Matt’s Week in Dork! (2/17/12-2/23/13)

    I scraped out my penny jar and went out to see a matinee with Ben, Brad, and Paul on Sunday morning.  Five dollars.  Not too bad.  We saw the new Die Hard film (review to follow).  But what I really took away from it was how bloody awful the trailers were.  Scary Movie 6?  Holy crap, it looks terrible.  Like Donovan’s Reef, where you see where you know everyone must have thought they were being funny, but can’t for the life of you figure out why.  And then…the trailer for The Heat.  Good sweet crap.  It’s like looking in to the abyss, and knowing in your very soul that it looks back at you.  Every moment of the trailer was like having my scrotum wound up on a spinning wheel.  Only really unpleasant.  Anyway, I really don’t know how I got so many movies and such in this week.  Because I also did a lot of reading and some writing.  Not to mention some solid music listening time.  Whatever the case, it was a good week.

A Good Day to Die Hard:  Look, I’m gonna say something that will almost certainly earn me some hate, and I know frustrates the crap out of my co-Dork Brad.  I really like the first Die Hard film.  It’s a fun, silly 80s action movie with lots of cool stunts and stuff blowing up (though not even one of my favorites of that time/genre).  But I absolutely HATE Die Hard 2 in every way.  And I think the rest of the sequels are stupid, though mildly entertaining.  This new one is no different.  The script is crap.  The acting (most likely because of the script) is crap.  And yeah, it feels PG-13, because except for one bit of CG blood, the violence is very restrained.  But a lot of stuff blows up, and frankly, that’s all I expect from this series.  They’re not good.  Honestly, they’re not even memorable.  And I never find myself thinking, “I need to watch a Die Hard film.”  I think the only one of the sequels I’ve ever seen a second time was 2, and that was because Brad wanted me to give it another try (still didn’t like it).  Beyond the first one, they’re all pretty meh.  And so it is with this latest entry.  I had fun watching it, but in a week, I won’t remember it. (edit: this latter prediction was brilliantly prescient -Matt of 5 days later).

Destroy All Planets:  Gammera doesn’t think too much of aliens in their striped ball-rings.  Wacky fun ensues when two boy-scouts play havoc with a submarine.  Like some late Godzilla films, this one relies WAY too much on stock footage, showing large chunks of previous films’ Gammera battles in order to pad its run-time.  Clearly, a solid script would have been a bit more helpful.  Once the kids get on the alien ship, it gets a bit better.  Actually, everything that’s not monotonous stock footage is pretty good.  The aliens are freaky.  And it’s kind of horribly violent.  But it also finds a giant turtle riding a giant squid-alien like a jet ski, so all’s fair, I guess.

Attack of the Monsters:  “You’re dumb.”  Trouble makers are out looking for a space ship when they get more than they bargained for.  By this point, these Gammera films were pretty much goofy kids films.  None of the seriousness of the first couple is left.  And having the little kids as leads is rough.  The crappy marching music that plays continuously is aggravating.  I like that this one goes to another world, which makes for plenty of weird things to see.  This is another one of those movie from this era where people don’t seem to know the difference between various cosmic bodies.  In this case, stars and planets seem to mean the same thing.  I remember seeing a lot of movies that talk about going to other galaxies, when really they were talking about other star systems.  Seems basic, but I guess looking in books was too hard.  Whatever the case, untrustworthy space babes are always a concern when traveling between worlds.  Keep watch!

Mmm.  Brains!

Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (aka An American Love Story):  Entirely too made-for-TV.  Though the story of Jefferson and Hemings could make for a fascinating movie, this ain’t it.  Sam Neill is dashing (in a sophisticated intellectual sort of way) as Thomas Jefferson, and Carmen Ejogo is ridiculously fetching as Sally Hemings.  This had to have been a complex and fascinating love affair, as Jefferson was a complicated dude, and from what I’ve read, Hemings was quite a woman.  However, here we have Jefferson seeing a beautiful woman and wanting her.  I have to imagine if it was just a beautiful woman he wanted, he could have had his pick.  And while Ejogo is amazingly beautiful and seems to be a talented enough actress, there isn’t enough in the script to make her seem like someone interesting enough to woo Jefferson.  It comes off as, well as what it is, a Hallmark made for TV movie.  It feels a bit like a visit to a theme park, like all the surface is there, but the content missing.  The old age make-up is generally not good, mostly looking like people have lumps of clay splashed on their faces.  In the end, it’s a different look at Jefferson than one might be used to, though again, not a very deep one.  I feel like there was so much more that could have been done here.  Instead, what we get is one of those high school text book renditions of history.  A few dates, a few names, a couple of anecdotes for color, and done.  No heart or passion.  No dirt under the nails.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers:  “I don’t have any friends, Doctor Kibner.”  The original is a classic.  But this is one of those rare-breed, serious, and worthy remakes.  Starting on some distant planet, we see weird alien life launch into space, like plant or fungal spoor.  It eventually descends on our unsuspecting world in a rain storm, and the horror begins.  Right from the start, there is an unsettling, off balance feel to the movie.  Weird angles, suspicious faces, and creepy lighting.  Paranoia is whipped up with gusto.  This is a story archetype that is one of the fundamentals of science fiction.  Who can you trust?  Is the person you know and love really who you think they are?  Or are they something else, something sinister and alien?  On of the more obvious and frequent uses of the concept was in the anti-Communist films so popular in the 50s, but it goes far beyond that, becoming a timeless look at our fears of the Other.  We can never really know who someone is outside of ourselves.  And can we really know even that?  And this is 70s PG, so there is some strong language, some pretty nasty violence, and a bit of nudity.  It really isn’t a kid-friendly film.

Just Before Dawn:  The 70s weren’t quite over for the makers of this film.  Was there some kind of subconscious fear of rural life, or the ‘country’ that had infected city folk?  So many movies about the horrors of leaving the city were being made.  Right off, this has a dash or two of Texas Chainsaw.  But the way it’s shot actually reminds me of early Sam Raimi (remember when he was good?) and early Peter Jackson.  In fact, the very opening, looking down through the hole in the roof of an ancient chapel felt right out of Peter Jackson’s low budget horror days.  Greg Henry leads a group of young people into the mountains for some camping.  George Kennedy is the local ranger who warns ‘em not to go.  Them woods got the giggling fat guys in ‘em, and nobody wants that.  Not to mention all the twins.  And as The Slammin’ Salmon tells us, twins are disgusting, man (not my actually feelings, all you twins out there).  It doesn’t really cover any new territory.  This was all well explored country by 1981.  But, it still has a certain charm.  And while I can’t say I especially liked any of the characters, unlike most modern horror movies, I didn’t dislike them.  Plus, Deborah Benson is cute, especially when she lets her hair down.

Prince Valliant:  “Don’t bring in religion to confound me!”  The venerable comic gets a 50s Technicolor treatment, staring a young Robert Wagner.  Throw in Janet Leigh (good golly, but she’s lovely in this, and Debora Paget is nothing to sneeze at, either) and James Mason, and you’ve got something.  It’s Christian Viking VS. Pagan Viking in a duel for the hearts and souls of Scandia.  The locations are beautiful, enhanced occasionally with some pretty good mat paintings.  One thing that old adventure films have taught me is that I need to do more wandering/adventuring.  Because that seems to be the surest way to stumble upon beautiful women bathing, who will quickly fall in love with you.  It’s weird seeing King Arthur portrayed as an old man.  I just don’t think of Arthur as old.  He should have died in the prime of his life.  Whatever the case, this is very much in the style and spirit of those other vibrant and somewhat cartoony medieval adventure films, like the Errol Flynn Robin Hood.  It reminds me a bit of that sequence in Time Bandits when they meet John Cleese, and he’s in that ridiculous costume.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance:  “He’s mocked my dirks.” This is one of those films that explores the oft repeated cinematic mistake of screwing with your hired killer.  If movies have taught me anything, it’s that you should always treat your exceptionally competent and deadly help with respect.  If you have a great hitman (or woman) in your employ, and he or she chooses to retire, you give them a care package, a nice bonus, and send them a Christmas card every year for what you hope is a long life.  If your executioner does a fine job of taking some princeling’s head off, but it becomes politically embarrassing at a later date, you don’t take it out on him, you simply accept that these things happen, be honest, and move on (maybe take the executioner out to dinner at a nice place…nothing too fancy…just to show that everything is A-OK).  But don’t kill his wife, or threaten his kid, or sick assassins on him.  Don’t go to some mountain village and kill his master or have his brother shot in the street.  These things may seem like good ideas in the heat of the moment.  But they are not.  Anyway, the movie is pretty cool.  Very stylized, with extreme sound design and buckets of blood.  The violence is pretty extreme.  The duel in the sun drenched field is a nasty highlight.  There are some crazy dismemberments in this movie.  If Akira Kurosawa’s work was inspired by John Ford, I think these movies were inspired by Sergio Leone.

The Island:  “It is no fun in an airplane with a 400lb sow gone ape-shit.”  This movie is crazy.  Crazy.  Michael Caine is a stressed out reporter on a quest to find out what’s up with a bunch of missing boats.  He hires the greatest pilot ever to take him and his boy to the Caribbean.  In the meantime, some sort of nutty killer is roving the waters with a burning crown.  Oh, yeah.  Then things get weird.  I would actually avoid reading up on this movie before you see it.  Not knowing where it’s gonna end up is probably a lot more fun.  Overall, it doesn’t live up to the madness of its first 15 or 20 minutes.  But it’s oddly enjoyable anyway.  The violence in the opening is pretty extreme.  The rest of the movie tones it down several notches.  And the music?  That’s crazy and seemingly inappropriate.

El Condor:  Jim Brown and Lee Van Cleef are a dirty pair, out for loads of gold in this odd Western.  Van Cleef is ultra-goofy and spastic, which is odd to see.  And Brown isn’t playing suave, as he normally would.  Lots of killing and shooting.  Some very odd bits.  A bunch of good twists and turns and back stabbings.  Frankly, this was a far better movie than it seemed to be, and much more than I was expecting.  It was nice seeing Van Cleef in such a different role.  And though he gets more serious and more ‘smooth’ as the film goes on, Brown is a bit goofy in the beginning, too.  The women are lovely, and there’s a surprising amount of nudity for a movie of its time.  The violence is pretty nuts, too.

Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord- Terror of the Veroids:  The first story to feature Mel (gah!) finds the Doctor and his companion on a space ship loaded with mystery.  Mel is this perky nightmare of frizzy 80s vacuousness.  I think I had tuned out of the show at this point when it was on PBS in the 80s, because my first memory of her was with Sylvester McCoy.  Dang, she’s aggravating.  Still, when the pod people start a rampage, things got rolling.  The overall story is not too bad.  It’s very Agatha Christi.  The whole season, with its trial frame story is kind of blah.

"I look like a what!?"

Branded:  This satire about advertising, politics, image, and business takes on a bedtime story feel, with a calm, mellow narrator.  Setting it in Russia helps capture all that crazy Cold War history, and the Orwellian boogieman of the State as God.  The speech about how Lenin created marketing with his propaganda to sell Soviet Communism, and how everyone else learned from that is pretty spot on.  There are elements of Brazil, and as one comes to expect in films like this, Kafka, and for some reason, I kept thinking about The Hudsucker Proxy, and by the end, Videodrome.  Like a good bedtime story, it features a weird, transformative quest of a hero who must find himself in order to battle great evil.  Will or can anyone understand the transformed man and the message he brings?  While this movie is kind of a smorgasbord of previously used ideas, it manages to take those ideas in some interesting ways.  Certainly non-standard ways.  Does the ending ring a bit false?  Yeah.  But again, it’s like a fairy tale, and fairy tales often wrap up in less than believable ways.  I can’t say that the film is any kind of genius, but for what it is, it’s pretty good.  In a way, it feels like all the things Cosmopolis wasn’t.

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession:  A documentary about the ground breaking L.A. channel that helped bring movies of all kinds to viewers, presaging HBO, Showtime, and the rest.  Wrapped in that is the tragic story of one of the channel’s driving forces, Jerry Harvey, a mad genius.  The wide breadth of what the channel showed made it like a televised version of The AFI theater, or Criterion collection.  From trash to art, from foreign to simply unusual, it showed movies many would never otherwise see or even be able to see.  Sometimes giving movies that bombed a second shot at life, showing what would eventually be known as ‘directors’ cuts.’  Seeing this makes the movie lover in me so  hungry for a taste of all these great movies, and reminds me of the pleasure I receive in sharing my love of film with others.  Obviously, there’s though, as you know from the start that it ends in death, both for the Z Channel and for its tempestuous champion.  Jerry’s life is a depressing spiral that ended where all too many spirals end.  His passion for film and for sharing it was impressive.  But the man suffered from severe mental illness.  Interviews with actors and directors who had their work shown, as well as co-workers and personal friends of Harvey give a human side to the story, both on the part of those involved and those who were effected.  It was an emotional film, and you can see it raw in faces of his friends, who still can not fully reconcile the good times with his violent and ugly exit.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx:  “Gyaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!”  Our strange heroes are back, eating dumplings and taking names.  This series of films features an especially bleak vision of feudal Japan, where danger lurks in every glance, life is cheap (if it costs anything at all), and everyone is unhappy like it’s their job.  Samurai films in general owed a lot to Westerns, but this series feels like it’s got more than a dash of Film Noir, not in visual style, but ugly human action.  Like the first film, this one features extremely disturbing use of sound design, and for that matter, its own visual language.  The film certainly reiterates that classic advice, I think it was from Aristotle, ‘watch out for crazy bitches.’  The cackling lady and her deadly maidens are not a group to run afoul of (or work for), ninja or no.  If I ever have a kid, I’m getting that stroller.  You can see pieces of this film in many other later movies.  What’s really weird though, is that this movie (trippy as it is) is much less trippy than the first one.  And as I sit her watching what I’m watching (the Three Storms just killed the Wolverines!), that mere fact speaks volumes.

    Started watching season two of Game of Thrones.  So far, so good.  Maybe a bit much on the sex.  I mean, it’s not the later books of Niven’s Ringworld we’re watching, right?  Still, I’m digging it.  And I like a lot of the new cast.  Hope they fare better than some of last season’s.

    I finally got back into Fraggle Rock.  Seriously, one of the best television shows for kids ever.  It’s the perfect blend of thoughtful, ethical, creative, funny, and stamped with that intangible Jim Henson genius.  And it’s not condescending.  I think that’s why I can watch it as an adult and still feel that wistful sense of childhood wonder.  If the stars shifted, water changed course, and the pressures of evolution ever let up, allowing me to have children, this is the kind of thing I’d want them to see.

    On Sunday afternoon I finished God is Not Great.  A solid read, if not my favorite Hitchens book.  Still, gets the blood pumping.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (2/10/13-2/16/13)

Still keeping things pretty low key.  Watching a bunch of movies, as always.  And I’ve been doing some reading, and listening to a bunch of 80s tunes.  But otherwise, just kind of hunkered down.


Godzilla, King of the Monsters:  “Well, it’s big.  And terrible.”  This American version of the Japanese film features Raymond Burr as a reporter who gets wrapped up in the madness when the giant monster.  For a long time, this was the only version of the movie I knew, and as a kid, I guess I was naïve enough that I didn’t even realize Burr was edited in to a movie of which he was never originally a part.  It’s much more obvious to me now, but I will say that overall it’s not as clumsy as it could be.  And I guess, if your kids aren’t ready for a subtitled movie, this is a good way to show them the movie.  Burr’s ‘As it Happens’ reporting works pretty well.  In fact, the idea of having him be a reporter, and so an unobtrusive observer is probably the best way to cut him into the film.  Cut to him with lights flickering on his face while he narrates, then cut back to Godzilla burning up the place.  OK.  Sure.  It’s no surprise that I would say the original version is the better film, with better pacing and what have you.  But this is a passable Americanization.

Seconds:  “I wanna go back.”  This has become a perennial favorite of mine.  It’s not an easy watch.  In fact, by the end, it’s quite harrowing.  But Rock Hudson’s performance is magnificent and the creepy story of a company dealing in second chances is up there with the best of The Outer Limits, to which it bares a good deal of resemblance.  Great music, disquieting and claustrophobic cinematography, and an excellent cast work their movie magic, creating devilish tension.  And the film poses several important questions about self, desire, choices, and what makes a man.  But again, it rests on Hudson who goes for it, grabbing hold of the role (and the viewer) and shaking until it breaks.  Awesome.

Tron:  When you look back on this film, of course, there are elements that can’t help but be dated.  Much of the technology was cutting edge, or looking forward to what might be right on the horizon.  But it was 30 plus years ago, and the cutting edge has cut a long way since then.  Nor did technology go in the directions we expected (as usual).  But it’s more than a time capsule of an era when arcades were still popular, when Jeff Bridges was young, and when the internet was little more than a dream in the heads of scientists and science fiction writers.  It’s a visually fascinating adventure into the a new imagined world of programs and users, energy streams and digital highways.  It was a pioneering work in computer graphics, that was largely the product of traditional animation techniques.  A truly original and strange world filled with newly imagined adventures, but with plenty of the old myth-archetypes to go around.  A solid, family friendly science fiction film worth giving a second look.

Doctor Who: Mindwarp:  “My belief is, they await a great leader!  …I am he.” The second story in The Trial of a Time Lord arc opens on a world with crazy light and quickly moves into the danger packed caves below.  When Brian Blessed shows up, you know you’re in for a ride (and watch for the brief xenomorph appearance!).  And dang, this episode cranks up the crazy with gross sea-monsters, mutants, and all kinds of nasty.  Seriously, Brian Blessed is awesome.  He has an amazing ability to chew scenery like gum, but play humor in subtle and hysterical ways.  Though I know him from dozens of great performances, I still kept wanting him to bellow “Gordon’s aliiiiiive?!”  This show had become pretty darned strange by this point, with all kinds of nutty ideas, weird characters, surreal set design and head scratching twists.  This story arc just gets weirder and weirder and I have to admit, funnier and funnier.  I’m not usually a fan of more outright comedy in my sci-fi, but I don’t know, the script is really funny.  And Blessed gets more amazing as it goes on.  And this is the final story of Peri.  I’m not really happy with how she goes out.  It feels a bit arbitrary.  In fact, it feels like it didn’t really happen, and would be figured out/fixed in the next story, but…no.  She’s gone, apparently.

Clash of the Empires (aka Age of Hobbits):  “Stand aside.  This will be a mighty toss.”  In ancient Indonesia (here played by Cambodia), some swell, peaceful pigmy dudes are just chillin when the Rock Men show up with winged iguanas and go on a kill-crazy rampage.  Not cool, dudes.  This is from the amazing, quality hungry studio The Asylum, so you know it’s good.  Dreadful dubbing and a bad script (even using the phrase ‘so, it begins!’ one of the most cliché lines in film) don’t help what is clearly an appallingly low budget film.  But I couldn’t help but start to enjoy the crazy imagination of this one.  In spite of what is obviously a mostly untrained cast of locals recruited to play various baddies and such, there’s a weird appeal to the cast.  And what can I say, I’m always happy to see Christopher Judge.  He needs more work (maybe in better movies?).  And thank goodness Bai-Ling is there to crazy everything up.  Don’t mistake this review for a ringing endorsement.  More of a ‘hey, this doesn’t suck nearly as hard as I expected it would.’

American Experience: Kit Carson:  “Doctor! Compadre!  Adios.”  Like so many people remembered by history, Christopher “Kit” Carson was a man of many faces, a hero, a villain, a legend.  This episode of PBS’s long running series takes us back to the early 1800s when a tough little dude headed into the wilderness of the West to become a Mountain Man trapper and Indian guide.  Harsh times, brutal lives, danger, and with them freedom, adventure, and eventually a sort of glory.  An instrument of the opening of the American West, Carson was a competent man, not tied to our traditional concepts of morality or propriety.  There are elements of Carson that remind me a great deal of one of my favorite figures in history, Sir Richard Francis Burton.  He knows how to act, how to blend, with a population, be it with Native Americans, or Mexicans, or American soldiers.  His story is the kind of thing that could, probably should inspire grand books or movies.  Caught between worlds, he worked for the U.S. government against the people he had learned to respect and in some cases, his love.  The man just wanted to go home to his wife, but was constantly called upon to perform one task or another.  And dang, but his private life was sad.  So sad.

La belle et le bete (Beauty and the Beast):  “For being a beast…Forgive me.”  The War barely over, and Jean Cocteau crafted this lavish and slightly strange version of the classic tale of love, inner selves, and fancy.  The fourth wall creation at the beginning adds an extra dash of whimsy.  The archetypal story of Beauty and the Beast has always hit an especially strong chord with me.  This and Don Quixote (and one could say, they’re not entirely dissimilar), are probably the essence of my own personal mythology.  It’s full of magic and mystery, with creepy animated statues, helping hands, and doors that open and close by themselves.  The sets and locations are beautiful (Belle’s room is crazy).  And Belle is an interesting heroine, frightened, but dutiful and clever.  And it doesn’t take her long to figure things out, to know how the Beast works, and to take control of the situation.  Sure, she doesn’t have all the answers, but she’s definitely a worthy hero for this fantasy adventure.  And there are moments, when the Beast is freaking out where she looks like she’s actually having fun.  Awesome.

I Come In Peace (aka Dark Angel):  When I Come in Peace hit video back in 1990 or ‘91, it was like one of the coolest movies ever.  This and Cyborg?  Masterworks.  Sure, you could say that this is a silly rehash of The Terminator, and you wouldn’t be wrong (still a better rehash of the Terminator than Terminator 2 was!…Send me that hate mail).  But stuff blew up real good, Dolf was awesome (look at his classy apartment…he’s so complicated), and the script actually has enough odd quirks and goofy characters to make the whole thing a blast to watch.  Is this a ‘good’ movie?  Who cares?  It’s a lot of fun.  If you’re in the mood for late 80s B-films with exploding…everything, then this is the movie for you.  Plus, you’ve got to love the White Boys, possibly the most ridiculous gang in movie history.  They look like Patrick Bateman’s crew decided petty crime was more fun than corporate raiding.

The Magus:  Hey, remember when the studios used to put out art films?  That was a crazy time, huh?  Michael Caine is a self-involved jerk who goes off to teach on a Greek island, where he runs into the gregarious but sinister Anthony Quinn.  What starts as a seemingly simple movie about people trying to get over the mistakes of their past turns into a wackier and wackier meditation on love, connection, redemption, guilt, and the nature of Truth.  I don’t know that I would say it’s a good movie, but it’s the kind of bold and strange and chance taking film the studio system developed a profound allergy to and has become the territory of low budget film in our time.  So it is very odd to see such a lavish production for such a singular work.  Greece looks amazing, and Anthony Quinn’s house may be about the coolest place I’ve ever seen.  Caine manages to have the perfect mix of bitterness, sadness, and downright prickishness that lets you find him charming and hope he gets through even though he’s a horrible person.  Again, I don’t know that I liked the film, but it should probably be seen once, anyway.

I started watching Ultraman, the 60s Japanese TV show.  That’s crazy.  NetFlix sent me disk 2 instead of disk 1, so I’m not sure if they set up a bit more in the opening episodes.  But basically, each week the Science Patrol goes out and investigates something.  Then Ultraman (a giant metal guy from space) drops down to fight kaiju (giant monsters) and save the day.  He only has a limited amount of energy from his Sun power, so that means the fights have to be quick.  This was a TV show for Godzilla fans.  Not as good, but an enjoyable supplement.  One thing that’s freaky, though.  Ultraman is always horribly maiming the monsters before he takes ‘em out.  In one episode, they use the Godzilla suit, but add a frill around his neck, and yeah, Ultraman rips it off (leaving a horrible bloody ring wound), then taunts the monster like it was a bull with his own skin frill.  That seems cold.

Gammera the Invincible:  Headline: “Inside Reports of Giant Turtle Controversy”  Being a general is hard, unless you lady sergeant knows how to make coffee.  Thank goodness this takes place in 1965, I guess (I wonder if she cooks a good breakfast, too).  The performances of the Americans in the plugged-in scenes are amazing.  So strange, over the top, and affected.  The movie itself is pretty standard Kaiju stuff. It has its moments, but doesn’t especially stand out.  I’d like to see the original Japanese version, and see if maybe it’s got better pacing or what have you.  Still.  It’s not bad.

War of the Monsters:  “The creature would die by its own rainbow.”  Gammera is back (sort of), and looking for a fight.  Some treasure hunters travel to a tropical island, hoping for fortune and glory.  But the island isn’t quite what they expect.  A mysterious doctor, a beautiful native girl, and an ancient warning stand between the trio and their dreams.  Of course, transgressing in places with names like The Cave of Death brings with it a certain degree of danger; that kind of world shaking Kaiju-type danger your mother always warned you about.  I love Japanese monsters for their completely insane abilities.  Barugon spits a giant tongue-spike out of its mouth that shoots out freezing fog, and its back spines create a super-heating rainbow.  OK.  Sure.  I mean, Gammera is a giant turtle from the time of the primordial soup, who can spit flame and fly via jets that come out of its leg-holes.  So, a burning rainbow mortar isn’t all that weird, I guess.  These films are definitely not of the Godzilla films’ quality level, but this second outing for our Turtle hero is a much more interesting film than the first.  One simple lesson this film teaches is don’t trust a jewel-crazy jackass.

On Friday night, Lisa and Brad hosted the latest gathering of the Justice League of Extraordinary Book Club.  This month’s reading, the first two trade paperbacks of The Walking Dead.  Overall the feelings were positive I guess.  Brad and I are both experiencing a kind of Walking Dead ennui, having both been enamored of the series many years ago, but finding our re-reading of the early arcs kind of frustrating and unsatisfying.  A couple people weren’t really into it at all, but, several enjoyed it quite a bit.  And there was a lot of intense conversation about various aspects.  And of course, as it would be almost impossible to ignore it, a lot of talk (comparing and contrasting…and mostly crapping on) the TV show.  With the glut of zombie films, zombie video games, and zombie literature in the last 10 or so years, my old-time love has been kind of stomped on.  I still do like zombies as a monster and I think there are some great films and books.  And overall, I do think The Walking Dead is an excellent entry in that sub-genre.  But for me, right now, it just didn’t work.  Talk to me again in 10 years (hopefully ten years with few or no zombie films), and maybe I can start getting back into it.

And on Saturday I sat down and read issue 2 of the new Dark Horse series simply titled Star Wars.  I like it.  It’s not amazing or anything, but it’s firmly set in the galaxy far, far away that I loved as a kid.  It feels more like old school Star Wars than a lot of stuff I’ve seen or read in a long time.  I never read the Rogue Squadron books or comics, but it feels like they might be setting the stage for that future, with Wedge and a mixed bag of elite pilots.

-Matt