Gunnar Bjornstrand is so charming, the ladies are so lovely, and the shenanigans so much fun.  Bergman is not the cold, symbolic, unapproachable filmmaker he is often made out to be.  While some of his films are dense with symbol and some are certainly challenging, I think he is very much the populist; crafting excellent films for everyone to enjoy.  Smiles of a Summer Night is not difficult to understand.  It’s about our passions, our lusts, and our loves.  It’s about being alive.

Sorcerer:  Bring a change of clothes, a cool drink, and some freshly soothed nerves.  This movie will put you through the wringer.  A brutally slow burn, this film builds and builds and builds, until what is, in a sense, the main action of the film begins, probably an hour in.  It’s wonderfully shot, and absolutely revels in the awful, hot, poverty stricken, disgustingly wet world of South America.  And when the action does happen, it’s gripping and nasty.  Sorcerer is an excellent, thrilling, adventurous piece of mean spirited 70s cinema.  Desperate and awful people, hiding out on the fringe of civilization, taking on a job only a sucker would do.  Man, it’s good.

Burnt Offerings:  The 70s produced a lot of cool films, but it also produced a very particular type of horror film that seems unique to its time.  Burt Offerings is a perfect example of what I’m talking about (see also: The Sentinel, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, and Don’t Look Now) .  The characters are all totally insane, and not at all relatable.  The plot doesn’t make much sense.  The atmosphere is monstrously thick.  But sadly, so is the writing.  Frequently, very little happens, but there’s almost always a flippin’ crazy ending that doesn’t make much sense.  I enjoyed watching this film.  The actors are all good (even Karen Black isn’t bad), and it’s creepy and weird.  But it’s also, like so many others of its time, ultimately disappointing.  The big reveal at the end was a huge let down.  If Oliver Reed had opened that door and found some kind of great spider demon or something, I’d have lost my s%#& and this might be one of the coolest films ever.  Alas, what was behind the door was kind of boring.  If you’re looking to watch more movies of that particular 70s vibe, this was better than some, like The Other or the afore mentioned Don’t Look Now (I’ll never get why people like that one).

    On Thursday night, I read Godzilla: Gangsters & Goliaths.  It was OK.  Felt like a comic version of a lesser film in the classic (Showa) era.  Readable, with a few good bits, but nothing special.

The Apartment:  You can feel the yoke of the Hayes Codes slipping in this 1960 comedy about a wide-eyed pencil pusher striving for the American Dream.  As bosses keep using his apartment for their extramarital affairs, he starts to fall for the dame in the elevator.  Things get really out of hand when the big boss calls him in and demands the use of his place (but offers a sweet promotion).  Jack Lemmon balances sweet charm with wannabe corporate shark quite well.  Shirley MacLaine is kind of adorable as the broken girl with dashed hopes.  And Fred MacMurray is an absolute monster as the boorish, heartless, blowhard boss.  Lots of great character performances, a great style, and a clever script all make for a fine film.  I love Lemmon’s apartment, too, which seems like a realistic, lived in place, without seeming either too fancy/swinging or too rundown/slumy.

    After The Apartment, in keeping with the 60s theme, Mad Men hit the screen.  It’s been a long time since I watched season 1, but it didn’t take long for me to slide back in to the smooth, casually evil world of smoking, drinking, and rampant misogyny.  Awesome.

    Saturday, I headed in to DC to meet with a friend who was visiting from Europe.  It was an amazing day, gorgeously sunny without being too hot, and darn it, but I do love DC.  It’s so pretty, and so walker friendly.  Love it.  The only problem we had was with the crowded streets of Georgetown, but it wasn’t unexpected, and once you leave the main drag, it’s not bad at all.  Very pretty community.  I really love living in this area.  I don’t take advantage of living next to DC nearly as much as I should, but then, that makes these trips all the more special.

    While in the city, we hit up the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.   I still don’t think it’s as good as the Udvar Hazy location, and sometimes the displays can seem a bit dull (maybe rudimentary is a better word?).  But this time around there were a few especially good exhibits.  The Spirit & Opportunity exhibit was breathtaking.  Gorgeous images of Mars taken by our robot explorer brothers.  Any one of those would make amazing art to hang on a wall.  Really wonderful.  And yeah, if I hadn’t been on top of it, I’d probably have shed a tear.  Quite impressive.

    Turns out, a lot of stuff is closed in DC on Saturday, which I was a bit surprised by.  So, it took a bit to find a place to eat.  But finally, we found Wicked Waffles, one of those obscure theme restaurants you find in bigger cities.  They make waffles, and they put things on ’em, like open faced sandwiches.   OK.  Why not.  It was pretty good (not amazing), and unusually inexpensive for food in the city.

    So, on the Dorkside, there wasn’t all that much to this week.  But on the personal side, it’s one of the best I’ve had in a long time.  Spring is finally in the air and I feel great.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (3/9/14-3/15/14)

    On Sunday morning, I finished up Brian K. Vaughan’s Pride of Bagdad, the next selection of the graphic novel club.  I liked the art a lot, but the actual story was a bit obvious and pretty bare bones.  Not bad, but not something I’d ever need to read again.  But then it was off to the races on what ended up being a pretty busy week (including my ranty letter to the makers of Star Wars).

The White Queen:  Considering it’s from Starz, this show is shockingly classy.  Sure, it’s full of nudity and violence, but it’s far less crass and exploitative than Magic City or (shudder) Spartacus.  It tells some of the story of the War of the Roses, with a focus on the women involved in the story.  Though women, particularly when seen through the lens of Victorian and consequently early 20th century histories, have often gotten either a bum rap or completely ignored, the idea that women and men do not share a common history is idiotic (why I’m against the idea of ‘women’s history,’ as opposed to ‘women in history;’ to separate one from the other is to miss the point of it all), and the idea that major historic events didn’t involve women is illogical and counter to common sense.  I like that this series shows the active involvement in the changing politics these women take, while not trying to somehow take away from what the men were doing.  You often see in more female-centered history-based tales, not the building up of women, but the tearing down of men (making them stupid, sex-mad monsters, in much the way male-centered histories of the past tried to cast women as either docile or dangerously predatory [akin to the virgin/whore problem]), so this was a welcome and refreshing aspect of the series, with men and women being shown as all the shades of gray one would expect in reality.  Early episodes were a touch wonky, in part because they brought in a bit of the supernatural, which I found off-putting.  I’m assuming that’s from the novels(?).  It wasn’t needed, and distracts from the more interesting, real story.  And I think adding the magic to the female characters lessened their power as humans, by giving in to that old idea that women can only succeed through magic, manipulation, or subterfuge.  Overall, it’s not as well done as some history based shows, and some of the cast is a challenge to get behind (Max Irons, I’m looking at you!…and I wish I wasn’t).  Still, it’s mostly good and worth checking out, and series lead Rebecca Ferguson is darned good.  If this is the direction Starz is headed, who knows.  Maybe one day they could rival HBO in quality programming.  I’m not holding my breath, but maybe.

The Last Days on Mars:  This film has everything it needs…except a good idea.  The production design, the cast, the music, the setting.  It’s all great.  The film looks fantastic.  But once the central idea is revealed, it turns stupid and never looks back.  Now I can add this to the lengthening list of should-have-been-better Mars exploration films, like Mission to Mars and Red Planet.  All of them have good things going for them, yet all of them are failures, because of bad scripts or poorly conceived ideas.  And this film fits right along side.  I can not stress how annoyed I was upon realizing just how lame the central struggle would be.  There was a grimace, followed by a lot of head shaking, and at least one ‘oh, no.’  Please, film makers.  Please.  Don’t do this again.  It works in a movie like Ghost of Mars, because nobody is going to Ghost of Mars for a serious science fiction film.  It doesn’t work here.  Maybe one day we’ll get an adaptation of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars that will live up to its potential.  Until then, I guess we’ll just get a bunch of this crap.

Donnie Darko:  This is a movie that really blew me away the first time I watched it.  It broke my brain in all the best ways, stayed with me for years.  But I have to admit, I don’t feel the same awe and wonder I once did.  Watching it again, I still find a lot of things to like in the film, and there are some excellent bits.  But I see more of the ‘first film’ syndrome than I noticed before.  Still a must for fans of the surreal and challenging.  But perhaps not the modern classic I’d have once named it.

Von Richthofen and Brown:  This Roger Corman WWI movie is surprisingly good, with lots of excellent flying footage.  The acting is uneven and there are some technical issues.  But for one of his more serious efforts, it’s a winner.  The star really is the flying, though.  And a lot of that is gorgeous.

The Grand Budapest Hotel:  Wes Anderson makes a very peculiar sort of film, and he does it very, very well.  This time around he taps into the Golden Age Hollywood madcap comedy films, with plenty of World War II and Cold War allusions.  It’s wistful and nostalgic for bygone eras, but not cloying.  It’s also delightfully crass, and typically surreal.  The by now trademark Anderson artificiality is on display, enhancing the old Hollywood vibe in the sets and backdrops.  The cast is awesome, and it’s so nice to see Ralph Fiennes doing comedy again, and playing someone so dashing (if sleazy).  I love that this movie revels in the wonder and visual craziness of the very medium.  It’s not naturalistic.  It’s not realistic.  But it gets to some truths, even while reveling in its fantasy world.

    Saturday was a crazy danged day.  I assisted Satnam on the set of the film he directed from a script I wrote.  It’s been a danged long time in the works.  I first conceived the idea as something I thought I might be able to do myself, building the ‘set’ in a closet in my old Brewer, ME apartment, about ten or twelve years ago.  Only one cast member, and no camera movement.  I thought I could handle that.  But cameras were too expensive and I had no skill or knowledge of how to do it.  Still, I liked the idea.  Some time after I moved to Virginia, I met someone who expressed interest in filming it, someone with skills and resources.  But it never materialized.  Lots of talk, but no action, and nothing happened.  But after assisting Satnam on a previous film, he said he was looking for another project, and I mentioned my idea.  He liked it enough to want to read my script.  Well…I don’t know what happened to it.  I’m sure if I go searching through my old disks, I’ll find it.  But, I didn’t want to.  So, I sat down and re-wrote it.  And that was it.  A few re-writes, a search for an actor, our fumbling attempts at set construction, finding other professionals to help us out with sound and make-up.  And then filming.  To say I was a ball of nerves is an understatement.  It’s kind of amazing to see words you wrote being spoken by an actor on a set.  I would not be heart broken if I had to do this for a living.

    Now that the movie is in the can, the editing and post production and all that starts up, and I don’t have anything to do with that.  So, it’s on to my next project, prepping for next weekend’s Call of Cthulhu game.  Most of the heavy lifting was done for the first session, so now it’s going to be a lot of details, extra bits, and such.  And then of course, to get myself psyched up and ready to go.  Though it may not be, I could see this being the final session of this game/story.  It might go on to a third or fourth night, depending on how their investigations go, and how deadly things get.  So I'm trying to think ahead for what folks might want to do next.  I think this group would be best suited for something light, fast paced, action and mystery packed, with plenty of room to roam.  I'm still thinking.

-Matt

Comic Review: Invincible Volume 2

    The series is in full swing by the beginning of this volume, with Invincible in place as one of Guardians of the Globe and lots of threads being woven into the story.  Invincible’s mom is having some trouble; there’s a dimension hopper working on a crazy project; Robot’s got a secret; there’s trouble on Mars; Allen the Alien gets some loving…and a beating; and the Immortal is still an ass.

    The thing that continues to impress me about this comic is its balance between old school Silver Age fun and excitement, and a more modern sense of grim danger and complex character interactions.  As Mark, our hero is a typical awkward teenager heading off to college.  As Invincible, he’s a godlike figure trying very hard to do what’s right.  But sometimes things go very wrong.  Sure, there are comic misadventures like being betrothed to the fishy queen of the ocean and protecting astronauts from some shape-changers on Mars.  But there’s also the looming thread of his father’s people, a whole race of Superman-like beings, bent on total domination.  And there’s that A-hole science major trying to make his Reanimen, killing machines using the parts of local student bodies.

    The artwork is colorful and fresh, giving it the feeling of a light entertainment, which makes some of the horrible violence just that much more shocking when it happens.  I really love the look of the outer space and other planet parts.  I can’t wait to see more of that, and there’s clearly more coming as problems outside of the Earth’s sphere are starting to heat up.  I’ve got a feeling some pretty big cosmic events are in the works.

    Knowing that this series is still ongoing, and that just to catch up with where it’s at now, I’ve got five more of these weighty volumes, is kind of exciting.  I know I have lots of time with these characters and stories.  Well, maybe not with the characters, as Kirkman likes to kill people off left and right.  But with the stories, anyway.  If you’re any kind of fan of Superhero comics, you should check out Invincible.

Invincible: Ultimate Collection Volume 2
Author: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Ryan Ottley
Publisher: Image Comics
ISBN: 978-1-58240-594-0

-Matt

The Passing of Ray Bradbury

Painting by Les Edwards

Ray Bradbury has died.  Age 91.  A long life that left an undeniable mark upon literature and media.  Growing up obsessed with science-fiction and horror, Ray Bradbury was one of my first genre loves.  Getting a hold of The October Country and The Martian Chronicles at the age of 12 or 13 was essential in my development of the Dork that writes for this blog today.  Stories like "The Emissary" and "The Veldt" still haunt me and as a budding wannabe writer it was easy to see his influence upon other author obsessions like Stephen King.

And then there's Something Wicked This Way Comes.  A perfect novel.  Quick wham bam reading.  It's at once sweet and nostalgic/warm and fuzzy...and then it turns dark, and scary as a nightmare.  Also a really fantastic film starring the shadowy Jonathan Pryce and the good-hearted Jason Robards.  A real must, if you haven't seen it already.

In the brief time I taught Middle School English & Creative Writing, Ray Bradbury was one of four authors I chose to force feed to my students (the other three were Harlan Ellison, Ernest Hemingway, and Ambrose Bierce).   One of my proudest moments of that oh-so-brief career was when one of my students asked to keep my copy of the Ray Bradbury Omnibus that I taught from, complete with highlights, notes, doodles, and underlines.  I was so surprised by his desire to continue down the Martian landscape that I just handed the book over, and I like to think that that student, a college graduate by this point (damn, that makes me feel real frickin' old) is still tearing through the pages of that big beast of a book.

--Brad