Brad's Week In Dork! (8/31/14-9/6/14)

I'm pretty much all recovered from my Wisdom Tooth surgery.  A little jaw tension, a slight ache.  Saw the doc on Friday, and he told me I didn't have to worry about the other one until next year...unless infection or pain flares up.  Fingers crossed.  Sooooo - good news!  I guess.  This week was a whole heap of random.  On Sunday & Monday, I was pretty much still feeling the aftershocks from the surgery so I  just hopped from one film to the next on VOD, enjoying life from the couch.  No rhyme or reason, just what looked interesting in the moment.  It did lead me down a rabbit whole of Errrol Morris documentaries that I was not expecting.  Enjoyed all three, and will definitely seek out others.  I dragged myself out of the apartment on Tuesday, for an Alamo 100 screening of Singin' in the Rain & I went back for more with JAWS on Thursday.  As Matt said in his Week in Dork, nothing like seeing a classic on the big screen to make you fully appreciate the craft of storytelling.  Still, the big event of the week was the Baltimore Comic Con.  It might not have the big deal celebrities like San Diego or the endless array of Wizard Worlds, but if you're actually into comics there is no better place to be.  Great way to finish off the week.

Fading Gigolo:  Who doesn't love John Turturro?  From Barton Fink to Transformers, whenever the man is on screen I'm entertained.  His directorial efforts have left me a little cold, but they're always interesting in their subject matter.  Fading Gigolo is no different.  After his psychiatrist says too much, Woody Allen encourages Turturro to whore himself out for a three way.  Business booms from there, and Turturro's florist quickly finds himself knee deep in.....money.  Of course, simple sex is never simple.  The subplot of a jewish widow suffering crippling grief takes over the film, distracting from the cartoonish antics of Sharon Stone & Sofia Vergara's sexual predators.  Solid performances from Turturro, Allen, and Liev Schreiber, but Fading Gigolo is ultimately the kind of film you watch once.

Cuban Fury:  When I see Nick Frost why do I always ask, "Where's Simon Pegg?" but the same is not true when it's just Pegg on screen?  Nick Frost is certainly talented.  The man makes me laugh, but he always seems like half a double act.  Maybe it's simply that Frost is not always part of the cleverest of projects.  Cuban Fury is decent.  The story of a onetime salsa prodigy returning to the sport in an effort to win true love is chuckle-worthy and cute.  It's not ground breaking.  Chris O'Dowd being regulated to office douche bag is certainly disappointing.  Ian McShane as the salsa coach gets some laughs, but the film could have done more with him (a complaint often associated with McShane movies - ALWAYS MORE MCSHANE!!).  You could do worse than Cuban Fury, but it's no Edgar Wright film....a very tough, and probably cruel comparison.  Still.

Rage:  "Who did it?  WHO DID IT!?!!  WHODIDITWHODIDITWHODIDIT WHODIDITGWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  Oh Nicolas Cage, you so crazy.  Except you really aren't these days.  The above quote is a five second scream almost worthy of yesteryear.  Almost.  I'm not going to use this space to continue the narrative of Nic Cage's disappointing direct-to-dvd downfall, but I don't mind lamenting for a bit.  Season of a Witch, I miss you - never mind Con Air, The Rock, and Adaptation.  Rage could have been a kickass revenger in which Cage brutalizes the bastards responsible for his daughter's murder.  Unfortunately, the film is a boring collection of scenes pretending to be hardcore.  Embarrassingly dull.  Can the upcoming Left Behind prove a return to that mega-acting glory?  I'm always the optimist.

The Thin Blue Line:  In 1976, Randall Adams was convicted and sentenced to death for the shooting death of patrolman Robert Wood.  Errol Morris' documentary, through dramatic reenactments and various interviews with the people surrounding the trial, makes a strong, and ultimately convincing case for Adams' innocence.  How did Adams end up behind bars?  Bad timing?  Poor decisions?  The terrifying morality behind the Texas judicial system?  Yeah, that last one.  The Paradise Lost of its day, thanks to The Thin Blue Line Adams was eventually released from prison.  Should be required viewing for all Americans.

Singin' In The Rain:  I've watched the film twice now, and I still agree with my Cinematic Resolution assessment, it's absolutely a "joyous outpouring" of cinema.  Gene Kelly is a tap dancing man's man - something I didn't even know was possible until I saw Singin' In The Rain.  Jean Hagen's blonde dimwit is a tad too obvious at times, and I never quite understood her romantic roadblock.  But, thankfully, the love triangle is not the showpiece, as Singin in the Rain is rather a rollicking tour through Hollywood's early history.  Like The Artist, Gene Kelly is not willing to let modernity roll him over, and thanks to a little nudging from partners Debbie Reynolds & Donald O'Connor, he invents a new style of storytelling.  I'd probably rank Singin' in the Rain as my third favorite musical, right behind The Blues Brothers & West Side Story.  Hard to beat a Mission from God & Shakespeare.

Tabloid:  Another Eroll Morris doc, but maybe not such the essential viewing for the American populace.  Let's see if I can give the content it's proper justice - In 1977, beauty queen Joyce McKinney was arrested in England for kidnapping Mormon Missionary Kirk Anderson & holding him prisoner in a Devon cottage where she chained him to a bed & forced intercourse.  They had been a one-time couple, and McKinney claimed that the Mormon Church had brainwashed her beloved.  Once the tabloid papers got their claws into the story, they uncovered that McKinney was a former S&M model, sometimes prostitute, who often used her sexual wiles to conquer the minds of men.  Or is McKinney a simple victim of love gone sour?  Also, what does this have to do with dog cloning???  It's a damn strange story, and who knows what really went down in '77, but Morris details a fascinating story.  These days McKinney regrets taking part in the documentary, saying that Morris misrepresented her side of the story, but it's hard to argue with the words coming out of her mouth.  Tabloid is bonkers all around.

The Unknown Known:  Who knows why, but for some reason Donald Rumsfeld agreed to be interrogated by Errol Morris.  I certainly see what Morris had to gain, but what did Rumsfeld?  That question is never really answered.  Well, the former Secretary of Defense certainly doesn't take a beating?  He can dish it better than he can take it.  And Morris does not come across as the Liberal Shining Knight.  I'm not a terribly political person.  The game has never interested me - disturbed me, scared me more like it.  The Unknown Known picks over some of the most disturbing history in modern America, filtered through Rumsfeld's participation.  He defends in some cases.  He questions in others.  He sometimes shrugs when the words are simply not there.  How will the Bush Jr administration go down in history's annals?  Time will tell - The Unknown Known is not the revelation some will want.

JAWS:  I love this film.  Sometimes it's hard to keep talking about the films you love.  How many ways can I say that Steven Speilberg's Jaws is one of The Great Films?  This is the second time I've seen the film on the big screen.  It's a whole different experience when Bruce stretches his 25 feet across the entire width of your vision.  It's genuinely AWEsome.  I've seen the film a hundred times, and you'd think there would be nothing new to see.  This go-around, instead of focusing on the genius of Robert Shaw's shark killer, I attached myself to Roy Scheider in a way that's never happened before.  The scene where his son mimics his movements around the dinner table - "Give me a kiss." "Why?" "Cuz I need it."  Just crushing.  I'm an emotional guy, I cry all the time at the movies, but this was the first time I teared up during Jaws.  I cherish the way Chief Brody can never finish a meal, that fear bubbling in his stomach.  And the way Brody pushes through that fear, eventually delivering him to that ship's mast, a rifle in his hand, and a final quip on his lips - "Smile you son of a bitch."  This film spawned forth an infinite spew of knockoffs, but what the wannabes never understood was that Jaws is not about the big beastie.  Jaws is all about character.  How these three very disparate men come together to tackle their own demons.  Brody, the failed New York cop fighting through fear to protect family & home.  Hooper, the rich kid oceanographer making a name for himself through a passion for fish.Quint, the emotionally wrecked sailor, killing sharks as revenge for all those sailors lost at sea.  I love Orca as much as the next guy, but it's just not Jaws.

Wayne's World:  Man, I used to love this movie so much.  I might not have watched it as much as Jaws, but I've seen it a few dozen times or so.  But I have not bothered with Wayne & Garth in several years.  Just one of those movies that floated out to sea.  Friday afternoon, I played a little game of Netflix Roulette & suddenly I was "Party On."  It's a cute film, but it's also completely rooted in my teen years.  I can't disassociate it from my teenager brain, nostalgia lost.  Rob Lowe, there's no better sleaze.

Double Indemnity:  "I'm rotten to the heart."  When most hear Film Noir most think Double Indemnity. With good reason.  It's a hateful bastard of a film.  Fred MacMurray is an insurance investigator who falls for Barbara Stanwyck's Femme Fatale, and agrees to bump off her husband in exchange for sex & money.  The guy's a dope.  The dame's a demon.  They deserve each other.  Billy Wilder is much beloved in Hollywood; he made every kind of movie, but his best were the ugly ones.  Double Indemnity & Ace in the Hole sizzle with mean, cold, rage fueled dialog.  Immoral men and women damning themselves with every word.  I love it.  If I took any issue with Double Indemnity it's that Barbara Stanwyck has never worked for me as a Fatale.  I've never understood her allure, how she pulled MacMurray's dope into her web?  Switch her out with Gloria Graham or Veronica Lake, and I get it, but Stanwyck is an off-putting creature.  The film though, is delightfully nasty.

Baltimore Comic Con:  There were not a lot of new faces in the crowd of Comic Book creators this year.  Sure, they're were some big guns (Greg Capullo, Francesco Francavilla, Eric Powell, Jim Starlin, etc), but they're regulars at this point and there was no need to wait in any lines.  I spent the majority of Saturday snapping photos of cosplayers and diving deep into the dealer's room.  I brought less money this year than I've ever had before, but thanks to $5 Trades, 50% off tables, and dealers willing to haggle, I walked away with more comics than any previous Balticon.  My favorite get was the X-Statix Omnibus which retailed for $125, but I scooped it up for $49.  I also grabbed volume 1 of Matt Fraction's Invincible Iron Man, Superman - Secret Origin, Walt Simonson's Thor, a few Shazam classics, and a treasure edition of Jack Kirby's 2001 A Space Odyssey.  Comics, man.  That's what it's all about.  Time & money deemed only one day for Baltimore this year, but I had as much fun as I've ever had.  Still, it would have been nice to sit in on some panels.  Next year, next year.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (12/15/13-12/21/13)

    Other than getting out to see a movie with Ben on Sunday morning, I spent much of this week either at work, or half passed out on my couch.  The holidays are not a good time for anyone who works in corporate retail.  And I’m no exception.  Physically and emotionally brutalizing, it’s left me with little ambition but to snack and veg in front of the TV, wishing I could sleep.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug:  The second film in the unnecessarily overblown adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novel for kids is OK, but not as tight or dramatically packed as the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films, or even as much as the first Hobbit film.  It’s still watchable, and as I’ve brought up several times with friends, I really like Peter Jackson’s take on the setting, and would be completely willing to come back every few years for a new entry.  A Silmarillion trilogy?  I’m there.  Children of Hurin?  Sure.  Those words scrawled on napkins and receipts and backs of business cards that Christopher Tolkien keeps mining to release new books?  Yeah.  I’ll watch movies of those, too.  I also don’t mind the addition of characters this film features.  It doesn’t get in the way, and provides for some elements of surprise.  And as with Jackson’s other adaptations, the spirit remains true, even if the exact content doesn’t (often for the better…Tom Bombidil, I’m looking at you…or more importantly and thankfully, I’m not looking at you).  I have three basic complaints about the film, and none of them are deal breakers.  First, there is some serious tightening to be done in a few spots.  Second, and related, several action scenes go on for far too long and aren’t especially well done.  None are as unneeded and poorly executed as the canyon chase from Jackson’s King Kong (a movie I otherwise love, but that scene...oh, man...), but they could be trimmed/cut for the better of the whole.  And last, but not least, the end credit song is bloody awful.  I don’t love the credit songs from these movies, overall.  But this is the first one I straight-up dislike.  The singer sounds like ass and the song is far, far too modern.  It doesn’t work.  So, this second Hobbit movie is, as expected, more of the same; and I’m OK with that.  With about 20 minutes cut out, mostly from the action bits, it would have been much better.  Well, maybe cut some of Orlando Bloom and his weird CG'ed face.

Man of Tai Chi:  An OK movie about a young, impatient student of Tai Chi who becomes a sensation in the world of underground, illegal fight clubs.  There’s some kind of conspiracy, an intrepid police officer, and a shadowy villain in the form of Keanu Reeves.  Nothing ground breaking or amazing here.  But there are some pretty good fights and I always like seeing Karen Mok in a non-comic role.  It’s not that good, but it’s worth a watch if you’re in the mood for a fight flick and don’t have anything in mind.

Gargoyles:  I have to give ‘em credit for making the attempt.  And the movie doesn’t play out in the way you expect from something like this.  The monsters are just sort of matter of fact, showing up and doing their thing, without much mystery or magic.  But the movie is also not all that exciting.  It is never able to rise above its made for TV look and feel.  I don’t know that it’s a good idea, but this feels like it could use a remake.  Del Toro?

"Technically, I'm a Grotesque."

Upstream Color:  Featuring hot foley artist action, this well prepared plate of What the Hell? is brain-breakingly weird.  Like the best independent science fiction films, it demands careful thought, conversation, and likely repeat viewing(s).  What’s going on?  Who’s the pig farmer-foley artist?  What are the secrets in the pages of Walden?  What the heck did that guy pull out of that woman?  And did he put it in a pig?  Darned strange, and demanding.  And beautiful.  Fascinating.  I guess I can’t be too surprised that this is from the guy who did Primer, probably the best time travel film ever made.

    In the middle of the week I finished Sam Harris’s new book, Lying.  Like his book, The Moral Landscape, it sure gives plenty of food for thought on living a better life, both for yourself and those around you.

A Matter of Life and Death:  A darned peculier, but also darned fine film from the little spoken of masters Pressburger and Powell.  It’s kind of hard to talk about the film, at least in a sense of its story or plot.  What I can say is that it’s gorgeously shot and makes interesting use of Technicolor and black & white.  In many places, the film feels very modern, while in others very much of its time.  And it’s all profoundly British.  Highly recommended.  This should be seen.

The White Dove:  A surreal film, in many ways almost a silent film, The White Dove is filled with interesting images and crazy experimental sounding music.  I love the sequences with the artist as he tries various means of expressing himself.  I don’t know that I ever understood the stuff with the girl on the beach, though some of it was beautiful.  Where was the wheelchair bound kid’s parents?  I don’t know.  Overall, nice to look at, and generally pleasant.  But also darned odd.

Byzantium:  Vampires suck.  They’re boring and played out.  However, this movie is enjoyable, thanks in large part to the cast and direction.  It feels rooted in Hammer Horror, dripping with Gothic atmosphere, but not cheesy.  It’s a fascinating movie and very pretty to look at.  This would probably make a good companion film to Let the Right One In (or the remake, Let Me In).

The Seventh Seal:  Probably Ingmar Bergman’s most famous and popular film (Stateside, anyway), this Medieval meditation on the nature and meaning of life and death is beautifully shot and filled with meaning.  It’s on the strange side of Bergman’s work, but is more approachable than The Magician.

Jaws:  Though this movie never features on my favorites lists, nor is it a go-to watch, every time I do catch it, even in part, I’m reminded of just how darned good it is.  The characters, the tension, the little human moments; it all comes together.  The relentless, almost supernatural horror of the shark, lurking always under the surface.  Intense.  In some ways, this movie reminds me of The Thing.  Partially it’s the seclusion, but it’s also the group of unique men, thrust together and forced to deal with some unprecedented horror.  And like The Thing, there are lots of moments where the actors are able to raise the film above what’s in the script.

-Matt

Brad's Week in Dork! (6/23/13-6/29/13)

Skipped a Week in Dork for a Family Getaway to the OBX (only read a chunk of the Lone Wolf & Cub manga, and binged some Law & Order SVU when The Wife was sick for a day), but dove right back into the thick of it with some serious Movie House consumption.  I went back for seconds on both This is The End & Man of Steel, and although I won't give you double reviews here I can say that I enjoyed Superman much more the second time around; once I got past a lot of my comic book baggage I was able to enjoy the computer punching.  This Is The End, however, is still my film of the Summer.

I can hardly believe it, but I only read one single issue comic this week - Age of Ultron #10.  I've been up & down on this Marvel Event, and I'm sad to report that the final prognosis is negative.  Not the worst crossover Marvel's attempted (ugh, Fear Itself), but the time travel hijinks were obvious and ultimately boring.  As with all things Marvel, the story is all about what's coming next, and not the story you have in front of you.  As fascinating as all the Neil Gaiman/Todd McFarlane Angela mumbo jumbo is, I really do not care about this character's introduction into the Marvel Universe.  Who knows, maybe Bendis & Gaiman can do something great with her in Guardians of the Galaxy, but she's certainly not the O...M...G...moment you want to climax Age of Ultron.

Also this week, Alamo Drafthouse hosted their Silence of the Lambs Feast, which paired the classic chiller with actual Fava Beans & Chianti.  An expensive treat gifted to me by my lovely bride of four years.  Sadly, her job got in the way, and she could not attend the anniversary dinner.  So my co-dork Matt scored the date night, and we had an absolute blast chugging down glass of wine after glass of wine.  Not to mention that the Buffalo Bill Skinless Chicken Wings were amazing!  Only in America folks, "U-S-A!  U-S-A!  U-S-A!"

The other treats this week came from Scorsese & Spielberg.  Rewatched Jaws in celebration of its 36th birthday, and finally witnessed his first film Duel as a remembrance of Richard Matheson.  I entered a new stage in Scorsese's career with The Color Of Money, a film rightfully neglected in his cannon, but also one containing some of his finest sweeping camera moves.  And finally, this Summer's big screen entries (World War Z & White House Down) were just a couple of turds.  No shock there.  Anyway, on to the reviews....

Jaws:  I watch this one at least once a year.  Still ranks as my fifth favorite film of all time.  No question.  I tend to direct most of my love towards Robert Shaw's Quint, and his epic USS Indianapolis storytelling, but Roy Scheider is the one who really makes this movie work....as well as Spielberg's confidence to let the screenplay breathe before plunging him into the oceanic serial killer finale.  Scheider just embodies good guy morality.  He perfectly sells his fear of the water.  We're given an hour of beach cringing, ferry boat anxiety, and autopsy horror before the Chief chokes down his fear and gets on the boat.  The guy does right in the face of community conspiracy as well as the cavernous maw of the beast.  He is everything I would want to be in the situation.  Hero Dad.  The craft and thrills are amazing, but they're only successful due to the heart placed in the characters by Benchley, Gottlieb, Spielberg, and the actors.  Can you imagine a tentpole movie these days spending so much time to establish love between characters?  It's rare now to get anything but bullet point emotions in Blockbusters, and Jaws is one reason film fanatics look back so fondly at the cinema of the 1970s, and rejoice in bashing bloated non-entities like Michael Bay's Transformers...despite the knowledge that Bruce the Shark birthed these B-Movie at A-Budget monstrosities.

The Color of Money:  This is a painfully mediocre movie.  I can't say I was bored during any particular part, but I was certainly left uninspired as the credits rolled.  What's evident is that Scorsese is perfecting his camera theatrics, and that Paul Newman commands the screen whenever he's projected upon it.  Young Tom Cruise though?  His pool hall wiz kid routine grates the nerves like nails on a chalkboard, which is an essential aspect to this teacher/student story, but the film fails to reach beyond genre cliches.  I've never seen The Hustler, so I could be missing essential aspects to this sequel, but at this point in my Scorsese-A-Thon I'd rank The Color of Money at the very bottom of his filmography.  It seems like a financial stepping stone to his long-desired The Last Temptation of Christ.  Whatever you gotta do, I guess.

World War Z:  Everything Jaws does right, World War Z does wrong.  The Hero Dad here is Brad Pitt, a supposed everyman who gave up the high stakes stress as a UN Investigator to play Mr. Mom.  When the world goes to the walkers, the remaining bits of the US Government swoop to his rescue, choppering his family to a floating fortress in the Atlantic Ocean.  Why does the US of A need Pitt?  Cuz only he could babysit a think tank geek across the globe, and discover the zombie plague's point of origin.  Really?  Ok, whatever.  It doesn't matter anyway since the brainiac lasts three seconds on screen, and the rest of the film chases Pitt across the world as he hits one dead end after the other.  I suppose the emotion of this film is meant to be found in the cellular conversations with Pitt's weepy wife, but the screenplay only gives them seconds to be teary before the next CGI swamp blobs the frame.  Much has been made of the troubled production, the chop-shopped screenplay, and the last minute reshoots.  Maybe if Pitt's team had more confidence in Max Brook's source material then we could have been blessed with a scary Ken Burns styled mockumentary instead of this PG-13 limp noodle.

Wrong:  "I looooooove pets."  Quentin Dupieux's Rubber followup is another art house student film done right.  With the help of William Fichtner's mysterious Master Chang, unemployed sadsack Jack Plotnick attempts to relocate his dog.  Did he simply run away, or was he dognapped?  There's some other kooky business involving Eric Judor's gardner & Alexis Dziena's pizza slut, but the main focus of the film is solving the riddle of the pooch.  Well, talking about focus when discussing a Quentin Dupieux film is problematic if not downright pointless.  A bunch of weird shit happens.  You're either into it or you're not.  I enjoyed Rubber more as it was easier to define as a deconstruction of the horror genre.  Wrong is just...weird.  I'm either not smart enough or stoned enough to discover its essence.  I love Fichtner & Plotnick.  I could watch these two bumble through an Oscar Meyer commercial.  And I'll certainly be there for Dupieux's next film.

Age of Ultron #10:  The first five Bryan Hitch issues of this comic were a beautifully broad look at the Marvel Universe laid to waist.  Then you get Wolverine's time travel band-aid.  Ultron leaves the story, and a new batch of whacky chaos occurs.  Issue 10 finally brings us back to Ultron and it's the mini-battle we saw during Free Comic Book Day a couple years back.  And then we get a bunch of blather about the space time continuum.  Just groan.  This series certainly had its moments (again, those first five issues), and I'm gonna give it another go in a singular sitdown reading, but I am left yet again with a tepid Marvel Event.

Duel:  A solid little flick that certainly shows the makings of a master filmmaker.  Steven Spielberg's Duel is a simplistically torturous thriller.  Dennis Weaver's salesman zigged when he should have zagged, and in one throwaway instant brings upon the ultimate epic of road rage.  Spielberg succeeds in holding our attention, no mean feet considering the film never leaves one stretch of highway.  Weaver is a disgusting mess of twitches and screeches, and half the time I wasn't sure if I wanted him to knock the beast off the cliff or get squished into road pizza.  I can't rank Duel as one of my favorite Spielberg courses, but it's certainly indicative of the primal power the maestro contained in the 70s & early 80s.

The Silence of the Lambs:  "He's some kinda vampire?"  Before Anthony Hopkins Freddy Kurgered the Hannibal Lector character into absurdity, Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs terrified audiences with its masterful true crime fetishizing.  This grisly procedural might have been spun from the real life horrors of Ted Bundy & Jeffery Dahmer, but by embracing the theatricality of Spaghetti Western closeups and scenery chewing performances, Demme's film never feels exploitative.  In fact, Hopkins' Lecter feels more at home with Dracula & The Wolf Man than his real life counterparts.  Jodi Foster excels as well as the southern sleuth battling daddy issues while navigating the grotesque.  She's prim, proper, troubled, and badass.  Her conversations with The Cannibal are as suspenseful as any of the bloodshed, and her climactic duel with Buffalo Bill is the cherry on top of this hideous feast.

White House Down:  Why do I keep showing up to Roland Emmerich movies?  Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 BC, 2012.  The man makes one dreadful film after another.  I've never been a fan, but I keep showing up.  Is it time to cry NO MORE?  I think so....but then I'll see the trailer for ID4Ever; Channing Tatum will be punching a grizzly bear through the cockpit of a spaceship, and I'll get all excited for craptacular filmmaking and toss my cash in Emmerich's lap.  There's one of me born every minute.  White House Down attempts to recall your nostalgia for Die Hardy action films of yesterday, draping Tatum in a McClane wifebeater and buddying him up with President Air Jordans.  Unfortunately, the DC disaster show is a crappy collection of blurry CG, the dialog an abomination of wisecracks, and the homeland threat an embarrassing peek into James Woods' mortgage planning.  Max Renn's gotta eat!  I like silly.  I like dumb.  But ultimately White House Down is just a bore.  I don't like that.

--Brad

Dork Art: Pacific Rim

I just made a terrible pack with a group of friends - we agreed not to see Pacific Rim until the very last night of the San Diego Comic Con.  That means I'll have to wait nine days......uh.....I don't think I'll be able to last - shhhhhhh, don't tell them.  I've gone on a complete blackout regarding Guillermo Del Toro's latest.  I've seen last year's Comic Con footage and the first two theatrical trailers.  That's it.  I want nothing to be spoiled.  I'm even holding off reading the graphic novel prequel till after.  I am super excited.

There has been a lot of Dork Art surrounding this picture too.  Recently the IMAX poster was unveiled - a solid piece - and Odd City Entertainment announced a series of fan posters to be sold as we get closer to the big day.  However, the absolute best piece of Dork Art has to go to Matt Ferguson's Jaws homage.  "They're Gonna Need GIANT Robots!!!!!"  Yer damn right.  And I'm gonna need that on my wall pronto....

--Brad

Good Bye, Richard Matheson...

Like a lot of genre fanboys my age, I first encountered the work of Richard Matheson through the citations of Stephen King.  And once you read I Am Legend it's impossible to digest books like 'Salem's Lot without recognizing the foundation laid by the true master of suburban terror.  However, Richard Matheson is not some dusty "Father of Modern Horror" best left acknowledged rather than consumed.  Last night, after getting word via Twitter that he had passed at the age of 87, I immediately went to the local bookshop to snatch a copy of his short fiction.  As I munched over a fast food dinner I read the terse tension of "Duel."  It's a terrific bit of boogyman writing - a simple act from a careless mind leads to a torturous assault on the everyman.  Matheson took us out of the far off, exotic hoodoo and brought the beasts to our doorstep - Stephen King ran with it, but even he couldn't muster the power and fear of the all-time-great apocalypse novel.  The Stand struggles to match the weight and intensity of what Matheson did in just 160 pages.

Published in 1954, I Am Legend is the story of The Last Man on Earth, Robert Neville.  Each day he raids the shops & homes of Los Angeles researching what caused the end of man, and possibly what could save it.  At night he retreats to his fortified bunker as the rest of humanity has been transformed into vampiric scavengers.  These are not the vein sadsack Draculas of Bram Stoker or Anne Rice.  These are beasts.  Monsters.  Real horrors that taunt him from the streets, aching to snap their fangs into his neck and complete the consumption of the earth.  I Am Legend is a dystopian downer with bursts of terrorizing siege action, and it climaxes with a fantastic Twilight Zoney philosophical twist that's all in the title.  It's astonishing how effective it is with its scares, and walloping with its heartbreak - all under 200 pages, something doorstop bestsellers often fail to grasp.  And, yeah,  I Am Legend is the perfect book for the big screen...

The book has been adapted three times already, but they keep screwing it up!!!!  God Damn Hollywood, how can you possibly be this inept when the source material is so simplistically brilliant?!?!  In 1964, Vincent Price certainly grasped the doom & gloom of being The Last Man on Earth, but his Dr. Morgan stumbles around a shanty set, beating upon faceless vampires without ever scratching the mythic dread of the conclusion.  1971's The Omega Man barely resembles the source material, but Charlton Heston's turtle neck sex machine is sooo dang charming even when he's swimming the deep end of crazy town.  The Omega Man is a rather striking bit of disco cheese that elevates itself into earnest exploitation through performance and audacity.  And easily my favorite of the three adaptations.  Will Smith's 2007 extravaganza gets the title right, but squanders it all in the last act.  For most of the film I was flabbergasted by its faithfulness to the novel, and Smith's relationship with the dog is one of the sweetest & saddest representations of man's best friend I've encountered in cinema.  The fact that they ignore the genius of the novel's climax shows that the producers either didn't have the balls to follow through or were utterly dense to its impact.  We finally get to hear "I Am Legend" uttered on the big screen and it's laughable.  Do I dare ask for a fourth adaptation?  Give it ten years.  I sometimes have fantasies of a low budget (what's that $50,000,000 these days) version directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt.  Can't you just see a fifty year old Pitt laying the undead to waste?!?!  Forget Word War Z sir, this is where you should be exploring the human condition through the filter of genre.

Of course, the general consensus is that if you're looking for the great I Am Legend cinematic experience than you look towards George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.  For a low budget filmmaker with just enough jingle jangle in his pocket, it's easy to see the appeal of I Am Legend as the base for a screenplay.  He had access to a house and a group of wannabe actors.  A shelter from an outside force.  A siege film.  Plague.  Damn scary.  The modern zombie certainly owes more to Matheson's vampires than the haitian undead seen on screen before 1968.  We currently live in a walking dead world where every third horror film seems to involve a brain eater, and it's impossible to imagine the current state of the genre (for better or worse) without Romero's zombies, and in turn without Richard Matheson.

As you're growing up geek, even if you skip past Stephen King, George Romero, & I Am Legend, you're eventually going to stumble upon Rod Serling's Twilight Zone.  Richard Matheson wrote 16 episodes of the anthology series, most of which spawned from his own short stories.  His most famous episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is a staple in this household, and we watch it every year around Shat Attack.  William Shatner's recovering madman boards a plane and comes face-to-face with a furry gremlin.  It's dated, goofy, melodramatic, and George Miller's big screen version is certainly more successful.  But Shatner sells the hell outta his psychosis and it's rather painful to witness the rejection from his spouse - an element missing from Lithgow's nightmare.  Other Matheson highlights from the series are Lee Marvin's "Steel" (also the basis for Hugh Jackman's Real Steel), Agnes Moorehead's teeny tiny "Invaders," the time traveling "Last Flight," and that other Shatner tale "Nick of Time."

Matheson wrote one Star Trek episode, "The Enemy Within."  I don't see it get a lot love these days on the internet (where all geek matters are settled, right?), but as a Shatner obsessive it is essential viewing.  A transporter accident splits Captain James T Kirk into two personalities.  One good, honorable, and a little meek.  The other one bad, alcoholic, rapey, and filled with screams.  The good Captain Kirk tries to coax the bad Captain Kirk back into the transporter room, but in the end it comes down to some nasty Kirk on Kirk violence.  It might not be a significant moment in genre television - it's certainly no Twilight Zone - but I couldn't write this post without giving it a little love.

A couple of years ago, I read a great interview with Richard Matheson in the pages of Fangoria.  In it he bemoaned the various adaptations of his work (the I Am Legends, Richard Kelly's underrated The Box, A Stir of Echoes), but when the interviewer reminded Matheson of his own liberal adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe for Roger Corman, the novelist did some serious backpedaling.  I was a little bummed.  Not just because Matheson seemed to have disdain for what others had done to his work (I suppose that's only natural), but mostly he seemed to have little enthusiasm for those colorful Vincent Price adventures.  Sure, they're working on the flimsiest of skeletons, but The House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, & The Raven are whole heaps of fun and some of the most joyful work to come from Vincent Price.  Well...in Usher, Price is at his most dour, but The Raven is an absolute lark with its Boris Karloff wizard battle and animal transformation hijinks.  They might not have been Matheson's proudest moments or the most influential, but they certainly helped Roger Corman take claim of his B Movie Empire.  It's possible that if The House of Usher had bombed then Corman would have faded into obscurity and the cinematic landscape would be a far blander arena.  No Matheson = No Corman = No Scorsese, Coppola, Demme, Dante, etc.  Ok, that's extreme and unreasonable...maybe...

Finally, I can't talk about Richard Matheson without mentioning the loony monstrosity of Jaws 3D.  It has to be one of the clumsiest and lamest sequels ever crafted, and at least some of it came for the pen of Matheson (at least two other writers worked on the script).  I've enjoyed the film since I was a wee lad; possibly only a 4 year old could find the merits of this dreck, and I'm sure most of my youthful glee came from the Sea World setting.  Having recently partaken in a Fish & Chips Alamo Drafthouse screening, I am still a firm believer in its horridness but I can't shake the giddiness of long ago.  And I can't help but take sick glee from the fact that Matheson contributed to the bastardization of Steven Spielberg's first blockbuster after having jumpstarted Spielberg's career with the television movie Duel.  It's a small world, and Hollywood is even smaller and delightfully incestuous.

This has all just been a long winded way of thanking Richard Matheson.  His work has been with me for nearly 20 years, and I will continue to revisit his worlds for the rest of my life.  And I look forward to experiencing the future stories of those standing on his shoulders.  The next Kings, Romeros, Spielbergs. 

--Brad