A Fistful of Fall Anticipation 2014! (Matt’s Picks)

    It’s that time of year again.  Heading into the final stretch, we look at the movies we’re most looking forward to in the final months of the year.  Without too much preamble, here are mine:

5.  Interstellar:  I feel very weird about this film.  On the one hand, it’s absolutely the kind of thing I should love.  On the other, from the first trailer, I simply haven’t been able to work up any particular interest.  Something rings hollow, and I can’t say what.  So, I’m hoping it’ll be the movie I want it to be and not the movie I kinda think it’s gonna be.

4.  A Walk Among the Tombstones:  Liam Neeson.  Liam Neeson being mean to people…with his fists.  I’m there.

3.  The BoxTrolls:  This, along with Big Hero 6 and The Book of Life make the family film market look pretty good.  The BoxTrolls looks like a good mix of cute and weird, with family friendly, but not condescending humor.  Hopefully, it lives up.

2.  The Zero Theorem:   Terry Gilliam continues his sometimes depressing but often exhilarating quest to slap mainstream movies in the face.  I love Gilliam's work, and I always hope he'll pull out a victory over the cosmic opposition he always seems to be up against.

1.  Tracks:  Seriously.  I want to see this movie.  It was supposed to come out at the beginning of the Summer, then just before being released…disappeared from schedules.  Months later, it showed up again with a September release date.  So, fingers crossed it’ll actually hit the screen this time ‘round.

     Hopefully, half my movies won't get delayed again.  That would be swell.  Honestly, I'm not too jazzed, going into the Fall.  There are a few other films I do want to see, but few I expect to be super-thrilled by.  Still, this year has been pretty darned good, and you never know what'll cap a year like this.  Heck, I'd never heard of The Artist a few weeks before it became one of my favorite films of 2011.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Matt’s Week in Dork! (3/2/14-3/8/14)

    Busy, busy, busy.  A Dork’s life is never (OK, often) dull.  Up first thing on Sunday for my recommended dose of Neeson, and then I was off, for another week of running around, trying to read, catching too few movies, and generally doing what I do.  F’in snow storm on Monday threw a bit of a monkey wrench into the works.  Seriously.  I moved to Virginia in part to get away from snow and winter storms.  And everyone kept telling me they’re so rare here.  Well, three out of 7 years we’ve had severe winter weather and I’ve had to shovel.  Not cool.  Anyway, on with the usual Dorkness.

Non-Stop:  Not quite as good as Taken or Taken 2, this “Liam Neeson gets angry and kills a bunch of people” movie is more on the level of Unknown.  It’s fun and perfectly watchable, but it won’t be going on any best of lists.  Like an Agatha Christie story, the movie sets up everyone to look as guilty as possible, so you never quite know who the villain is…except that I knew who the villain was from the first moment said person showed their face on screen.  If you’re in the mood for Neeson yelling and looking angry, while occasionally snapping a neck, watch Taken.  But if you just watched Taken, this is a fine follow-up.

Fiancee of Dracula:  Grave yards, weird nuns, a circus dwarf on a motorcycle, a baby eating ogress who looks like a porn star?  Oh, yes.  Jean Rollin.  This film deals with many of the themes Rollin used from his earliest days.  His vampires are sad, slightly baffled extra-dimensional beings, disconnected from those around them and often thought mad.  They wander and stumble across each other, and across other weird characters as they try to figure themselves and their world out.  Rollin never really grew as an artist, but within his very strange, very specific little world, he was a master.  Dream logic, vague pretension, an almost Romantic sexuality, and a playful touch of the absurd.  Though not traditionally good, I find Rollin’s films compulsively watchable, and for more than just the pretty women taking their clothes off.  The atmosphere he creates sometimes feels like what Hammer Studios was reaching for in their most Gothic of films (though Hammer had a tendency to expect their films to have some modicum of plot and logic).

Pilot X: Murder in the Sky:  This feels like a truncated serial, with much the same plot progression common to the ‘masked criminal’ series.  Planes have been getting shot down, so in an attempt to find out who is doing it, the likely suspects are brought to a secluded house to be observed.  Of course, they start getting picked off, the most obviously guilty first, and so on.  The acting is mostly stilted and the editing makes most of the flying scenes almost impossible to follow.  Several times, I couldn’t tell who was involved in a dog fight, who was winning, or who’d just been shot.  And honestly, the reveal was pretty darned obvious.  The details, not so much, but I had the killer pegged from early on.  It’s an OK bit of fluff, but there are many better.

Tim’s Vermeer:  I’m glad this isn’t simply the ‘mad eccentric’ movie the trailer made it out to be.  Tim Jenison is a very smart guy, and yes, perhaps a bit mad.  And he’s interested in a lot of things.  He’s made enough money that he’s able to investigate and explore these interests to sometimes surreal extremes.  And this is the case with his fascination with the artist Vermeer and how his paintings were made.  Following in the footsteps of a few researchers, Tim conceived of a wild project to try to recreate one of the paintings in what he believes may be the unconventional way it was originally done.  What follows is part archeology, part art history, part This Old House, and more than a part obsession.  Tim isn’t the distant savant, or creepy loner that usually anchors a subject like this.  He seems like a mostly normal, if clearly genius level, human being.  A guy you might get coffee with, or discuss the latest film.  And as crazy as what he’s doing is, he reacts to much of it in a perfectly reasonable way, even admitting at one point that if it wasn’t part of an ongoing film production, he’d have quit working on it.  But I’m glad it was part of that film.  There are a lot of things discussed over the course of the movie, about philosophy and history, etc.  But I think the most interesting and important realization, or assertion is that art and science were not, and should not be separate things.  I think the separation of art and science has led to some serious cultural dissonance.  A satisfying documentary, which made me want to go out and paint…not a Vermeer, but something.

    Thanks to TCM showing so many great movies you just can’t find on DVD, I got a chance to see a Ruth Chatterton movie I’d been wanting to see for some time.  They’re really the only channel I watch, and the one thing I’ll miss when I don’t have cable again in a year.

Dodsworth:  Walter Huston is so much fun as the newly retired industrialist, off to learn how to live his life and love his wife.  Sadly, his wife, played by Ruth Chatterton, isn’t so much interested in love as she is in holding on to her quickly receding youth.  She is attracted to flattery like a moth of flame, and that can’t end well.  Considering that this film came out after the Hayes Codes were in full effect, I was a bit surprised by some of the content.  I suppose, even with the crackdown, not everyone was on board or had their puritanical hooks into everything yet.  I’m gaining a new appreciation for Walter Huston recently.  And I’ve become quite a fan of Ruth Chatterton, who is playing someone very different than I’m used to here, but doing a fine job of it.  You really hate and pity her as it goes on.

About Time:  Absolutely, this is a sappy romantic fantasy, with a very odd time travel twist that allows it to make its point.  Fine.  But dang it, it’s super sweet and adorable, and I love the cast.  It’s funny, it’s charming, and if I had a heart in my chest, I would imagine this warming it.  Now, the movie is guilty of one cinematic sin, for sure.  It uses the old ‘frumpy hair/outfit’ in order to try to make us imagine that Rachel McAdams isn’t a painfully beautiful woman.  However, I thought McAdams is a good enough actor that she made me forget how hot she is for a while, and focus on how awkwardly cute her character is.  I could certainly understand people accusing this of being saccharine or schmaltzy.  They wouldn’t necessarily be wrong.  But I enjoyed the heck out of the whole thing.

    On Thursday night, we were again at our usual haunt, The Alamo Drafthouse, to see a double shot of muscle and steel.  I’d seen 300 on the big screen when it first came out, but not in a really nice theater.  And it made a difference.  This time around, the first time the Persians slam against the Spartan shields, I felt the impact as much as I heard it.

300:  One of the most wonderfully ridiculous, over the top, macho, beefy films ever made, this rousing tale of buff dudes battling mutant hoards has about as much to do with the historic events as The Ten Commandments, but it’s got a heck of a lot more awesome.  Lots of great lines, lots of wild scenes, lots of driving music, and so, so much wacky slow/fast motion.  The battles are intense and fun, the dialog almost Shakespearian in its theatricality.  And the badassery on display not only from the Spartan soldiers, but from Queen Gorgo …Awesome.  I hope that when I’m called to defend my lands against ravaging hoards of horror, I have a woman half as hardcore as Gorgo watching my back.  In a movie so crammed full of baby-oiled up muscle men, chest pounding, and testosterone pumping speeches, it’s great to have a woman who stands toe to toe on heroics.  And something I can’t help but mention when I talk about this movie, I love that it portrays a couple who are deeply and passionately in love with each other, enjoy each other’s company, and still has a vigorous sex life.

300: Rise of an Empire:  Everything that worked in the first film did not work in this one.  I was horrified to find myself longing for 300’s subtlety…Yeah, a movie that’s about as subtle as a Nic Cage freak-out, and this film makes it look like the world's greatest spy giving a lesson on subtlety at the University of Subtle, Secretly Located In Oxford (accredited!).  We’re subjected to the sad, sensitive, irritatingly concerned, blue eyes of a perpetually young warrior poet from Athens, Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton), who explains in great detail how everything that he and his army does is ‘what living/fighting/being free is all about.’  And then we have the most feared and powerful naval commander in the Persian Empire, Artemisia (Eva Green), who manages to blow every opportunity for victory and display every possible level of incompetence, seemingly having gained all her position and power by using secret vagina magic.  Then we get to find out how she has the most cliché back story they could come up with (yes, that’s right, the toughest sorceress/general/warrior/naval commander and right-hand of the Persian Emperor is just an injured little girl looking to get back at the people who wronged her…For the love of crap!  F&%$ you, writer(s) of this film!).  Show don’t tell.  That’s the golden rule of cinema, and the one this movie breaks most often.  I kept trying to like it.  For the first fifteen or twenty minutes, I think I managed to not hate it.  But at some point, I couldn’t pretend anymore, and the taint it was putting upon the first film was too much.  Zack Snyder has his faults, and his last two movies (Sucker Punch  and Man of Steel) have disappointed me greatly.  But I missed him on this project, for sure.  And really?  Really?  Penetrated by his cock-sword?  Really?  300 only had one female character, but she was f'in hardcore and stood as much for heroism as any of the beefy Spartans.  This movie has two.  Gorgo has inexplicably become a sword wielding warrior woman (not her brand of badass), and Artemisia who seems to embody Victorian Man's fears and hatreds of women.  Ugh.

Old Boy (2013):  I know so many people who go so gaga over the original Korean film, but watching it a couple years back, I was left cold/bored by it.  I don’t tend to respond well to Korean film in general; something about the pacing, I don’t know.  Whatever the case, combined with the fact that Spike Lee was behind this remake, it was not something I gave two craps about.  Not even sure why I ended up putting it on my NetFlix queue.  But I did, and now I’ve seen it, and it’s…OK.  I felt a bit more engaged in this version than the original.  However, it still left me cold; though not as bored.  Everyone is fine.  The story is pretty messed up.  Sharlto Copley tries his darnedest to channel Vincent Price in his wildly silly villain role.  But Lee’s usual camera tomfoolery is off-putting, and while Elizabeth Olsen does a good job, I can’t help but feel her character stepped out of a crappy 80s action/cop movie (if only she lived in a converted warehouse and did welding/sculpting as a hobby).  I wouldn’t avoid watching this, but I wouldn’t go out of my way, either.

    Saturday afternoon, the director and the star of the short film I’m working on came to my place for a penultimate meeting, with some test shots of costume and set, and a final checklist of props and such.  I felt a heck of a lot better after seeing how the set wall looked on camera.  That was making me a bit nervous.  Otherwise, it all seems good.  I’m so danged excited to see this as a final product.

Love:  You can probably guess this from the trailer, but Love owes a good deal to Kubrick’s 2001 and many other science fiction movies besides.  But that shouldn’t lessen your enjoyment of this slightly non-linier story about an astronaut stranded in space.  Pieces of the story are rooted in the American Civil War, and there are lots of flashbacks and cut-away shots of people living and talking about life.  It’s all very artsy, but didn’t feel particularly pretentious.  The film looks great, with some gorgeous Civil War battle shots and lots of excellent space stuff.  Yes, there’s gravity on the space station.  So what?  This isn’t a high budget film, thus, no zero-G filming.  Don’t be a dick.  The sets are nice, and the lead actor doesn’t botch it.  I don’t know that he’s the most charismatic or interesting to watch, but he’s got the weight of the whole film on his shoulders and he doesn’t mess it up.  So, bravo.  Fans of more serious science fiction should give it a go.  Not one for the ages, but good.

    It was interesting to watch Love when I did.  A few things I’ve seen recently play with some of the ideas of this short film we’re working on.  Like Gravity, All is Lost, The Wall, and some others I’ve seen recently, Love deals with isolation and the stress of being out of contact.

    And that’s about it.  I had a busy week, but not as much on the Dork side as I like.  I’m hoping with the weather finally looking like it might not totally suck, I’ll be able to get my bike out and start breathing outdoor air again.  Time will tell.

-Matt

Brad's Week in Dork! (3/10/13-3/16/13)

After the saccharine disappointment of Sam Raimi's Oz , I felt a strong desire to return to the classics of his youth.  It had been nearly three years since I watched The Evil Dead trilogy.  The break was good for me.  For nearly all of high school & college, one of those films was playing on my tv every weekend.  I'm not alone here.  I think every Deadite fan believes they were the one to discover as well as champion the series, but as time marches on it's obvious that no dorm room was complete without an Army of Darkness poster.  The funny thing though is that in watching some of his earlier films I've now come to appreciate his pulp hero creation over the others.  Darkman is a brilliant film.  And Liam Neeson is my favorite batshit crazy super hero.  I look around my apartment now and I realize that it needs an upgrade.  Darkman belongs on my walls.  A Darkman toy belongs on my desk.    He's a kook and a sadsack.  Mean as hell.  He'll rip your throat out, but maybe feel sorry that he had to do it in front of his woman.

I also felt the need to delve into some classics.  I've been maintaining a fairly contemporary flavor so far this year, and I feel like I've been skipping my vegetables.  That's not to say Criterions are swampy piles of mushy broccoli, I just mean I'm lacking some nutrients.  The Wizard of Oz seemed like a good entry point, but Theif of Bagdad and Ministry of Fear were the real winners this week.  Just gorgeous, weird productions.  And yeah, I saw The Rock's new flick.  It certainly was a movie.

The Wizard of Oz:  Such a delightfully simple story.  Dorothy flees the homestead to save Toto from lethal injection, runs afoul of a beastly Kansas tornado, and is swept into the technicolor wonderland called Oz.  Her arrival means the demise of one nasty witch and garners the attention of another.  Better get your ass home, girl.  She follows the yellow brick road, gains a few creatures-in-crime, meets the huckster behind the curtain, and clicks her heels three times.  The music is solid, but not mind melting.  This ain't West Side Story or Yankee Doodle Dandy.  Judy Garland certainly sells the weird awe that Franco seemed incapable of in the prequel (speaking of which, you should check out Greg Proops' latest Smartest Man In The World podcast in which he rips apart Raimi's intention - it's all about suffragettes, man).  The Wizard of Oz is not the classic dare not remade or prequelized.  It's fun.  It's iconic.  But it's also not genius.  L Frank Baum's world is worthy of exploration.  If you're not already familiar with it, I highly recommend Disney's Return to Oz.  That's a flick that captures the scary with the weird, and probably the best adaptation of Baum's Oz so far.  Gnome King.  Gross.

The Thief of Bagdad:  "You shall add joy to the wedding festival by being boiled in oil."  This silent starts off slow.  Douglas Fairbanks is a real scalawag, skulking the streets of Bagdad, picking the pockets of the hapless saps unlucky enough to stumble his way.  But, halfway through the film, after he wins the heart of the princess from the Mongol Madman, the film quickly enters a grande world of fantasy.  Dragons must be slayed.  Carpets must be flown.  And diabolical magicians must get knocked on their butts.  Fairbanks is all charm and smiles.  Watching him Harrison Ford his way through the mystically massive silent film sets is true spectacle.  Not as magnificent as Fritz Lang's Metropolis or as joyous as Chaplin's Modern Times, but Thief of Bagdad now ranks as my third favorite silent.

All New X-Men #8:  Yes.  This series certainly suffers from Brian Michael Bendis' typical decompression style, but - like the best of Ultimate Spider-Man - you don't really mind when the characters are having this much fun exploring their new future surroundings.  Well, "fun" is not the right word.  The young Warren is certainly disturbed by his future self.  Metal Wings.  Angelic delusions.  And lots and lots of side stepping dialog.  Captain America shows up to play Mr. Bossy Pants.  And then Jean Grey starts to exhibit the true magnitude of her power and that properly scares the hell outta the rest of the cast.  I'm not ready to be finished with the high concept time travel terror, and I hope Bendis gives these guys plenty of time to freak out before they adjust to their surroundings.

Daredevil - End of Days #6:  "I wanted a trophy."  Probably my favorite issue from this sad, sad, sad series so far.  Ben Urich gets a little closer to the Mapone mystery, and his confrontation with Kingpin wannabe The Owl gets rather scary.  However, the best bits of this issue involve The Purple Man and The Punisher.  And one whispering panel.  Each issue of this book tends to leave you hanging, but I have a strong feeling like End of Days is gonna be one hell of a great trade to end Bendis' run on Daredevil.

Avengers #7:  Jonathan Hickman's Big Picture comes a little into focus as "The White Event" unveils the return of a long lost New Universe creation, The Starbrand.  Captain America & company still seem like blank slates in their own book but I'm hoping Hickman's plot is worth the character skimping.  Time will tell, but I'm on board.  The last page actually raised a smile, something this reader of issue #3 would be surprised to hear.  But man, I wish this series (and a lot of other Marvel Now series) had a consistent artist.  Avengers jumping all over the place is not helped by the artist swaps.

Detective Comics #18:  The first Batman book since the death of Damian Wayne, Detective Comics might get slapped with the "Requiem" banner but the grieving process is little more than a page, a solitary tear.  After seemingly forced to acknowledge Scott Snyder's Death of the Family arc, writer John Layman is finally been given the space to write his Emperor Penguin plot.  And it's solid stuff.  Oswald Cobblepot's world is falling apart; his henchman Ignatius Oglivy has successful barred him from his bank accounts and underbelly goons - and then he makes it personal.  Don't mess with Mom, man.  I almost wish The Dark Knight wasn't involved.  I know soon enough he's going to have to make this family squabble a priority but I kinda like this civil war sizzling independently from the Bat family.

Helheim #1:  Sixth Gun writer Cullen Bunn trades gunfighters for vikings, but there's still plenty of spooky sorcery at play.  As far as first issues go it's decent enough.  A lot of characters are thrown our way with little to differentiate one from the other.  A hunting party flees a horde of skeleton ghosts, some men die, and witchcraft seems to bring one back to life.  Frankenstein Viking?  Maybe.  I can't say I'm in love with this concept, but I'm interested enough and I really do love The Sixth Gun, so I'll keep plugging away.

Snitch:  There is almost nothing original or even interesting about this movie.  It's plot is as dull as the thinnest of tv movies.  The son of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson accepts the wrong package from the wrong pothead and quickly discovers the big dick hammer of American Justice.  Susan Sarandon is ready to set him to the wolves, but he proves better bait when The Rock offers up some serious drug kingpins via his trucking business.  Michael Williams (The Wire) is unfortunately pedestrian as the ghetto gangster, but through his crack house gateway we find Benjamin Bratt's El Topo - and boy! he has some fun playing the cartel monster.  Bratt has seconds on the screen, but he slathers the scenery and might have been the film's highlight if not for Barry Pepper's grotesque undercover man.  With the combo of Snitch & True Grit, Pepper has perfected the goatee bark.  He snips and snarls and deserves a film all his own.  It's time to forgive the sins of Battlefield Earth.  Sure, The Rock is solid.  Roger Ebert, in his review, believes Snitch to house his best performance.  Maybe.  I can see it.  But the film is too average to leave notice.  I'm gonna keep Faster as The Rock's finest effort.  Snitch will be forgotten in two months time.  After all, we've got GI Joe 2 & Furious 6 right around the corner.

Justified - Season 4 "Get Drew":  Drew Thompson has been discovered, and he's on the run from both Raylan & Boyd.  Good luck to that poor bastard.  We've only got three episodes left and the proverbial shit hits the fan in the last few seconds of this ep.  Theo Tonin's helicopters are descending, war is here...and then out steps Limehouse, covered in pig's blood and waving around a great big gory knife.  I was shocked at how much glee I got from the return of the slaughterhouse master.  Justified proves that Elmore Leonard's universe is just as well kept and cherished as anything within Marvel or DC comics.  Very cool.  Still, I know the next episode is going to be the real beast of the season.  Harlan County is gonna be covered in bullets and bodies.

Darkman:  "I'm learning to live with a lot of things."  When Sam Raimi couldn't get the rights to The Shadow he went ahead and did it anyway.  Before he got Taken or wolfpunched his way into Action Hero stardom, Liam Neeson was the pissed-off skin doctor Peyton Westlake aka Darkman.  A monster of the shadows created through bubbling vats of acid and the murderous grin of Larry Drake.  But the beauty of Darkman is not the black trench coat or the dirty brown bandages.  Nope, the giddy glee of the character stems from his inability to feel pain after the "accident"; with the loss of pain comes a loss of humanity as well as Super Powered Rage.  Yes.  Rage Is Darkman's Weapon.  But Rage makes for a sad Frankenstein-like creature.  Neeson is heartbreaking.  The infamous pink elephant sequence is good for a youtube laugh, but his inability to temper his rage around his wife is also deeply unsettling and painfully awkward.  Darkman is a mad hero, no more marbles - he's lost it.  He has an idea of love, but anger and vengeance are his only motivators.  You can see his continuing adventures in a pair of direct-to-video duds, as well as a laughable Marvel Comics series and a so-so Dynamite reboot.  But nothing touches the original beast.

Army of Darkness:  "Yo she-bitch.  Let's go."  These days we've got a lot of folks up in arms about the impending Evil Dead remake.  Some cry "Sacrilege!"  But ya know what, both Evil Dead 2 & Army of Darkness are semi-remakes of the original film and both sequels take on their own unique tones.  I certainly prefer the first two flicks, but Army of Darkness is a goofball riot - Three Stooges strained through Famous Monsters of Filmland.  Bruce Campbell is at his cornball coolest here.  Ash, caught in time, butting heads with primitive screwheads and getting groovy with his Mirror Universe self.  At the very least, Army of Darkness blasts a barrage of epic one-liners and prides itself on its old man humor.  Sure, "Hail To The King" & "This is my Boomstick" will dawn nerd shirts till the end of time.

Drag Me To Hell:  Is this Sam Raimi's atonement for the Spider-Man trilogy?   Maybe not.  But it certainly feels like Raimi trying to get back to his roots.  Get small.  Rediscover his ram-o-cam heart.  And in some ways he succeeds.  But in other ways its just a sad reminder of a simpler, sweeter time.  Allison Lohman is a power hungry bank manager scrambling to free herself from her fat hick past.  When she steamrolls over a milky eyed gypsy as a means of impressing her boss she inherits a curse so spectacularly gross that a drag to hell almost feels like a relief.  Seriously, Lohman is spit upon, puked on, slathered in mud, blood, and guts.  Raimi is a demented child splashing as much goo as the KNB effects crew can fill in their buckets.  I certainly had to turn away from the screen during a few gagging bits.  Green Goblins certainly don't got nothing on demon possessed goats.  So, yeah, Drag Me To Hell has a certain charm.  But it's a pretender at its core.

Sledge-Hammer 44 #1:  "Robots!!  Robots are fighting this damn war!!"  Another piece of The Mignolaverse revealed.  Spinning from Lobster Johnson's The Iron Prometheus, Sledge Hammer 44 is a bit of robot on robot violence set at the tail end of WWII.  A bomb is dropped on a Nazi occupied French village.  But there is no explosion.  Instead, Mike Mignola's idea of an Iron Man steps forth and it lunges into battle against a giant mechanical monstrosity.  Crash Boom Bang.  Simple.  Crazy.  Very much a BPRD book.  All too brief.  The story concludes in the very next issue and I'm not sure how important this book is going to be to the rest of the world, but it's fun nonetheless.

Wolverine #1:  Um, I don't know what the hell is going on in this first issue, nor do I understand the need for yet another Wolverine book.  However, Alan Davis art is badass and I certainly love watching laser blasts tear Logan's flesh from his bones.  There's something about a psycho kid and his psycho dad, and I'm certain a larger conspiracy will be revealed.  I don't think this is essential Marvel now reading, but it's worth it for the art.  If you agree with that sort of cash spending than go ahead and pick up the book.  If words are your thing then you might want to hold out.

Batman & Robin #18:  Not sure why I bought this book.  I'm not reading it on a monthly basis and I have no intention of starting.  I guess Grant Morrison's Batman Inc #8 really got to me.  I need to see the fallout immediately, and even though these "Requiem" titles feel like they exist in a continuity completely seperate from Grant's work, it's nice to get a little closure on Damian.  Writer Peter Tomasi goes wordless for his contribution.  Batman takes to the night and savagely beats as many Gotham City punks as he can; he returns home and finds a sorta "Farewell" letter from his son.  It reads, "Mother may have given me life, but you taught me how to live."  Dammit.  That got to me.  I'm still not going to believe that any of these books are the real deal; I want to see how Grant's going to delve out the repercussions in Batman Inc.  But these Requiem titles offer some condolence.

Thor - God of Thunder #6:  The Origin of The God Butcher is revealed...and it's lame.  Which, of course, is a real bummer as I've been loving pretty much every issue of Jason Aaron's series so far.  But this is pretty typical stuff.  Life was hard on Gorr.  Wife died.  Kid died.  Gods are Bastards.  And when Gorr stumbles upon some crazy alien tech he goes psycho on the gods of the universe.  This issue shouldn't exist.  It's not important why Gorr is The God Butcher, only that he is The God Butcher.  And now knowing his sadsack story, he's a little bit weaker.

Batman #18:  The kernel of this story is the same one at the core of Batman & Robin #18.  Batman deals with the death of Robin by pummeling the brutes of Gotham.  Unfortunately, Snyder also uses it as an opportunity to seemingly push his creation Harper Row into the boots of the boy wonder.  I really loved both The Black Mirror & The Court of Owls, but Scott Snyder is not the savior of the bat family some fanboys once thought.  Especially when you compare this single issue against Tomasi's single issue.  So wordy.  So unnecessary.  Hopefully he can get things back on track with Zero Year - more history mystery, less same-old rogue beatings.

Evil Dead 2:  How do you write about a film that lives in your bones?  I've been obsessed with The Evil Dead franchise for so long that I don't remember a time I didn't love this film.  Bruce Campbell.  His smile.  His chin.  His voice.  "Work shed."  Evil Dead 2 is a wild ride of splatstick.  And as alluded above it has very little in common with the original film.  This is not low budget horror movie know-how.  This is a descent into madness.  But as lamps laugh and deer shriek, the laughter can be as scary as the penetrating branches of a tree.  The rocking chair nightmare is really unnerving.  And Campbell sells every howl of fear.  You can beer guzzle this film with your friends and a have a serious blast, but you can also have a singular trip into insanity if you choose.  Evil Dead 2 is Sam Raimi's masterpiece.  No doubt.

Dark Horse Books Presents - Blacksad:  "I was damned too."  Picked for our tenth meeting of The Ultimate Justice League of Extraordinary Book Club, this hardcover collection containing Juan Diaz Canales & Guarnido badass cat detective was easily our most successful venture yet.  Not one person in the group disliked it.  Of course, I can't say that I'm surprised.  Similar to Roman Polanski's Chinatown, Blacksad envelops everything you love about the P.I. subgenre and presents it in a fresh, gripping manner.  Yes.  All the players are mammals & amphibians (fish are too dumb for personalities), but this isn't some creepy furry.  Here we get three typical plots.  The Dead Starlet, The Race Killing, & The Commie Conspiracy.  John Blacksad hits each case with gumshoe dread.  He's been around the block and knows that most narratives are tragedies.  He beats the street.  He deals out his stamp of morality.  He moves on.  These are solid stories, but the real elevation occurs in Guarnido's art.  The man doesn't just excel with the trench coats and painted backdrops - no one can match his faces.  A lot of the art we see on American comic stands is churned through a monthly timeline; one nice aspect about Euro books is that they're given the time they need for completion.  The result is genuine art. I don't want to sound snooty against Spider-Man - cuz I love him too!  But you've got to recognize the freedom behind Guarnido's beauty.  There's patience behind his strokes, and the emotion is absolutely recognizable.  For more ranting excitement, read Matt's full review HERE.

Ministry of Fear:  "He has a collection of maniacs that he's psycho analyzing!"  A seriously bent WWII mystery dripped from the pen of Graham Greene and lensed by the madman Fritz Lang.  Just moments after his release from a mental asylum, Ray Milland wanders into a small town fair just outside of London.  The Blitz might be raging, but there's always time for a palm reading!  Given odd knowledge by the fortune teller, Milland wins a fresh baked cake from a grey haired contest.  He whisks his award from a grimacing Dan Duryea and steps onto a train where blind sharpshooters and Nazi bombs crave his demise.  Such a bonkers setup.  Perfectly Hitchcock.  Ministry of Fear certainly excels with the strange.  The best bits involve murderous seances and sheer wielding agents of the SS.  Not to mention Milland's loose hold on his sanity.  Maybe not as visually compelling as Lang's silents, the film is still one of the more unusual macguffin spy pictures of the era.  If only the plot didn't waver on the supernatural, we might have had a mondo classic.

The Evil Dead:  Growing up The Evil Dead was an object of cherished showmanship.  Similar to what Roger Corman proved throughout the 60s & 70s, Sam Raimi unveiled to the fanboy that all you needed to craft a classic were some friends and a camera.  Of course, a few hundred buckets of karo syrup are always helpful.  There is nothing to the story.  Five friends in a cabin.  A tape recorder in the basement.  Magic words on the air.  Deadite horror siege!  It's the behind the camera stuff that puts the film on the map.  The ram-o-cam.  Just a camera on a plank of wood.  But nothing like it had been seen before.   Bruce Campbell shows some serious charisma as our third act hero, but he's also not the bonafide cult icon he'd inhabit in the next film.  He's sweet here.  Loving.  And scared outta his mind.  It's easy to see why so many cherish it today even if youngins might not grasp its craft.  The Evil Dead is hope for the wannabe.  It's cheap.  Small.  But vast in ambition and righteously successful in its ingenuity.  The perfect example of independent spirit so often lauded on Miramax millionaires.

--Brad

Brad's Week In Dork! (1/20/13-1/26/13)

The first month of the new year is winding down, and the first crop of 2013's movies have proven mostly dreadful.  No big shock there; that's how it usually goes down.  But I was hoping for a Grey or maybe even a Haywire.  No such luck.  Arnie's big cinematic return, The Last Stand proved to be an anemic bore as well as a financial disaster.  Guess the rest of the world cares not if the Last Action Hero can still Terminate, or did they recognize the lack of sizzle in the trailers.  Curious to see how Stallone's Bullet in the Head fares come February 1st.  Can these action titans put butts in the seats outside of the Super Group ridiculousness of The Expendables?  I have some serious doubts, and that makes my 13 year old heart very sad.

I still managed to witness some quality programming.  As we march ever closer to February 24th & Oscars Night, I caught up with my last two Best Picture Nominations as well as a Documentary Feature.  All three were quite good.  And this week also saw the final episode of Fringe, possibly my all time favorite science fiction adventure show.  I was never quite enamored with this final season, but I'll miss John Noble's acid addled god complex and the nightmare creations that sprang from his mind.

Finally, with the passing of Michael Winner, I found most of my week consumed with the Death Wish franchise.  It's been a good ten years since I'd seen one of Charles Bronson's urban rampages, and I am pleased to report that his blood thirsty quest for gangland revenge still holds up even when the sequels descend into exploitation lunacy.  But, boy oh boy, my favorite bits of dorkery came right at the end when I witnessed a pair of Franco Nero performances that absolutely stole my geeky heart.  It amazes me just how much transformation Nero can achieve with just the slightest difference in facial grooming.  In one film he's a grizzled beastmaster, and in the other he's all Magnum PI cool...with a ninjutsu twist.  And voiced with great Kung Fu dubbing.  A new man crush has been achieved.

Taken:  "I know the world."  Papa Neeson should never have allowed his daughter to travel to Paris in a sophomoric attempt to shadow U2.  But since Xander Berkley bedded ex-wife Famke Janssen and bought his way into his daughter's heart with ponies and swimming pools, Neeson saw no other alternative than to let her fall victim to the slave trade.  However, Papa Neeson does have a particular set of skills, and he'll only let slavers have their shenanigans for so long.  Eventually those skills have to be put into practice and Taken pretends to be a big screen version of television's 24.  And for a PG-13 actionfest, Taken delivers on the torture violence spectacularly.  We get broken wine bottles jammed into throats, bullets blasted into the shoulders of corrupt cops wives, and scumbag villains strapped and car batteried.  All in the name of parenthood.  And Neeson excels in spitting the rage & hate as much as the machine gun fire; he's having a lot of fun playing action hero and I'm happy to see him continue to do so.  After all, I'm sure Maggie Grace can find countless ways to play distressed damsel - Elisha Cuthbert certainly found 8 seasons of 24 terror.

Taken 2:  "When a dog has a bone, the last thing you want to do is take it from him."  It's Father vs Father in this even more sanitized sequel to the 24 wannabe.  Rade Serbedzija gathers all the leftover goons from his slave trade family and sends them after Neeson.  But these thugs are just chum for Neeson's shark, and Taken 2 offers very little suspense as Neeson easily dispatches one helpless villain after the next.  There's never a question of victory, we're just killing time until one proud papa meets the other.  The final confrontation between Neeson and Rade is quick and rather civil.  Taken 2 is enjoyable enough thanks to Liam Neeson's bark, but it's a pale imitation of what was already an imitation.

The Last Stand:  It's been ten years since Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in a film (Terminator 3), and nearly twenty years since he starred in a film that was passable as "good" (True Lies).  So I really wanted to enjoy this.  Especially with the idea of Kim Jee-woon, the sick visualist behind The Good The Bad The Weird & I Saw The Devil, driving the action and delivering a little demented flavor to the proceedings.  But The Last Stand is sooooo painfully dull.  It spends far too much time building who-gives-a-shit plot with the useless Forrest Whitaker - and Johnny Knoxville has no business Rob Schneidering on the sidelines.  There's a little fun to be had here with cars in cornfields and Arnie firing revolvers into the skulls of crooks, but the thrill is gone and what's left is a shell of past glories.  Kim Jee-woon doesn't seem to be driving the action as much as holding the reigns - let him loose Hollywood, and we might have a bloody good show on our hands.  As is, The Last Stand is another forgettable January release and a tough nail in the career of Schwarzenegger.  

Fringe - The Final Season:  When this season first started I could hardly believe it.  Never would I have imagined during the first season of Fringe that the final season would take place 25 years in the future where our Amber-traveling heroes would battle it out with the despotic, emotionless Observers.  This is wonderfully crazy, high concept comic book fun.  Olivia & Peter struggle to find happiness in each other when the world keeps crushing their hopes; can they possibly survive such sci-fi parental horrors?  Well, when you've got the mad mind of Walter Bishop fighting on your side then you've got hope buried deep inside his drug fogged genius...granted, all this horror is his fault but the beauty of Fringe is that it's his saga of salvation, and watching him fight for himself is 90% of the show's heart.   The final moments of the show are satisfying, and as much as I'll miss Fringe, I'm happy that it got it's time for a proper send off.  

Silver Linings Playbook:  Of all the Oscar nominated films this was the one I had the least amount of interest towards.  A romantic dramedy starring Bradley Cooper & Jennifer Lawrence that center around anxiety, dance, and football?  Yeah, no thank you.  But, dang it, Silver Linings Playbook is probably the most satisfying little romance that we've had in quite some time and to dismiss it simply as a quirky romcom would do it injustice.  Bradley Cooper gives his best performance so far as the bipolar Pat attempting to worm his way back into the heart of his wife after nearly beating her lover to death in the shower.  Fun times, right?  But when he meets the equally troubled Jennifer Lawrence, their bond formed through jogging and dance is redemptive...and a complete fairy tale.  Watching the first half of the film I was convinced that the story would end in heartache and ruin.  But there is magic in football, and if you read the signs properly or force the signs to read the right way for your needs, than there's a happy ending for all of us.  Love, Dance, & Football conquers gambling addiction and all manner of psychological trauma.  

Death Wish:  "Which war was yours?" After his wife is murdered and his daughter assaulted, Charles Bronson's bleeding heart liberal takes to the streets of New York with a sock full of quarters and an itchy trigger finger. The film is far less exploitive than you're probably expecting (or desiring), but you've got the sequels to quench your bloodlust. The first film is more interested in exploring society's desire for absolute justice as well as Paul Kersey's satisfaction at playing urban cowboy.  With each bullet to the head the righteousness of Gary Cooper sinks into a dry Charles Bronson smile.  But my favorite moment has to be the channel surfing New Yorkers taking inspiration from his violent acts, finding the courage to defend themselves with hatpins & steel toed construction boots. Death Wish is a brutal, anti-climactic (where the hell does Jeff Goldblum's gang go?), and rather depressing. And I love it's hateful heart.

Death Wish II:  When we last saw Paul Kersey he had moved to Chicago where he most certainly would continue his blood feud against the hoodlums and pickpockets of the windy city - a vigilante serial killer born.  However, when Part 2 picks up, he's moved across the country with his still traumatized daughter and her ineffectual husband, and he's still plugging away at the architect game.  Business as usual.  That is until another gang of rapists and murders invade his home, kidnap his daughter, and drive her to plummeting suicide.  A new mission of vengeance is born.  Death Wish II is much more the exploitation flick than the original - the film seems to revel in the horrors inflicted upon the innocent, and it's even more mean spirited when it lingers on the violent retaliation of Charles Bronson.  The Gang itself is much more present than the original's random thugs, and the script goes out of its way to demonize these gun-running, beatbox dancing, drug addicts.  Bravo to the dayplayers that wallow in the filth of their characters - some serious grubby scenery chewing accomplished.  Death Wish II is a cheap followup to the original, but it's paving the way to the gratuitous glory of Death Wish 3.

The Paperboy:  A fascinating train wreck of a film.  Matthew McConaughey & Zac Efron are a couple of desperate civil rights reporters investigating the circumstances that placed John Cusack on death row.   Sounds simple enough, right?  Well, this ain't Just Cause.  Once Nicole Kidman's white trash nightmare enters the picture we're given horrendous displays of jailhouse masturbation and what has to be the greatest gift to crap cinema ever burned into celluloid - Nicole Kidman screaming "If anyone is going to piss on him it's gonna be me!!!!!"  Yes, ladies & gentlemen, The Paperboy might be trying to be a great many things, but it will forever be remembered as the movie in which Nicole Kidman erotically urinates upon Zac Efron's jellyfished chest.  There is just no living that down.

Justified - Season Four "Truth & Consequences":  "I see so much death around you..."  Raylan follows the breadcrumbs of the Waldo Truth mystery and it leads right to the doorstep of the Detroit Mafia.  Not good.  Boyd confronts religious whackjob Billy and comes out on top thanks to a little rattler aggression.  A solid episode that's hopefully building to a mob war powder keg.  However, I'm not really sure yet how I feel in regards to the bartender melodrama.  Her bumfight boyfriend is a little goofy, and if she's in on the swindle than I'll be a little disappointed.  I do want to see Raylan take this confident chump out, and I hope he does it in a smart, smirky, and brutal fashion.

Death Wish 3:  "They killed The Giggler, man.  THEY KILLED THE GIGGLER!!!"  In part 1, they killed his wife.  In part 2, they killed his daughter.  And in part 3, they kill his old Korean War buddy.  Man, Paul Kersey just can't catch a break.  This time out the NYPD don't even bother to fight his vigilante ways, in fact, they recruit him to take down the cult-like Manny's Gang.  Bronson gathers his war buddy's machine guns, grenades, and uses enticing motor vehicles as bait for the savage scum loitering the streets.  One bite, and BOOM!  Colt Cobra slugs blast into your spine; Charles Bronson victorious!  This is miles away from the troubled spirit of the original film, it celebrates the gratuitous gore of street justice and relishes in the absurdity of genre.  Death Wish 3 feels like an Australian post-apocalyptic western filmed on a crappy Hollywood backlot, and it's amazing.  Easily the most fun entry in the franchise.

Death Wish 4 - The Crackdown:  The fourth film attempts to return to the grit and grime of the first two movies, but once you venture into the Rocket Launcher madness of Death Wish 3 there is not going back to the anti-hero basics.  The crime that ignites this latest spree of killings is the crack overdose of Paul Kersey's girlfriend's daughter...yeah, they're really stretching it at this point.  A mysterious benefactor sponsors Charles Bronson's gangland attacks, but it's obvious from the start that the mystery man is the true villain...unfortunately, the script drags and drags offering very little joy in the killing.  Not sure if the thrill is lost with the departure of director Michael Winner, or if Bronson's vigilante has simply past his action hero prime.  Whatever the case, there is no real point in going any further with the saga.

Amour:  Michael Haneke does not make Fun Nights Out At The Movies.  He makes emotionally devastating dramas that haunt the viewer days after the credits roll.  Amour is no different.  Jean-Louis Trintignant (The Great Silence!) and Emmanuelle Riva are an elderly married couple forced to acknowledge their mortality when one of them is stricken with a paralyzing attack.  For two hours we watch this couple suffer and survive - if not physically, than emotionally.  It's a hard watch.  Especially for this married man.  And I don't know if I could go through it again.  But I'm glad a did the one pass.  Both Trintiganant & Riva deliver heart wrenching performances, and there is a sense of uplift even when their story is so painful.

Keoma:  "The Man Who Is Free Never Dies!"  If you listen to this interview, Franco Nero claims Keoma to be one of his favorite roles, if not his very favorite.  It's easy to understand.  As Keoma, Nero is a grizzled, screaming, beast of a man plagued with surreal visions of the past and saddled with the impending doom of having to slaughter his three evil half brothers.  It could never have been as iconic as Django, and it's not as fun as The Mercenary...but it most certainly is beautifully bizarre.  Director Enzo Castellari (the original Inglorious Bastards) obsesses over the style of Sam Peckinpah, pushing slow motion action (not so much violence) to its absolute limits and stumbles upon a supernatural fantasy playground.  Mix the dreamscape with the hauntingly terrible, yet mystifyingly fantastic Leonard Cohen rip-off theme song and Kemoa has suddenly become one of my New Favorite Spaghetti Westerns.  

Searching for Sugar Man:  I don't want to go into the mystery of this doc too much.  It's best if you discover the narrative for yourself.  What I will say is that it revolves around the phantom of singer/songwriter Rodriguez.  He had absolutely no success in the states, but somehow became one of the most recognizable musicians in South Africa.  The Beatles.  Elvis.  Rodriguez.  The story that this documentary unfolds is affirmative and uplifting - especially for the creative types out there.  And it lead me to Rodriguez's two albums: Cold Fact & Coming From Reality.  For the last three days I've been listening to them on constant rotation.  Comparisons to Bob Dylan are not a stretch.  Hopefully, this Oscar nominated doc will lead to more fanboy births like myself.

Enter The Ninja:  "I Want My Black Ninja And I Want Him Now!!!"  Well, this is just a fantastically bad movie.  Not quaint.  Or charming.  Just horrendously, beautifully bad.  Franco Nero is a newly trained ninja that travels to the Philippines and beds the bored wife of his impotent war buddy plantation owner.  When he's not supplying the most tiresome of love acts upon Susan George, he's fending the homestead against hook handed goons and their Big Oil masters.  The action is laughable, the dubbing abysmal, and the misplaced enthusiasm for ninjutsu is painfully awkward.  But dang, it sure is fun.  And Franco Nero is definitely the Magnum PI of wonky stand-in martial arts.  A must see for fans of the cruddy.

--Brad