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

For the last two years, Matt & I have been constructing a list of our Favorite Films.  My personal Top Ten came to me quick & easy; those films have ranked as my all time favorites for several years.  My Top Twenty was a little tougher to crack, but I got their after minimal struggle.  However, formulating my Top Thirty Favorite Films was downright brutal.  A couple of them sprung to mind (#s 21 & 30 were obvious), but I spent several hours over the course of this week pursuing my DVD shelves, selecting & rejecting various movies for whatever reason.  I Love All Of These Films...and so much more.  I cannot guarantee you in a week, let alone a year, that this list will remain - How can The Monster Squad not be in my Top 30 Favorite Films!?!?!  That seems ridiculous to me, but a fact nonetheless.  So take the ranking below with a grain of salt.  I love 'em, but my confidence is not as strong as it was for Movies 1-20.

30.  King Kong (Merian C Cooper & Ernest B Shoedsack, 1933):  Monster movies, this is where it all began.  Frankly, I love all three versions of this movie, as well as the crappy sequels & the Hong Kong knockoffs.  King Kong is one of those rare movies (maybe the only movie) that I'd like to see remade every decade or so, and I find myself positively giddy over the upcoming Skull Island.  It's delightfully simplistic, and eternally relevant.  "It was beauty that killed the beast." This is the ultimate Man Fucks Over Nature story.  We see something beautiful, dangerous, AWEsome and we've gotta have it - even if that means destroying it in the process.  A terribly sad movie, but also one filled with wonder and exceptional cinematic craft.  No King Kong means no Ray Harryhausen, which means no Steven Speilberg, George Lucas, Joe Dante, etc - which means one crappy childhood for this guy.

29.  In The Mouth of Madness (John Carpenter, 1995):  This was the first Horror movie I ever saw in the theater.  Hellraiser was the film that sparked an interest in the genre, and that film led me to the works of Clive Barker & Stephen King.  I remember vividly when I caught the trailer for In The Mouth of Madness on TV, and the Stephen King namecheck immediately peaked an interest.  Who is Sutter Kane?  The concept of a world driven mad by Fiction, was both terrifying & infuriating.  It's a plot spit forth from the mouths of your parents, your teachers, your politicians.  Horror will rot your brain, kids.  Sam Neil has never been better, and his journey from dismissive suit to screaming believer is utterly unsettling.  He steps into frame thinking he's Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity, a cocky insurance investigator bored of the game, but a "chance" encounter with an axe-wielding madman sends him scurrying down dark alleys populated by unnamable horrors.  If you're reading this blog post than you already know how this film had an impact on both Matt & myself.  It introduced me to John Carpenter & HP Lovecraft - after such an encounter how can one not become a full fledged horror fiend?

28.  Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988):  There is simply no better action film.  A good, but flawed man fights his way through a slew of bad men in an effort to reunite with true love.  And all set to the backdrop of the Ho-Ho-Holidays.  The 1980s were bogged down with countless bloody shoot 'em ups, but few had as much charming character as Die Hard.  Bruce Willis is exceptional as the everyman.  He's fun, witty, goofy, and absolutely badass when he's got a gun in his hand.  Yipee Ki Yay for the Energizer Bunny, the man takes a beating and keeps on ticking.  After a half dozen sequels, it's hard to find excitement for the "regular Joe," but you can't hate on the studio for trying to recapture the magic of the original.

27.  The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (Wes Anderson, 2004):  As much as I enjoyed Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums, it was not until The Life Aquatic that Wes Anderson's mastery over his dollhouse filmmaking hit perfection.  Words like "quirky" and "whimsical" get tossed around a lot when discussing his films, and I find them to be frustratingly reductive.  Anderson does not wish to recreate reality.  He's not interested in Oscar Bait.  He strives for the artificial, for style, for the storybook.  But to say there's no truth in the artificial is absurd.  The Life Aquatic is layered in familial heartbreak.  Bill Murray is an artist soaked in despair, a man desperate to believe in fatherhood when the chance presents itself, but also incapable of expressing love.  Owen Wilson is equally adrift as the son in question, but manages to force himself into this gruesome adventure of oceanic revenge while deflecting the jealously of Zissou's crew.  Ultimately, The Life Aquatic is about getting beyond your emotional baggage, and accepting the imperfect people around you.

26.  The Professionals (Richard Brooks, 1966):  Last year, in the wake of The Lone Ranger, I put together a list of my Top 5 Favorite Westerns, and The Professionals ranked at number 4.  Well, as I warned above, I've changed my mind.  It now sits as my third favorite western & my 26th favorite movie.  Lists are stupid.  But I love them.  Ralph Bellamy's Texas tycoon hires Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, & Woody Strode to charge down into Mexico to rescue his wife from Jack Palance's crazed revolutionary.  But as plot demands, things are not as simple as they seem.  I've spoken about it before, but perhaps the most stunning feat about The Professionals is Lancaster's ability to steal the show from Marvin.  His rapscallion is not so much an outlaw as he is a man who let his disgust for humanity crush his own morality, and the result is a gleaming devil worth rooting for.  Lee Marvin is simply a badass...he's great at being a badass, but it's also kinda expected.  The Professionals is certainly Lancaster's show, but there are few films with as strong a cast - each man (and one lady) gets their moment.  Imagine The Wild Bunch minus the grotesque i.e. violence as Adventure!

25.  Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005):  One of my many reoccurring rants around here is my stance against Superhero Origin movies - they're boring!  Been there, done that.  'nuff said.  So, why in the world is my all time favorite Comic Book movie an origin story???  Well, because in the 75 years of Batman's time on Earth, we've never been given the full story on Bruce Wayne.  Yep, before Batman Begins even the comic books only told a partial story.  Not to mention the fact that because we've had so many incarnations of Batman over the years, an origin story was actually a fresh approach to the character.  I love The Dark Knight, I dig Rises, and I even appreciate the Clooney travesty.  The Brave & The Bold and "Holy Adam West, Batman!"  But this is Bruce Wayne's story.  No other film comes close to that kind of human focus.  Plus, the way Nolan & Goyer snake the theme of fear through the story is outstanding.  A child's fear leads to his parents' murder, that fear becomes the child's armor, and that armor becomes Gotham's Knight, it's savior from the forces of darkness.  The first time I saw Batman Begins will go down as my All Time Favorite theatrical experience.  While attending the Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con, I was one of a lucky few who won tickets to see an advanced IMAX screening of Batman Begins.  I've never been more thrilled to be part of a crowd; several hundred nerds cheering, rooting, and screaming as the caped crusader finally got his story told proper.

24.  First Blood (Ted Kotchef, 1982):  The story of two generations of soldiers, the good war vs the bad war.  I know it's hard to imagine in this Expendables era, but once upon a time Sylvester Stallone was considered a Renaissance Man.  Before he got 'roided & sequeled out, Stallone made a career out of emotionally gripping character pieces.  First Blood was the last one...or at least, the last successful one.  A Vietnam vet wanders through town after discovering his last war buddy has died a lonely cancerous death.  A Korean War vet turned constable scoops him up, and attempts to shuffle him down the line so he may not soil the town scenery with his long dirty hair.  An act of disrespect that leads to rage-fueled domestic warfare that's as sad as it is understandable.  John Rambo began his career in cinema as a symbol for the lost, the disaffected, and the traumatized.  This is not the badass action film the sequels would eventually attempt.  First Blood is the story of hurt, and a damn fine one.

23.  Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1943):  I only saw this film for the first time six years ago.  "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine."  I'd seen all the clip shows, read all the critic's lists, and I thought I knew what Casablanca was.  Nope.  More often than not, classics are classics for a reason.  Humphrey Bogart is a lost American hiding from himself as much as the war when an old flame walks into his club, and causes all sorts of Nazi trouble.  Bogart is cold & cool in The Maltese Falcon, a cocky braggart in The Big Sleep, and the shlubbiest sadsack loser in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.  Rick, though, is Bogart's great performance.  He's a selfish jerk, a master of slick wit, a (self)forgotten patriot, and a doomed romantic.  If all you know is the soundbites, do yourself a favor, and treat yourself to one of The Great Movies.

22.  Robocop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987):  An action film, a gorehound's delight, a Frankenstein parable, and a painfully funny satire of 1980s consumerism.  Robocop is one of the strangest bits of outsider art to sneak into mainstream cinemas.  Peter Weller does Karloff proud as a man slaughtered by criminals, and butchered further by corporate scientists.  He's given very little to emote with (a facial slit & Mr Roboto body language), but the film succeeds thanks to Weller's ability to pull the humanity from the cyborg. Then you have Kurtwood Smith & his gang of goons.  Never has there been a better collection of psychopathic villainy.  Verhoeven revels in the monstrosity of man, he takes glee in showcasing the vile & despicable, and then he projects triumph through violence.  Politically correct?  Hell no!  It's cool though.

21.  2001 - A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968):  My experience with this movie is probably like a lot of folks my age.  At 15, I didn't "get it."  At 20, I thought I liked it until it went Beyond The Infinite.  At 25, seeing it for the first time on the Uptown's Big Screen, I was in awe of the cinematography and the pulsating soundtrack.  At 35, I worship it's attempts at understanding the question of man via science fiction & metaphor.  I don't claim to understand the Star Child any better than I did at 20, but maybe in another decade or so I will.  I certainly look forward to rewatch after rewatch.  2001 is a rare event, a film that evolves as you do.  You gotta cherish that.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (8/4/13-8/10/13)

    I was on vacation this week, and I didn’t get much of anything accomplished.  Didn’t even get much reading done.  All things considered, I didn’t watch many movies, either.  Still, got into DC once, and hung with friends a bunch, so not too bad.  Still, I kind of need another week to get to all the projects and tasks I took this week off to do.  Alas.

Europa Report:  As I said when I saw Oblivion earlier this year, there should be movies like this coming out all the time.  If that were the case, this would be a solid, average semi-realistic science fiction film.  However, due to the rareness of films like this, it’s one of the better to come along in a while.  The story is fairly simple.  A bunch of astronauts are on a long journey to Europa, the moon of Jupiter, to investigate the potential for life.  As happens in these movies, things don’t go especially well.  However, unlike movies like Sunshine, the cast of characters doesn’t seem like a collection of maladjusted sociopaths and mental incompetents thrown into a slap-dash bargain basement ship.  These folk are mostly competent, sane, and even under extreme pressure don’t break down.  They may crack a bit, but they don’t break.  Also, the ship technology doesn’t break down constantly or at every key moment (like in Sunshine).  Though the movie is about the dangers we may face in Humanity’s ventures into space, it is also about the glory and wonder of facing those dangers.

Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla: “Relax.  We’re with the government.”  The newer Godzilla movies are missing something, an essential charm.  They feel too rooted in modern Japanese science fiction, which is by and large total garbage, and less in the traditional Godzilla spirit.  This is no exception.  While the story of the disgraced soldier on a path to becoming a Mechagodzilla pilot is interesting, overall, the film is not.  And the monster fight effects are not good.  Everything looks cheaper, more made for TV.

2 Guns:  First, the good.  1) I’m glad this movie did well, so that Boom! Studios gets a cash influx, and maybe a bit of prestige.  Hopefully, that will turn into more of their comics getting adaptations, and in general, an improvement of titles they produce.  I  like Boom!  They tend to do the sorts of things I like to read (less superhero, more weird/science fiction stuff).  2) The Paula Patton nude scene is totally integral to the plot, and absolutely not gratuitous…Oh, wait, I mean had no reason for being there and was absolutely gratuitous.  Excellent.  After that, it’s all down hill.  Right from the start the dialog was awful.  The action scenes were boring.  And the whole plot was drab.  It felt like a second string 80s movie.  Like something Lou Diamond Philips would headline and Walter Hill would produce, but not direct.  Very bland.  Very typical.  No surprises.  No point.

King Kong Escapes:  Doctor Who (seriously, look it up) and a sinister governmental agent have finally figured out the best way to mine ultra-powerful radioactive elements from beneath the arctic ice.  Obviously, with a giant ape.  But where to find one?  Well, remember King Kong?  Yeah.  Right.  Well, we can’t get him.  So, uh, build a giant robot ape!  Duh.  But giant robot apes don’t do well with radiation.  And it turns out King Kong is around, and fighting dinosaurs on his island.  And boy is he horny.  Yup.  King Kong Escapes.  A whole bucket full of ‘what the hell’s wrong with Japan?’  But it’s also a lot of weird, silly fun.

The Host:  Holy balls, this movie is amazingly terrible.  It’s like the sad fantasies of a lonely high school girl.  Every line of dialog, every character decision, every plot turn feels like it was written on the back of a Trapper Keeper while listening to Debbie Gibson cassettes.  Many of these actors are better than this material, as is the director.  Frankly, the whole thing made me sad.  Not because the script was sad, but because it felt like watching a smart, beautiful woman descend into drugs and prostitution.  That’s what this movie felt like to me.  Sad and depressing.

It's so symbolic!

Yongary, Monster from the Deep:  “I’m going to see that monster.” Slow paced, low production value, and little of interest.  It’s not even up to the level of Gamera films.  Don’t bother.

Logan’s Run:  What can I say about this that I haven’t already?  One of my all time favorites.  It’s got all the stuff I love.  Dystopia, trippy music, Jenny Agutter in the buff, ruins of civilization, all that kind of thing.  A fun and twisting adventure of a style rarely done these days.  It scratches below the surface of a pretty paradise, digs into the underbelly, than rises up into the sun.  Awesome.

Elysium:  Overpopulation and climate change have turned large parts of the world into desolate urban sprawls.  The wealthy elite have fled, with their technology and know-how to a space station, where they’ve done a fine job of closing their eyes to life on Earth.  The look and feel of the movie is great.  The story is pretty basic sci-fi that’s been told scores and scores of times before.  A young man must rise from his humble place to free all the people from the oppressive regime.  Luke Skywalker, Jesus, Neo, Maria, the list goes on.  There aren’t very many twists.  It plays out in the expected ways.  But it’s well enough done to be enjoyable.  There is an over reliance on the dreaded ‘shaky-cam’ which is the bane of modern action film.  While not as poorly used as say Man of Steel or The Wolverine, it is still a black mark on the film’s record.  When will this nightmare of directors/producers/studios thinking that extreme close-ups and shaking cameras makes for good ‘tension’ end?  It just makes me sea-sick and angry.  But the thing I take away from this movie is that we’ve finally been given a really good vision of William Gibson’s cyberpunk world of Burning Chrome and Count Zero.  This movie is to Gibson and cyberpunk what In the Mouth of Madness was to Lovecraft and cosmic horror.  It isn’t based on any one work, but steeped in the genre, reaching for its essential center.  Is this going on my list of ‘best science fiction films’?  No.  But it’s a good one and worth checking out.  A good companion to The Running Man and Soylent Green.

Gantz II: Perfect Answer:  There are some extremely cool ideas at the heart of Gantz, but it fails in all the ways Japanese films tend to fail.  A sphere of ill-defined origin, with ill-defined motives, uses ill-defined powers to manipulate undefined characters on some ill-defined missions to terminate ill-defined aliens.  The Gantz anime had some good ideas too, but was stretched out over far too many episodes and never came together in any kind of satisfying way.  This two part adaptation condenses the series pretty well, and gives a better resolution.  Also, though not better defined, the characters are far less annoying and useless in this live-action version.  That said, Gantz II (and Gantz) is still a deeply flawed film with far too many problems and nothing especially amazing to make me recommend viewing.

    Wow.  Yeah, that’s pretty much my week.  Well, I did watch one other thing.  I powered through the first four seasons of Peep Show (It’s UK, so that’s not as impressive as it sounds. The seasons are only like 6 episodes long.).  The show is a touch painful, as David Mitchell’s character reminds me a lot of myself (actually, David Mitchell reminds me a lot of myself), and not always in a good way.  Funny.  But painful funny.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (7/14/13-7/20/13)

    With co-Dork Brad and many others on the left coast this week for the Nerd Jamboree, Comic-Con, I have remained here, keeping the light on.  Not a particularly exciting week, but not a bad one, either.

Game of Thrones Season 2:  Watching a regular episode of this show can be stressful, because you know anyone could die at any point, but watching the last couple episodes, you know death is riding.  The second season of the show is quite good, though it gets off to a wonky start.  Look, I love me some nudity and I’m no prude, but the first two episodes had me looking at my watch thinking, ‘can we please just put the tits away and get on with the story?’  And then they do, and the rest of the season keeps it balanced pretty well.  Peter Dinklage remains my favorite part, though there’s plenty to love.  His character is probably the most interesting and he plays it with gusto.  I haven’t read the books, and frankly, have no interest.  But my hope is that Tyrion Lannister is the last man standing to claim the throne.  If you don’t mind wall to wall swearing, violence, and sex, this series is a great companion to the Lord of the Rings films.  It feels like Middle Earth in the centuries after the King.

King Kong:  One of my all time favorite films, I was super excited to see it on the big screen.  However, some awful, literally snot-nosed little kid that couldn’t keep still pretty much ruined it for me.  Whatever.  Still one of the great movies, and a must see.  But parents, either don’t take the kids, or serve as a buffer between them and strangers.  Don’t let your hyperactive, sinus-shunt needing spawn ruin a someone’s 30 year aspiration.  Dick.

FDR: American Badass:  “I’m a motorcycle of death.  I ain’t got no sidecar.”  You have to know, going into this, that a movie called FDR: American Badass is not going to be some classy discussion of the life of an American president.  It’s about a guy who gets polio from Nazi werewolves, becomes President, smokes Lincoln inducing weed, and personally leads the attack on werewolf Hitler and Mussalini.  It’s crass, stupid, goofy, awkward, extremely cheap looking, and pretty much straight up awesome.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II:  “The mind is a labyrinth.”  This is a profoundly strange movie.  It’s an old favorite of mine, and I totally get why.  But after probably a decade without seeing it, this rewatch put how bloody strange it is into perspective.  The editing is all off, the story hops in weird ways, the acting and dialog are very wonky, and the music is bugnuts.  It’s totally anti-climactic and has several pretty big problems.  But I still find it very compelling, like a very gory adult fairy tale.  All the puzzle/riddle/maze stuff is great, and I think handled the best of all the films in the series.  It doesn’t shy away from physically traveling to hell, as most movies of this sort would; teasing for an hour and ten minutes, then giving a couple brief glimpses in the last reel.  No, this time we spend a third to half the film in the twisting strangeness of mat paintings and forced perspective.

Evil Dead (2013):  As soon as the Paul Dano looking chump opened the book and it was revealed to just be garden variety Satanism, I pretty much checked out.  One of the things I always liked about the original Evil Dead films was the Lovecraft hints.  The movie looks nice, but otherwise is just a bunch of boring retreads.  I’m not against remakes.  But Evil Dead 2 and (to a lesser degree) Army of Darkness already remade Evil Dead, and both movies had 100% more excitement and fun.  Skip it.  Watch the original.  Nothing to see here.

Jack the Giant Slayer:  Another ‘revisionist’ fairy tale, this by the numbers snooze-fest looks and feels like a made for TV movie from 20 years ago (10th Kingdom, Gulliver’s Travels, etc.).  A cast of better-than-this actors phone in performances, dishing out lifeless dialog that doesn’t even have the good taste to be memorably bad.  CG used where practical effects would have likely been easier, cheaper, and certainly look better.  Ho-hum.

Welcome to the cutting edge of 1992.

    Friday night through Saturday, I was on mission.  Co-Dork’s lair.  Blu-ray player.  Chinese food.  Like John Rambo before me, I got the job done.

Melvin & Howard:  Man, can I pick ‘em.  I thought this movie was going to be about a guy hanging out with Howard Hughes, not a s#!+ kicking hillbilly without the sense (or cents) to get his slack-jawed life together.  Between his soft-headed first wife, sleazy bosses, and own lack of brain cells, it’s a wonder our grease stained blue collar hero can drive and sing crappy songs at the same time, much less succeed in life.  As the movie progresses toward its climax (?!), the filmmakers rely on the viewer to be well versed in the actual shenanigans the film is inspired by…which I’m not.  This was up for Oscars?  This WON Oscars?  Maybe I can stop using Geena Davis’ win as my example when I point to how moronic the Oscars are.

My 2 minutes are the best part.

Jubal:  A good cast does a good job with a fairly standard collection of Western tropes.  There’s not really a heck of a lot to this movie, nor a lot to make one take note, beyond the excellent cast.  It was fine, and perfectly watchable, but not especially memorable.

Videodrome:  “Nobody on Earth was made for that show.”  Cronenberg’s grimly disturbing, and creepily prescient vision of the entertainment industry is quintessentially 80s in its execution, but timeless in its vision.  James Woods only thinks he’s an amoral would-be TV tycoon, peddling sleaze to the lowest of the low.  But when he discovers Videodrome, he may have found a line even he isn’t willing to cross.  Is it simply broadcasts of sadistic murders, or is it the beginning of a new political/religious/evolutionary force?

The Video Dead: A really, really weird 80s zombie movie, it’s not very good, but it’s certainly …um…unique.  A cursed TV, wandering zombies, the Garbage Man, a cowboy.  OK.  This isn’t a great movie by any means.  But it’s a fun 80s weirdo, with a cover you probably remember from poking around video stores 20 years ago.  Worth checking out for the strangeness, if nothing else.  And it doesn’t play out as one expects these films to go, which is a nice surprise.

French Stewart!  What happened?

    After my return from the abode of my counterpart, I finally cranked out the last few pages of da Vinci’s Ghost, from the author of The Fourth Part of the World.  Good, entertaining and informative history.  Da Vinci seems like he’d have been fun to hang with.

Fantastic Voyage:  The slow pace might be tough for some, but this voyage into inner space is pretty good.  Nice effects and a solid cast, as well as some rather overblown theatrics of Science! help sell the crazy.  There’s also a good dose of Cold War paranoia.  The opening of the movie feels like it dropped right out of a spy film.  It goes astray in the last act, and I can’t say that the resolution is especially satisfying.  But all in all, a fair sci-fi adventure flick from the 60s.

    Other than that, I’ve been addicted to Prog Rock all this week.  Started reading a book, Yes is the Answer, which is spawning more interest than usual.  It’s interesting going back to this music as a total outsider.  I don’t use drugs.  I wasn’t alive when Prog was at its height (or, I was just being born).  But I feel a certain connection to it.  The grandiose storytelling, the operatic sound and theatricality, the more Classical than Country composition.  Love it.

-Matt

A Fistful of Titans! (Brad's Picks)

Yes!  I can not express how happy it is to report my enthusiasm for Guillermo Del Toro's latest genre smackdown, Pacific Rim.  It's not a flawless masterpiece (save those squees for The Devil's Backbone, Blade 2, & Pan's Labyrinth), but it is a joyous celebration of all things titanic - be that of the Harryhausen or Honda variety - and it's the Blockbuster this Summer Season so desperately needs.  Of course, Pacific Rim begs ITMOD to question, what are our favorite cinematic titans?

5.  Godzilla (Gojira):  Look, I love Godzilla.  And it feels really weird to drop him at the bottom of my Titan list.  But if I'm going to be honest with myself, I really only love the original film and the comic book incarnations.  I have not experienced the pleathora of rubber suit flicks like I should have as a kid.  With Matt's help, I'm going to make up for that now in my 30s.  He's got a slew of films lined up for me, and I'm hoping that if I were to put this list together next year, the big lizard will appear much higher on the chart.

4.  Chev Chellios (Crank 2 - High Voltage):  I don't know if you guys have been paying attention, but ITMOD holds Crank 2 in very high regard.  It's easily one of my Top 5 films of the last ten years; mostly due to its complete insanity, highlighted twenty minutes into the movie when Statham suddenly transforms into a monstrous rubbery Kaiju.  This has to be one of the wildest & whackiest moments in movies - a genuine Need-To-See-It-To-Believe-It.

3.  The Rancor (Star Wars - Return of the Jedi):  The Rancor is the beginning of my own fascination with stop-motion beasties.  Before I knew the names of Ray Harryhausen or Willis O'Brien, I knew the terror of this piggy-munching grotesque.  I look back at Return of the Jedi & it's easily my least favorite of the original trilogy, but Jabba's Palace is still a magnificent wonderland of creatures & curiosities, and the Rancor is it's ultimate treasure.

2.  Galactus (Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer):  This is a cheat.  The Galactus seen in the Fantastic Four sequel is a lame ass cloud of insects.  BUT!  That lame ass cloud of insects is based on one of comics greatest behemoths.  Behold, The World Eater!  In 1966, when Jack Kirby hit a creative wall of stereotypes, he turned to the Bible for inspiration and crafted a supreme being worthy of those Old Testament threat levels.  Galactus cares not for our human problems, he just hungers, and our pitiful ant hill will satiate him until he hits the next planet on the buffet line.

1.  King Kong:  All beasts go back to King Kong eventually.  The Eighth Wonder of the World is a scary ass monster that goes toe-to-toe with T-Rexes and Pterodactyls, but eventually reveals the lovelorn soul in all of us.  Willis O'Brien brought life to the tiny puppet, and birthed a generation of fanboys that would eventually go on to create Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Pacific Rim.  But not just an icon; eighty years later and the film still packs an emotional wallop that sends this geek to tears every time.

--Brad

Dork Art: La Boca's King Kong

I'm just a week away from seeing the original King Kong on the big screen as part of the Alamo Drafthouse's Beasts vs Bots festival.  I cannot wait to see the great ape take to the Empire State Building!  Withoutadoubt, one of the all time great movies.  Looks like Dark City Gallery & the London Film and Comic Con feel the same way as they've commissioned La Boca for this beautiful print.  Obviously, it'll be on sale at the convention but there is no word as to when it will hit the Dark City online store.  Hopefully soon cuz I need this beast.

--Brad

A Fistful of Inspiration! (Brad's Picks)

The Jackie Robinson story gets another go around on the big screen this weekend.  It's a crucial bit of pop culture that lead to genuine social change in America.  But my fear, based on what little of the trailer I've seen, is that 42 will ultimately be another stale biopic that fails to capture the excitement of the events, and simply delivers bullet point history.  As impressed as we all were by Jaime Foxx's mimicry in Ray or Joaquin Phoenix's hangdog wannabe jailbird in Walk The Line, they were simply just pale imitations of their real life subjects.  Icons are hard to portray.  We're all taught the basics in school.  Plunging new depths can be difficult.  It's best to either narrow your focus (like last year's Lincoln) or deal on the little known fellas (see my #5 pick on this list) instead.  The most appealing thing about 42 is director Brian Helgeland, the man to come the closest in adapting Richard Stark's Parker with Payback (The Straight Up Edition, avoid the theatrical cut).

So, this Fistufl is not a Top Five of Biopics (although some do appear).  Instead these are the top five films that inspired me the most as the credits rolled.  Films that either inspired me creatively, lovingly, or patriotically.  Films that put a lump in my throat and a chill down my spine.  Films that made me mutter "yer damn right."

5.  American Splendor:  Harvey Pekar was a grumpy little shit.  After some hard time in the Navy, a barrage of odd jobs, and an almost life sentence as a file clerk, Harvey Pekar found an outlet for his everyday rage in underground comics.  A friendship with R. Crumb encouraged the "anyone can do it" attitude and Harvey Pekar soon became the Poet Laureate of Cleveland.  Ma & Pap America may not know his name, but anyone with the slightest interest in non-spandex comics appreciates the autobiographical revolution sparked by Pekar and his peers.  The film, directed by Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini, balances fictionalized accounts with actor Paul Giamatti as well as interviews with Pekar himself.  It's not the type of film to raise hoots and hollers, but after each viewing I find myself struck by that "anyone can do it" attitude and I'll inevitably leap to the written word.

4.  A Very Long Engagement:  You can't have a list like this without an epic love story.  When her fiance disappears in the trenches of the Somme, Audrey Tautou refuses to believe that her love was lost to The Great War.  She begins an epic quest to find him or his body.  She unravels a mystery involving five french soldiers convicted of cowardice and sentenced to die in the abyss of No Man's Land.  She's kind of like a lovelorn Sherlock Holmes, cutting her way through a venomous French government and freeing the spirits of the men lost on the front lines.  Both breaks and warms the heart.

3.  King Kong:  On the surface, this might seem like a weird one for the list.  Part of the inspiration comes from the craft of it.  Willis O'Brien brought genuine life to a tiny mechanical puppet.  I'm not being cute or foolish when I type this, but even after the 30th rewatch, there are moments in this film in which I forget I'm watching an inanimate object.  I see Kong and I react in the same manner I would with an anthropomorphized puppy dog.  He's Lassie.  He's Hooch.  The other part of the inspiration comes from the tragic story itself.  Not the "Beauty that Tamed The Beast" bit, but the hateful story of the poor bugger stolen from his home in chains and staked on a stage for our entertainment.  And I respond deeply to his skyscraping climactic rage.  Inspirational anger.

2.  Ed Wood:  This is not an "anyone can do it" movie.  It's a "you have to be a passionate mad man to do it" movie.  Made back in the good old days of Tim Burton talent, Ed Wood is the frenzied saga of a wannabe cinematic maestro who might have lacked the talent, but certainly had the blind will to burn his stories onto celluloid.  Portrayed by Johnny Depp, Ed Wood is a gleeful, lovable loon.  Through sheer love, he got his stories out to the people - and when their love was not quite like his love, it hurt.  Painfully relatable, but also delightfully inspiring.

1.  12 Angry Men:  This should be required viewing every 4th of July.  Nothing makes me more proud to be an American than 12 Angry Men.  On a hot sweaty day in New York City, 12 jurors file into the room and decide the fate of an alleged murderer.  11 men are quick to vote guilty.  One man, Juror #8, raises his hand.  He has a few questions and doesn't believe a man's life should be settled in the manner of minutes.  For the next 96 the 12 men shout, scream, and exhaust each other.  But the defendant is granted the conversation.  Thanks to one man with a raised hand.  Henry Fonda exudes morality.  He speaks, I listen.  He's the man I aspire to be.  Group think is evil.  Be an individual, be Juror #8.

--Brad