WONDER! with Brian as he tries to figure out how mockbuster specialists The Asylum continue to get away with their rip-off artistry!

WITNESS! J. Marcus’ expertise about The Asylum in this episode of his webseries My World With J. Marcus!

PONDER! the imponderable question: Samantha or Jeannie?

RAGE! with Dion over Me-TV’s thoughtless obstruction of his retro television consumption!

DARE! to view Bea Arthur Naked which, once seen, can never be unseen!

Yes, marvels and miracles are yours to behold in this week’s all-new Podwits Podcast!

After watching Star Trek Into Darkness, I know J.J. Abrams is going to make a brilliant Star Wars movie. Abrams is a perfect fit to direct the impending Episode VII.

Mr. Abrams has solidified himself as a masterful, propulsive and visceral filmmaker along with James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. The guy really knows how to place the camera, how to orchestrate action, where music should swell, and how to develop strong characterization. Only a few directors possess a certain conceptual talent to crystallize every film they make into a meaningful, entertaining and aesthetically profound experience for the viewer, and Abrams is blessed with that special innovative capacity. Into Darkness is ingenious, exemplary filmmaking that has the intelligence and emotional depth to render it fan worthy, even if it does get overly complicated and ludicrous at times.

What made Star Trek such a beloved and prolific franchise was the paradigm of allowing the characters to explore new worlds, observe, make contact with various cultures, face the unknown; the Enterprise struggling to understand and contemplate the meaning of life and the universe. Star Trek was built on the premise that you don’t always need a typical binary bad guy to carry the story, but Abrams has turned his Star Trek into a more contemporary spectacle, with the good guy vs. bad guy narrative that today’s audiences are used to getting from mainstream Hollywood. But Abrams uses this template the best way possible, and he succeeds by not allowing Star Trek to become a facsimile of previous blockbuster films.

When examining this particular template, we can look at how well Christopher Nolan used it in his Dark Knight trilogy, and then we see variations of it used in Skyfall, The Avengers and Iron Man 3. When this is executed very well, the audience unconsciously accepts this structure and it becomes very compelling and entertaining to the audience from movie to movie. For this paradigm to work, though, you must have a consummate villain, a worthy antagonist with a menacing force. Abrams does an impeccable job directing Benedict Cumberbatch as John Harrison, the malignant reality to the Enterprise. Harrison is a cold, calculating phantom who is a convincing physical threat, and Abrams handles his storyline with great dexterity. However, there is a controversial moment with this character that pays an homage to an earlier film that might come across as flat and blunt to some fans, but I had no issues with the scene. Harrison is a daunting foe, possessing superhuman physical prowess, and a psychologist’s eye for his adversaries’ weak spots. He taunts his prey with a glacial disdain.

I have to say that the life force of this movie is Chris Pine, and he once again inherits the character of Jim Kirk with greatness. I can’t think of any other actor who could play this character better than Pine. He is such a natural, and I’m amazed how he can emote and express the different attributes of Kirk. Now, he is not acting like William Shatner, he is portraying Kirk. You see the steps that he has to take to get there, but he is not quite the captain yet. This film is about the struggle to earn that identity, and to earn the respect from his crew members. Kirk must learn that to have synergy, you must have innate trust with your team all the time. He has to manage all the different personalities that make up his team. Pine is fantastic, he plays Kirk with a combination of anger, brashness, compassion and comedy. Abrams does a really good job showing how Kirk and his team don’t get along at first. Their mission is audacious, spectacular and energetic.

There is a great sense of motion and continuity from the 2009 film that emanates from the same cast and crew, enabling us to easily reconnect and re-engage with the characters that have become favorites with fans everywhere. Abrams weaves that archetypal dynamic through this film as he did so brilliantly in his 2009 Star Trek. Fans loved How Abrams established the heart and soul of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triangle that resonated with audiences back when the television series first aired. Now, With a new threat rising, Abrams centers more the on Kirk/Spock relationship. In the 2009 Star Trek, you saw their relationship start from zero and gradually form a strong unity. Again, Spock’s (played by Zachary Quinto) logical precision clashes with Kirk’s imperfect ethics, and Abrams spends a lot more time in this film accentuating their discord. Also, Kirk’s relationship with Pike (Bruce Greenwood) has a much greater dynamic this time as Pike uses his wisdom to confront Kirk about his growing frustrations about a five-year mission. Pike sees Kirk as a kind of personal project, giving him advice, and mentoring him to be the greatest captain in Starfleet history. This breeds a father/son motif that is very profound and memorable. Spock even served under Pike (at the Narada incident) and is very loyal to him, but Spock gets stuck in between Pike and Kirk, and he struggles with whom to side with. Abrams does an impeccable job orchestrating this tension that leads to a greater foreboding. If the first film was about the crew coming together, then this film is about the crew working together. This ominous threat they encounter will either forge them as a team, or it will destroy the Enterprise forever.

It is a well crafted screenplay that borrows from two classics of literature (A Tale of Two Cities and Moby Dick) to give the central conflict and the Kirk/Spock friendship an emotional resonance. The internecine strife is caused by a terrorist bombing that motivates Kirk and his crew to hunt down the perpetrator. This story element is a reoccurring trope in a lot of mainstream Hollywood films today. Both Iron Man 3 and Into Darkness deal with terrorist bombings that kill innocent people. But, Abrams and his team of writers employ symbolism and metaphors to explore the concept of class and social order, and good vs evil.

Star Trek Into Darkness evolves into a different beast in the second act, and even replicates iconic scenes beat for beat. Screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof saturate some scenes with meta-textual references that will for sure please the fan base. As I mentioned before, this film centers more on the Kirk/Spock relationship with the rest of the cast lingering in the shadows, but they are still richly developed characters. Simon Pegg has strong key moments as the adept engineer Scotty. Lieutenant Uhura (Zoe Saldana) continues to develop her love interest with Spock, but shows frustration with his unfeeling nature. Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) has supplied torpedoes to the Enterprise that causes tension among certain crew members. And Dr. “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban) remains the ship’s doctor who is incessantly exasperated by everyone’s ineptitude. The team has to decide if they will become an intergalactic firing squad, or a space band of scientific explorers and researchers.

Now that we are permeated once again with another blockbuster movie season, Star Trek Into Darkness defies your typical trope-filled spectacle with compelling, rich characters and a thematically strong story. But most importantly, Abrams allows his Star Trek to explore justice, vengeance, morality and the bonds of friendship, intelligently.

Bottom line:
J.J. Abrams once again captures the heart and soul of what made Star Trek a paramount sci-fi infatuation. He should restore your faith in the blockbuster art form, eviscerating any cynicism you might have had towards its value. Abrams’ contribution to the collective dreamscape has me elated about the impending collaboration with Lucasfilm to reinvigorate the most beloved franchise of all time, Star Wars, in 2015.

* * * * 1/2 out of 5 stars

For further viewing, please check out Audi’s brilliant commercial featuring Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto here.

And this week’s edition of The Podwits Podcast is brought to you, in part, by Dwarno.  Don’t know what it is?  Look it up.  You’ll be glad you did.  Or maybe not.

Fans of the film will immediately understand what is so special about this event, which is that Sorcerer is out of print and hardly (if ever) screened or talked about anywhere except on small fan blogs. For Sorcerer fans, and Friedkin fans in general, this was an ultra-super-rare discussion of a film that is now, thanks to a lawsuit won by the director against Universal and Paramount Pictures, again able to be screened in public. Much to the delight of said fans, it will also see a Blu-ray release at the end of this year. (F**K YEAH!)  

As fans of the Podwits know, Sorcerer is one of my top 10 movies of all time, and since little to nothing about it is available online, I made it my mission to make this Q&A available to everyone who was unable to attend the May 2 screening. Friedkin spoke about Sorcerer and who the script was originally written for (WOW!), Cruising, The Exorcist, The French Connection, Tony nominees Carrie Coon and Tracey Letts (the Pulitzer-winning writer of Bug and Killer Joe), and friend-of-the-Podwits Randy Jurgensen. He also spoke about the controversy the year he produced the Academy Awards, his thoughts about film and filmmaking, and much more. It really is a must-read for any William Friedkin fan!

William Friedkin & moderator Scott Foundas

The screening was held at BAM, and was moderated by film critic Scott Foundas. Friedkin also has a new memoir out in hardcover, called The Friedkin Connection, which is also a must-read for any cinemaphile or fan of the director.

Here is what went down:

William Friedkin: Thank you very much. Thank you to Scott Foundas and thank you to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for hosting this screening and thank you all—I really appreciate it. Thank you. Goodnight. (Big laugh) Scott?

Scott Foundas: How are you?

WF: Not too bad.

SF: Let’s start because there’s just a nice, large dedication to Henri-Georges Clouzot at the end of the film. Just talk a little bit about your discovery of Clouzot’s work and when you first saw his version of the film and when you thought about remaking it?

WF: I first saw it in the late ’50s at a revival and it was very—obviously impressive, it was one of the greatest films ever made, Clouzot’s Wages of Fear. And it wasn’t until many years later after I had finished The Exorcist that I started to think about what I might wanna do next, and it occurred to me at that time, this was in the middle ’70s, when America had just come through a national nervous breakdown, after the assassinations, the Vietnam war, and it seemed to me—I guess it’s always ever thus—that the world was full of strangers who hated one another, but if they didn’t cooperate, if they didn’t work together in some way, they would blow up. And this film seemed to me to be a metaphor for that idea, which I thought was a valid theme then, and now. I think it’s possibly worse now, with so many countries have weapons of mass destruction. And so, it was the theme that attracted me. So I went to Clouzot in Paris, he was not well at the time. I loved his films, especially Wages of Fear and Diabolique, and guys know Diabolique? If you don’t know Diabolique, then get the hell out of here! (big laugh) And I said I would be interested in remaking his film or doing a new version, and he said “Okay, but do you think anything’s wrong with mine?” I said “No, in fact, I would love to get your film released, but I can’t get a major studio to re-release it in theaters.” It was a very limited audience for Wages of Fear in America, you know, it was a foreign film, the people who saw it loved it, and I said “I’d like to do a new version of it that would only use the basic premise and your theme.” He said “Okay, but I don’t own the rights” and I said “Really?” He said “No, the fella who wrote the novel, Georges Arnaud, owns the rights and we don’t speak. He doesn’t talk to me.” You know it was one of those relationships like, like the Beatles, I guess. They had made magic together and then they weren’t talking to each other. So we went to Georges Arnaud’s home through his attorney, and he was very pleased to have this done because he didn’t like Clouzot’s film (laugh), if you can believe that and it’s true. So we got the rights, and I set out to make the film Wally Green and I had worked to together in documentaries, he also wrote The Wild Bunch—you know The Wild Bunch? (laughter and applause) And we thought out ways we could keep this theme, but do all new events and have new characters and have new back stories that got them there. And we made the decision that these guys were not going to be heroes, let alone superheroes. These were bad guys and I felt I could take an audience through this with not the most likable people on Earth, and I guess I was wrong. (Big laugh) Shit happens, you know? (big laugh)

SF: Well talk a little bit about the casting because I was thinking tonight, in a way this is a little like Inglorious Bastards, Avon La Letra, you know where you have foreign stars speaking partly in their own languages, uh, certainly marquee names, Amidou, Francisco Rabal, and the great Bruno Cremer with an arc that convinced the two studios that financed this film to let you go that way, instead of having American character actors playing those parts.

WF: No, After The Exorcist, I could have filmed by bar-mitzvah (Big laugh). As the headline read in the New York Times this morning, “I thought I was bulletproof and so did they.” So I had 2 studios vying for the film, Paramount and Universal, and originally, Wally and I wrote the script for Steve McQueen. We wrote it for Steve, we talked to Steve about it. When we finished we sent Steve the script and while Steve was reading the script we went to Marcello Mastroianni and um, uh- and Lino Ventura, who was a gigantic French star, and Mastroianni of course was a star of some many of Fellini’s films. And they agreed to do it—with Steve McQueen. So now, uh, Steve calls me and says “This is the best script I’ve ever read,” he said, “I’m in, I wanna do this.” He said “I need a favor from you,” and I said “What’s that?” and he said “You know I just married Ali,” (he had just married Ali MacGraw), he said, “I know you’re going to be out somewhere shooting in some far off place, and I can’t take her to that place and have her just hang around, you know as my wife…” He said, “why don’t you write a part in there for her?” (Laugh) And I said “Well-“

SF: It could have been her at the end there in the cantina…

WF: You know I never thought of that… (big laugh) Well she wasn’t right for that role, so uh, I said, “You just told me this was the best script you ever read, and there’s hardly a major role as a woman…” and he said, “Ok, [how about] making her an associate producer or something, so she can be with me.” And I was extremely arrogant at that time and I said “We don’t have associate producers who don’t do anything, (laugh) we’re not going to make her an AP.” He said ok, to that he said, “find someplace in America to shoot it.” And I had already scouted locations that I had fell in love with, and I said “I’m not going to shoot it in America, the part of making this film is going to be an adventure, in several countries and that’s it.” He said, “Billy, I can’t do the film then.” And I said, “Ok, next case.” And it was only a week later that I realized a close up of Steve McQueen was worth the greatest landscape you could find. Um, and if I had it to do over, and as great as Roy is in this film, it was written for Steve McQueen, and when I lost Steve, I lost Mastroianni- for another reason- he had had a child with Catherine Deneuve, and she said if you go off to do this picture for as long as they want to do it, I’m not going to have your daughter with you. So he dropped out, and then Ventura dropped because he didn’t want to take second billing to Roy.

SF: Maybe if you made Catherine Deneuve and associate producer on it… (big laugh)

WF: Why Not?! Listen, today I would do it! I was extremely arrogant in those days, and filled with hubris, and I thought the film was about me- (laugh) – not the cast. I thought when an audience sees my name above the title, they’re in, they’re there…

SF: There is another quite amazing story about this movie that you tell in your wonderful memoir, which you are going to be signing later tonight, which is that when the studio asked you to shoot some insert shots of the odometers on the trucks, what did you tell them?

WF: Well, I told you already I was arrogant, (laugh) I was called into a meeting with the heads of Paramount and with the heads of Universal, a guy named Sid Sheinberg and Barry Diller. And they asked me to come to meet with them; they wanted to give me some notes; the wanted to help the director. And so I thought what the hell could these guys tell me? So I said, if you’re going to give me notes, I want to bring my writer and my film editor into this meeting. And they didn’t like that because they didn’t like dealing with the guys who really made the film, they wanted to deal with ‘above the title’ guys. I said no, I wanna have my writer and editor; both editors there, the editor and his assistant. And they reluctantly agreed. So then I told Buck Smith, the editor, and Wally Green, and the assistant editor, Ed Humphreys, I’m going to take you into this meeting, into the private dining room at Universal, and they’re going to give notes. And he’s what I want you guys to do… Don’t shave the night before. Wear your shirt buttoned incorrectly, wear mismatched socks, walk in with your shoes untied and then when you sit down, don’t react to anything I say or do. (Laughing) No reaction, and when they’re talking, just stare at them, like this- (laugh) Don’t nod your head, when they’re making these suggestions, don’t go ya, or take notes or anything, just stare at them as though they are from Mars or something. (laugh) And that’s what we did. The lunch order comes around, waiters in black tie and stuff, and everyone ordered an iced tea to start with, and I ordered a bottle of Smirnoff. (big laugh) And they started in with their notes, and they were surprised because I told the waiter, I don’t want a glass. So while they’re sipping their iced teas, and getting together their notes, I opened the bottle and I started to drink from the bottle. And they didn’t say anything, they just started giving us notes. We just stared at them. And then about 10 or 15 minutes into this, I fell out of my chair and fell on the floor. I wasn’t drunk, I had a high tolerance for alcohol, I just fell on the floor, and they didn’t say anything. (Big laugh) After a few more minutes, they turned to Wally Green, and said, “Does this happen often?” And he said “Everyday.” (Big laugh) The notes went by, the meeting was over, I had my guys carry me out of there and then I thought about- I said to them, look, I don’t shoot inserts, I’m not going to make inserts of the odometers- well, unless, I said to Mr. Diller, you want to sent e back to Mexico to shoot some inserts of the truck. He said No, no, no- nevermind, and it’s ok. But then I thought they were right, and I actually shot the inserts (Big laugh). We shot the inserts on the back lot of Universal. I thought they were right, but that was my reaction to my notes. (big laugh) No quarter given. Remember, in order to succeed in those days, you had to make the heads of the studios, in order to let you alone, you had to make them think you were psychologically unsettling. You had to make them believe you would of anything. So they basically didn’t bother with me, because I did that on The Exorcist, you know, they thought I was so nuts, that they just let me alone. They figured, if there was a problem, and I imploded, the film would implode too. So that was a strategy I had active in those days.

SF: Didn’t you also tell them they could just change the names of the actors if they didn’t like the foreign country names… (laugh)

WF: Ya! At one point Sid Sheinberg saw the ad for the movie and he said “Look at all these foreign names…” And I said “Ya…” I said, “Would you like me to have them change their names? Instead of Francisco Rabal, I could have Frank Rowbuels, or something.. (big laugh) whatever the hell you want, no problem.”

SF: Um, I wanted to ask you about choosing the great Tangerine Dream to do the music for the film and maybe also your ideas about music in film, because really none of your movies have what we call a sort of traditional film score. They have- In To Live and Die in LA you have a suite of songs by Wang Chung, you have the, you know, Mike Oldfield tubular bells in The Exorcist, and you had commissioned a score for The Exorcist that you threw out by Lalo Schifrin, so what are you- what are your- what are you thinking about when you are thinking about what the sound of the movie should be, and why was Tangerine Dream right for this one?

WF: For the most part, not only does the story or the script find me when I am least looking, but the music does as well. And when I was on tour across the world for The Exorcist, one of the people from Warner Brothers in Hamburg or Munich took me out to the Black Forest, to an abandoned church, where this band, The Tangerine Dream was playing after midnight; and there were no lights… except for the electronic lights from their musical instruments. And they played these long chords, with interesting rhythmic patterns, and everyone sat in the dark, the place was packed and everyone sat in the dark and were just carried away by this music and so was I. And afterward, I meant them and I didn’t even know I was going to do this movie, but I said to them “Look, when I do my next film, I want you guys to do the score. When I get the script, I’ll sent it to you, and I’ll tell you what it’s about, when I figure that out, but I don’t want you to see the film; I don’t want you to see the movie and write a score to the movie. I want you just to create a score from what I tell you about it, and from the script.” And that’s what they did. And when we were in Mexico, doing the bridge scene, in the Mexican jungle, a bunch of tapes arrived, and it was their score. And then along with the editors, I fit the score to the film. I was inspired in the editing of the film by the music. I was inspired the music, instead of having the film scored.

SF: I have you worked that way on other films too?

WF: Pretty much, ya. And I don’t really decide what I’m going to do- when you’re in the cutting room, the film speaks to you. And there are 3 phrases in making a film, at least 3: There’s the story and screenplay phrase, there’s shooting it, and then in the editing room it’s a completely different experience. The film is all there and all shot, and it’s just waiting to be assembled and it speaks to you. Sometimes- there were 9 scenes that I shot for The French Connection, and took out of the film. Because in those days, you know we used to splice film by hand and then you’d look at every cut and I’m telling you, I would make some cuts and it were though the film were screaming at me, “No! This doesn’t work! I am not this, I am that!” And with The French Connection I had 9 scenes that were about character and the film didn’t want them. It was a chase movie, and that’s all it wanted to be and it was telling me that constantly. And I remembered That (F.) Scott Fitzgerald had a little card on a bulletin board over his typewriter in which he had written “Action is character”. And I always thought about that. The idea in this great novel, The Great Gatsby, he says action is character, meaning you don’t have to explain who a character is, what they do is who they are. And I always kind of looked for things that fulfill that in the films that I’ve made. So, this film had a lot more dialogue originally, it had other scenes, but it didn’t want them, it rejected them in the cutting room. And in the editing process, you pay attention to what the film is saying to you and it is speaking to you. And a lot of my films- take for example Cruising, changed completely in the editing room.

SF: I want, before you take questions from the audience, I want to just ask you a little about the decision to write a memoir, and what that process was like for you because I think one of the things that surprised me about the book is that you were quite hard on yourself at a lot of points, particularly talking about this film, and some of the things you were saying earlier about your ego, about the decision not to use Steve McQueen, you’re dealing with the studio, and the period immediately following this film. It is a kind of story of hubris, and bad decisions, a lot of it and ultimately the end is this great second act you’ve had with opera and the dependent films you’ve done. It feels like it was very cathartic to write…

WF: Ya, it does feel like it was carthartic, but it wasn’t. (big laugh) I had a call out of the blue about almost 4 years ago from a man name Richard Pine and he runs and author’s agency in New York called Inkwell Management. I had never heard him or Inkwell Management. But he said, “Listen, are you interested in writing a memoir?” And I say “no”. He said, “Why not?” I said “because I wouldn’t be interested in reading it.” (laugh) He said “What if I were to tell you that I had 5 publishers in New York, leading publishers, who would publish your memoir that you wrote.” I said “that would get my attention, certainly.” So I came to New York, I met with these 5 gentlemen and it was the publisher from HarperCollins that I said “Look, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I never kept diaries, I never kept any of my notes I ever made, sketches for any of the scenes that I shot, and most importantly, I have no diaries.” He said “Look, I would suggest that you do not write a book were you just say, ‘this happened’, and ‘this happened’ and ‘this happened’; write about your feelings about everything you can remember that was important to you.” And that was important to me. And that opened the door to me- that it was about feelings, more than events. The events are there, but it is how I felt about them at the time. And that’s what got me going on it. I wrote the book in long-hand, over 3 years and I would sit down somewhere on a set, or in a hotel room or on an airplane, or at home- whatever and I would just start to think about things, and things would come to me. And I would write about them, until I lost the thread, and then the next day I would write about something else. And then eventually, I would remember something else, about those things that I had written, and I would add to it. And when I had a lot of it hand-written, I went talked to a lot of the people I had worked with- Billy Blatty, who wrote The Exorcist, and Norman Lear, and any number of people that I had worked with to get their impressions and I was finally able to pull it together. It took over 3 years of writing and uh, it wasn’t cathartic, but I did decide to tell the absolute truth in this book, as I remember it. And without censoring myself or editing myself, and as you say, I don’t go easy on myself, I don’t blame anybody for the mistakes I may have made. And I give credit where credit is due: all of the people who’ve worked with me because it is there films too. Any of you who ever made a film, or anything like it, know that it’s definitely a collaborate medium, in the highest sense of the word.

William Friedkin & Tracey Letts

SF: Now I would be amiss if I didn’t point out that there is one film of yours that is not mentioned at all in the book, which is The Guardian.

WF: Well there’s 2.I didn’t remember a lot about that film and I didn’t think people would want to read about an absolute and complete disaster (laugh). And, you know, you gotta take some stuff out. I mean, I knew I was not going easy on myself but the people who buy this book are mostly gonna want to read about The Exorcist, or The French Connection. So I’m not that stupid (laugh), I’m not gonna write about a film that was take to Guantanamo and forgotten. (lingering laugh) Are you going to take questions? (laugh)

SF: Yes-

WF: Before you do, there are two people I’d like to introduce you to. I would be very amiss if I didn’t bring up here to say hello, a man who, not only has one a Pulitzer Price, but a Tony Award for his great play August: OSage County, be he has also written for me, two of the films I’m most proudest of, Killer Joe and Bug, he’s know, believe it or not be may the only such person that is nominated for a Tony Award as best actor for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, I like you to say hello to Tracey Letts. (applause) This guy is the real deal. You wanna say anything?

Tracey Letts: Wow, what a great movie, what a great film. A beautiful, beautiful picture.

WF: I got that $20 for you outside (big laugh) Now, I’d like to also introduce your costar in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? who has also nominated for a Tony Award, Carrie Coon (applause).

Carrie Coon: Wow what a great movie, that was really a beautiful picture. (laugh)

Friedkin w/ Letts & Carrie Coon

WF: $10 more for you. (laugh) Have you guys seen Virginia Woolf? (big applause) Well, in his case, to be able write like that and also act like that, is absolutely stunning. And (to Coon) you own that part now. You guys are wonderful and I appreciate you coming tonight, and thanks for coming up here. (big applause) Oh, and one more second. Is Randy Jurgensen here tonight?

Dion Baia: No he’s not.

WF: How come?

DB: He flew out, was traveling early this morning.

WF: Ok. He is a very interesting guy in my life, he is the guy in the last close up in the film, he’s the guy that comes after Scheider at the end. He was a Detective on the New York City Police Department for many years, and he’s the guy that went undercover into the S&M bars to find the killer that was one of the inspirations for Cruising. And he said he was coming tonight… coward (big laugh). He is one of the greatest street cops I’ve ever met.

SF: There’s another interesting Cruising connection that if I remember correctly, the guy who was accused of those murders, was an actor in The Exorcist.

WF: He wasn’t an actor. His name is, or was Paul Bateson, I don’t know what his name is now, but he in The Exorcist for those of you who have seen it, there’s a scene where they’re at NYU Medical Center where they’re performing an Arteriogram on the little girl. And I used an actual Neurosurgeon and his male nurse. And the male nurse was a guy named Paul Bateson, and about 5 years after The Exorcist, I opened the New York Daily News and saw his picture on the front page. He was accused of these so-called “CUPPI” murders that were occurring in the S&M bars in lower Manhattan. “CUPPI” meant that there were body parts in drawers in the morgue, and the body parts were called “CUPPI’s”, which meant Circumstances Unknown, Pending Police Investigation. And there were several of these murders; body parts dragged in from the East River and Paul Bateson was accused of the murders. So I called his lawyer, whose name was in the paper, and asked if I could see Paul. And I went to Rykers Island and saw him and interviewed him and he told me about the one particular murder they got him on. They actually got him because when he was cutting guys up, and throwing their body parts- he threw them into big plastic bags… and the bags had little small print  on them that said NYU Medical Center (audience gasps) Psychiatric Ward. (laugh) And that’s how they got Paul, and uh, the first thing he said to me when I went in to the room and saw him was “How’s the picture doing?” (big laugh) I said “It’s doing very well”, it was still playing, “It’s doing very well Paul… Did you do these murders?” (big laugh) “I think I remember one I did, but the others, I was so high, that I don’t really remember.” And he gave me all the facts and all the details from his perspective and then Randy Jurgensen gave me the rest from his perspective, and then there was a brilliant writer from the Village Voice named Arthur Bell, who wrote a series of articles about these clubs, and they were short of warning shots, because there were all these murders, at the time in the S&M clubs, and then there were mysterious deaths, that did not have a name. A year or so later they had a name- it was AIDS (audience sigh), and Bell wrote very cautionary tales about what was going on there. It’s all yours Scott.

Q1: I read somewhere that Sorcerer was the movie you were most proud of because virtually everything you see on screen was exactly the way you wanted it to be- do you still hold to that claim to this day?

WF: I’m not sure if I would say proud of, I would say I have strong feelings about it because the only way that I can think about a film is how close I came to what I had in mind. You know, you can’t make a film thinking “geeze, what will the critics say? I wonder what Scott, or the other critics might say?” You can’t go in expecting that or thinking that, and you don’t know how an audience is going to react to anything you do. The only thing- and you can’t really sit in judgment of your own work because you’re too close to it. What I will say is this was the hardest film I ever had to make, by far. We had to do all this stuff-there was no CGI- you know what CGI is don’t you? (big laugh) That’s all you need right now to make a film. All you need to know is CGI: Computer Generated Imagery. But we didn’t any of that- everything you see in this film, we had to do. There are no opticals, uh, we had to so everything that’s in the picture, and that made the process a lot of fun. But it was life-threatening (laugh), half of the crew either got malaria or gangrene, (laugh) including me. I was out for a very long time…

SF: Where do we sign up? (Laugh)

WF: Right… McQueen was right! I should of done the film in America! Malibu Beach could have been the place. Thank you for that question.

Q2: The film is tremendous and I’ve waited a long time to see it and I really can’t add to anything beyond what you just articulated, I have also waited a long time to ask you a question which, to hear your side of the story. This was told to me when I was a child- I met Marty Feldman, may he rest in peace, and my father asked him, “Mr. Feldman, why at the Oscars did you throw an Oscar to the floor and break it?” And he said to my father and I: “Billy Friedkin asked me to do it!” and I wanted to know if such a story was true?

WF: That’s absolutely true. (Big laugh and applause) I produced the Academy Awards, I think it was ’78 or ’77, it was the year Rocky and Network were head to head for the Academy Awards and I was asked to produce it. ’77 or ’76… And the head of the Motion Picture Company implored me to produce to Academy Awards and I had just come back from Sorcerer, and I decided to use more women on the show than they ever had, more African Americas, and a lot of radicals. I had Norman Mailer presented the best screenplay (laugh). I had Lillian Hellman present the best documentary- these were people who were like blacklisted in Hollywood- (laugh) they didn’t want Lillian Hellman or Norman Mailer. And I can only say I admired these people; and part of it was my arrogance, but I admired Mailer and a lot of people like that, and I decided to have fun with the show because I thought then and still think that it isn’t a lot of fun. You sit there for 3 and a half hours listening to lame jokes being read off a teleprompter, and often the film that wins is forgotten next year. Or you know when you think that Citizen Kane did not win the Academy Award; you just throw up your hands and say: “what value is it then?” What value it has is it is the greatest hype an industry has ever created for itself. (laugh) You know if the auto industry had invented a hype like that, they might be solvent. (laugh) So I had a lot of fun with it, and I had Red Skelton come on dressed as a clown and give the best clown award. And I brought on Marty Feldman- do any of you remember Marty Feldman? (big applause) A lot of Jewish people in the audience (big laugh) We made Marty Feldman a fake Academy Award that looked real, and he brought it on very carefully, and just before he presented it, he dropped it to the floor. I must have had 50,000 letters denouncing me for that. If there had been Facebook or Twitter, I might have been hung (laugh). He turned out to be something people didn’t appreciate. But I tried to have a lot of fun with that show. We actually opened the show, I figure it was edited afterwards, I opened the show, not on the dress parade that usually precedes the Academy Awards, and I opened the show on a close up on Richard Pryor. (big laugh) You said- looked into the camera- and said, “No Black man has ever won nuthin’ for anything” (big laugh and applause). And that was the opening line, (applause) at the Academy Awards… Richard was going to use the N word, and I said “Go ahead Richard” because (Big laugh) he was known for that, (big laugh) Do it! He changed it at the last minute and said “no Black man”. So that’s how the show started, so you can imagine how it ended up. And Rocky won Best Picture to a lot of people’s shock and surprise. The other thing I did on that show was take out the word “Best” because I didn’t believe it and I still don’t. we didn’t call it the Best Picture, the Best Screenplay, Best Sound whatever, I just had the host say “The Academy Award for an Original Screenplay; or an Academy Award for an Adapted Screenplay; the Academy Award for the Direction of a Featured Film. Not ‘best’. And at the end, I had Warren Beatty come out and he explained why we took the word ‘Best’ out of the ceremony, because the people who make films really don’t think that they’re in competition with anybody else. It’s not a competition. A tennis match is a competition; a prize fight, whatever- films or not in competition with one another. (Applause)

Q3: You mentioned in both Wages of Fear and Sorcerer, theme was really the key component when you were looking at the original to remake it, and it’s clear how much time you took to show these are not just nefarious guys, but they’re also murderers, they’re terrorists- very nefarious, and then the events pay out almost the same, but in Wages of Fear they’re painted as saints that struggle and come out at the end, with the one guy who survives in Clouzots, and in this you are watching bad guys trying to survive- so what does that say about how you view the theme of both films?

WF: Uh, I view the theme of both films as being quite similar, but I told you up front that I changed the characters. I wasn’t interested in angels or heroes. I believe there is good and evil in everyone in this audience and everyone on the planet. I don’t believe in perfect people, or superheroes, I just don’t. There are many heroic deeds done every day, many of them unsung. But I wasn’t interested in promoting the idea of an angel, or saint to use your word, or superhero; I wanted flawed guys to go through this adventure. As they are for example in this wonderful play by Reginald Rose that I did for television called 12 Angry Men, those are all flawed people, deciding the fate of a young man, who is on trial for murder. And all of their flaws come out in the course of this magnificent drama. So, I tend to not believe in heroes or villains, but a little bit of both in everyone. Perhaps a young woman has a question? Yes.

Q4: You’re film has a lot of funny moments, which I wasn’t expecting. Was that something you thought about in the writing or was that something that came out in production?

WF: We didn’t try to make anything funny; (laugh) I mean there are no jokes, (laugh) but there is a sense that occurs that people tend to laugh about certain things whenever they can in a film; especially a serious film, where you need some relief from what’s going on up there. The audience wants to laugh and will sometimes laugh in inappropriate places and I understand that. There are huge laughs in The Exorcist (laugh), and believe me they are not intended (big laugh), but they’re usually followed by somebody passing out in the chair. But no, those lighter moments did we think of as being that, but you do find that out going to screenings. Audiences need that relief. If you don’t provide it, you will yourself provide it.

SF: We have time for one more.

Q5: How do you deal with the moment when you’re watching a film of yours and realizing it is not what you had in mind?

WF: That is a real great question. It-it’s bad. (laugh) You know, I could say to you, “Shit- I don’t care.” But that would be a lie. No, that’s what really bothers me and it’s sometimes I’ve become ill over that. When you make a film, you don’t do it alone, obviously, but there is usually one particular intelligence, that forms a film, that decides what it’s going to be. The themes, the story, the dialogue, the actors, so it’s a creation like anything else, even though you’re not working alone, you’re working with others. But you take a proprietary interest- and believe me, the people I’ve worked with on the crews feel the same, when a film doesn’t work out to our expectations. You’re- you’re blown away, it’s bad, it’s a terrible feeling. Can you imagine how Vincent Van Gogh must of felt when he could sell one fucking painting (laugh)? You know? And now he’s considered the greatest artist of all time. One night I came back late to my apartment in New York and I turned on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, who said the following: “A painting sold at auction today for the highest price a painting as ever sold for.” And of course it was a Vincent Van Gogh. And he said, “What must people don’t know is that when Van Gogh made this painting, he was in a mental institution. And the reason he was in a mental institution was because he said ‘One day, I’m going to sell a painting for $80 million!’”. Can you imagine how that guy felt? Or Vermeer? You can’t buy a Vermeer- there is only something like 37 of them. You can’t buy a Vermeer for any amount of money today, not even if you are a Russian billionaire. They’re just not for sale. And when Vermeer died at a very young age, he died broke. And there was a custom in Delft, where he lived, where someone died, the city fathers would come around and collect their clothing and donate it to the poor. Vermeer’s clothes were so bad, they burned them. His wife was out selling his canvases out in the streets for a few guilders, and now… you know. And then I think about Orson Welles, and Citizen Kane, who made what I think, the most influential picture and most profound film ever made. And by the way, yesterday was the anniversary of the opening of Citizen Kane at the RKO Palace in downtown New York; in 1941- it opened May 1^st, 1941. And that’s the reason I became a film director. I had no idea of becoming a film director until I saw that picture. And I couldn’t believe what a great work of art this was, and it was even possible to achieve something like that. And I never have, and I never will, and I’ve had to- (audience sigh) Ya! (big laugh) Don’t say The French Connection! I’m not fit to tie Orson Welles’ shoe laces, wherever the hell they are! (big laugh) And he made probably the most influential film ever and it got a wonderful and critical reception, and was a financial failure. And after you realize that, you get a different perspective on your own work; unless you’re Vincent Van Gogh and never saw Citizen Kane. What?

Audience Member: Ingmar Bergman used to watch James Bond to fall asleep…

WF: I would too! (big laugh) He enjoyed them. I enjoy them- I enjoy them. There’s nothing wrong with that.

AM: The audience goes to see them to get pleasure right?

WF: Uh. The audience goes most to have pleasure, you’re absolutely right; to have some sort of relief, to have some sort of escape, no matter what the film is. And that has to be taken into account by the filmmakers. And often I did not take that into account. But often, I don’t know how to do that. (the audience sighs in acknowledgement) No, no- not really. I mean today, the zeitgeist has shifted completely. I have no idea what you guys are watching. I couldn’t watch The Avengers, you know, if I could get off of double-murder. (big laugh) I tried to do that, but I can’t. And there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s me! (laugh) I just don’t get it. So, we all have our own tastes and our own sense of what is pleasurable and what isn’t. To me, it’s to give the audience some involvement in the story; which might not always be pleasurable. But, the worst thing any of you could say about this film, to me, is “Geeze, it was really interesting.” (big laugh) That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard! You could say “what a piece of shit!” (big laugh) or like some of you said, that this is great, and that does move me. But interesting?! Who the hell goes to the movies for interesting? You watch Fox News for interesting! (big laugh) You read the New York Post for interesting! No? I don’t care what Ingmar Bergman watches at night! (big laugh and applause) I’m more interested what Ingrid Bergman saw at night!!

William Friedkin & Dion Baia

The Podwits would like to thank BAM, Scott Foundas, and certainly the great William Friedkin for this very rare opportunity to hear him talk shop and for giving us his masterpiece, Sorcerer! We can’t wait for the Blu Ray release!!!

Footnote:

An error was made when discussing Lucio Fulci’s ‘Gates of Hell’ Trilogy- it is in fact The Beyond, City of the Living Dead (AKA The Gates of Hell), and House by the Cemetery, not Zombie.

Go Bobby, Go! 

Footnotes:

The Podwits wholeheartedly encourage you to check out the newly found 1885 recording of Alexander Graham Bell’s voice, which could be heard here.

Here is a Smithsonian article about zombies in nature, just ’cause.

Here is a link to the 2011 chimpanzee documentary Dion referred to, titled Project NIM.

Footnotes:

Here is the link to the 2010 Windows 7 television commercial that featured a scene from Lucio Fulci’s  Zombie.

Yorkshire Girl and I were lucky enough to attend the Clint Eastwood installment of the Director’s Series at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. After the theatrical premiere of the new documentary Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story, which discussed Eastwood as a director, a Q&A was held immediately afterward with Mr. Eastwood, which was moderated by director Darren Aronofsky.

Why they chose to have Aronofsky question Eastwood is a question worth asking, as opposed to someone like Richard Schickel, director of The Untold Story, who is a friend of Eastwood’s, is very knowledgable about him, and was actually present at the screening; in fact, he introduced the film.

Aronofksy seemed to come off as a casual fan of Eastwood the director, like most who only cite Eastwood as a director 1992′s Unforgiven onward, with Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby as more recent examples. In this humble Podwit’s opinion, if you have the opportunity to chat with a legend like Eastwood, why not ask him about stuff that is usually not asked about, like the earlier films he’s directed? Like his feelings now about his 1971 directorial debut Play Misty For Me (which 1987′s Fatal Attraction was a remake of, to all intents and purposes); or 1973′s Breezy, starring William Holden, a film unlike any other Eastwood ever made, almost a retelling of Lolita; or even The Eiger Sanction, an excellent film in which he starred, directed, and did his own stunts, including the then-45-year-old climbing the Eiger Mountain in Switzerland.

Aronofsky did ask some good questions, most of which Eastwood has answered in the past, but they did get into some new areas. Eastwood discussed Sergio Leone as a director and his experience with him, and the influence of Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 film Yojimbo on A Fistful of Dollars and the “spaghetti trilogy”. He also discussed his craft in terms of preparing to shoot a scene, using actors (particularly child actors), and his preference to not use the words “Action” or “Cut” while shooting.

I just wish someone a tad more knowledgable on Eastwood’s catalog had asked the questions, ones other than just “tell us about The Good, the Bad & the Ugly.” And please don’t take this as a jab at Aronofsky as a director; I think he’s extremely talented (and I think his 2008 film The Wrestler was one of the best of that year). I just wish someone like Schickel handled the Q&A.

But don’t get me wrong: the interview is a must-see and can be watched here courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival. So go, watch, and learn something!

And here is the upcoming Clint Eastwood box set, which also includes Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story.

(Click here for the Bloomberg Businessweek article on the creepy mannequins.)

This week’s podcast also mentions the newer Star Trek Into Darkness trailer which can be found here and the newer Man of Steel trailer which can be found here.  Please check them both out and let us know what you think of either one in the comments!

Yup, it’s the big guy’s birthday. And while the Last Son of Krypton has seen more than his share of ups and downs in the years since two Cleveland kids named Jerry and Joe dreamt him up, two things are indisputable:

1) While there are other costumed crimefighters who could legitimately be described as “iconic”—Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man and Captain America leap to mind—none has become as integral a part of the fabric of American Culture as Superman.

2) None of those other characters, nor any of the countless heroes that followed, could have come about—at least, not as we know them—without the Man of Steel making that historic debut.

So we here at the Podwits tip our hats to the original, the one and only SUPERMAN! Happy birthday, Supes!

Footnotes:

The actor that should have been up for an Oscar for his portrayal of ‘Bub’ in George Romero’s 1985  classic  Day of the Dead, was Sherman Howard.

The actor who played ‘The Dijinn’ in the 1997 film Wishmaster, was Andrew Divoff.

We apologize for briefly in a ’port-of-call’ point in our discussion, Dion idiotically refers to the Burt Reynolds’ 1973 classic Shamus by another name, so the correct title was dubbed in as to not let him continue to sound like a douche while they vamped on the topic.

“Welcome True Believers!“ 

I recently had the luck to travel over to Los Angeles with Podwits contributor J. Blake on what proved to be one of the most exciting, and rewarding trips that I have ever had the pleasure to enjoy. The bulk of that is due to the GREAT content we were able to gather and will be disseminating to you, our Podwit fans, in the coming weeks. EXCLUSIVE interviews will be coming your way… for example, with legendary Hanna Barbara artist, animator and character creator BOB SINGER; and 96-year-young animation icon MARTHA SIGALL, who started working at the Warner Brothers Animation Department in 1937 as an inker at age 19, making $12.50 a week for an average 48 hour work week. So YES, we’ve got some exciting things lined up.

First of all is a PODWITS EXCLUSIVE with comic book titan Stan “The Man” Lee. We were invited to attend a private Q&A hosted by Choice Collectibles that Stan Lee would be doing for a very intimate audience. He spoke for about half an hour, and covered a whole slew of interesting topics, like what he geeked out on as a boy growing up in New York City, his original thoughts on how he came up with so many of his now iconic characters in the comic world, what he didn’t like about some of the movies… and he BROKE NEWS by sharing his thoughts on what he considered his best cameo in his Marvel films.

The Q&A was moderated by the founder and owner of Choice Collectibles, to an audience of no more than 50 people. Here is the breakdown:  

Interviewer: So The Avengers made a lot of money…

Stan Lee: Well you see what happen was my cameo was so quick, obviously people said, “Wait! We didn’t see Stan’s cameo!” so they went and bought another ticket, and went back again. So that’s the reason—if not for my cameo, The Avengers would only of made half as much… (big AUDIENCE laugh) So that is the inside story. (audience laugh)

(transition)

I: How do you conceive all of those incredible characters because all of us use our imaginations, but none of us have quite the imagination like yours—

SL: Thank goodness! (audience laugh) Less competition!

I: —how does one come up with all those ideas like the X-Men; the X-Men alone had so many different characters and so many different powers, how did you come up with all those ideas?

SL: With great difficulty. (audience laugh) I don’t know! It’s the funniest thing, it’s the one question you can’t answer. An idea is just something vague, I mean you either have it or you don’t. So what happened with the X-Men, we had already done- now I don’t remember the order of them, we had already done the Fantastic Four, I think we had already done the Hulk, maybe one or two others, and my publisher said “I want you to do another one! Do a group of characters like the Fantastic Four.” So I thought- see the toughest thing with superheroes is what power you’d give them. All the powers were taken. The Human Torch could burst into flame and fly! And Reed could stretch and so forth- and you also had to figure out how do they get the powers? So I had the Fantastic Four get there’s because they were bombarded with cosmic rays; I think the Hulk was hit by gamma rays; I ran outta rays! (audience laugh) So I took the cowardly way out: I’ll get a bunch of characters and I’ll just let them be born that way. It’s easy. So, I went to my publisher, who I had to report to, and I say “Hey I got an idea. They were born that way, they’re mutants. I’m going to call the book ‘the Mutants’.” He said, “That’s a dumb name.” (audience laugh) He was a very bright publisher. He said nobody knows what a mutant is. So I had to do what he said, and I had to dream up another name.

I: So let me get this straight—there was someone else you took direction from? (audience laugh)

SL: Oh yeah, the publisher.

I: That’s the first time I ever had that— (audience laugh)

SL: No—No. I didn’t take direction, I took orders, he said you could either do that or you can’t, he didn’t direct me. (a. laugh) Now that he [the interviewer] interrupted me we have to go back to the beginning- So I don’t remember if it was the Fantastic Four or it was—(audience laugh)—no—so anyway, I couldn’t use the name the Mutants, so I thought, well they have extra powers, and I’m going to make their leader a guy name Professor Xavier, because there were no Xaviers in comics and I wanted to be original, so then I thought, extra power, Xavier, X, I’ll call it the X-Men. So I went to my publisher and said “why don’t we call them the X-Men?” He said, “that sounds great”. So I walked out of his office and I thought, if nobody is gonna know what a mutant is, how are they gonna know what an X-Man is? So that’s the name, and he okayed it, and that’s another chapter in history.

I: But when I watch the movies I am amazed and think, how do you honestly conceive all those powers, like the ability to fly, or the ability to control the weather like Storm, or people how have an endoskeleton with blades like Wolverine? It’s like the most extraordinary thing, like most people can’t think creatively enough to pay their bills on time.

SL: Well I guess the answer is, I am incredibly creative and intelligent—(audience laugh)—I don’t know—

I: And handsome!

SL: And handsome! (laugh) You just work at it. You say: ‘what power isn’t being featured in any story at the moment’? For example, I didn’t create the Human Torch. That was done a million years ago. The first magazine this publisher published, before we were Marvel comics, in the early 40’s, he had a character called the Human Torch, that was created by someone else. It was an android that could burst into flames in flight, and I always liked that idea, so nobody was using it at the time I did the Fantastic Four, so I figured I’ll get a guy who can burst into flames in flight, but he’ll be a human being, not an android. But that had already been done for me. But the other characters, what you do is you think what hasn’t been done? And you try to fill that gap. For instance, take the Hulk. Everything comes from something. The Hulk for example—I had always loved the Frankenstein movie with Boris Karloff, and to me, the monster was the good guy. Because at the beginning, he didn’t want to hurt anybody; but those idiots with torches, were always chasing him up and down the hills. So I thought it would be fun to get a monster, that was the hero. But then I thought that would be pretty dull, just a monster running around. So then I remembered Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. What if I could get a monster that could change back to a normal human and a monster—that would be great… then I figured what if they both hate each other? That would be even greater! Then I needed a name… and years ago in comics, not our books—there was somebody called the Heap—I don’t know what the hell he was, I just remembered the name, but I thought, I like that sound, the Heap; but I can’t call him that, so I’ll call him the Hulk. And low, a legend was born.

I: So going with that theme, when you have these incredibly powerful characters like The Avengers, and heroes, like the Hulk, you watch the movie and he is this indestructible guy that could smash anything- is he more powerful than the Thing from the Fantastic Four say?

SL: See… That’s a question fans often ask when I’m anywhere- I can be sure someone is gonna say: Who would win a fight…? The Hulk versus Spider-Man or Galactus versus the Silver Surfer…? And I always answer as truthfully as possible, and I’m going to answer as truthfully as possible to you here now: it-all-depends-on-whose-writing-the-story. (a. laugh) If you want the Hulk to win, you make the Hulk win, if you decide you want the Human Torch to win, you make the Human Torch win. You’re the writer, you can do anything! There are no rules, really… I think my favorite story was I had Daredevil fighting the Sub-Mariner- and if you don’t know who they are shame on you… (a. laugh)…and they were both heroes and I liked them both, so I made the fight a draw. In the end, the Sub-Mariner kinda won, but Daredevil ever gave up. So in the end, the Sub-Mariner went back into the ocean, thinking “glee that Daredevil was a great adversary; he was a noble guy”, and Daredevil, lying on the sand, getting himself together said, “That Sub-Mariner, he was ok”—not in those words, but that was the feel. And I love that because we had two heroes fighting and it ended nicely finished.

I: We’re going to open it up to some questions now—

SL: You mean on top of all those questions, I’m going to get more questions?! (audience laugh)

I: I’m Jewish, I have questions. Let’s open it up to questions, because there all are few people who wanted to ask a question…

Question 1: What was your favorite cameo of all of the Marvel feature films? Because mine was the one you did in Thor.

SL: Well actually, my favorite one, you haven’t seen yet. I haven’t seen it either—(laugh) But I did it, and I think it’s great, and it’s in the new Iron Man movie which will open very soon, and it’s a chance for you to see, that I’m more than just a cameo actor. (big audience laugh) There was a chance for me to do some real corny acting, and if you like those things, I think you’ll get a kick out of it. I can’t tell you what it is, but it is different from any that I have done. That oughta get ‘em into the movie! (big audience laugh)

Q2: You’ve worked with a lot of great artists and could you talk a little about your work with Jim Starlin?

SL: Jim Starlin? I didn’t work with him as much—in fact, to tell you the truth, I don’t know if Jim ever—you may know more than I, did he ever do any of my stories?

Q2: Ya, he started at Marvel—

SL: Which one did he do?

Q2: I think it was Guardians of the Galaxy, not one of your main books, but he got his start in comics with Marvel, with you…

SL: Ya, I know he started at Marvel, and I know he was a damn good artist, but to be honest I don’t remember working with him—which doesn’t mean I didn’t—I am not known for my memory… (audience laugh)

Q3: When you were in charge with Marvel you became so identified with the Marvel brand, not just because you were the creator of many of its characters, but you took such a strong leadership style, and came out and were vocal in the comics and let fans interact with you, was that a calculated move by you to be the voice and face of Marvel because you’ve been it for so long and done such a good job with it? I’m wondering if someone came to you and said “Stan, you should do this”, or was that your idea to present these characters as how I [Stan] want them to be seen?

SL: My only decision—I wanted Marvel to be different from any other company. I wanted the readers to feel like they were a part of, sort of a ‘in group’ that the rest of the world was either not aware of, or just too dumb to join into. And somehow you can’t give that feeling to people, unless they have somebody to identify with, or some people to identify with. So I tried to make characters out of all our people, including me. So first I called myself “Smilin’ Stan”, then “Stan ‘The Man’”, and on and on, I gave Jack the name, “Jack ‘King’ Kirby”; I called him “Golly Jack”, or “Sturdy Steve Ditko”—and they hated it. (audience laugh) But, I tried to make it like you are more than just readers, but, we’re friends and we’re sharing something together that is a lot of fun. But in order to do that, you had to make the people writing and drawing the stories like, friends, and I wrote this column, where I answered all the letters, called Stan’s Soapbox, and I answered so many letters; after a while, I wanted to feel like they knew me, the artists and so forth, and it pretty well worked. I was connected. I was writing the stories, I was the editor, I was the art director, and don’t feel like I was a great editor, I’m not bragging. I was easy for me to edit to the stuff cause I wrote most of it, and I’m my biggest fan. (audience laugh) So I liked everything  I wrote, so I said that’s good, and I sent it to the printer.

I: Other questions?

Q4: What there a conscious decision on your part to connect current event, say in the 60’s, the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the comic books, and how important do you think it needs to be today touching in current events, in pop culture and geo-political issues, like in the yesteryear, and I don’t see that as much today, so does that disappoint you or touch you in any way?

SL: In all honestly, it doesn’t disappoint me because, in all honestly, I don’t read the comics today because I don’t have time. So I did not know they were not touching the current issues. But if I read the comics, I’d be a little disappointed. I think, the way to make the story seem fairly real to the readers, and any writers of fiction wants what he writes to seem real. Like when I read Sherlock Holmes as a kid, man that seemed so real. The first time I went to England, I went to look for his address on Baker Street. At any rate, yes, I consciously try to do that, and if they are not doing that now, I do not know why not, well maybe—You see comics have changed. Now, when you do a successful comic, somebody is gonna want to do a $100 million movie based on it. So I think everybody who does comics today is thinking, “I have to do this in such a way, that it would make a great tent pole- (that’s what they call them) a great ‘tent pole’ movie”, and that’s what’s in the writers and artist’s mind, then talking about current events like- I think.

I: It’s fascinating that you—at least to my understanding—decided to put your super heroes in cities that are real, that people can relate to, unlike for example, Batman, that was based in Gotham, which is really the word for any big, metropolis city—like Superman, Metropolis—but Stan Lee decided to put Spider-Man in New York City. And what I think that one of the great testaments to your vision was that people would recognize and relate to the characters- your superheroes- because they live in the cities people really live in. And that didn’t seem like something that was done before. So what was the catalyst for that decision?

SL: Well, the main catalyst was, I wanted the stories to seem as realistic as possible- even though they were fantasy stories. To make it realistic, for example I had the Human Torch, Johnny Storm, was supposed to be a teenager. I had him ride when he was finally able to drive a car, a Chevy Corvette, I didn’t have him drive a ‘Whizz-Bang V8’ or some phony name; I had the Fantastic Four have their headquarters over on the Westside of New York City, I forget what the address was. But again it was getting back to me reading Sherlock Holmes and believing in the character, because I knew the city he lived in, I even knew his address. So if you can take a fantasy story, and make it sound somewhat believable, it is an advantage; it makes it more interesting to read and it is more interesting to write as the writer. And I based all my stories around New York because I lived there, so it was easy- in fact- I had Spider-Man living in Forest Hills. And it was such a thrill for me one day, a guy came over to me and said, “I drove to Forest Hills and was looking for his house,” and that brought me back to Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, and me looking for his house—And it was a very emotional moment.

Q5: Stan when you were young, apart from Sherlock Holmes, what did you like to read and what movies did you like?

SL: Oh gosh—Errol Flynn was my hero when I was a kid; he was Robin Hood, he was the Sheriff of Dodge City, he was Captain Blood- I wanted to be Errol Flynn. He was my favorite actor. As far as books that I read, I read everything, everything I could get my hands on. I read the kid’s stuff, the Hardy Boys and books like that; I read Edgar Allan Poe, I read Charles Dickens, I read Jules Verne. My mother used to always say, when I was eating, I always had a book and she’d say “if you didn’t have a book, you’d be reading the label on the Ketchup bottle”—I just loved to read. And I tried to read stuff that was… I wouldn’t say good, but things that interested me and usually the most interesting writing is the good writing. So I was very lucky, my parents—who didn’t have much money- whatever they had they were willing to buy books and magazines. So that was my favorite hobby, reading.

I: One more question?

Q6: How do you feel about the Marvel movies say, changing the timelines or the characters Galactus in Fantastic Four, or X-Men: First Class, say?

SL: I didn’t know they changed the timeline—ah! I ain’t worried about that!  (big audience laugh) But as far as the characters go, a movie is different from a television show, and is different than a novel, and different from a comic book- everything is different. Every type of entertainment has its own rules and its own parameters. And when they make changes to our characters in a movie, they usually feel like it’ll make it a better- take for instance the Hulk- I think they were wrong, in the first two Hulk movies they decided to make him twenty feet tall, I hated that! But they felt, it’s a movie, they wanted  to seem BIG, we’ll make it BIGGER than the books, we’ll make him twenty feet tall- I think they realized that was a mistake. They made him a little smaller in The Avengers movie, which did very well. But when the make changes in a movie, they think it’ll make a better movie. Take for example, Spider-Man. When I wrote Spider-Man, he had a web shooter he’d created with some liquid webbing in it, and when he hit the [button] there, webbing would shoot out. But they felt it would be better if it were organic, and come right out of his flesh. I never thought of that- but apparently, it was a good change because it worked beautifully.  I never thought he could swing from building to building as much as he does, because to me, it would of made it more interesting if her could only swing from one building to another, then he would run out of webbing because he used it up, and what is he going to do, he has no more webbing…?  But he never uses it up in the movies.  But that’s okay, because again for a movie, those scenes of him swinging are great, and if he swung to one building and used it up, it wouldn’t be as impressive. So it’s just a case of what’s good for a movie, what’s good for a comic book, a novel, etc, and sometimes the rules are kinda different. Boy, I was kinda profound there, wasn’t I? (big audience laugh)

The Podwits would like to thank Choice Collectibles enormously for their graciousness and hospitality in making this article possible.

“Excelsior!”

If the first episode of Doctor Who‘s season 7.5 was a James Bond-esque adventure, the second episode, “The Rings of Akhaten” can best be described as Who-meets-Indiana Jones. Before I explain, let me first state that this episode was, in my humble opinion (yes, there are those of us who still spell that out), a breath of fresh air coming off of last week’s unfortunate dreck.

“Rings” starts off with a bit of backstory for Clara, including the origin of the leaf and a reason why the Doctor found it so distasteful (remember, he licked it). The leaf that Clara carries with her is the very reason that her parents met. In a very romantic moment, her father tells her mother that it is the most important leaf in human history. He describes how if not for that leaf and the many things that caused it to appear that day, that they would never have met. The leaf blew into his face, almost getting him killed in traffic. She saved him by pushing him clear. It’s kind of like Back to the Future except without him being a peeping tom. I’d like to think that when the Doctor licked the leaf, he was actually licking residue from Clara’s father’s face which, while some would consider it erotic, is kind of disgusting too.

Anyway, flash-forward to the present where the Doctor whisks Clara on her first extraterrestrial adventure. Clara, in a very funny and human moment, can’t seem to decide where she wants to go. When faced with all of time and space, it’s kind of hard to pick a starting point. Finally she decides she wants to see “something awesome.” And so, the Doctor takes her to the Rings of Akhaten; a temple in space where aliens from the Seven Systems come to worship their god.

When they arrive, the Doctor and Clara do a bit of sightseeing and reintroduce a concept that has been missing from Who for a while; the awe of travelling with the Doctor. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that these people who travel with the Doctor are setting foot on alien worlds, with alien suns and, well, aliens! It’s the ultimate tourist experience. The problem that the audience has when a companion is around for awhile (like Amy & Rory) is that the sense of wonder tends to fade as the companions become more experienced and slightly more jaded. I don’t know that I’d ever really stop being in awe at all the wonderful and terrifying things that the universe has in store.

The only thing about this scene that gets a bit wonky is that it continues to confuse the audience (at least of the new series) about the exact way that the TARDIS translation circuit works. In the Davies years, it seemed to work pretty universally, in that the TARDIS would pretty much translate all languages in real time. In “The Fires of Pompeii” we even got to find out what happens when a companion tries to speak the native language while being translated by the TARDIS. Lately, this seems to be less of an issue as the translations seem to work at the convenience of the story. Hence, Clara couldn’t understand any alien who wasn’t a humanoid. Not a huge deal, but it does present a minor canonical problem. Either way, the scene was funny and played well enough to make it at least a tolerable plot contrivance.

The Rings themselves are beautifully rendered by Who’s special effects house the Mill, which is bittersweet. The effects are key in this episode, and the good folks at the Mill truly rose to the challenge with incredible vistas. It’s therefore a shame that the Mill will be shutting down it’s TV division and will no longer be able to do the effects for the show. If you ever questioned what they could do, check out their work in this episode.

The tourist scene contains a bit of interesting commentary with regards to commerce. At the Rings, they don’t use paper money. Instead they use something of real value; items that have personal value to you. The idea is that paper is just that… paper. A personal item holds sentimental value and history. In this part of the galaxy, that value is tangible and can be bartered for goods and services.

Clara meets up with Merry Gejehl, the Queen of Years. Merry is a little girl with a big responsibility. She has to sing to her god to keep him asleep. She has the whole of her people’s history in her mind and that knowledge doesn’t keep her from being scared that she will mess up. Clara comforts her and immediately shows the compassion that will make her an excellent companion.

Merry decides to go ahead with her “Bat Mitzvah” and sing to her god, which they also call “grandfather”. As a side note, this episode had an effect on me that I haven’t encountered in a long while in the new series; it made me think beyond the episode. In one moment the Doctor admits that he has been here before, a long time ago, with his granddaughter. This made me imagine this lovely scene with William Hartnell’s Doctor and Susan, in which the Doctor brings his granddaughter to a ceremony to watch these people sing to their “grandfather” in an almost endearing attempt to show just how important grandfathers can be.

Anyway, this wouldn’t be a Doctor Who episode if things didn’t go horribly wrong, and Merry is immediately taken to the temple for a face-to-face with God. The Doctor and Clara give chase on a space moped (twice in two episodes that the Doctor has ridden a moped that defies gravity). They break into the temple and the Doctor is just able to snatch his Sonic Screwdriver before it is crushed by the heavy rock door (à la Dr. Jones).

In an effort to prevent Merry from sacrificing herself to her god, the Doctor tells her a story. He speaks of how the universe was created in a giant explosion that sent dust scattering all over the cosmos. This dust combined to become various things, including Merry. The tale recalls the conversation from earlier with Clara’s parents and the leaf. One of the underlying morals of this story seems to be how precious and unique we all are and how so many incredibly specific things had to happen to make each and every one of us.

Meanwhile God’s henchmen (the Vigil) show up to force Merry to sacrifice herself, leading the Doctor to do his best Harry Potter impression, using his sonic screwdriver like Harry’s wand to square off against the powers of the Vigil.

Eventually, however, the Doctor comes face-to-face with the god… a huge being in the shape of a star that eats memories and experiences. He tells Clara to take Merry as far away as possible so he can square off against the angry god. It is here that the Doctor is allowed to do what he does best: he inspires. Seeing the Doctor going toe-to-toe against a star being, despite his fears, gives Merry the courage to want to help. She and Clara watch as the Doctor (in one of Matt Smith’s most stirring performances since taking the role) feeds the god his memories and secrets. We see the anguish and age of this man in ways we haven’t seen since David Tenant was in the role and it is soooo good.

The Doctor gives his all, and while it is not enough to appease the god, it is enough to inspire Clara to come to his aid with the thing she values most of all. She offers up the most important leaf in human history as a token of all the memories that could have been. An infinite supply of sadness for the god to feed on. Finally sated, the day is saved.

This episode delivers on an idea that has permeated the show almost since its beginning; the idea that the human spirit… humanity itself… can be more powerful than the Doctor, the TARDIS, the sonic screwdriver and the hordes of evil combined. It may sound trite, but it is a lesson worth listening to. What makes us human: our emotions, our compassion, our understanding are all powerful tools that not only enable us to get through the day, but can make life worthwhile.

Ancient temples, religion, ceremonies and a few close calls… yes, that’s Indiana Jones. But it can also be some of the best that Doctor Who has to offer.

“When Hell is full, the Dead will walk the Earth…”

Brian and Dion take a stab at season 3 of The Walking Dead, and discuss the highlights of the prior two seasons, as well as its comic book origins. Get you zombie bug-out bag ready and make sure the SUV is gassed up, because the Podwits are going post-apocalyptic!

I love live jazz recordings. So much of jazz happens in the moment, as musicians bounce improvised ideas off each other and, in the best circumstances, push each other collaboratively to ever greater heights of creativity and expression. The way that a live record can capture that moment, preserve those extemporaneous musical thoughts for all posterity, adds a bit of awe to the mere entertainment of it all.

There are a handful of such recordings that stand out as especially noteworthy and deserving of their fame. The snakebit but sparkling summit of bebop superstars at Toronto’s Massey Hall in May 1953. Duke Ellington’s literally riotous second set at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival. The last performance of Bill Evans’ original trio on a summer Sunday in 1961, five swinging sets at NYC’s Village Vanguard, ten days before his innovative young bassist Scott LaFaro was killed in a car accident at the age of 25.

Then there’s the one I’ve been listening to kind of obsessively for the last week, a concert that captures a moment not just in music but in American history as well. On Wednesday, February 12, 1964 (appropriately enough, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday), the NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality organized a benefit concert at Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall (the building now called Avery Fisher Hall) to raise money for minority voter registration drives in Mississippi and Louisiana. The headline act was Miles Davis, already one of the biggest names in jazz, and his (at that time relatively new) quintet. The resulting two sets were nothing short of legendary.

1963 and 1964 marked a time of transition for Miles Davis as a bandleader. His first great quintet (which had included a young John Coltrane) and sextet (which had included Coltrane and Bill Evans) were quite a bit behind him. Miles was always restless, always looking for new sounds and ways to push forward with his music, always leaving his past behind, and it had been less than a year since he had assembled this particular quintet during the recording of his Seven Steps to Heaven LP.

Herbie Hancock in 1964 (Photo by Francis Wolff)

They were a ferociously talented bunch. Pianist Herbie Hancock, 23 years old at the time, had already made a name for himself as a session musician and had recorded his first solo album (Takin’ Off) for Blue Note Records the year before. Tenor saxophonist George Coleman was a veteran who had gigged and recorded with dozens of the biggest names in jazz since the early ’50s. Bassist Ron Carter had worked with saxophonist Eric Dolphy in the arty, experimental hybrid of classical music and jazz known as “third stream”. The drums were manned by wunderkind Tony Williams, only 18 years old at the time of this concert but already a veteran who had been performing for several years with artists like Sam Rivers and Jackie McLean.

The first thing that leapt out at me about this concert was the absolutely insane speed at which the up-tempo numbers are played. For instance, the group just rampages through ”So What”, a piece I knew well from Miles’ seminal 1959 sextet album Kind of Blue; I’d never heard Miles solo with the kind of blistering fire and, dare I say it, fury with which he did on that number. And frankly they never really rein it in on those faster songs. Not that I’m suggesting for a moment that they should have—that crazy blowing, barely on the edge of control, is one of the readiest musical rewards of this concert recording. (Herbie Hancock, talking to Miles’ biographer Ian Carr, attributed the breakneck speed of those numbers to nerves born of the high profile of the event and the venue; while I’m sure they were nervous I’m hard pressed to say that it had any negative impact at all in the end.)

The slower pieces are a different story. On more sedate standards like “My Funny Valentine” and “Stella by Starlight”, the players really stretch out their improvisational chops. In fact, they take so many liberties with the heads of these tunes that it’s hard to tell where the composed part ends and the soloing begins. Again, this is most emphatically not a complaint. As I alluded to above, one of the great joys of a live jazz recording is the preservation of a spontaneous musical moment in time, and many gorgeous moments are contained in those long, languorous stretches of soloing.

The concert was recorded, with the majority of it released by Columbia Records on two LPs; the slower and mid-tempo numbers were released on My Funny Valentine in May 1965, while the smokin’ up-tempo rave-ups were released, along with some of the spoken announcements, on ‘Four’ & More in January 1966. The two albums were later combined, with the set order mostly restored, on CD in 1992, but sadly the only place to hear the entire concert, including first set opener “Autumn Leaves” and pianist Billy Taylor’s spoken re-introduction to the second set—it’s fascinating when he says, “It’s a wonderful feeling to see so many people interested not only in the remarkable talents displayed, but people who are also interested in human rights,” reminding us that this was a notable night in civil rights history as well—is on the quite pricey box set Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis 1963-1964.

George Coleman

The quintet would soon make its last change: Coleman, increasingly uncomfortable with the rest of the group’s avant-garde tendencies, would leave only two months after this recording. He would be replaced at first by Sam Rivers, just long enough to record a live album in Japan, but by the end of that summer Miles had hired Wayne Shorter, and the group that would become known as Miles “Second Great Quintet” was complete. That group would spend the rest of the ’60s pushing the boundaries of post-bop acoustic jazz to their limits, until it seemed that they had no choice but to basically invent electric jazz fusion (with their experiments on 1968′s Miles in the Sky and 1969′s Filles de Kilimanjaro).

But for this one moment, this one historic evening, this quintet made magic. Musician and deejay Mort Fega informed the audience in his introduction on that evening, “The proceedings here on stage are gonna be recorded, so that having enjoyed them out there this evening, you’ll be able to enjoy them over and over again on the Columbia album that Miles is about to do.” I have enjoyed them over and over again, and I’m suitably awed at being able to listen in on what truly was a moment in history.

Art by Tatjana Wood

Carmine Infantino
Photo by Luigi Novi

Today the comics world has lost another one of its pioneers.  Carmine Infantino has passed away at age 87.

As a DC Comics fan, Infantino’s influence is impossible to overstate.  During his tenure at DC, the Brooklyn native was responsible for creating one of the founding members of the Justice League of America… the Silver Age Barry Allen Flash in his now-classic red and yellow track suit.  Infantino also rounded out the Flash’s pantheon of rogues with classic characters like Gorilla Grodd, Mirror Master, Captain Cold and Captain Boomerang.  These characters remain some of the most beloved of the DC Universe, but this only scratches the surface of Infantino’s legacy to comics.

Infantino also created the classic Black Canary character, as well as co-creating the Barbara Gordon Batgirl in the 1960s.  As editorial director of DC Comics, Infantino brought on board the likes of Dick Giordano, Joe Kubert, Neal Adams and Denny O’Neill as well as luring legendary creator Jack Kirby from the marvelous competition.

Carmine Infantino helped craft the Silver Age of comics and his influence continues to be felt to this day.  His characters may not be considered “A-List”, but they have stood the test of time, enduring the years and ensuring Mr. Infantino’s legacy for the future.

If you’d like to know more about Carmine Infantino, please visit www.carmineinfantino.com

On Saturday, March 30, Doctor Who returned to the airwaves for the second half of Series Seven.  Let me start off by saying that for all intents and purposes this REALLY should be the eighth series, but whatever.  The first episode of the spring set, “The Bells of Saint John”, was everything that I’ve come to expect from a Steven Moffat-penned episode.  Unfortunately, that’s not saying very much positive.

I have nothing against Mr. Moffat personally, but I have found his run on Doctor Who to be mildly confusing, extremely ambitious and yet unable to deliver on its rather lofty goals.  ”The Bells of Saint John” is a prime example.

The premise of the episode (that someone is using the Wi-Fi to do harm to the human race) follows in the best traditions of monsters like the Autons (living plastic creatures who use shop-window dummies to try to take over the world) or the Weeping Angels (statues that are actually alive and zap you back in time when you’re not looking): the monsters take everyday objects and make them very frightening, though they don’t really hold up under intense scrutiny.  On its own, the idea of “something” being in the Wi-Fi, out to get you, is actually quite original and disturbing.  Unfortunately, this idea is being implemented by morons and the good guys are chock full of insanely good fortune.

The episode begins with the Doctor in the 1200s as a monk, contemplating the mystery of Clara Oswin Oswald, who he met and watched die for the second time in “The Snowmen”.  I’ve got to say that having spent so much time alone before “The Snowmen” and vowing to put his solitude to an end, the idea that he then put himself back into solitude seemed rather bizarre.  The TARDIS phone rings.  On the other end: Clara Oswald having trouble with the Internet.

Evidently she got the Doctor’s number from a woman in the shop who said he was the best help line around.  This could mean that River is involved somewhere, which would be interesting to be sure.  On the other hand, how would River know that this particular set of events would transpire and that Clara would just so happen to call the Doctor at this particular moment, before she gets sucked into the Wi-Fi?  Pretty clever or just incredibly lucky?

Either way, the Doctor goes to meet Clara in his monk’s robes and is instantly rebuffed as a quack (and why wouldn’t he be?).  So off he goes to change, leaving Clara to get sucked into the Wi-Fi by this week’s “monster”… the “spoonhead”.  The “spoonhead” is a portable Wi-Fi station that can suck a person’s consciousness into a master network of souls (if you will) and control people using Wi-Fi.  Again, this is the scary bit.  The rest is just odd.

In the TARDIS, we learn that the Doctor wears a clip-on bow tie, which is actually disappointing, though not a major plot point, so I will continue.  He saves Clara from being completely absorbed and vows to keep her safe.  As she sleeps, the Doctor (who at this point is almost acting like a stalker) goes through her things and discovers her book of 101 places to visit.  It’s a diary that she seems to have kept for many years, chronicling all the places she wants to visit.  In the first page there is a leaf which, given the Doctor’s strange reaction to its taste (yes he licked it), I am sure will come back again in the future.

Clara awakens to find the Doctor sitting guard, playing around with the now defunct spoonhead.  And here we are given another extremely convenient plot device.  Because Clara seemingly knew nothing about computers before (she called the Doctor to ask how to sign onto the Wi-Fi) and now she happens to make a frankly lame joke about Twitter, she must be a computer genius now!  This is the leap of logic that the Doctor makes!  I know a whole bunch of people who can’t configure their Wi-Fi but who tweet all the time.  This is hardly a rational connection on his part, but as it turns out, he’s right.  When Clara was uploading, she was given some extra computer knowledge.

To get back at the Doctor, our evil masterminds decide to throw an airplane at the Doctor and Clara.  Literally.  Is this overkill?  Meh.  The Doctor and Clara board the TARDIS and materialize aboard the plane, running through the quickest “it’s bigger on the inside” banter that Doctor Who has ever had in its 50 years.  Saving the plane from crashing, the two carry out one of the more clever gambits that the Doctor has pulled lately.  The idea?  Skip to the next morning.  The villains have been searching for them all night whereas the Doctor gets a fresh start on a new day.  Not bad.  In addition, the Doctor spouts one of his more clever lines: in answer to one of Clara’s myriad questions, he responds with, “I can’t tell the future, I just work there.”  Cute.

Clara uses her new computer skills to discover where the bad guys are by hacking their webcams and using facial recognition software to find their Facebook/Twitter pages, where they all listed where they work.  As asinine as it is for a nefarious organization to be listed as people’s place of employment on social networks, a later development will make this even more strange.

One thing that Mr. Moffat is trying to impress upon us, though, is that Clara is clever.  Between her ability come up with this admittedly complex plan to track down the bad guys and her ability to keep up with some incredible Tracey/Hepburn-like banter with the Doctor, you can tell that she will be a truly fun companion to watch.  It should also make her hopefully eventual meeting with River a lot of fun as that Clara is definitely as flirtatious as River is.

As Clara exercises her hacking skills, the Doctor goes out for coffee and meets head villainess Miss Kizlet in one of the creepier scenes played in a while.  Kizlet controls everyone in the coffee shop, using them as puppets to communicate with the Doctor via Wi-Fi.  Of all the aspects of how Wi-Fi is used for villainy in this episode, this is probably the most frightening to me.  Imagine that you could control anyone in range of Wi-Fi… at this point is there anyone in the civilized world who would not be controlled?

The Doctor checks in on Clara to make sure she is OK and Clara comes up with her own nickname in one of the lamer ways you could imagine.  Earlier in the episode, Clara made it clear to the Doctor that her name (unlike her previous incarnation) is Clara Oswald.  No Oswin.  Now that she’s a rockin’ hacker, she makes a brilliant hacking move and declares “Clara Oswald for the win!  Os-win!”  Are you kidding?  This is beginning to seem rather forced to me and not as amusing as one would believe if they wrote a line like that.

As the Doctor goes back to talk to Kizlet, Clara’s mind is taken properly now by a spoonhead disguised as the Doctor.  It’s around this point that I find myself asking if Kizlet is galactically stupid.  She saw the Doctor and Clara get into the TARDIS and save the plane.  She saw the Doctor save Clara the first time, which should have been impossible.  At what point would you think that perhaps messing with this guy is a bad idea?  Again, she’s either galactically stupid or waaay too confident.  As it turns out, she is the latter which, in my humble opinion, makes her the former.

The Doctor, using Clara’s hacked info, races to bad guy HQ to confront Kizlet.  As the two square off, Kizlet says that she can’t free Clara without releasing everyone she’s taken and she won’t do that.  The Doctor says he’s going to motivate her and reveals his admittedly brilliant plan!  As it turns out, it wasn’t the Doctor at all who went to Kizlet’s office but, in fact, the spoonhead disguised as the Doctor!  The Doctor has been controlling it and uses it to download Kizlet.  Hoist on her own petard, Kizlet orders her lackeys to free everyone, thus freeing Clara in the process.  The Doctor has won!  But I have a question… wasn’t it incredibly convenient that the good folks at Evil HQ didn’t realize that they no longer had control of the Doctor spoonhead?  At this point, it’s getting  hard to keep up with our plot holes, so let’s move on.

As UNIT shows up to clean up the mess, Kizlet communicates her apologies to her boss.  In a “thank God” moment (for me, anyway) her “client” is revealed to be the Great Intelligence (hinted at in “The Snowmen”) played by Richard E. Grant.  I only say “thank God” because I wasn’t particularly pleased with Mr. Grant’s turn in “The Snowmen” and thought he deserved so much more.  I’m glad he’ll be getting the chance to flex his muscle on the show.

To keep things under wraps, the Great Intelligence orders a factory reset at Evil HQ which essentially erases everyone’s memories of their work with the organization.  Unfortunately, this is where I have another problem.  It’s revealed that the personalities of the minions (since being controlled) are actually quite different from where they originally were.  So all this control and yet these people could still do social networking on Twitter and Facebook?  Did their friends and family not notice serious changes in their personalities over time?

And so the episode, mercifully, comes to an end with Clara saying she’s not going to travel with the Doctor, but to ask again tomorrow because she might say yes.  I am already in love with Clara, and I have to heap full praise onto Jenna-Louise Coleman, because I am already worried about what Mr. Moffat’s stewardship is going to do to her.  I hope to God that we have heard the last of “run you clever boy and remember,” because its use in this episode was so badly shoehorned in that I can’t even mention it here without wanting to vomit just a little in my mouth.

As we start our slow ramping process towards the 50th anniversary celebration later this year, I have to say we’re off to a rather ominous start.  I hope for better moving forward, but am worried that Mr. Moffat’s track record speaks woefully for itself.  On the plus side, this week’s casting news for the 50th anniversary special had me grinning from ear-to-ear, so I guess there is still some hope after all!

Legions of fantasy readers were thrilled earlier this month by the announcement that The Republic of Thieves, the (really) long-awaited third novel in Scott Lynch‘s Gentlemen Bastards Sequence, at last has a publication date (October 8, 2013). It’s been six and a half years since the last book’s release, in which time problems both personal and otherwise have beset the progress of the series.

Despite those delays, early indications are that the enthusiasm for the book had dampened little if at all. So what has kept anticipation so high, even when it seemed for a time that we might never see this book published?

It’s a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned, because the first two books of the series were among the very best books I’ve ever read. They’re ridiculously entertaining mash-ups of the gritty crypto-historical fantasy of George R.R. Martin, high-spirited heist films like Ocean’s Eleven and The Italian Job, and the earthy, life-among-the-lowlifes profanity of Quentin Tarantino.

Believe me on this: if you take none of my other reading recommendations, heed this one and introduce yourself to Locke Lamora and the Gentleman Bastards, a crew unlike any other in literature.

The reading public first met the Gentleman Bastards in 2006, in Scott Lynch’s unusually accomplished and self-assured debut novel The Lies of Locke Lamora. Set in Camorr, a city of canals highly reminiscent of Renaissance-era Venice, Lies introduces con-man extraordinare Locke Lamora. Raised by a brutally wise old thief called Chains, Locke has been ridiculously successful at his chosen profession, so much so that money isn’t a motivation any more—he’s got more wealth locked away as a result of his scams than anyone could use in a dozen lifetimes. No, for Locke the challenge is the thing, and along with the Gentleman Bastards, his talented “found family” of fellow thieves and tricksters—massive but sweet-hearted Jean, the twins Calo and Galdo, and the spunky apprentice called Bug—he plans ever more elaborate and impossible ways to part the very highest echelons of Camorran society from their gold and jewels.

In Camorr, there is honor among thieves, of a sort. The underworld operates under the oversight of a sort of thief king, the powerful Capa Barsavi, with whom Locke and the Bastards have an… interesting relationship—Locke doesn’t exactly toe the Capa’s line, but he’s charmed Barsavi into kind of letting him get away with it (in a way that makes the otherwise scary underworld boss just another of Locke’s patsies).

Lynch quickly makes Locke and the Bastards among the most engaging rogues in all of literature. They swear, they scheme, they swashbuckle their way through all manner of unexpected (and occasionally life-threatening) snafus, and on the whole are just having such an obviously tremendous time doing what they do that the reader can’t help but get swept up in the fantastically fun (if naughty) hijinks.

But it’s not all fun and games in Camorr, alas. A mysterious new criminal, known only as the Gray King, has appeared on the scene, and his audacious, confrontational crimes against Camorrans on both sides of the law upset the order of the underworld and puts Locke and his people on defense. For the first time in his life, Locke is not in control of the situation, and things spiral even further out of control as all-out war threatens to erupt as a result of the Gray King’s machinations.

What makes The Lies of Locke Lamora such a satisfying read was the way that all through the early part of the book, Lynch distracts us with a seemingly unstoppable caper romp, with the skilled Bastards improvising their potty-mouthed way through a pretty compelling con, while in the background he is setting up the emotional dominoes that will pull the rug out from under us later in the book. It’s a feat of literary sleight-of-hand that he pulls off with as much skill as any number of bigger-name, more well-established authors. And make no mistake, that rug will get pulled. Lynch follows in the footsteps of George R.R. Martin when it comes to narrative brutality, to that sense of “Oh, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, holy crap he did!!”

And that’s all I can say without ruining the very many gripping surprises that keep The Lies of Locke Lamora barrelling along with the momentum of a runaway mine tram. And that’s also why I can’t say anything about the second volume, Red Seas Under Red Skies, without giving away how the first book ends. All I can tell you is that book two was unquestionably up to the standard set by the first, continuing the mix of high-flying caper plotting and gut-punching emotional drama while genuinely progressing the personal story arcs of the characters.

Two amazing books in, neither the story nor the characters have lost any of their appeal, which is what made the seemingly interminable wait for The Republic of Thieves so difficult to endure. It was frustrating to think that Lynch might have sprung this amazing, addictively readable story upon us and then proven unable to follow through on the implicit promise of his opening. But now that a release date has finally been announced, I’m inclined to be optimistic. After all, personal problems aside, Lynch has shown no indication that he’s either willing or able to write something that is less than entertaining.

So, as I advised above, give yourself the gift of fantasy’s most enjoyable bunch of ne’er-do-wells—you have about six months to get caught up on the shady but delightful dealings of Locke Lamora and the Gentleman Bastards.

After only two short seasons and a Christmas Special, comedian Ricky Gervais ended the series on an extreme high-note, wanting to pull the plug while riding high as opposed to just crashing and burning like such hit shows as The Sopranos or The X-Files. But the show’s popularity skyrocketed Gervais to international fame, and spawned scores of mediocre remakes here in the States and in a dozen other countries across the world.

We find out that Mr. Brent is now roaming around England selling bathroom cleaning products and trying to manage up and coming musicians. Brent is currently managing the young and yet-to-be-discovered hip-hop artist Dom Johnson, and then weasels his way into a song during a recording session and then into the hilarious music video for their reggae song, Equality Street (one wonders if the title is a play on the name of the popular UK chocolate Quality Street).

The short and song have become so popular online that the single became the #1 most downloaded song on iTunes as of March 21. It prompted Gervais to start tweeting questions to his fans asking if they wanted to see more of Mr. Brent, and if they would watch, say, on Ricky Gervais’ Official YouTube Channel, a video of David Brent teaching you how to play your favorite rock songs on guitar. So hopefully more David Brent is on the way.

If you don’t know the original version of The Office, and only know the Americanized one that is now reruns every half-hour on cable TV… shame on you. You should really school yourself and check out the incredibly funny show that started the whole phenomenon.

But at the end of the day I guess Gervais is the winner no matter what, because every reincarnation of his show is another royalty paycheck into his bank account.

In the meantime, check out David Brent back in action!

But thankfully (or sadly by the way you look at it), this wasn’t always the case. There was a time when products were built to last, and that along with ease of design were the essentials when designing a product. And this was a source of pride to some designers, and because of this blessed concept, products were produced that sometimes lasted generations.

One of these industrial designers, as they were known, became a legend within his industry, and though his name may not be widely known today to the public, his contributions have nonetheless helped mankind thrive for over eighty years, and—believe it or not—every single person has interacted with his designs. His name should be known to the masses and as recognizable as a Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates, but for all we know, this might have been the way he wanted it. But I’d like to introduce you to the genius of Henry Dreyfuss.

Designing for today and tomorrow the contemporary designer must express first the utility of the object on which he is working, second the era in which we live, and last, when the design permits, lurking in the background, some form to be remembered from the past that will unconsciously make the consumer more comfortable in accepting what may be a radical new form to him.”
—Henry Dreyfuss, Book for Industrial Design, 1946

Industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss made unbelievable contributions to society, designing products for Bell Telephone, Hoover Vacuums, John Deere, Polaroid, Singer Sewing Machines, Western Union, Citgo, Eversharp Fountain Pens, Whitman’s Chocolate, Con Edison, Honeywell, GE, Goodyear Tire, and Pan American, among others. He designed trains, airplanes, entire buildings—the list is so expansive that it reads like a phone book. But you might ask, Why is this guy even worth discussing? Well, as I said above, his designs literally have touched everyone in America, if not the world.

In The Man in the Brown Suit: Henry Dreyfuss, Industrial Designer by Russell Flinchum (highly recommended by the Podwits—if you can find it; it is currently out of print), we learn just what a master Dreyfuss was, and how his innovations revolutionized the world.

Dreyfuss was born in New York City in 1904. Starting out as a set designer, he made it to Broadway fairly quickly and started making waves on the Great White Way in the late 1920s because of set designs that were unique for their realism and functionality. In all, he designed over 250 sets. In the late ’20s he segued into industrial design and opened his own Manhattan office for theatrical and industrial design. Though details are unclear, he quickly gained fame and respect within the industry.

Dreyfuss seemed to bring fresh ideas into a sagging post-World War I industry, with one of his major themes being that a product should be “designed for the masses”, instead of for the sake of style or other aesthetics. He would soon be called a visionary in the field because of his unique approach to the design of products. He began to strive for informity, “visual solidity of form, stressing mass and eliminating visible screws, which he combined with attention to color, graphics, and proportion“, to quote Flinchum’s book. He wasn’t concerned with styles of the age; instead, “Dreyfuss hoped his designs would be outmoded not by stylistic shifts in interior decoration or popular taste but by technological obsolescence.”

We bear in mind that the object being worked on is going to be ridden in, sat upon, looked at, talked into, activated, operated or in some way used by people. When the point of contact between the product and the people becomes a point of friction, then the industrial designer has failed. On the other hand, if people are made safer, more efficient, more comfortable – or just plain happier – by contact with the product, then the designer has succeeded”
—Henry Dreyfuss, Industrial Design: Vol. 5

Dreyfuss’ formula for design was easy and clear-minded:

It is pointless to produce a product so expensive that no one can afford it, or so underpriced as not to permit a reasonable profit to the manufacturer. Good design need not increase cost.”
—Dreyfuss, in a promotional mailing for Designing for Heavy Duty: A Study of Functional Design Applications to the Hyster Company, by William F.H. Purcell

Dreyfuss developed five points that would become the motto for his firm, and in his mind those five principles, when applied accurately, would make any commercial designed product successful. They were:

1. Convenience of use, which includes safety and utility
2. Ease of maintenance
3. Cost of manufacture and distribution
4. Merchandising and competition; and last, but certainly not least
5. Appearance.

He kept the number at five because he liked to use the fingers on his hand to illustrate his points to coworkers and clients alike.

Another huge caveat with him was complete control over the design of products by his firm, and not allowing any outside retailer who hired Dreyfuss to poke their noses into the development of the product. In this, he was by no means arrogant or ignorant of the business his firm was employed in—he frequently met with the corporate executives personally to query and research the product being designed, and oversaw extensive research to make sure the retainer’s concerns and ideas would be contributed into the finished product.

To give an example of this rule, as told in Flinchum’s book: In the early 1930s, the Macy’s department store asked Dreyfuss to have a look over the entire store, all 100+ departments, and redesign anything he didn’t like. Dreyfuss was evidently shocked at what he saw, since he looked at everything from pocket knives to electric stoves and disliked every one. And even though his business was in its infancy and could really use the money, he declined the department store’s job. He would be his own boss, and although this sounded like a grand idea at first, there was one huge problem—”it overlooked the fact that a manufacturer could seldom change the design of a product without scrapping valuable machinery and retooling his plant at great expense. It was useless, according to Dreyfuss, for a retailer to bombard manufacturers with random suggestions.” Unless he could directly consult with the manufacturers of the products as well as their marketer, he realized anything he did would be an act of futility, and he had to admit that refusing to accept a client’s imposed conditions compromised the entire project from the start.
His young firm first started designing clock faces for the Western Clock Company, then designed the popular Big Ben model for General Time Instruments of New York. He then transitioned to washing machines and refrigerators, and then the Hoover Model 150 Vacuum. That last one revolutionized the market by hiding the components and mechanical pieces, making it more aesthetically appealing to the consumer. Dreyfuss spoke of the vacuum’s design to Art Director’s 18th Annual of Advertising Art in an article titled “An Industrial Designer Thinks About His Job”: The form must be simple and pleasing. I have no sympathy with the thought of applying streamlined shapes to a household utility, but I do believe it can be ‘cleanlined’ in its design. The outward appearance must impress the consumer with ease of operation and the design must silently express the many conveniences within the housing.”

For his firm’s next contract, Dreyfuss redesigned the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Hudson J-3 locomotive and passenger cars for the famous 20th Century Unlimited, which was the premiere way to travel transcontinentally between New York City and Chicago. Some credit his sleek, rocket-like, art deco design of the Hudson J-3 as the model other designers used when they later conceived the look of the world’s first bullet trains. His early ideas of design in, say, the case of a vehicle, were to have the object look like it was in a perpetual state of motion, even in stasis. This gave an edge of excitement to the product. His fundamental ideas for the interior design for the passenger cars were clear-cut and basic. In a letter to 20th Century Unlimited expert Arthur Detmers Dublin, Dreyfuss wrote: ”Colors used in transportation should give the passenger a feeling of security. While colors could be bright and cheerful, one must remember that among the passengers some would be going on vacation, or a honeymoon, but others could be ill or en route to the funeral of a loved one. The Century had a neutral background as a basis for the colors used as accents in the decoration.” Dreyfuss himself always wore a brown suit as well, and many speculate that his conservative suit reflected his designs and business approach: not flamboyant or loud, which was how his competitors dressed at the time. Another theory was that the simple brown suit would make him stand out in board rooms compared to the flashy suits of his wealthy clients.

His firm went on to redesign John Deere’s Model A and B tractors, giving them a sense of style that the workhorse was hitherto unknown for, and echoes of this design remain in the lines on the body panels of today’s models. He redesigned Western Union’s remote offices, Citgo service stations, Whitman’s Chocolate box logo, Singer sewing machines, Royal typewriters, Pan American airplanes interiors, and even domestic home bathrooms and kitchens (according to Flinchum, Dreyfuss used to say industrial design entered the home through the backdoor, through its bathrooms and kitchens). He even ended up designing the situation room for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II.

But his two arguably most famous designs are still used in American homes to this day. First is the Honeywell T87 circular wall thermostat, which was introduced in 1953. Up to that point, thermostats were still square and bulky, and after 10 years of research and troubleshooting, Dreyfuss’ firm designed the circular device, which was a huge hit because of its functionality and clever design.

The other huge design Dreyfuss gave to the world was the Bell Telephone Laboratories Model 500 telephone, which debuted in the early 1950s. It revolutionized the industry, and can still be found in homes even today. Dreyfuss had aided in the design of the 1937 Bell Telephone 302 Tabletop Model phone, the first model that put the receiver and transmitter into a combined headset. Model 500 was first offered in black, then multiple colors. The 500 was tremendously popular, and opened the field for other conveniences that the desktop phone could offer to the customer—wall telephones, multiple lines, and index card-dialing sets. In 1958 the first push-button model was introduced, and then in 1959, the first phone designed for a specific demographic: the Princess Model for teenage girls, which was designed because of the idea of aligning the headset with the base in the same plane and giving it a petite look.

Flinchum’s stats on Bell’s 500 model are astounding. “…From an initial shipment of 86,000 units in 1950 the figure mushroomed to 7,184,000 in 1965 for the desk unit alone. In total, between 1950 and 1982, 93,412,000 units of the 500 desk set were produced, and the total number of permutations including wall sets, key(touchtone) sets, and general-purpose sets including the desk model comes to a stunning 162,679,000.”

In 1963 Dreyfuss’ firm worked with Polaroid, and they introduced the Model 100, which allowed for the removal of film, while the user was still able to continue shooting. In the mid-’60s his firm was contracted by Edison Electric Institute to help design new commercial power transmission line towers that would deliver larger amounts of power over greater distances, while at the same time, have a design which will be aesthetically pleasing and as undisruptive as possible to the environment that it is traversing. Since the first idea, burying the power lines, could not be realistically achieved, Dreyfuss had to map out an above-ground design that would help the power lines blend in with the landscape. His towers debuted in 1968, and were greeted warmly by a public whose earlier outcries had first gotten Edison to think of redesigning the transmission lines.

All through his design career, Dreyfuss was able to author five books. In 1955 Dreyfuss wrote Designing for People, an autobiography which features the “Joe” and “Josephine” simplified anthropometric charts that became a standard for the industry. In 1960 he published The Measure of Man: Human Factors in Design, an ergonomic reference. Other works included Industrial Design: A Pictorial Accounting 1929-1957 (1957) and Symbol Sourcebook: An Authoritative Guide to International Graphic Symbols (1972). Dreyfuss also became the first vice-president of the Society of Industrial Designers, which was established in 1944, and the first president of the Industrial Design Society of America.

Dreyfuss gradually slowed down in the late ’60s and finally retired in 1969, leaving Henry Dreyfuss Associates in good hands with the partners he had mentored for years for this very purpose. In 1972 his wife and lifelong business partner Doris Marks—without whose knowledge, feedback and love Mr. Dreyfuss would not have been able to achieve nearly as much as he did—was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. Evidently, the loving couple had made a pact: when the time came that Doris was no longer able to deal with the pain, they would bow out together. So, on October 5, 1972,  they were both found dead in their car in their garage, with the engine running. Even to the end Mr. Dreyfuss was a perfectionist, leaving a note for the maid (who discovered the bodies) which said to call their doctor, and another note for their doctor addressing what they wanted done with their remains.  It came as a shock to friends and family, but perhaps only for a short time—everyone knew that this may have been the only kind conclusion, for Henry could never live without his beloved Doris.

In the grand scheme of things, it perplexes me that the name Henry Dreyfuss isn’t more widely known in America. His contributions to society were game-changers, and have touched the lives of everyone over the age of 15 (given that the Bell Telephone Model 500 was still selling into the mid-1990s).

I wonder what Dreyfuss would make of our society’s current fixation with instant gratification, especially concerning technology. It is sad that that fascination has made the terms “guaranteed to last” and “guaranteed for life”  oxymorons, and instead have been replaced in our psyches with terms like “planned obsolescence”. Even more perplexing to me is that we are completely okay with it.

I don’t think any of it would conform to Dreyfuss’ business model. Remember, he wasn’t a stylist. He instead used common sense and a scientific approach to design products that were built to last. Maybe that is why he is often called “the founding father of American Industrial Design“. I would be so bold as to speculate that he would stand up against the trend of instant gratification, and maybe even build a reputation that would buck the trend. Instead, I think, he would build on the principle that America seems to have lost over the past twenty years of outsourcing and the like: that products should be made to last.

That little rant leads us to the tremendously enjoyable new series Continuum, currently airing on SyFy. While it does function as a typical police procedural a lot of the time, it makes copious and intelligent use of its science fictional premises, so that while you’re getting sucked into the “find the bad guy, save the victim” episodic plots you’re also watching interesting ideas getting worked through in a surprisingly satisfying way. Bottom line, if you have a history of enjoying science fiction and you’re not watching this show, allow me to show you the error of your ways.

Rachel Nichols as Kiera Cameron in Continuum (Photo © Showcase/Shaw Media)

Rachel Nichols stars—and I do mean stars—as Kiera Cameron, a “Protector” (law-enforcement officer) in the year 2077 who relies on technology, in the form of an enhanced bodysuit and cybernetic implants. In her future world, the traditional government has collapsed and been replaced by a “Corporate Congress.” A terrorist group that calls itself “Liber8″ sets off an explosion in the Corporate Congress building, killing thousands of people, after which the core members of the group are apprehended and sentenced to death. But someone has slipped them a time travel device, and instead of being executed they are sent back in time sixty-five years, to 2012—and Kiera gets caught in the area of effect, getting transported back as well.

Now, once upon a time, this is where we the audience would be subjected to an endless succession of fish-out-of-water scenarios, where Kiera’s ignorance of current-day customs would be played for the broadest humor. Thankfully, that’s not the case with Continuum. Through a complicated but quite clear set of circumstances, Kiera finds herself in contact, via her implanted tech, with a young man named Alec Sadler (played by Erik Knudsen, who I remember fondly as decent-but-troubled teenager Dale Turner on Jericho) who will one day invent that very same tech. With Alec’s help, Kiera is able to pass herself off as a government agent and allies herself with a Vancouver police detective named Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster, known to genre fans as Mulwray on the syndicated Mutant X and Coop the cupid on Charmed). With the Liber8 terrorists on the loose and employing their usual, ruthlessly murderous tactics to prevent the corporate-controlled future from coming to pass, Kiera does everything in her power to keep them from changing her future, the one that contains her beloved husband and son.

The elephant in the room here is the strange moral complexity—as seen through Kiera’s eyes, the world of the future is a relatively benign one in which she lives a comfortable middle-class existence with her husband and young son, but it’s quickly made clear that despite their pleasant life and all the snazzy, video-bearing skyscrapers that dominate their city skyline (shades of Blade Runner and and the short-lived but much-missed Max Headroom TV series), that future is also a dystopia full of government surveillance, injustice and oppressed have-nots. It’s easy to see parallels to today’s world, in which economic inequality is facilitated by the (willful?) ignorance of the comfortable, and to view the goal of such a system’s downfall as desirable. Yet the sympathetic hero of our story represents the law and order of that system, while the “freedom fighters” who seek to destroy it kill thousands of innocents as collateral damage in their “by any means necessary” campaign of terror.

At no point in this show is it made easy to know what to believe, and that challenging ethical foundation is one of Continuum‘s most appealing features.

Continuum‘s Blade Runner-esque skyline of 2077 (Photo © Showcase)

As I mentioned, the sci-fi elements—most notably the time travel ideas and Kiera’s future tech—are handled smartly, with real thought given to the consequences of things like Alec interacting with a fully-developed version of technology he has yet to invent.

But I don’t want to make it sound like it’s all technobabble and philosophical hand-wringing, ’cause it’s not. Continuum‘s true strength lies in the way it keeps the real drama personal, and the way it keeps a ridiculous number of storytelling balls in the air without ever losing its clarity—solidly-written police drama centered around Fonnegra’s department and its recurring encounters with Liber8, Kiera’s evolving friendship with Fonnegra, an engagingly ambiguous Liber8 traitor named Kellog (Stephen Lobo), the suspicions of the police department’s IT genius Betty Robertson, and the worrying similarities between Liber8 and the grassroots meetings run by Alec’s step-father Roland and surly step-brother Julian. The overarching plot is constantly evolving in ways that have made it pretty addictive, at least for me.

The ten-episode first season originally aired on Canada’s Showcase channel from May through August of last year. Eight of those episodes have aired on SyFy as of this writing, and the season will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 26. A second season will debut in Canada on April 21.

With its intelligent attention to its scientific conceits and a skillfully-wrought plot that is complex but clear, Continuum is definitely “real” science fiction, and it’s on our TVs now. Support good sci-fi on TV: Watch Continuum.

Please also check out artist Steven Mogck’s website found here, designer of this year’s Borgnine Night T-shirt.

But the celebration and all the fun and games went off as always, with such events as “Pin the Smile on Ernie”, the “Ernie look-alike contest”, and a reenactment of the Poseidon Adventure.

Mr. B’s son Cris stepped into his father’s shoes and called Tortilla Flats to chime in on the festivities, just like his father had done every year before.  Here are some photos from the 21st annual Borgnine Night:

Pin the smile on Ernie

One event is the Ernie coloring contest, which then go up on the walls and ceiling of Tortilla Flats

Another inventive Ernie coloring entry

Ernie masks

Yorkshire Girl’s creative addition to one Ernie mask

Tortilla Flats owner Andy with the MC getting the night started

Artist and Borgnine fan Steven Mogck takes part in the annual ‘Ernie look-alike contest’.

After Podwit Dion made it into the semi-finals and the top 3 in the look-alike contest, the tie breaker was slapping back a PBR tallboy (they gave the lady a 10 second start).

Performing my civic duty and doing Ernie right

And though technically Dion won, they gave it to the girl because she poured the beer all over herself…

So alas, another great Borgnine Night! The Podwits would like to thank owners Andy and Joanne at Tortilla Flats for being so gracious to us. We can’t wait for next year!

And please tune in for next week’s podcast for some soundbytes of EBXXI!

Remember Ernie!

And PLEASE check out our last installment, Cartoons, Cartoons, which highlighted the early days of animation from the early 20th century through the late 1950s.

(For further information about Frank Wells and the potential break-up of Disney’s animation department in the late 1980s, we encourage you to watch the splendid 2009 documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty.)

Who knew Mac has left the Phoenix Foundation and gotten into fixing air-conditioning units with his daughter Caitlin?  He is retired from the game, but like a lot of the people that had his lifestyle, the trouble finds MacGyver.

Like most people his age, MacGyver is a kind of bird-out-of-water with internet technology, and struggles with its incarnations, like email. Well, when he and his daughter go to service a private insurance company’s air-conditioning unit, they unknowingly stumble onto a Die Hard-like terrorist plot aimed at stealing secret hardware. And just like the old Mac, he is able to quickly make the best of his situation and save the day.

Like many American actors (most recently the hilarious Kevin Bacon adverts for England’s EE cellular network, found here, here, here, here, and… here), Europe and the Far East tend to be great places where they can become paid spokespeople for a product that many in the States don’t even know exist, and will then in turn become work that we will never even see over here (for the most extreme example of this, see Arnold’s 1990s series of Japanese commercials for… heck, I can’t even tell what; maybe some sort of energy drink? An example can be found here).

Richard Dean Anderson went to Germany for this new MacGyver installment to promote Mercedes-Benz’ new Citan car. The commercial was filmed in South Africa (the foreign license plates are a huge giveaway), and it premiered in September of last year overseas.

Like most MacGyver fans, we are highly skeptical and guarded about how Mac is used nowadays, and rightfully so (see MacGruber), but luckily the new project did have to be cleared with the show’s creator, Lee David Zlotoff, to make sure it was within the proper taste for the character.

But what can I say? It is pretty cool to see the Phoenix Foundation’s best agent back, and in fact, doing some pretty cool MacGyverisms. Though I don’t know how the idea that Mac is now just bumming around in his retirement as a bona fide handyman with his daughter sits with me, but at least the original framework is present, complete with MacGyver voiceover. Remember, the last time we saw MacGyver in action, was the 2006 MasterCard “Priceless” Super Bowl commercial—found here—which, let’s face it, was pretty cool.

Since it took 13 years after the original series ended to see some new MacGyver material with Anderson in it, and then another seven to get more, we fans have to be happy (hell, it took over ten years for the series to even make it to home video, specifically a special-feature-less DVD).

A feature film is reportedly in the works and it is rumored that Australian director James Wan, known for the first four Saw films, is set to direct, and thankfully he became interested in the project because he was a huge film of the original ’80s series. So, fingers crossed.

Check out the Mercedes-Benz MacGyver flick below, and for the latest MacGyver news check out the official site, MacGyver Online.

Check out these sweet links from this week’s podcast:

Hindi Superman - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuvWdZ3SJuQ&wide=1

Turkish Superman - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8OXdDFWm0

Turkish Star Wars - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpq2n6eNytQ

Turkish Star Trek - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA1mSa-Jza8

Hardware Wars - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ymFxkFfIhU

Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEkW4es9okU

Yep, the ‘Wits got issues, and conspiracy theories, and neuroses to spare. You can’t beat ‘em, so come join ‘em in this latest Podwits Podcast!

(Oh, and click here to contribute to the Kickstarter campaign for Jon Schnepp’s Superman Lives documentary.)

Like I said, you may not even be able to watch them now because you’ve worn them out, but its an interesting exercise to see what you come up with. I just finished mine and put a little reason why below each, which makes it even more fun.
Maybe the other Wits-of-Pod will take part, and we can see who has what on their lists, and finally understand why they are the way they are…

Well here they are. In no particular order:

 

1. Sorcerer (1977)
Here’s the plot: A small desolate town tugged in the armpit of Hell located in South America, is a haven for the world’s criminals, outlaws and any other riff-raff that are on the lam and looking to just disappear, except for one problem: once you get there, you do not have the money ever to leave. So when an American oil derrick explodes 200 miles away, scores of men line up eager to drive two trucks across a tropical rainforest, carrying a very unstable cargo of nitro needed to blast the oil rig closed; all the while awaiting certain death from any bump in the road the unsettles their precious load.

 

This gem of a film was a remake of what was called the ‘most suspenseful film of all time‘, the French classic Wages of Fear, and was directed by William Friedkin, which followed up his hugely successfully film The Exorcist.  It starred Roy Scheider and friend to the Podwits, Randy Jurgensen. Sadly, Sorcerer completed tanked at the box office due to the fact that it opened the same weekend as Star Wars, and because people expected to see another horror film on par with Friedkin’s last classic (as well as the title suggested some sort of fantasy genre film, but instead was just the name on the side of one of the trucks).

 

The movie really scared me as a kid and I didn’t know what it was called until I was a sophomore in college, and finally tracked it down. This story really grabbed my attention, even though I must have been 5 or 6 when I first viewed it and followed the storyline completely. For years, I was haunted by the mean-looking-converted-army truck trying to cross this dilapidated, ancient rope bridge which hangs over a river, during a tropical storm saddled with unstable nitro. The truck see-saws literally on a 45 degree angle because of the wind, while the ropes are beginning to break and the rain is streaming down… gives me goose bumps to this day.

 

2. The Muppet Movie (1979)

The plot: Kermit the frog, determined to get to Hollywood and make it big, embarks on a cross-country journey that leads him to other fun people (and muppets) that he picks up along the way that also share his dream.

 

 

This was probably one of the first movies I ever saw, and it taught me about comedy and is the one that made me want to make movies. I instantly saw my purpose in life because of Kermit, and immediately wanted to get the quote “standard rich and famous contract” from Orson Welles; and make people laugh, and make millions of people happy.

 

3. The Untouchables (1987)

The Plot: 4 Treasury officers led by Elliot Ness, take on the Al Capone and the corruption that was modern Chicago in the roaring 1920′s.

 

This really opened my eyes to the time period of ‘the Probihition‘, the gangster film, and overall, the gangster as a genre. Because of that, I was seven years old and reading about Frank Nitti, Dion O’Banion and Hemi Weiss, and then seeking out James Cagney movies.

 

4. Dirty Harry (1971)
The Plot: The film that spawned sequels, imitations and practically an entire genre, centers around maverick Inspector Harry Callahan going up against a crazed serial killer sniper (alla Zodiac) named Scorpio, who targets the people of San Francisco.

 

The first movie I saw Eastwood in that made me really take interest in his films was Escape From Alcatraz. But this was the film that became the symbol for the no non-sense action star for me while I was in my teens. He opened my mind to contemporary issues that can be discussed in cinema, like race or political correctness. While others my age were watching Sly and Arnold, Clint was my man.

 

5. The Last Man on Earth (1964)

The Plot: The first adaptation of Richard Matheson’s masterpiece I am Legend, we have the brilliant Vincent Price as the lone survivor of a plague which has turned the earth’s population into zombie/vampires, who descend upon his house daily after nightfall to badger and drive him mad for being the last one left.

 

This Vincent Price classic along with John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing (’82), really scared the shit out of me. I remember watching it and not being able to take my eyes off the screen. It introduced me toVincent Price, who’d I’d only known at the time for the Michael Jackson Thriller rap. And boy was it scary!! (SPOILER) The scene after his wife dies and he goes to the top of the mountain where they are burning all the infected bodies to retrieve his daughter’s body, which was taken to burn, is frightening; all the men have gas masks on throwing bodies in the fire from big army trucks. Then only to go home and have his dead wife trying to get into the front door- the reaction on Price’s face when he opens the door and realizes it’s his dead zombie/vampire wife -will stay with me till the day I die.

 

6. The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Plot: Psychopath preacher and widow killer Harry Powell terrorizes two children to get at a large sum of money was hidden by their bank-robber father, with only the 2 children to know exactly where.

 

 

The first movie I really took notice of the cinematography, lighting and shot composition. I saw this with my father when I was about 13, and it was like my Citizen Kane realization, where I suddenly understood all these things that can be done to enhance the narrative in a way to intrigue the audience. Along with James Cagney’s White Heat, which I saw around the same time, it really opened my eyes to the psychological maniac. This was also the only movie directed by the legendary actor Charles Laughton, and though it was received poorly when it was released, it proved to be quite ahead of it’s time and had deservedly found it’s place in cult status.

 

7. Transformers the Movie (1987)

Plot: A large robotic planet that feasts on smaller planets, suddenly appears and threatens to wreak havoc in the cosmos, and once again pits the Autobots against the Decepticons in the future of the galaxy.

 

This and the G.I.Joe franchise were such big influences on me as a child. I played with them watched every episode on TV and tried to collect every toy I could without ultimately breaking them. This was such a huge event when this came out in the theaters, and with (SPOILER ALERT) Optimus Prime dying in it, the scope of the entire movie really blew my mind and reinforced my obsession with toys and childhood, which I’ve tried still not to lose. The sequence where Megatron is jettisoned and gets a new body from Orson Welles’ “Unicron” for me,  is one of the greatest scenes in cinema history (Mr. Welles last film as well).

 

8. The Black Hole (1979)

Plot:A long-lost spaceship is discovered on the outskirts of a black hole, and the small crew that stumbles upon it tries to uncover the answers as to what happened to it and it’s crew.

 

(SPOILER ALERT) A Disney movie that goes to Hell at the end! A zombie crew, Tony Perkins being viciously murdered by a menacing seven-foot tall robot and Ernest Borgnine rounding out the cast (proving once again that no matter how expositionary dialogue can be, he can make it as believable and emotionally stirring as Shakespeare)! Brilliant special effects for its time, and some of the best matte painting by Harrison and Peter Ellenshaw (more mattes than Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back combined). I still love making some Jiffy-Pop and curling up on the couch once a year and giving it a pass. And let’s not forget John Barry’s amazing theme that plays out over the opening credits, which by the way has the first CGI animation in a film. This film also introduced me the patron of the Podwits, Mr. Borgnine.

 

9. The Terminator (1984)

The Plot: An evil cyborg comes back from the future to killer the mother of the child that will grow up and become the leader of the human existence in a post-apocalyptic machine dominated world.

 

This was really the first action movie I fully fell in love with, the very moment I saw it. It was just so amazing and interesting; the FXs, the action, the characters and story, it really fascinated me. My dad taped it the night it premiered on HBO and I had it on a tape book-ended with The Karate Kid and Commando (which had taped over Empire Strikes Back, so when Commando would finish, the tape would come out to Vader stealing Han’s gun away in Cloud City; an amazing mix), So as soon as I watched it, I took the tape, watched it over and over again, and brought it around the neighborhood for every other kid to see. Me at 6, pushing a hardcore R rated movie. Priceless.

 

10. A Night to Remember (1958)

The Plot: In a docudrama style, the film follows the story of the RMS Titanic maiden voice into history.

 

When the Titanic was discovered, I immediately took an interest and started researching as much as I could about the subject; well as much as a 6 years old can. So the first movie my parents showed me on the subject was this one (quickly followed by Raise the Titanic, which is also a classic in my mind). But this confirmed what would become my fascination with the ship, it’s story and its faithful night. The narrative is done superbly, and really follows Sir Walter Lord’s book to of the same name. This movie I think really made me comfortable with black & white movies as well, because I learned about pacing and story and realized film’s weren’t always about comedy, action or horror. Story and dialogue were just as big of a setup as the latter devices are used in other films to move along the narrative.

 

So there you go. My list of 10 films that changed my life.

 

But what about you? Could you make a list of 10 movies that influenced you growing up? Here lies the Podwits challenge: Make a list of 10 films that shaped you, and post them below of email to us at podwits@podwits.com. Let’s see what you can come up with and what’s on your list. We can maybe even get the other Podwits and contributors to compile a list as well, and see what helped aid in warping their young impressionable minds. Could lead to some great discussions!

In the late ’60s and early ’70s, in a musical sweet spot somewhere between the compositional ambition and bombastic excess of progressive rock, the experimental weirdness of early jazz fusion, and the liquid light-fueled freak-outs of psychedelia, there existed a unique group of bands centered around the cathedral town of Canterbury in southeastern England.

United more by a spirit and an aesthetic approach than by a distinctly recognizable musical style, the “Canterbury scene” encompassed a handful of core groups, with a number of other bands later coming into their orbit through personnel or musical links.

I’ll be devoting several columns to this unusual blend of rock attitude, jazz improvisation, British whimsy and avant-garde artistic innovation. First up, I’ll introduce you to my favorite of the bunch, Caravan.

The whole Canterbury scene was descended from a single pop combo called the Wilde Flowers, who gigged extensively in the Canterbury area in the mid-1960s, but didn’t release any recordings. They broke up in 1967, with two bands coalescing out of the remains: Caravan and the Soft Machine. (I’ll get to the Softs in my next column.)

Caravan’s original lineup. L to R: Hastings, D. Sinclair, R. Sinclair, Coughlan.

All four of Caravan’s original members (guitarist/vocalist Pye Hastings, keyboardist David Sinclair, bassist/vocalist Richard Sinclair and drummer Richard Coughlan) had been in the Wilde Flowers. Their 1968 self-titled debut was one of the last rock records released by Verve Records before it shuttered its rock/pop division to focus on jazz. Caravan was not just a solid and very enjoyable piece of late-’60s rock, but showcases the distinct appeal of Caravan right from the outset.

Check out “A Place of My Own”, which was many folks’ first exposure to Caravan by dint of being both the album’s first track and the lead single. The verse is quite pastoral, dominated by Hastings’ ethereal, reedy vocals and light guitar strumming, with the wonderfully catchy chorus getting only slightly more forceful. But then, at 1:30, the song flows quite naturally into something very different. The following minute—a full quarter of the song!—is actually pretty heavy (by 1968 standards), with Richard Sinclair and Coughlan laying down the kind of funky boogie that would be Caravan’s favorite platform for jamming over the next several years. It grooves, it cooks, and once Dave Sinclair’s organ starts its solo proper (at 1:45), it’s a kind of music you won’t find anywhere else. Too jazzy for rock, too groovy for psychedelia, too ballsy for jazz. Only Caravan sounds like this.

And that was just the opening salvo.

They soon got signed to Decca’s Deram Records label, and a slew of unforgettable albums followed. One Caravan trademark that soon appeared in their repertoire was the multi-part jam suite. Instead of slotting the solo between the bridge and the third verse the way a traditional pop song would do, they made the instrumental sections huge and segmented, changing the groove every few minutes to keep things moving, with vocal sections present only as bookends or accents. My favorite example of such a track is “Can’t Be Long Now / Françoise / For Richard / Warlock” from 1970′s If I Could Do It All Over Again, I’d Do It All Over You. Much like “A Place of My Own,” it starts out with a floating, song-like part featuring Hastings’ guitar and vocals, but three and a half minutes in it moves into a propulsive, pounding jam, with Dave Sinclair and Hastings’ brother Jimmy, a saxophonist and flutist, trading off funky, bluesy solos for more than ten minutes.

At least one such track would also appear on each of Caravan’s next four albums.

In addition to the pastoral vocal bits and the stomping organ jams, Caravan also had a uniquely English sense of humor that manifested itself in their occasionally elaborate album titles and in the songs themselves. As an example, check out “Golf Girl”, the lead track from 1971′s In the Land of Grey and Pink featuring the whimsical lyrics and vocals of Richard Sinclair (and, of course, another slammin’ organ solo by Dave Sinclair):

The inevitable personnel changes did little to blunt Caravan’s sound, at least for a while. In 1971, Dave Sinclair was the first to leave, forming Matching Mole with drummer Robert Wyatt of the Soft Machine. Sinclair’s organ had been, arguably, Caravan’s lead instrument up to that time, and his replacement Steve Miller (no, not that Steve Miller; this one had played piano for another Canterbury band called Delivery) favored the electric piano to the organ, so a certain change in sound and direction was perhaps inevitable. But despite the slightly jazzier turn the band took on their 1972 album Waterloo Lily, everything I love about Caravan was still on display. Listen to the transition from the bright, cheery chorus melody to the swaggering, funky jam at 1:16 on “Songs and Signs”:

While seemingly incremental from this perspective, that new musical direction caused tensions that nearly broke up the band. Miller and Richard Sinclair soon departed, but Dave Sinclair returned to the fold, now with synthesizers as part of his arsenal. Along with a violist (!) named Geoffrey Richardson and a succession of short-lived bass players, Caravan carried on. The last of their truly classic albums, For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night, came out in 1973. The album opens with a blast of guitar-driven funk rock in “Memory Lain, Hugh / Headloss”, signaling a new and settled musical direction alongside characteristically “Caravan”-ish songs and grooving jam suites. No song from the album showcases the new mix of “classic” Caravan and their new forward-looking direction than the brilliant “The Dog, the Dog, He’s at It Again”:

The follow-up, 1975′s Cunning Stunts, found the musical zeitgeist of the decade overtaking Caravan. While it still offered some enjoyable music, the band had moved further down the guitar-rock path and tried uncomfortably (and unsuccessfully) to incorporate the R&B and proto-disco influences that were prevalent in the pop-rock mainstream at that time. And sadly, it was all downhill from there. Dave Sinclair left again in 1975, leaving Hastings (and his folky pop/rock predilections) as the creative force in the band, and the Decca contract also ended. Hastings and Coughlin, with a varied supporting cast, soldiered on through three further uninspired, unsuccessful albums, a short-lived reunion of the original lineup in 1982 (resulting in the album Back to Front), and finally called it quits in 1985. A decade later, Caravan reformed, and a variety of lineups have released a couple of new albums (The Battle of Hastings in 1995 and The Unauthorised Breakfast Item in 2003) and been mainstays of the nostalgia tour circuit.

But those first six studio albums (Caravan through Cunning Stunts) stand as an enduring legacy of amazing music that has just gotten better on each listen for me. If you’re a fan of the famous bands of the late ’60s and early ’70s that had an adventurous streak—like, say, the Doors or Jefferson Airplane or Pink Floyd—give Caravan’s unique marriage of jazzy and heavy music a try and see if it doesn’t enchant you as well.

I appreciate Star Trek for what it is.  A fantastic look at a future that we should aspire to shrouded in fascinating stories told by a team whose dedication shines through.  Some have criticized the original Star Trek for it’s lackluster special effects and “Christmas tree light” sets.  I have said before that these people are, for lack of a better word, imbeciles.  The special effects of Star Trek were cutting-edge for the time (remembering that up until that point, most spaceships flew on wires and had smoke jutting out of the back).  The sets were equally impressive for their time.

Another bit of Trek that gets the short end of the critical stick is the music.  Often the unsung hero of the original series, the music is as much a part of the show as the famous starship itself or the Vulcan first officer.

15-Disc Set Available Now From La La Land Records (Click to Enlarge)

La La Land Records has finally decided to fulfill the wishes of original series fans throughout the world by releasing their 15-disc limited edition box set of ALL of the music from the original Star Trek.  As would be expected, I plunked down my money THE MINUTE the set went on sale and received my copy a few weeks ago.  It has taken until now for me to write this review because I wanted to give the set my full attention.  Fifteen discs is a lot to get through.  And while I won’t go through the whole set track-by-track, I will walk you through the wonder that is the music of Star Trek.  And for those who may feel that a 15-disc set is a bit much for a show that was only on the air for three years… it should be noted that, in this author’s opinion, the music written for Star Trek accounts for some of the best music written for a television show in the history of television.  It can be, at times, heartfelt… rousing… romantic… and action-packed.

The set is handsomely packaged and is separated into its respective seasons.  Each season gets 5 discs and a booklet that gives you the flavor of that season’s music.  The season booklets unfortunately don’t take you track-by-track the way you might expect from your standard liner notes, but give you a brief episode synopsis and a general idea of what the musical tone for the episode was.  The set also has an additional booklet of liner notes which paints the history of Star Trek‘s music and gives insight into each of the composers involved.

The original GNP Crescendo release of the music from “The Cage”/”Where No Man Has Gone Before”

The set begins, predictably enough, with the first season, and disc one is the music from the two pilots “The Cage” and “Where No Man Has Gone Before”.  The soundtracks for both these episodes have been released many years ago on LP by GNP Crescendo and reissued as a CD.  That release PALES in comparison to this new release.  At the time of the LP’s pressing it was claimed that a fire at Paramount had damaged the masters for the music to these episodes.  This excuse was used to cover not only the fact that the sound quality was not all that great, but that there was a lot of music missing from these episodes.

While that theory is not addressed in this set, it seems to be debunked by the fact that the music appears in all its crystal brilliance AND in it’s entirety.  As I have mentioned before, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was originally formatted differently than your standard Trek episode and was presented to the network in ‘act form’ (as were many shows at the time, like The Fugitive).  This presentation required music that was not present in the final broadcast version.  The new soundtrack restores all of these pieces and expands the musical journey of the episode nicely.

For the next four discs we’re treated to music from “The Man Trap”, “The Naked Time”, “Charlie X”, “Mudd’s Women”, “The Corbomite Maneuver”, “Balance of Terror”, “What Are Little Girls Made Of”, “The Enemy Within”, “The Conscience of the King”, “Shore Leave” and “The City on the Edge of Forever”.  Star Trek was known for using a method called “tracking”.  This was a process by which music for one episode could be used over and over for other episodes at the discretion of the music department.  As such, these episodes not only had the music for the first season, but they laid the groundwork of music that would be used throughout the show’s entire run; music that would be indelibly imprinted on the viewer’s mind.

The GNP Crescendo release of “The Doomsday Machine”/”Amok Time”

Season two picks up with music from “Catspaw”, “Friday’s Child”, “Amok Time”, “The Doomsday Machine”, “Who Mourns for Adonais”, “Mirror, Mirror”, “By Any Other Name”, “The Omega Glory”, “Metamorphosis”, “Return to Tomorrow”, “Patterns of Force”, “The Apple”, “Wolf in the Fold”, “I Mudd” and “The Trouble with Tribbles”.  Again, “Amok Time” and “The Doomsday Machine” were previously released by GNP Crescendo but, also again, that was NOTHING compared to this new release.  Music that was originally trimmed has been reinserted and the music has been reorganized to more precisely reflect its use in the episode.

Here is where some of the best music in Trek’s run is born.  You know that fight music that everyone likes to use?  The one that was even used in “The Cable Guy”?  It comes from “Amok Time”.  Most of the exciting/action music that was used in the rest of the show’s run came from “The Doomsday Machine”.  And you will not find a greater romantic score for television (pound for pound) than George Duning’s score for “Metamorphosis”.

Rerecorded Orchestral Suites of season 3 music by Fred Steiner were previously available

The third season set gives us music from “”Spectre of the Gun”, “The Paradise Syndrome”, “Elaan of Troyius”, “Spock’s Brain”, “The Enterprise Incident”, “Plato’s Stepchildren”, “Whom Gods Destroy”, “The Way To Eden”, “Is There In Truth No Beauty”, “The Empath”, “Requiem for Methuselah”, “And The Children Shall Lead” and “The Savage Curtain”.  This is an introduction of sorts to this music, as La La Land is quick to point out that NO third season music has ever been made available before.  This is mostly true.  Symphonic re-recordings of the music have been available since the ’80s at least, but they are a far cry from the original.  The music for episodes like “Spectre of the Gun”, “Is There in Truth No Beauty”  and “The Empath” have been available as orchestral suites.  Here, for the first time, they are presented in their original frenetic madness and soulful feeling.

Each season is also accompanied by a collection of “library music” which was composed for use throughout the season.  The second season’s “Fight on Captain’s Theme” was a great companion piece of fight music that appeared in such episodes as “By Any Other Name” and “Journey to Babel”.  ”Ship in Orbit (Big)” started more episodes than I can think of off the top of my head.  In fact, the most fun of this set is finally being able to learn where the music that you love came from—which episode it was written for.

And herein lies probably the greatest disappointment about the set, though hardly something for which the folks at La La Land can be held accountable:  While you will hear EVERY piece of music from the show in its original form, it’s perfectly possible that you may have fallen in love with it in a DIFFERENT form.  For example, take the climactic scene from the episode “Obsession”.

A killer cloud is bearing down on Captain Kirk and Ensign Garrovick as they lay a trap in the form of a massive bomb.  The tension builds as the two crewmen have to use themselves for bait for the trap.  At the last possible second, the trap is tripped and the two men are beamed up to the ship, but all is not as easy as that.  The explosion has messed with the transporter, and Spock and Scotty are having trouble beaming them back.  The music for this scene is as dynamic as the action that takes place.  Unfortunately, the music was written for “The Doomsday Machine” and taken from a few different tracks.  And so, if you’re looking for this particular piece of music in this form… you’re out of luck.  Kind of.

A little time and creativity can bring you what you really want.  Don’t believe me?  If you’re truly a fan and know what I’m talking about, take a listen to this sample that I put together that follows the original as close as I can:

And, to be honest, I whipped that together with the original release of the soundtrack and not the new one.

How about one more, while I’m showing off?  At the end of the episode “Balance of Terror”, Kirk visits a young officer in the ship’s chapel.  She has just lost her fiance in battle.  In fact, their wedding at the beginning of the episode was interrupted by the crisis at hand.  Kirk has gone to try to console her.  The music for this scene was cobbled together from bits from “The Cage”.  Here I present to you the music from the scene in “Balance of Terror”:

My point is that now we, as fans, have everything we need to hear the music we love the way we loved it.  It’s not that hard.  And it’s worth it all.

Yes, there is some repetition in the use of certain musical themes within certain scores.  The Romulan music from season 1′s “Balance of Terror” was reworked for use in season 2′s “Mirror, Mirror” as part of the “Blackship Theme”.  Astute listeners, however, will pick up on various minute differences in orchestration the second time around.  Minor bits from season 1′s “Mudd’s Women” were integrated into the larger tapestry of music for season 2′s “Who Mourns for Adonais?”.  Again, the way the music is used almost makes you forget that you heard it before.

There is a lot of repetition in this set as that cues that were reused from season to season had to be rerecorded in order to be used.  As such, you do get a few pieces over and over again.  Once again, it is the way that different composers interpreted these tracks that make them viable despite the repetition.

And, we should be clear about something… If you don’t like the THEME to Star Trek, than this set is not for you.  Evidently, it was an editorial edict on the show that some variation of the theme be played whenever the Enterprise is shown on screen for an establishing shot.  While this wasn’t necessarily done 100% of the time, we’re presented with enough variations on the theme in this set that if you’re not a fan, it will drive you a bit bonkers.

Much like the Star Trek: The Motion Picture 3-Disc set that I reviewed here before, we’re also treated to an incredible set of firsts.  Chief among them is the first time that the theme was played by an orchestra.  The opening strains sound a little off, but as you hear the takes unfold, the theme takes on the shape we all know by heart.  You also get a little bit of insight into the creation of the show’s famous transporter sound effect.

In all, the set is everything we could ever have asked for as fans.  The music, brilliantly written and performed, is so integral to the program that it does what only the best scores can.  It makes you want to see the show again.  The music alone is like the blanket you had as a child.  Not only is it comforting, but it takes you back to that special time in your life.

The liner notes are chock full of so many insightful goodies that I won’t spoil them here.  Though you may be surprised to learn that the man who wrote the theme to I Love Lucy also had his hand in the Star Trek musical universe.

Limited to only 6000 units, you will have to act fast if you want to join the aural adventure.  And for a price of $224.98, it’s certainly not cheap.  Though given what you get, I have no problem saying that it DEFINITELY is a bargain.

All screen grabs courtesy of Trek Core

You may know him from films like Dog Day Afternoon, The Sting, Tootsie, The Final Countdown, O Brother Where Art Thou? and The Muppet Movie; or most recently on TV as the crotchety father to Dennis Leary in Rescue Me or as Peter Griffin’s dad in Family Guy. For a man who didn’t step in front of a camera until he was past 40, he earned over 200 credits on the stage, television, and the silver screen.

But like other Podwit profiles, we are not here to discuss his lengthy resume as a thespian, but instead his life leading up to his segue into the career that put his name on the map. It’s wild, unbelievable, frightening and sad, but as the old adage goes, sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.

Durning with Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon

Durning was born into poverty in upstate New York in 1923 and was one of ten children. His mother was a laundress for West Point, and his father an Irish immigrant and a disabled veteran who lost his leg in combat and was sickened from exposure to mustard gas in the First World War. He passed away in 1939, when Charles was 16. Five of his sisters did not survive childhood, dying from smallpox and scarlet fever, three of them within two weeks.

He got his first taste of acting as an usher at a theater in Buffalo, volunteering to take the stage in place of a performer who showed up too drunk to go on—and said that was when the acting bug first bit him. Though audiences were used to his rather large frame and bell-like stomach because they didn’t get to know him until he was in his 50s, it is little known that early on he was actually a dance instructor, and would fall back on those skills when he couldn’t find work. He also practiced judo in the 1940s, long before it was generally popular in the States.

He was even, briefly, a professional prizefighter and actually shared a card with actor Jack Warden one night at Madison Square Garden.

Durning with Steve McQueen in the largely unknown Enemy of the People

Then Durning was drafted and entered World War II, and with it a chapter in his life he would seldom discuss. It wasn’t until recent years that it became widely known.

He was with the first wave who landed on Omaha Beach during the Normandy Invasion and was a witness to the slaughter that happened on those beaches on June 6, 1944. He recounted:

 This guy in the boat, he turned to me and he threw up all over me, and I got seasick. He was scared. You’re not thinking about anything, you’re just thinking about, you hope that shell that just went off isn’t going to hit this boat. Even the guys who had seen a lot of action before, and this was my first time, they were just as ashen as I was, and I was frightened to death. I was the second man off my barge and the first and third men got killed. First guy the ramp went down, the guy fell and I tried to leap over him and I stumbled and we both slipped into the water. We were supposed to be able to walk into shore but they didn’t bring us far enough. And I was in 60 feet of water with a 60 pound pack on, so I let it all go…

…I came up and I didn’t have a helmet, a rifle, nothing. I hit the beach, the guys pulled me in who were already there, I’d lost everything; but they said ‘you’ll find plenty of them on the beach, rifles, helmets, that belong to nobody’. Nobody knew where we were supposed to go, there was nobody in charge, you were on your own. All around me people were being shot at, I saw bodies all over the place; but you didn’t know if they were alive or dead, they were just lying there… 

….We got behind this tank to protect ourselves; we’re holding our own when they called us over to them. I asked the sergeant ‘you want me to go first or you go first?’ He said ‘you go first, I’ll be right behind you’. I heard an explosion, and I turned around, and his torso was here, and his body was over there.”

Nine days after the invasion, Durning was wounded by a mine and evacuated to a hospital in England with shrapnel in his head, chest, right hand and both thighs. He recovered and was deemed fit for duty and was sent back (by glider!) on December 6 of that year, just in time for the final counterassault against Hitler’s new Tiger tank divisions that ended up a turning point in the war—the Battle of the Bulge.

While trapped in the Ardennes Forest, his company was captured by the SS and forced to march into a field at Malmedy, where the Germans then opened fire on close to 90 American prisoners, killing most in the process. The Malmedy Massacre as it was to be called, was dramatized in the underrated 2003 film Soldiers and Saints. Only a handful of prisoners escaped, Durning included.

Durning along with a young Lance Henrikson in Dog Day Afternoon

If all that was not enough, in his last few years Durning related the heart-wrenching story of crossing a field and encountering a young German who could not have been older than 15, carrying a rifle and bayonet. Durning said he froze at that moment because, to him, this was only a child and he could not open fire. A struggle ensued where Durning was stabbed seven to nine times, until he was able to pick up the closet weapon—a rock—and hit the German soldier in the head until he was dead. He said he then just sat there with the boy in his lap for an unknown period of time and cried.

He finished out the war and was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, three Purple Hearts, the World War II Victory Medal and eventually, in 2008, the National Order of the Legion of Honor Award, for serving with distinction in France.

But he would never speak of any of this.

He came home and was treated for “shell-shock,” like most vets at the time, and released. Even up until the 1990s, when asked about his World War II service, he would politely decline because, he’d say, they weren’t there to see him cry.

After the war, he endured a decade of obscurity, where he took odd jobs including cab driver, boxer, dishwasher and doorman. He taught ballroom dancing, something that would lead him to his future wife; all the while getting a small part on stage here or there.

O Brother Where Art Thou?

And it was not until the early 1960s, when Durning was in his early 40s, that he joined the New York Public Theater and started to get more parts, which eventually got him noticed. And the rest is history.

So the next time you are watching When a Stranger Calls,  The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Dick Tracy or Mel Brooks’ To Be or Not to Be, and you see the jovial, boisterous, round-bellied character actor Charles Durning come onto the screen, you can stare in astonishment, because he made it all just seem so darn easy.

That singularly awesome part of the science fiction universe known as “space opera” is currently enjoying something of a renaissance, thanks to the extravagantly imaginative novels of writers like Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, and Peter F. Hamilton. Adding morally ambiguous verisimilitude to their widescreen-worthy concepts and imagery, these writers have made it once more acceptable (and profitable) to tell sweeping tales of empires that span star systems and the nifty ships that traverse the countless light-years between them.

But while those works have been pushing space opera in increasingly massive (and occasionally incomprehensible) directions, Lois McMaster Bujold has co-opted the forms and flavors of the genre for her long-running Vorkosigan Saga, which manages to retain the epic grandiosity and exciting adventure of its science-fiction roots while keeping the focus of its storytelling on a much more human scale. The end product is a series that has stayed consistently, addictively readable through fifteen novels (so far) and six shorter works.

When I tell you that the series is centered around a manic depressive dwarf named Miles Vorkosigan, you might wonder, “What kind of hero is that?” Trust me when I tell you that Miles is one of the most appealing creations in all of science fiction, and his sizeable supporting cast isn’t far behind.

While Miles is the putative main character of the series, starring in ten of the fifteen novels and appearing in most of the others, the series actually begins in Shards of Honor (first published in 1986) with the love story of Miles’ parents.

Cordelia Naismith is captaining a survey ship from the egalitarian Beta Colony when an attack on her exploration party maroons her with Lord Aral Vorkosigan, an infamous military leader from the feudal, socially stratified planet Barrayar. While their respective homeworlds have gone to war with each other, the experiences Cordelia and Aral share will affect that war greatly, and the two supposed enemies wind up marrying.

But their life as Lord and Lady Vorkosigan on Barrayar is disrupted again by war when the death of the Barrayaran emperor leads to a free-for-all scramble for the throne. In the course of that conflict, a very pregnant Cordelia is caught in a chemical attack, and as a result Miles Naismith Vorkosigan is born with physical defects (brittle bones and stunted growth) that will shape his eventful life.

Regarded (erroneously) as a mutant by the virulently purist Barrayarans, who are generally horrified that the scion of one of Barrayar’s most important families is not a strapping portrait of manly manhood, Miles encounters a lot of obstacles merely growing up. Despite everything, he believes that his gifted intellect will allow him to follow in his father’s footsteps and earn glory in the Barrayaran military. Needless to say, the Barrayaran military has other ideas.

His mother’s side isn’t much help—being raised largely within Barrayar’s militaristic, tradition-heavy culture has left Miles equally incompatible with the liberal, open society of Beta Colony.

So Miles has little choice but to make his own place in the universe. In the process, he’s going to make and lose many friends and many enemies, get into insane amounts of trouble with alarming (and entertaining) regularity, and find himself in over his head in more than one history-making event.

One of the nice things about the Vorkosigan Saga is that, while it certainly doesn’t skimp on the storytelling popcorn, it also manages to have Something To Say, mostly about duty and one’s relationship with where one comes from. Each novel slips plenty of food for thought in with the zip and zing. It doesn’t say anything facile or cliché on those topics either—Miles is, wonderfully, a fully-realized character whose feelings about his heritage and his future are complicated, utterly believable and, as presented by the very talented Bujold, easy for the reader to connect with. He’s given to bouts of morose introspection, savage sarcasm, and acts of huge self-sacrifice. Repeatedly, Miles weighs how easy it would be to leave “doing the right thing” to other people, against the list of existential strikes against him already, and we the readers get pulled inexorably along on his moral, psychological and social journeys.

Like I said, though, I don’t want to mislead you into thinking that this is all mopey, college-professor character study. It’s not. All that lovely character development and human insight is woven deftly into solidly entertaining stories full of space battles, political intrigue and skulduggery, crazy plans that just might work, romantic entanglements aplenty, and big ol’ space opera set pieces. A tense mystery involving a dead baby in a Barrayaran backwoods village? Check. Miles impersonating a mercenary leader, getting himself and his friends neck-deep in a weapon smuggling operation in a war zone? Sure. Three different empires staring each other down over a lucrative wormhole nexus, while a criminal conspiracy seeks to exploit the conflict for filthy lucre? You bet!

The books have been consistently successful. Four have been on the New York Times bestseller list, with Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance debuting at #16 this past November. And the series’ success isn’t just commercial—three of the Vorkosigan novels have the Hugo award—The Vor Game in 1991, Barrayar in 1992, and Mirror Dance in 1995—and Falling Free won the equally prestigious Nebula award in 1988, with even more of them landing on nomination short lists.

So give yourself the gift of spaceships, high adventure, and human drama: read the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold.

An important note on the reading order, based on my own experience:

The Vorkosigan novels were written and published out of order with regards to their internal chronology. Many sources, including Bujold herself, advise newcomers to the series to read them in order of their internal chronology, rather than the order of their publication. I’d agree with that advice, with one caveat: Technically, the short story “Dreamweaver’s Dilemma” and the novel Falling Free come first, since both are set centuries before the events of Miles Vorkosigan’s life, but I personally think it’s much better to get involved with our main cast of characters before diverting to the deep past. So, click that link and follow that order, but start with Shards of Honor and save Falling Free for later on. Or better yet, get Baen Books’ recent omnibus editions, which place the books in what I’d consider an almost ideal order:

• Cordelia’s Honor — collects Shards of Honor (1986) and Barrayar (1991)
• Young Miles — collects The Warrior’s Apprentice (1986), The Vor Game (1990) and the novella “The Mountains of Mourning” (Analog, May 1989)
• Miles, Mystery & Mayhem — collects Cetaganda (1996), Ethan of Athos (1986), and the novella “Labyrinth” (Analog, August 1989)
• Miles Errant — collects Brothers in Arms (1989), Mirror Dance (1994), and the novella “Borders of Infinity” (Free Lancers, Baen Books 1987)
• Miles in Love — collects Komarr (1998), A Civil Campaign (1999), and the novella “Winterfair Gifts” (Irresistible Forces, New American Library 2004)
• Miles, Mutants & Microbes — collects Falling Free (1988) and Diplomatic Immunity (2002), and for some reason reprints “Labyrinth”

Memory—inexplicably excluded from the omnibus editions despite being terrific—fits nicely between Miles Errant and Miles in Love, with two newer novels—Cryoburn and Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance—being the most recent of Miles’ adventures.

Enjoy!

Review by Luke Whitmire

Twenty five years ago in the genesis of her career, a young Kathryn Bigelow was a protege to a high caliber filmmaker (James Cameron), and she soon became a great visionary for directing big-budget action films. She started her career as a filmmaker whose work consisted only in the artifice realm. Her first big studio film was the heart-pumping Point Break that solidified her as a prolific artist who could devise a compelling and provocative story. What was so alluring about her new existence in the realm of Hollywood was the fact that she was a woman who had a zeal and a creative eye for high-octane, big spectacle cinema. Bigelow soon joined the ranks of other big Hollywood male directors.

If there’s specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can’t change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies. It’s irrelevant who or what directed a movie, the important thing is that you either respond to it or you don’t. There should be more women directing; I think there’s just not the awareness that it’s really possible. It is.”

                            -Kathryn Bigelow

In 2009 Bigelow’s  The Hurt Locker won Best Picture and she became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director, the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing, the BAFTA Award for Best Direction, and the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Director. She also became the first woman to win the Saturn Award for Best Director in 1995 for Strange Days. In 2010 she was honored to be on the Time’s 100 list of most influential people of the year.

Bigelow really electrified audiences and critics with The Hurt Locker, an American military war film about a three-man explosive ordinance (bomb) disposal team during the Iraq war. The film would be hailed by the critical elite as the best action film of 2009 and the best war film of the decade for its intelligence, testosterone-fueled action, well structured suspense and the complex visceral projection of the protagonist. We see a different kind of hero, not a hero in the conventional sense. Instead of hyperbole violence, frenetic action scenes and glorified speeches, we get authentic characters with real emotion and heart. Bigelow establishes characters who the audience can relate with. The Hurt Locker turned Bigelow into a new kind of action director, a director who defied a genre.

Now with Zero Dark Thirty, Bigelow has completely stripped all artifice from her style, and has molded a film from a procedural approach. Her approach feels unvarnished, accurate and has an integrity that is uncompromising. It delivers a wonderful visceral experience without bending to Hollywood convention. Again, we have characters and situations that are credible and authentic. Not once does Bigelow allow the story to fall into the Hollywood tropes of an ostentatious spectacle. This is not your typical slam-bang action movie. Bigelow formulates a thoughtful build-up that leads to a masterful and thrilling climax.

The film begins with a dark screen and we listen to panic of radio transmissions and phone calls from the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001. Bigelow saturates us with a stark reminder of the horror that started it all. We are immediately immersed  into this new threat that has held this generation in its grip for over ten years now.

Right after the bleak opening we jump right into an interrogation sequence in which we are introduced to our female protagonist, Maya (Jessica Chastain), a CIA analyst. Chastain has had an impressive film career the last two years, but her work in this film is captivating and unadorned. She is an analyst first, with no outside relationships. Also, she is not developed as this hyper-masculine, action heroin type figure. Maya is smart, and she’s not out there going against the system as Hollywood loves to portray women protagonist. She is dedicated and the faction of people helping her are just as smart and as dedicated.

With a running time of two-and-a-half hours, Zero Dark Thirty doesn’t side with either political party. We don’t hear anything about George Bush, the Iraq War or the Obama administration. Even Obama’s announcement of killing Osama Bin Ladan is eliminated. The only time the film gets a little political is Obama is seen and heard on TV espousing that torture is wrong and he doesn’t condone it. Is torture justifiable when it gets results? This is the only time the film comes close to politicizing. Heavy political posturing doesn’t weave through the fabric of the film. Instead, Bigelow gives us a more clinical and apolitical view of ten arduous years of tracking the worlds most viscous murderer. Bigelow uses writer, Mark Boal -who also won an Oscar for his work on The Hurt Locker- to devise a provocative and deep examination of the laboriousness and frustration of each stage of the operation. Boal’s screenplay is a more journalistic structure that displays rhythms of richness and narrative clarity.

Everything leads to a white-knuckle climax on Bin Ladan’s Pakistani compound that took place on May 2nd, 2011; a fascinating build-up to a night-vision sweep by the Seal Team Six. It truly is a virtuoso climatic sequence that’s thoroughly gripping.

All the technical contributions are used brilliantly to help propel the story to the great heights of verisimilitude. Greig Fraser’s cinematography adds immensely to the psychological depth.

Overall the film belongs to Jessica Chastain. She portrays Maya with intelligence- we follow Maya as she hunts Bin Laden across international borders using interrogation and torture. Though her character is stripped down with no arc, psychological details or character inflections, she still gives a compelling, understated performance that has a gravitational

pull. Chastain creates a character that is indelible, imposing and deeply felt.

The pace of Zero Dark Thirty can be a bit convoluted at times, because of all the names in the al-Qaeda organization, not to mention all the black-site locations where all these events are taking place, but seeing Chastain’s Maya motivated and driven character makes it worthwhile. Maya is a hard-boiled woman.

Can the war on terror be fought without brutal tactics? And now that Osama Bin Laden is dead, is the war on terror coming to a close? These are some of the questions that permeate the film. Zero Dark Thirty accentuates the deadly obsession created in wartime involving intelligence gathering, subterfuge, shady tactics, and misinformation. Bigelow has structured an alarming tale about how deeply an obsession can distort an individual, and how far we’re willing to go and fight for the illusion of perpetual safety.

Bottom Line:

  Zero Dark Thirty is densely detailed, technically exciting and thematically poignant. Kathryn Bigelow out does herself again with devising the greatest manhunt movie ever made. A cinema experience thats not perfunctory in any way.

* * * * *

5 out of 5 stars

Rated R for strong language and violence

P.S. – For those interested in the site that J. talks about that lets you play NES games online… visit http://www.virtualnes.com

P.P.S. – Gooshie has asked that we apologize for the quality of this week’s podcast.  We think he got drunk on egg nog a little early and spilled some on the audio board.

I am extremely well versed in the “The classic 39“, which were the complete one half-hour episodes that Gleason brilliantly had the piece of mind to shoot on film, which still air on television to this day. They had a great Christmas episode within the 39, which is a gem in its own right.

But another Christmas episode has come to light.

In the 1980′s, Gleason came out with a slew of long thought to be forgotten episodes he had been sitting on up to that point. These now called “lost episodes” have found their way onto the television rotation within the 39, and can be spotted by the poor video quality because of the media they were originally shot on (so again, thanks Mr. G for pushing for shooting the classic 39 on celluloid!). These episodes originally came from the Gleason variety shows (before they got their own show which became the 39) and can be as short as 8 minutes or as long as 40 minutes, which sadly sometimes are edited down to fit a half-hour time slot with commercials.

Evidently, these episodes found their way onto video and DVD, before they too went out of print. This year, a long-awaited box set was finally released, which has the complete ‘lost episodes’ in their entirety and restored to their originally glory. A definite must-have for fans!

Ralph telling Alice he will not be going back out to get potato salad, before going back out for potato salad

Within these is a number of once lost holiday episodes, and last night I threw on one of the discs to watch an episode entitled the “Christmas Party” from December 19, 1953. Merry Christmas! Boy was it great. It had everyone we know and love from the show: Audrey Meadows as Alice, Art Carney as neighbor Ed Norton, and Joyce Randolph as his wife Trixie.

First off for you Honeymooner fans, the Kramden’s apartment was much different, with a piano and television on the premises. Different furniture isn’t that unheard of, especially since this is an early episode -well before the 39 were shot- while they were still only one of the many skits on Gleason’s variety show.

The major difference from any other Honeymooners‘ episode was the plot.

Gleason’s iconic character, The Poor Soul

Alice is holding a Christmas party and has sent Ralph out to get potato salad from Krausers (delicatessen as they called it back then). Back with the wrong salad, Ralph is sent back out to get the proper potato salad from Krausers. This takes Gleason as Kramden out of the equation for the episode to unfold. Trixie and Ed come down to chat with Alice and then the some of the most unusual things ever in Honeymooners’ lore takes place.

First the Poor Soul, the simple-minded character played by Gleason, comes in to deliver a keg of beer.  After some comedy, he leaves and then Trixie’s old Vaudeville friend, singer Frances Langford comes in and sings two songs for the small group (funny to note that she sings to the studio audience and cameras oddly breaking the fourth wall- making her sing with her back to the group she is supposedly there to sing to, essentially making her sing to the small apartment’s far wall). Carney then gets to show-off some of his dance moves as he leads the singer as she croons “I Love Paris.”

Eddie Hodges

Gleason’s other widely popular character Joe the bartender, again played by Gleason comes up from his bar to explain he is hosting a wild party thrown by none other than the super-rich aristocrat Reginald Van Gleason the 3rd. Joe then coaxes Langford down to his bar to sing a couple of songs, and they both exit.

Norton then brings on a young neighbor who is on his way down to sing in the bar, who turns out to a very young Eddie Hodges, and he performs the Nat King Cole arrangement of “Walking My Baby Back Home“. Hodges can be no older than 5, and belts out the song like he has done it a hundred times already in front of an audience of millions. He leaves, and the Gleason’s Poor Soul comes back for a very touching Christmas moment that will make anyone tear up, and he then exits.

The Lost Soul makes a tearful Christmas gesture

Rudy the Repairman

The loudmouth Rudy the Repairmen (yet again played by Gleason) and his little assistant then come over to attempt to repair the broken television; and hilarity ensures.

Lastly, Gleason enters as Reginald Van Gleason the 3rd, complete with a traveling band and lady cabaret dancers and sings and dances out a tune before leaving. The surprising and hilarious show wraps up with poor Ralph Kramden coming home, escorted by a cop, who thought he was trying to break into Krausers to get the potato salad Alice wanted.

This Christmas episode stands out because for the first and only time in the Gleason universe, all his other famous and popular characters from other skits show up and cameo in the small apartment on 328 Chauncey St. It’s a real treat and a lovely aside in the series to see various characters interact with each other and to know, say, that Joe the Bartender’s bar is on the first floor of the Kramden’s building, or the Poor Soul being treated lovingly by the Nortons and the Kramdens.

Reginald Van Gleason the 3rd

It is also a testament to the genius that is Gleason, who had to have at least a dozen costume changes in the 35 minute span of the skit, in which Gleason ducks in and out of his wildly different personas. If you are in any way a Gleason or a Honeymooners fan, I wholeheartedly encourage you to seek out this lovely Christmas Special and view a rarity in sitcom history, and certainly the only time Gleason’s cavalcade of characters all guested on the same episode. I guess the only criticism I’d have for the special is that I wished the two guest stars actually sang Christmas Songs, and not regular ballads.

If you do not want to spend the coin on the box set, here is a lovely best-of dvd that has the said special.

It is a great installment for the holidays, and brings you back to when television was live and amazing. This special and the box set set for that matter is definitely a ‘must-have’ and it also reminds you why Gleason was the original “Great One“.

Happy Christmas!

Jackson brings back the visual luxuriance he so brilliantly created for the first trilogy into An Unexpected Journey, with spectacular landscapes, epic battles and ferocious goblins and trolls. The first act is a wonderful 45-minute setup with Bilbo trapped in his home with 13 unwelcome dwarves, who stuff food down their gullet and sing like fanboys. Young Bilbo really gets to know this gaggle of small roughnecks as they boorishly take over his home. In keeping close to the children’s format from the source material, The Hobbit is more comical. But I will say this: Jackson has turned Tolkien’s flat writing into something more whimsical and engaging. 

Martin Freeman shows why Jackson was so determined to get him for the lead role: his inflections, mannerisms, sophistication and innocence make the character a far more entertaining hero than Elijah Wood’s Frodo. Freeman  is the core essence of this film.

When the pilgrimage finally gets going, the story journeys out of the light-hearted and into the frightening. Jackson immerses us with ethereal scenery, epic battle sequences with fierce trolls, goblins, giant stone transformers and exciting encounters with elves and wizards. The film stands on a firmer foundation in the second and third acts when embellishing the book’s thrilling fantasy action into mesmerizing live action.

The only time the film journeys into the soporific is when the company enters Rivendale, the celestial elf kingdom. This scene is profuse with exposition and rumination between Gandalf, the angelic Galadriel (Cate Blanchet), Saruman (Christopher Lee) and Elrond (Hugo Weaving). But it’s great to see these iconic characters together once again.

Diehard fans will feel connected to the previous trilogy again when Gollum confronts Bilbo in a remote cave that’s a riddle-fused scene. Andy Serkis does another compelling job performing Gollum. Performance capture from Weta Digital once again renders a capricious and ominous Gollum to flawless standards.

The most talked about vanguard in The Hobbit is the introduction of the new and contentious 48-frames-per-second digital cinematography that has been integrated to enhance the lavish world, as opposed to the industry standard 24 frames-per-second. The 48-frame rate solves the inherent stuttering effect of film that occurs whenever the camera pans or when horizontal movement crosses the camera. Consequently, the 48-frame format renders everything artificial and cheap, like watching a home movie. However, the higher frame rate makes everything crystal clear and smoother whenever the camera dollies or pans. I found the 48-frame rate to be too vivid and disconcerting for my taste. The HFR reduces everything to mere props and actors. The costumes and weapons really lack the heaviness, the houses and castles look like dioramas, and the lighting never looks natural, losing the cinematic nuance. It’s a new technological advancement that has hurt the aesthetic quality. I had the opportunity to view the film in both frame rates the same night and I prefer the standard 24 fps format. The new HFR will be screened at Roughly 450 theaters around the country.

Bottom Line:

Besides some slow scenes, Jackson still crafts a brilliant, beautiful and compelling adaptation. This journey has the same rousing momentum and emotional impact as the Rings trilogy. I’m elated to say this truly is a briskly engaging fantasy adventure with grandiloquence and heart. I’m ready for December 14th, 2013!

* * * * *

5 out of 5 stars

Rated PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence

On the first viewing, I couldn’t tell if it was pure brilliance, or complete sacrilege. Tough words? Well read on to see for yourself.

Argos, which is an English store, similar to America’s Walmart without the apparel, released this commercial a couple of years ago that has Bing Crosby leading kids into the set of a holiday special (looking to be like the one he used to do the duet with David Bowie), and once everyone is ready, instead of crooning a beloved Christmas tune, he instead picks up the mic and -wait for it- beatboxes.

Much like the technology of the mid 90′s that brought us John Wayne back from the dead to hock Coors Light with drill Sergeant R Lee Ermey, or Humphrey Bogart to push Diet Coke, or more recently Steve McQueen to push the new-throwback design to Mustang GT Fastback, we have Bing CGIed freestyling like the singer would never have dreamed.

Too much you might say? Disrespectful? I would think it is up to the viewer to decide. I do remember seeing one young pop singer who I shall remain unmentioned, comment: “Wow, look at that old guy freestyle!”

I honestly don’t know what is worse- having Bing do something like this to promote a store chain, or that his family actually would have had to sign off on the licensing of his likeness for the TV spot. Like I said, I think it is for the viewer to decide. I just don’t know if I like for all intents purposes, resurrecting the dead just to have them sell whatever tickles are current, A.D.D.-pseudo-intellectual fancies. (At least with the Duke or Steve, I could see them actually signing off on promoting a beer, or a new Ford Mustang). But thinking Bing would be okay with selling (is it even clear exactly what he is advertising?) Argos, I think is a tad presumptuous. Especially in a way the crooner may not have even considered music. Hell I think it kind of looks to be making fun of the singing legend. But all this is a moot point since the ad is from 2010.

Oh well, maybe next year we can CGI him rapping for MTV or Bravo’s new line up.

The plot goes like this: Two lowlife, crack-addict, brain-dead criminals (Scoot McNairy & Ben Mendelsohn) are recruited to knock off Markie Trattman’s (Ray Liotta) high-stakes underground casino. A porcine thug who has knocked off one of his own games in the past and got away with it, Markie knows he is dancing with death, and the mob brings crime enforcer Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) to town to re-establish order in the mob underworld. 

Killing Them Softly takes place on the eve of the 2008 presidential election, and it accentuates the financial collapse the U.S. was suffering from at the time. In a way, the mob in the film is used as a metaphor to point out the socioeconomic and political atmosphere for the strident, criminal direction to which our country is headed. Aussie Writer-Director Andrew Dominik, establishes the mob factions as microcosms of the government: making lots of money and then dealing with the financial nightmare by throwing more money at it. As Wall Street implodes, so does the criminal factions. 

America is not a country. It’s just a business.”

 

It’s a time of trepidation and doubt, gangsters drive around in out-dated vehicles and lack the resources necessary to operate. They are burdened by the constrictions as much as the bankers of Wall Street who fractured the economy.

This truly is a cynical and subpar gangster flick- with an art-house pretentious style. Bullets fly in slo-mo, cutting through skin and bone in comic style; an all-male milieu full of soulless criminals without a modicum of morality or good conscience; a film about empty vessels that pull triggers, smash faces in and betray close friends-just to re-establish a thriving business.

Going from one genre to the next, from style to style, the prolific,  intelligent and extremely versatile Ang Lee has devised a family spectacle that has realistic and lyrical touches. Lee as a sensitive and conscientious director,   orchestrates a beautiful coming of age fable, a spiritual meditation on the co-existence of humans vs. animals, and perhaps most compelling (at least to me), is the self-reflexive nature of faith. Is God the father of us all? Is He the moral law giver to our existence? In God, do we find meaning and purpose? Is He our life force?

Suraj Sharma in Life of Pi

“Faith is the touching of a mystery. It is to perceive another dimension to absolutely everything in the world. In faith the mysterious meaning of life comes through. . . . To speak in the simplest possible terms: faith sees, knows, senses the presence of God in the world,” writes Alexander Schmemann, a Russian Orthodox priest. Faith is the core essence of this film, and it permeates the very nature of the protagonist, Piscine Molitor Patel (Ayush Tandon). Faith becomes a survival tool and a source of courage and persistence for a young heart and soul. Our protagonist looses everything only to gain even more on an intense, metaphysical journey at sea.

Piscine Molitor Patel, named after a French swimming pool, is the young son of a zookeeper in Pondicherry, India. When his name leads him to become an object of ridicule at school, he shortens it to Pi.

Pi’s father decides to leave India and move to Winnipeg, Canada. The family and some of the animals board a Japanese cargo ship. In a violent storm, the boat sinks and Pi is the only human survivor. Soon afterwards he is joined in a small lifeboat by a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and the Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. The story of hope and faith builds beautifully when Pi and the tiger are the only ones left, stranded at sea. We see a teenage boy who has compassion for all creatures, and an unwavering faith and struggle that’s reminiscent of the great spiritual figures like Job, Moses and David of the Holy Bible. Pi is a young boy who learns in his dismal time of suffering to be anxious for nothing; but by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God. Due to this faith, Pi is molded and shaped into a monumental spiritual figure that transcends his former self. 

Terry Moore deserves some kind of award.

No, not the kind you win for making amazing comic books. He’s already won a couple of those.

No, I mean he needs an award named after him, an award for skillfully telling addictively entertaining stories in serialized graphic form, stories featuring beautiful, empowered women, stories entirely outside the superhero mainstream. That’s pretty much what Moore has been doing for the last twenty years. He’s done a handful of guest stints for DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse, but it’s as the writer and artist of his own self-published series—Strangers in Paradise, Echo, and his current series, Rachel Rising—that Moore has won lasting and well-deserved recognition as a superstar of independent comics.

Come, let me introduce you to the works of this very unusual and very worthy creator.

Terry Moore made his debut on the comic book scene in the fall of 1993 with a self-contained three-issue mini-series titled Strangers in Paradise. Published in black-and-white by the independent Antarctic Press, SiP (as it came to be known) focused mainly on three characters and their relationship to each other. Francine Peters (who by comic book and media standards would be considered “pudgy”, but who by my much more realistic personal standards is “normal and beautiful”) is sweet but slightly flaky, and has put a lot of energy and (bad) decisions into the so-far-fruitless search for “Mr. Right.” She lives with her best friend since high school, Katina Choovanski, known to one and all as “Katchoo.” An artist with a quick temper and a violent streak, Katchoo is desperately in unrequited love with Francine. David Qin is your stereotypical nice guy, who naturally falls hard for Katchoo when he meets her in a museum.

That three-issue mini-series told the story of Francine getting dumped cruelly by her unfaithful, self-involved boyfriend Freddie, which prompts Katchoo to take (some highly questionable) revenge on him, while poor David gets caught up in the goings-on simply because he’s been hanging around trying to get closer to Katchoo.

You probably think that sounds like typical, chick-lit romantic comedy, and on the surface you’d be correct. But several factors made Strangers in Paradise wonderful right out of the gate:

• The story is actually funny. I mean it. Sometimes it gets outright silly, but mostly it’s the kind of fizzy, realistic funny that arises as much from the personalities of the characters themselves (who have a knack for snarky turns of phrase) as from the situations they find themselves in.
• That humor works even better because the story is built on a solid foundation of recognizably genuine human emotions.
• The characters were delightful, the sort of ordinary but appealing people you’d want to hang out with in your own life. (Well, except maybe Katchoo, to whom we are introduced when she blows her alarm clock away with a Smith & Wesson.)
• Moore’s already-accomplished graphic storytelling. Although both his black-and-white art style and his panel-to-panel storytelling skills would continue to develop and improve, even in this first series he shows a strong sense of pacing and telling a story with pictures that are entertaining and informative in their own right.
• SiP was groundbreaking on several fronts, daring to focus on two ordinary young women; one of them was proudly, gloriously apart from the ridiculous and unhealthy body images that even today continue to poison the comic art mainstream, and the other was a lesbian portrayed in a normalized and sympathetic light (her, ahem, complicated past notwithstanding). These and other similar qualities made Strangers in Paradise a favorite of feminist and LGBTQ audiences as it grew into an ongoing series.

A page from Strangers in Paradise, Vol. 3, No. 26 (August 1999)

Strangers in Paradise returned with a new #1 in late 1994, published by Moore’s own Abstract Studios. That self-published “volume 2″ lasted 14 issues before being picked up by Image Comics in 1996 and rebooting again with its third (and final) #1. After an eight-issue run in color, the series returned to its black-and-white self-published status, where it would remain until coming to its (entirely voluntary) conclusion with volume 3, issue 90 in 2007.

When all was said and done, Strangers in Paradise had run for 107 issues, collected in 19 trade paperbacks (and a variety of hardcover and pocket-paperback configurations). What had started as a small-scale romantic comedy had gotten very dark, as the consequences of Katchoo’s difficult past spill over into the present, causing huge complications not just for her relationships with Francine and David but for all their own lives as well. The comic became, at times, a crime story, a political drama, and a mystery in addition to its romantic comedy roots (sometimes all at the same time).

But it always worked, and always felt like Strangers in Paradise, because Moore never lost the characters. Through it all, Francine, David, Katchoo, and the newer characters who enter their orbit (like Freddie’s new fiancée Casey, police detective Mike Walsh, twin assassins Tambi and Bambi, and aging rocker Griffin Silver) all remain recognizably themselves. No matter how crazy the goings-on got (and they occasionally got quite crazy), that warm, relatable, very human foundation made sure that SiP remained one of the best comics I’ve ever read.

Last month, Strangers in Paradise at last became available digitally via ComiXology (which was even reported in USA Today), and Moore recently announced that in 2013 he will publish a Strangers in Paradise sequel novel to honor the series’ 20th anniversary. So now is as good a time as any to get into this unusual and completely wonderful comic story.

After a career-making hit, what next?

Upon the conclusion of SiP in 2007, Moore faced quite a challenge: after making his name with one very popular and long-lived property, how could he tell a new story with new characters without his fans revolting?

Clearly, he figured it out. In 2008, he debuted Echo, which told the story of a down-on-her-luck photographer named Julie Martin who, after a tragic military disaster in the desert, finds herself involuntarily and irreversibly bonded to a top-secret experimental battle armor. Julie has to go on the run from the government and other, more mysterious forces, in the hopes of surviving long enough to separate herself from the armor without destroying what’s left of her (already deteriorating) life.

When I picked up the first TPB collection of Echo, the visual style was instantly recognizable—no one draws realistically beautiful women and effective physical comedy and drama the way Terry Moore does—but I was seriously impressed by the way Moore was now executing a action-adventure story with vaguely science-fictiony overtones as effectively as he had done “chick-lit”-flavored romantic comedy in Strangers in Paradise.

Echo wrapped (again, voluntarily) with issue 30 in 2011 and has been collected in six trade paperbacks. I’ll be honest: the ending of this series was a bit wobbly, story-wise. But Echo offered a whole lot of great moments and memorably appealing characters on the way to that ending, so I would still give the series as a whole an overall positive review.

After Echo, Moore did not rest on his laurels, debuting Rachel Rising later in 2011. Again, Moore has shifted genre—Rachel Rising is a horror story about a woman (beautiful and young, of course) who wakes up dead in the forest one night. Apparently unable to die again (despite several good tries), Rachel must figure out not just why she’s walking and talking, but how she wound up dead in the first place. Meanwhile, a mysterious woman who may or may not be behind it all appears to be causing all sorts of horrific and fatal mayhem around town, with a little orphan girl somehow mixed up in it all. And just like he did in SiP, Moore includes non-traditional females in the form of Rachel’s best friend Jet and her entertainingly odd Aunt Johnny.

With Rachel Rising, Moore isn’t just pushing his storytelling abilities into new genres, he’s pushing himself artistically as well, trying interesting new techniques to tell his story visually.

Now twelve issues in as of this writing, Moore’s latest series is shaping up to be every bit as enjoyable as his first two.

As if all that didn’t speak well enough of him as a creator, Moore has generously shared his artistic and storytelling wisdom in a series of how-to books.

So yeah, I’m a fan, and I think if you’re a connoisseur of graphic storytelling who doesn’t require heroes to be improbably muscled spandex-wearers, you too will be a fan of Terry Moore’s works. Start out with the first trade paperback collections of Echo or Rachel Rising, or the second volume of Strangers in Paradise, the one called I Dream of You (the three-issue miniseries is fun, but it wasn’t until the ongoing series that he worked out the kinks in his style and became the Terry Moore we know and love today.)

And, while you’re at it, someone name an award after this guy already!

Barring that, the brand new CD/Blu-ray/vinyl release of Live at the Bowl ’68 is certainly a must have for super-fan and novice alike.

This Doors performance is certainly legendary in its own right, but I sadly would not stake it up there with the aforementioned Who and Stones shows, due to the enormous catalog (mostly audio, but some film) that the band has compiled that can be more aptly termed the “quintessential” performance.

That said, this re-release definitely has its selling points, and luckily is not just a dressed up “remaster” of the type that often happens in the music world.

Live at the Bowl

The biggest thing here, aside from a complete audio and digital remaster for a spiffy Blu-ray release, is the first-ever inclusion of two songs that were originally left on the cutting room floor due to technical issues at the actual performance. Initially Hello I Love You and Texas Radio and the Big Beat (along with the first-half  of Spanish Caravan) had to be omitted due to Jim Morrison’s microphone cutting out. But technology now has made it possible to take the remaining band audio as originally recorded, and add in vocals from other live performances in order to match the songs’ tempo, as well as the lip-sync of the film footage.

These inclusions make for an overall great performance, and finally bring the legendary missing piece of this noteworthy show to fans.

The remastering was done by none other than legendary Doors engineer Bruce Botnick, who did a stellar job bringing the slight nuances of each song, along with the audience interaction, back to the modern listener’s ear. Along with audio, there has been an intensive visual remaster of the film for the Blu-ray release. The result is a crisper, sharper image than this concert’s mid-1980s original release.

The image looks as good as it’s going to get, while dealing with the limitations of the actual film shoot, since 1) it was basically shot by friends of the band, including Harrison Ford, on three cameras (Ford was doing carpentry work on Doors producer Paul Rothchild’s house when he was asked to help photograph the show); and 2) the massive stage in the opera theater was lit so conservatively that it really limited what could properly be photographed besides the immediate band.

The performance itself is quite tame by Doors standards, partly because of the worry of any cock-ups within the band, as well as the exposure the concert had received leading up the show. The band purposely rehearsed prior to the show and compiled a setlist, which didn’t always happen. Beyond that, Morrison wanted to not ruffle any feathers with the overly dramatic performance that his fans were sometimes accustomed to. Here is the personification of the soft-spoken, shy poet; when management and band members expressed concern about how the show would go, it only led Morrison to wall himself up and deliver a quite tame performance.

Which leads to another piece of information that many critics seem to want to cite (or should I say flaunt) when reviewing this concert: the well-known fact that Morrison had dropped acid prior to the show. This author finds it completely irrelevant, especially in light of how relaxed the show actually was, and I would press those same critics to go dig up what mind-altering substances other musicians and bands were on while delivering great  performances. Hank Williams Senior drinking before a show? Louis Armstrong smoking a bone out in an alley prior to a performance? Jimi Hendrix putting acid into his headband before going out to perform at Monterey or some other venue? Silly at most, if not completely irrelevant. I think it is an example of how good Morrison was as a performer to potentially do that and still be able to deliver and not skip a beat—much like the stories of Richard Burton and Richard Harris competing to get blinding drunk and then going out on stage to see who could deliver the best, most flawless Shakespeare performance. (Rumor has it Burton would always win!) Notwithstanding Morrison’s notorious onstage issues, we’ll confine our review to just this show to give the guys some credit.

Here, I’ll let you in on another piece of intel I think is just as juicy, and more relevant to Morrison’s Hollywood Bowl performance, that is little known: He’d gotten into a rather big row with his girlfriend Pam Courson just prior to the show. Then during the show, Morrison had to watch none other than Mick Jagger, seated in the front row, flirting and hitting on Morrison’s girl for the entire concert. I think that piece of information is more telling than what drugs he did prior to the show.

Robbie Krieger about to execute Morrison in the middle of The Unknown Soldier

Though Morrison is generally sedate through, he does come alive during the middle of The Unknown Soldier, painfully reenacting the execution of a soldier; as well as his dancing in celebration during the climax of their epic song, The End.

The setlist they prepared is also a great example of their catalog. They open up with the epic When the Music’s Over (another song critics like to point out, saying Morrison lets out a “burp” during one of the song’s pauses, when he was in fact joking with the audience, making a popping “P” sound with his lips), before going into a great medley the band had made famous on their tour that year: Alabama Song into Backdoor Man into Five to One, before going back into Backdoor Man to wrap the little jaunt up. The restored Texas Radio and Hello I Love You, are next, followed by Moonlight Drive which leads into Horse Latitudes.

Morrison is able to deliver a lot of his poetic pieces like Texas and Horse, as well as the next two pieces, A Little Game and The Hill Dwellers, which were excerpts of the singer’s massive opus The Celebration of the Lizard. This really illustrates the forethought that went into the setlist. The restored Spanish Caravan followed and then, in classic Doors fashion, Morrison asked what the audience would like to hear. As always, almost to tease them and even more to stress they were not just a teen-pop flash-in-the-pan, they delve into another Morrison poem Wake Up!, before seamlessly breaking into the iconic hit the audience wants to hear, Light My Fire. The band then closes out the evening with two amazing performances of The Unknown Soldier and the usual show closer, the band’s legendary tour-de-force,The End (both of which found themselves included on the prior Best of  live album, Absolutely Live).

Overall the 1968 July show is a great add-on for any fan or collector, though this author wouldn’t call it their “quintessential” filmed performance; I would say that was the show from earlier the same year filmed at London’s Roundhouse Theater Club, while the group was on their European tour. Also included are a slew of new docs, along with two rare live TV performances—Light My Fire on The Jonathan Winters Show from 1967, as well as an ultra-rare Wild Child on The Smothers Brothers from 1968—and a music video of the band’s edited cover of Gloria.

So if you are looking for a rock-solid performance while the band was in top form, as well as a little piece of restored history, please go pick up The Doors Live At the Bowl ’68. You certainly won’t be disappointed.

James Bond celebrates his fiftieth year on the big screen, and we are introduced to all the elements that make the mythology so endearing: the gadgets, the beautiful girls, the exotic locations, and the eccentric villains. Skyfall is the 23rd movie in the most successful film series of all time, and what is most surprising is it inherits and transcends the mythology, taking the heritage to new heights. You know the man. You know the rules by now.

The film opens with 007 in Turkey pursuing a hired gun who has procured a MI6 disk drive of all the deep cover agents placed undercover in terrorist cells around the world. This opening sequence is over 10 minutes long and the action is orchestrated brilliantly. Bond skillfully rides through the streets of Turkey on a motorbike, and fights on top of a speeding train fast and furious. Sam Mendes directs a compelling and beautiful opening sequence that sets up the best 007 film of all time.

Trying to be spoiler free here: Bond is reinstated as a deep cover agent for MI6. Once Bond is revitalized, so is the franchise. Bond’s mission now is to protect M (Judi Dench) from her dark past before it catches up to her. She is under threat by a vicious former agent, Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) who is attacking London and MI6 with advanced cyberterrorism. Javier is the best Bond villain to ever grace the series. He’s reminiscent of Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight. He is cold, calculating, intelligent and methodical in his agenda. Fearlessness is his ally. Skyfall is commanded by Javier every time he’s on-screen. And the film completely ascends to the stratosphere when he’s first introduced. His preening, effeminate quality is carried by a twisted derangement that is bizarre and haunting. What’s scary is how he has channeled his demented rage against M and Bond into a destroy-all view.

This edition of “The Comic Spinner” is guest-written by the Podwits’ own J. Marcus.  Please feel free to forward all your complaints to him!

With all the on-and-on I have been doing this past year on Podwits.com, Brian has been kind enough to ask me to answer a simple question regarding my favorite comic book character of all time. Namely, “when was Superman good for you?”

I grew up with Superman, first visually, and story-wise later. My father had read Superman comics when he was young and continued into adulthood. As a result, at the tender age of 3, I had access to a decent Superman library. I still have the very first Superman I was ever exposed to. It was a hard-bound book called “Superman: From the 30’s to the 70’s”. Most of the stories printed in the book were printed in black and white.

© DC Comics – Superman by Wayne Boring

As a child, it was amazing because I got to see Superman’s physical development over the years. At such a young age, I was able to form pretty solid opinions about the art of Superman. The original Siegel/Shuster Superman was OK, but not really MY Superman—after all, the “S” was all wrong. Wayne Boring’s Superman was a bit closer, but honestly… his ears stuck out too far, the “S” was kinda wacky, and I just found his head to be a bit misshapen. I found his, Al Plastino and Dick Sprang’s Supermen to all be a bit similar (leading me to believe there was an editorial edict to his look at the time).

© DC Comics “Superman (Vol. 1) #233
Superman by Curt Swan

Curt Swan became my favorite Superman artist as a child. His Superman, featured in the book as part of the “Kryptonite: Nevermore” storyline, was the most realistic art for a comic book that I saw at the time and somehow just seemed right to me. The costume was perfect, the art was impeccable and it all just gelled with me. Now to be fair, I wouldn’t learn ANY of these artists’ names for many more years, but at the time I knew what I liked.

My father added “The Great Superman Comic Book Collection” to my Superman stable and I was introduced to more stories like “Who Took The Super out of Superman” from Superman (Vol. 1) #296 and the story of how Superman and Lex Luthor became enemies (spoiler alert: Lex blames SuperBOY for causing his hair to fall out. No kidding) from Adventure Comics #271. By the age of 6, I was slowly working my way through the stories, though not reading ANY of the captions, only the dialogue. The stories were all simple enough for me to get through and enjoy. Occasionally my dad would pepper in actual comics from his youth where I would be exposed to stories like “Superman: King of Earth” in Action Comics #311 from April 1964.

© DC Comics

It wasn’t until I was 8 that I started to get new comics of my own. This was right before “Crisis on Infinite Earths” hit, and I will say that, for the most part, these stories were forgettable. I do remember Action Comics 581 which promised that you would become “Superman for a Day” with a backup story about… wait for it… Superman’s lawyer.

By the time John Byrne rebooted Superman in 1986, I was a full-fledged Superman reader of my own.

© DC Comics “The Man of Steel #1″ 1986
Click to Enlarge

His art immediately captured my imagination because in certain panels, it looked like he was trying to draw an idealized version of Christopher Reeve as Superman. By this time I had seen the Superman movies, the George Reeves TV show of the 1950s, the Kirk Alyn serials of the 1940s, the 1940’s Max Fleischer cartoons and the Super Friends cartoons of the 1970s on. Most of what I knew about the character came from these forms of media and not from the comics themselves. Comics as a source of Superman lore for me started in 1986 when I not only started re-reading and absorbing the books of my youth, but also reading the Byrne reboot and subsequent stories.

© DC Comics

The pre-Crisis Superman literally came to represent my early childhood. Not only because the two were so linked, but because the stories had an innocence about them that a child could really enjoy. I was never Mensa-smart, but I was a gifted child who matured faster than my peers. As such, I tended to discard these stories at an earlier age than I suppose I should have.

© DC Comics

But having grown up with those anthology books taught me at a very early age that there was a Superman for every age. These Supermen came before my time and I could appreciate them as such.

I was able to learn about all the various forms of Kryptonite. The red kryptonite stories (red K had a different effect on Superman each time, and it was generally rather bizarre) were always fun reads. Even as a child I grew weary of Lois Lane’s desperate attempts to prove that Clark Kent is Superman. While this certainly mitigated the idea that Lois is galactically stupid for falling for a cheap pair of glasses as a disguise, at some point the chase becomes quite wearying. I also read of Superman’s accidental return to Krypton to act as cupid for his parents in Superman (Vol. 1) #141.

© DC Comics

By the time of “Kryptonite Nevermore” in Superman (Vol. 1) #233, written by Denny O’Neill, the Superman mythos was updated to include Lois and Clark becoming reporters for WGBS TV, which had bought the Daily Planet, all Kryptonite being rendered harmless in an explosion (editorially because Kryptonite had become such a story crutch in the past) and Superman being depowered slightly. But as with all things in the DC Universe over time, these changes were mostly undone and Superman was back the way he was in no time.

© DC Comics
Click to Enlarge

Eventually, however, the Superman stories of the 1970s-80s had taken galactic angles and started to focus on Superman’s alien heritage more. I found this off-putting. The idea of Superman exploring his Kryptonian heritage by celebrating holidays in solitude meant nothing to me. The idea of Superman bucking like a bronco for an evil space cowboy left me cold.

It was because of this that I retreated to the other Superman world at my fingertips… The post-Crisis Superman!

The post-Crisis Superman era boasted an amazing array of creative minds both visual and storytelling through the years. In addition to John Byrne you had Jerry Ordway, Dan Jurgens, Kerry Gammill, Bob McCloed, George Perez, Roger Stern, Karl Kessel and Brett Breeding.

These creative minds shepherded Superman through some amazing stories in my adolescent years and wrote a Superman that made sense to me. Superman became human in the same way that most Americans are American. Not only was he born here (through a clever plot device), but he was raised here and therefore had the same thoughts and beliefs that we do. He didn’t have to pretend to be one of us. He was one of us, only he could do more than any of us. It made his character relatable.

Keeping his foster parents alive not only gave him a sounding board as Superman, but also removed his origin slightly from Batman’s (though his birth parents were still dead, Superman still had a family and a home).

© DC Comics

The post-Crisis Lex Luthor wasn’t a mad scientist who hated Superman for causing his baldness, but was a multi-billionaire who not only hated Superman because he was an alien but because he had replaced Luthor as Metropolis’ hero and “favorite son.” Luthor’s veneer of respectability made him an even more dangerous criminal mastermind because not only was he cunning and resourceful enough to work under the radar of the law, but Superman couldn’t always publicly oppose him because he wouldn’t have proof to back him up. It made their dynamic much more interesting.

© DC Comics

Superman grappled with issues of morality when he was forced to execute 3 Kryptonian villains from an alternate universe. It was their punishment for destroying all life on that Earth. It was this that cemented in his mind his code that a Superman “must not kill”. He had to deal with psychological problems that stemmed from that as his mind forced him to become a masked vigilante while he slept to deal with his emotional turmoil. The reveal that Gangbuster was, in fact, Superman himself shocked readers as much as it did the Man of Steel himself and forced him to exile himself into space where he couldn’t hurt anyone again.

Superman’s exile brought him face-to-face with his Kryptonian heritage and gave him the strength to heal his mind and return to Earth. It was many years in post-Crisis continuity before Superman joined the Justice League of America. It was because of this that Superman EARNED his place among the JLA. In pre-crisis continuity he was one of the founding members, but their membership didn’t seem to have any sort of rhyme or reason beyond the editorial decision to let these folks team up.

© DC Comics

In post-Crisis continuity, Superman was given the time to prove that he would be a good (if reluctant) leader and allowed him to earn the respect of the rest of the DCU not because he was the most powerful, but because he was the best. If you need any proof of this, I suggest you read the “Panic in the Sky” storyline from 1992 where Superman has to lead the heroes of the DCU in defending the Earth from an attack from Warworld controlled by Brainiac.

© DC Comics

When Superman died fighting the monster called Doomsday in Superman (Vol. 2) #75, most saw it as a gimmick to increase sales. It may well have been that, but it was an opportunity to explore how the world would handle the death of its greatest hero. The “World Without A Superman”/”Funeral for a Friend” storyline from 1993 showed the heroes banding together to make sure that Metropolis would be free from crime on the day he was laid to rest. It showed how his friends and even his enemies would be impacted by the loss. And how the city he swore to protect would have to go on without him.

“Reign of the Supermen” immediately followed with 4 different characters vying for the title of the new Man of Steel. While some claimed to be the original brought back to life, others merely wanted the title. This long story arc went beyond what could have been mere issue-after-issue of fisticuffs, and instead showed the continuing impact the original Superman had on society. His possible resurrection lead to cults forming in support of one Superman or another.

© DC Comics

When finally the original returned (albeit with 1990s long hair which strained the Clark Kent glasses as the ONLY means of disguise even further), he had to earn the trust of the people once more. The story, on the whole, had lasting impact on the current Superman mythos and was treated as genuinely and with as much verisimilitude as possible.

© DC Comics
Though I wouldn’t cop to it myself

It was after his return, however, that things started to get a bit rough in Supermanland. While Clark Kent and Lois Lane finally tying the knot ranks among the higher points of the post-death time, we are left with far greater low points. In 1996, “The Final Night” storyline sees the loss of Earth’s sun, leaving Superman powerless. Once the sun is back, Superman goes to great lengths to get his own powers to return. This results in Superman’s powers inexplicably becoming electricity-based in the “Metamorphosis” storyline starting in Superman (Vol. 2) #122.

© DC Comics
…This either…

Of course because “electric-blue Superman” wasn’t bad enough, executive editor Mike Carlin and editor Joey Cavalieri decided that Superman should come in two flavors… blue and red. While having two distinct electric Supermen could pose some intriguing story ideas, it was hobbled both by the fact that NO ONE liked electric Superman and the fact that this was a cheap callback to a pre-crisis story where red Kryptonite had split Superman into two heroes… Superman Red and Superman Blue [see Superman (Vol. 1) # 162 from July 1963).

Eventually the two Supermen “sacrificed” themselves to save the world thus reverting back to the Superman we all know and love (thank God!)

Next up, Superman enters a training montage worthy of a Rocky film so that he can boost his powers and lead the Earth’s heroes in defending from another attack in “Our Worlds at War” in 2001.

© DC Comics

And since boosting him closer to pre-Crisis powers wasn’t enough, that same year in Superman 167, the Man of Steel is told that everything he knew about his origin was wrong. And that, in fact, his birth father lied to him all those years ago so that he would not grieve for a planet he never knew. In fact, Superman is retold his origin almost panel-for-panel the way it was pre-Crisis. And that, my friends, was the sound of thousands of face-palms around the world.

© DC Comics

At the end of it all, Superman is left unsure about whether or not this is the true version of his origins or if it’s what he’s always known. And it is at THIS EXACT MOMENT, that Superman, as a character, falls apart completely. For many years to come, Superman does not have a clearly defined origin. Elements of Byrne continuity still flow, but are now mixed with so much other flotsam that it becomes very hard to tell which way is up. Further complicating matters is Mark Waid’s “Superman: Birthright” miniseries in 2003 which was supposed to retell Superman’s origins.

© DC Comics

While this tripe-filled tome became the blueprint for Superman’s backstory for a few years, it was supplanted in 2009 by “Superman: Secret Origin” written by Geoff Johns which, you guessed it, retold the story of Superman’s origin again (though, in my opinion, to much greater effect and with MUCH better art by Gary Frank).

You can see how a Superman fan could become rather disenchanted by this point having been jerked around as much as we have. Especially when you realize that not 2 years after “Superman: Secret Origin”, Superman was rebooted YET AGAIN for the “New 52” storyline currently being published by DC Comics.

The pre-Crisis and post-Crisis Supermen have a lot in common; from their costumes, to their powers, to their love of Lois Lane, to their being from Krypton. The MOST IMPORTANT thing they have in common, however, is their stringent adherence to their origins. For decades, Superman’s origin went unchanged. A few tweaks were made here and there to add nuance, but the story itself remained (including, I might add, the designs of Kryptonian clothing and technology).

When John Byrne rebooted Superman in 1986, he changed all that. And for the next 15 years, no matter who came in, this was treated as gospel just like what had come before. When Superman started to fall apart was when creators decided that the origin wasn’t gospel anymore and could be as fluid as the stories they spawned. It’s hard to know who Superman is when even HE doesn’t know where he came from. The details shouldn’t be that important. But stories like 2001 and 2002’s “Return to Krypton” and “Return to Krypton II” respectively and even 2006’s “Up, Up and Away” make it so.

© DC Comics
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“Up, Up and Away”, which started in Superman (Vol. 3) #650, has me torn. On the one hand I respect the storyline immensely for finally trying to make the comics version and movie version of Superman meet. The story revolves around Lex Luthor finding a Kryptonian sunstone crystal, left over from the events of the “Infinite Crisis” crossover that had just finished. He uses the crystal to awaken a Kryptonian battleship and tries to destroy Metropolis with it. In the end, Superman stops him and retrieves the crystal. Realizing that it was sent to Earth with him, he flies up to the Arctic and tosses it far away. When it lands, it builds the Fortress of Solitude as seen in the Christopher Reeve/Brandon Routh Superman films.

I have to admit, it gave me a fangasm to see on paper. On the other hand, Superman had already had a myriad of Fortresses of Solitude post-Crisis, and none of them involved crystals. In fact, crystals had barely played ANY kind of part in Kryptonian technology until, again, “Return to Krypton” in 2001, though again that had nothing to do with the sunstone crystal as it appeared here. If you’re not confused by now, you’re way ahead of the game because, quite frankly, this is the kind of waffling back and forth that caused my head to nearly explode when trying to follow the Superman stories of the 2000s. I used to be gifted, remember.

Writers say they are constantly at odds with the character. They say it’s hard to write for a guy who can do everything. I insist they are being lazy. And as proof, I go back to the post-Crisis Superman. Byrne, Jurgens and the gang succeeded in writing very human Superman stories with more alien-y/sci-fi stories happening in the periphery. At the core of each story, however, was Superman’s very human core.

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Die-hard Superman fans like to cite Elliot S! Maggin as being one of the greatest Superman writers of all time. I recently read a thread on the “Superman Through The Ages” online forum in which he was touted as the guy who “got it.” He did write some seminal pieces of Superman lore including “Must There Be a Superman” in Superman (Vol. 1) #247 in which the Guardians of the Universe plant a seed of doubt in Superman’s mind… that perhaps his constant help is interfering with the natural growth of the human race.

While this was an excellent point to make and an incredibly insightful addition to the lore, Maggin also  tried to take away from Superman what makes the character great.

© DC Comics – From “Superman: Birthright” #2
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Maggin came up with the idea (later co-opted by Mark Waid for “Birthright”) that Superman would have to be a vegetarian. He posits that Superman’s senses would allow him to see the “heat auras” of all living things. These auras would allow him to gauge their emotional states quite intricately, including pain and suffering. As something dies, the pain would be so great that Superman would not be able to tolerate seeing it and therefore would be empathetic to the creature, not wanting it to die. Therefore, he wouldn’t eat meat and this could be the fundamental building blocks of his code against killing.

Is this nobility? Or is this more akin to Alex in “A Clockwork Orange”? Superman is not being moral for morality’s sake. He’s doing it because it would hurt him to be otherwise.

The point here is that even the most revered of creators can have a hard time understanding Superman and can get him wrong. Much like the most noted works of fiction, Superman’s journey is yours to interpret. Some see his story as being that of the ultimate immigrant and therefore the greatest support for the American way of life known to man. Others see it as being Christ-like in its origins (small wonder for a story created by two Jewish kids). Still others see a simple adventure story.

My Superman… the one for my time… for my sensibilities… was summed up in a single panel from John Byrne’s “The Man of Steel” miniseries in 1986. Superman had just gotten his final communiqué from his birth father, Jor-El. Jor-El’s message downloaded into Superman’s mind all the knowledge of Krypton’s past. It’s literature, it’s history… it’s language. Superman flies to a secluded perch to think it all through. Ultimately… he says… all of it is meaningless. He explains:

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In that moment, my friends, we see when Superman was best for me.

Written and produced by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, this 1981 sequel picks up just seconds after the original leaves off; a device used 50 years earlier in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. With HALLOWEEN II, the epic suburban struggle between good and evil continues on that fateful Halloween night in 1978. An injured and traumatized Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is rushed to the hospital, while a guilt-ridden Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) and a group of Haddonfield’s finest take to the streets, in a desperate attempt to apprehend the seemingly invincible killer known as Michael Myers (Dick Warlock).

Not wanting to direct the sequel himself, Carpenter offered the job to friend, HALLOWEEN editor and future HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH director Tommy Lee Wallace; who turned it down due to some dissatisfaction with the script. Carpenter then, thinking a bit outside the box, selected (future HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION director) Rick Rosenthal to lead the production; a filmmaker with (at the time) zero feature film experience and only a handful of television and student film credits to his name.

Throughout the first half of the film, Rosenthal and (returning) cinematographer Dean Cundey do a commendable job of preserving the look and feel of Carpenter’s original masterpiece, but as the narrative unfolds, the audience is slowly pulled away from the comfortable familiarity of everyday American suburbia and taken to a much darker and more frighteningly surreal place.

The film is frequently criticized for its primary set piece being an unrealistically vacant hospital, but it is the building’s emptiness that gives the film its memorable nightmarish quality. With this location, Rosenthal and Cundey take full advantage of their surroundings. Long empty corridors, hard shadows and dramatic camera angles beautifully pay homage to horror cinema’s German Expressionist roots. Cundey’s use of lavish primary colors when lighting key scenes (most notably during the basement chase) helps to inject the film with sparing tastes of “giallo” flavor.

Much has been said over the years about the friction between Rosenthal and Carpenter during the film’s post-production. Carpenter has been very vocal about his filming additional “scares” and re-cutting the film in an effort to quicken its pace, but ultimately it is Rosenthal that managed to take previously explored territory and give it its own identity. Despite his inexperience and a subpar script, Rosenthal was able to take the ideas and style of Carpenter’s iconic original film and make them his own.

Unlike its game-changing predecessor, HALLOWEEN II was released into a marketplace saturated with HALLOWEEN-inspired slasher films that were attempting to exponentially push the boundaries of violence, gore and nudity in cinema. In order to compete, the highly anticipated sequel was forced to shy away from the subtle, more suspense-driven approach of its forerunner and adopt a more graphic and, arguably, less sophisticated sensibility.

Thankfully, Rosenthal’s ability to handle the dramatic aspects of the script helps to keep the film from drifting too far into senseless slasher territory. The flirtatious romantic relationship between Laurie Strode and paramedic Jimmy (Lance Guest) is handled with surprising subtlety. Its innocence is charming and it infuses this sequel with a tenderness and depth that is absent from most films of the sub-genre—including the original HALLOWEEN. Conversely, Loomis’ guilt-driven determination is executed with such heavy-handedness, that it keeps otherwise boring (often expositional and formulaic) scenes interesting and engaging. Almost impossibly, Donald Pleasance (as Dr. Loomis) manages to deliver a performance, that is both wonderfully over the top and dramatically understated–and 100% thoroughly enjoyable to watch.

Despite the fact that it was panned by critics upon its original release, HALLOWEEN II managed to do well at the box office; “out grossing” many of its 1981 horror competitors. In more recent years, many critics have changed their “once negative” stance on the film; recognizing that it yields more value than many films of the same ilk.

Though many fans may remain split on the issue, the fact that both Universal Studios and Scream Factory (a subdivision of Shout! Factory) have recently released “collector’s editions” of the film on Blu-ray and DVD is evidence that time has served it well and that it has found a loving and loyal fan-base.

Universal Studios’ 2011 “30th Anniversary Edition” may have been a significant upgrade to all of the film’s earlier home re-releases, but with the omission of the “Moustapha Akkad Presents” opening title card, a slightly scratched and marked HD transfer and a disappointingly meager collection of HALLOWEEN II-related bonus features consisting of only a handful of deleted scenes (taken from the frequently aired television version of the film and presented in the obsolete 4:3/full frame aspect ratio), it left much to be desired. Its only saving grace was the inclusion of the fan-favorite and clip-heavy 1984 documentary about the horror genre, TERROR IN THE AISLES (hosted by Donald Pleasance & Nancy Allen).

Thankfully the 2012 “2-Disc Collector’s Edition” finds Scream Factory rising to the occasion, heeding the fan outcry and delivering the best HALLOWEEN II reissue to date. Loaded with extras, this latest edition includes an informative (and cast & crew packed) 45-minute documentary about the making of the film, a 13-minute featurette about the film’s various production locations, trailers, TV and radio spots, a still gallery, 8 minutes worth of deleted and alternate scenes, two very worthwhile audio commentaries featuring director Rick Rosenthal & actor Leo Rossi and stunt coordinator/The Shape Dick Warlock (respectively), a reversible slipcover with both the original and newly commissioned artwork and a 2nd disc containing the entire television version of the film (presented in the 4:3/full frame format and with a mono audio track).

As for technical specs, Scream Factory used a cleaned up and restored 1080p/AVC encode of Universal’s 30th Anniversary 2:35:1 HD transfer; giving fans a close to flawless image; rich in color, deep in its blacks and without scratches and marks. The new 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mix, like Universal’s, is not amazing, but perfectly satisfactory…though fans may actually find its 2.0 DTS audio mix more balanced and desirable.

With two Blu-ray editions of this fan polarizing sequel being released in only one year’s time, the HALLOWEEN series continues to prove to be what the film distribution industry calls an “evergreen” (meaning it will always make money) and though some disappointment from buyers of the Universal Studios “30th Anniversary Edition” is understandable and inevitable, true fans of the film will find the new Scream Factory HALLOWEEN II “2-Disc Collector’s Edition” totally worthwhile and an absolute “must” for their collections.

Sam Raimi, who directed the original cult classic and its two sequels that starred Bruce Campbell as ‘Ash”, produced this revision, along with the famed actor. The two-handed picked new-comer Fede Alvarez to direct, after seeing his short, Panic Attack!, which can be viewed here.

This time around it seems the classic character Ash that was famously played by Campbell has been reinvented as a woman, played by Jane Levy and now called ’Mia’. Much like the original, it looks as though this version is being played as a straight horror, unlike the original’s sequels, Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness, which successfully morphed into brilliant examples of dark, dark comedies within the horror genre.

But not only does the 2013 remake look to be a straight horror film, it looks to be very gruesome and intense, and does not seem at all suitable for young people (which we all know won’t matter to some parents and ‘guardians’).

From the spoilers in this teaser trailer though, it seems we could have a very worthy rehash on our hands, which should definitely bring some much-deserved attention to the original trilogy, as well as a huge sigh of relief for horror fans. I mean after even seeing a broadway interpretation of The Evil Dead some five years ago, this seemed like the only way to go.

With Raimi and Campbell very close to this production (even as far as Raimi helping to pen this version), I think it’s safe to say we may have a real winner on our hands.

So in the immortal words of Ash: “Groovy.”

The legendary writer of Lethal Weapon 1& 2, The Monster Squad, Predator, Last Action Hero (say what you will, but I love it!), The Last Boy Scout and greatly the underrated Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (which he also directed), was brought in to helm this third installment in the franchise. It’s interesting that the people at Paramount and Marvel threw out Jon Favreau as a director (which is rumored to have of gone down like the Tim Burton/Warner Brothers conversation in 1994 for the third Batman film Batman Forever, in which they said “You can comeback and direct it, but we thought you wouldn’t want to, so we got someone else…”) after a luke-warm reception of the last Iron Man film, even though he completely hit it out of the park with the first installment -a film that could be considered maybe aside from Sin City- as one of the best comic book to film adaptations of all time.

But alas, if we’ve learned anything about Hollywood, it is that there is nothing that resembles loyalty- but have no fear because Favreau still returns as Stark’s bodyguard/chaperone, Happy Hogan.

Back for the ride here are Robert Downey Jr. (as if they could do it without him), Gwyneth Paltrow, along with newcomers Ben Kingsley as the villainous “Mandarin”, which seems to have hardcore fans keeping their fingers crossed to see if he can successfully pull off the nemesis, as well as Guy Pearce (who I am glad to see back in the mainstream after scoring hits in The King’s Speech and Prometheus).

Is it going to be good? We’ll have to wait to April to find out but from the looks of the trailer, once again, all Hell’s broken loose.

Over the last 15 years there have been several retelling’s of the classic story of pod-people from another world, but for this post I will focus on the best, the 1956 original directed by Don Siegel, and the excellent 1978 remake  by Philip Kaufman.

The original film was an instant classic, and when it was re-envisioned in 1978, one could ask that all-important-question for any remake: why bother? Well let it be said if any film could be the poster child for the concept of the remake, I think these 2 films could be.

The 1956 version of the film could be called a masterpiece. Directed by the legendary auteur Don Siegel, (who many Clint Eastwood fans will know as doing 5 collaborations with the actor, including the film that virtually invented the police/action genre, Dirty Harry), Siegel was great at being brought in and taking B-grade material and shooting it quickly and cheaply, adding such textures and nuisances, that the film would become A-grade material.

Siegel started out in Hollywood as a second unit director for a lot of famous films, responsible for the montages in Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, and worked second unit on such films as Sargeant York, To Have and Have Not and Yankee Doodle Dandy. By the time he started work on Body, he was well-known within the industry.

His 1956 film starred the brilliant Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. McCarthy is a small town doctor who begins receiving complaints from patients all over town, almost like a mass hysteria, that their loved ones are no longer who they were, but impostors. They look, sound and have memories like before, but they are now devoid of any real feelings or emotion. After several brush offs, McCarthy realizes that something is in fact happening, and his fears are confirmed when he is invited to a friend’s house, who has found a body in his closet, which doesn’t seem to be fully ‘developed’ yet;  lacking any real detail, including at this point, fingerprints. We soon discover that these are in fact pod-people; aliens who’ve come here to take over the planet, growing from pods and taking over their victim while they sleep, virtually unnoticed. (A great side note here is the cameo of legendary director Sam Peckinpah, in a walk-on role, who worked on the film before becoming famous in the early 1960′s.)

The fast-paced narrative spreads like wildfire, and climaxes with the entire small California town being overrun, and exporting the pods to the surrounding communities, leaving McCarthy barely escaping with his life, running along the California highway screaming at the passing cars that the aliens are here and it may be too late.. hinting that his warnings may be in fact too late for the world.

The film is book-ended with McCarthy being picked up on the highway seemingly stark-raving mad, and telling his insane tale, where the film is told in flashback. it ends where it begins, and as McCarthy is led out and thought to be a lunatic, evidence is found to confirm his story, and the happy ending offered is the world can now take steps to stop the pods, and stop the planet from being taken over. But in the original cut, these bookends were not shot, and the film ended with McCarthy running up and down the highway, with the ominous “They’re here and you’re next!!” That didn’t sit well with test audiences or the studio, so these two scenes were shot later to give the film a more ‘uplifting’ ending (which is hilarious if you ask  me).

Siegel succeeded hands down in delivering the suspense and edge-of-your-seat tension of a small town slowly being taken over by men from Mars. It also accurately reflected the current paranoia of the McCarthy hearings of the 1950′s, where Hollywood figures were brought before congress to testify and give names as to who were communists, or defend themselves from the claim of being part of the communist party. This destroyed many careers at the time, and this theme of someone not being who they say they are or who they outwardly claim to be, started to show up in a lot of films but most succeeded in the horror and Sci-Fi genres of the time, and most notably, Invasion.

Fast-forward to 1978, where Philip Kaufman transplants the story from a small town to the city of San Francisco, and casts the brilliant Donald Sutherland as the lead.

 This film, in my humble opinion is flawless. Not a shot is wasted here, from the first frame to the last.  It indeed could be used as a proponent for the concept of remakes and is a beautifully executed tale of suspense and terror.

Robert Duvall in an uncredited role

The film opens with foreign cobweb-like seeds leaving an alien planet and traveling  on the ‘solar winds’ entering our atmosphere, coming down in the famous San Francisco rain, and then spawning on the leaves of plants and blushes, growing into little pods ready to be picked and brought home. By the end of the opening credits we see a school teacher bringing her young class to a city park and telling the children to bring home the plants to their parents; just as we see one of the oddest images in the film, Robert Duvall in an uncredited role, dressed as a priest on a swing-set, staring blankly at the other teacher and class as he swings, with his class already there, doing the same thing. This leads you to believe that the assimilation has already started. This opening really sets the pace for the tension of the film.

Along with Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright, Leonard Nimoy and Art Hindle round out the cast of unsuspecting pawns in this invasion from outer space. The plot is essentially the same, with some minor tweaks that enhance a lot of the details of the story.

Sutherland now being a Health Inspector, adds another level of intrigue to the tale because in that role it is his job to inspect and see what is good, bad, or potentially dangerous in one of the most sensitive areas for humans, their food. As well as this, with the country coming off of the momentous Watergate ordeal of 1972, which really instilled a lack of trust certainly in the President, as well as in members in government and those in charge, which all plays a perfect foil to the McCarthyism fears of the first film. The 1978 version takes advantage of this lack of confidence Americans felt in their leaders at the time, and this helps add a level of tension once the plot starts to unravel.  

Kaufman masterfully amps up the paranoia here to unimaginable levels, and really gets the viewer wondering from the offset, who is human and who is alien. By setting the story in arguably the most liberal and progressive city in the country, Kaufman is able to make use of the post-60′s generation which had evolved from peace, love and individuality, into an introspective, all-for-one mantra which developed out of Watergate, the consumerism of the time and ‘self-help’ movement that sprang up during the decade; the latter of which Nimoy’s character is a clear representation of. Hawking a new self-improvement book at his signing party in the first scene we meet him and being renowned as an accomplished psychologist, both help to solidify the idea that 70′s America had become a tad self-absorbed with themselves and their individuality, which would certainly up the stakes if the city or the world were threatened by an alien being which’s goal is to assimilate and make the public into a conformed mass.

Kaufman uses the camera brilliantly, almost making it like another character, so the audience feels involved and part of the story. As an example of this, most of the film the camera is stationary, and then suddenly in a highly charged sequence of suspense and tension, the camera is used in a ‘documentary-style’, moving very erratically between the characters, adding another layer of terror to the narrative. The impostors are also frightening in this installment, because they now utter an unEarthly howl when to warn or call other of their kind in climatic moments. Really will send chills up your spine.

Another brilliant method the director uses is for example a scene where the camera follows around Sutherland in Chinatown as he voice-overs several calls to the Health Department airing his concerns about what is happening, and getting the runaround from the operators and receptionists. The visuals you see are people watching Sutherland walk about being photographed, and the pedestrians unintentionally start staring and pointing, and this is interjected with cut-aways of shots of faces on a bus or walking by (obviously completely unaware that a movie is being made), who are staring blankly at the camera, trying to see what is happening, but in doing this honest reaction, they add a VERY CREEPY element to the story, almost as if they too have been taken over and aware of what is happening, and that is the reason they are staring back at us and the Donald Sutherland character.

An interesting element is the subtle use of garbage trucks. They show up everywhere, taking away trash and other dubious rummage, as if to say they are covering the impostors tracks and cleaning up the remnants of the poor humans who have been replaced.

Also Kaufman uses San Francisco to its fullest, by actually incorporating it’s hilly roads and uneven terrain to skew the camera on a pan; so one moment everything seems normal but as you follow a character, the landscape completely changes due to San Fran’s slanted streets, and suddenly in one continuous shot, it looks as though a subconscious change has been afforded to the character, and the viewer is forced to question if we should in fact trust the person in the frame now because of the angle they are then presented in. 

The supporting cast is absolutely brilliant, with a great job by Goldblum in a very early role, and a very notable role for Leonard Nimoy as the famous doctor-friend who Sutherland brings in to help ease the growing paranoia he is seeing in his friends. SPOILER ALERT! (It is interesting to note at the time of the film’s release, Nimoy was at the point of his career where he wanted anything but a Spock-ish role, and what does he turn to play? But a doctor who becomes an emotionless, loveless alien… Huh.)

Kevin McCarthy briefly reprising his role in the 1978 version

Two great cameos are also inserted for fans of the original as well. At one point Sutherland and Adams accidentally drive into a hysterical Kevin McCarthy, who seems to be still running around and screaming from the first film, trying to warn people that ‘they’ are here and it could be too late. It may seem trite in description, but it instead comes across quite effectively, with a startling soberness. The other cameo is in the climatic scene as Sutherland and Adams attempt to make their escape, and none other than director Don Siegel shows up as the driver of the cab they jump into.

Overall these two films are great examples of suspense, horror, and great staples in the genre. They both have been copied and not always to the best results (see 1993′s Body Snatchers, or 2007′s Invasion) and not surprisingly, this basic story of Martians from outer space coming down and not using force and armies to invade, but instead using pod-people to slowly and subconsciously takeover, has been absorbed into our modern psyche I would venture almost as much as zombies, or plasma-ray shooting aliens in flying saucers. Both these films are stellar examples of the climate they were hatched out of, and were also genre defining vehicles in their time.

As I stated before, if there was ever the poster-child for the remake, especially the horror remake, then Invasion of the Body Snatchers is it. And get yourself ready for one of the most scariest and terrifying endings in horror history, when you watch the 1978 version. Certainly scared the underwear off of me!

At first glance, Hopkins looks amazing as the legendary director, but your eyes start to see the flaws in his make-up as the films trailer goes on, I believe it is completely psychological, and no matter how FX make-up evolves, I think it is the human mind that will want to find something wrong. But let me get my car out of the weeds..

The part of Hitch looks like a role that after years of breezing through un-challenging parts, is something Hopkins can finally sink his teeth into.

The film looks like it will be good and might be looking to jiggle itself in the face of the upcoming 2013 award shows, as it may very well warrant. It seems to deal with Hitchcock’s ordeal to get the Robert Bloch book Psycho made into a feature in 1959, and shows that in the mind of Hollywood “know-it-all’s” it doesn’t matter how many blockbusters you have under your belt, or popular television shows, they will still give you problems about an interesting project.

The film’s sub-plot looks to be the strain (and strength) of the relationship between Hitch and Alma Reville (played by the marvelous Helen Mirren), which will be very interesting. Other notables in the cast are Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, Jessica Biel as Vera Miles, Danny Huston, Ralph Macchio, Kurtwood Smith, and Michael Wincott as the notorious serial killer that everything was based on, Ed Gein.

So needless to say, I’m excited. Have a look and see for yourself.

The George Romero film from 1968 was pretty ground-breaking for many reasons and at the time practically invented a genre, which today is in my opinion, a very over-saturated market. But Tom Savini’s 1990 remake which scored pretty high on the radar, landed well before the 2005-boom that resulted from the remake of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (which was the sequel to Night, that originally premiered in 1978).

But both the 1968 and 1990 versions of Night have great points between them, with the original rightfully acclaimed by critics as one of the essential horror films of all time, and considering the 1990 remake is not great, it does have some great moments that were achieved by improving on some of the original film’s ideas and concepts.

By now if you do not know the basic story of the iconic film in question, you either live under a rock or have a large hole in your knowledge of horror pop-culture. But for those of you unfamiliar, the plot concerns itself with a small group of strangers who seek refuge in an isolated farmhouse which is seized by the bodies of the recently deceased, who are now coming back to life (caused by radiation on a satellite back from Venus that breaks up in re-entry) and cannibalizing anyone in sight.

I don’t know about you, but this basic concept scares the living shit out of me (but that is for another posting).

George Romero’s Night was by no means the first to delve into this subject of the living dead, with such notable predecessors as Bela Lugosi’s 1932 ground-breaking classic White Zombie; or Val Lewton’s 1943 unknown gem I Walked with a Zombie; or the highly recommended Herk Harvey’s little seen classic, Carnival of Souls from 1962 (a film that even Romero admitted had influenced him into creating his 1968 debut in question).

There are a number of reasons that make the original Night stand out and become a must see. First was its budget; which seemed little to non. But true to the idea of a ‘low budget’, every dollar of the film was used wisely and put up on the screen. Shot for a mere $114k, it grossed 12 million domestically and$18 million internationally. The result was a very gritty, realistic nightmare made in black and white. (urban legend has it that Romero had actually shot it in B&W because a study at the time said that nightmares were always in B&W, though this could maybe just be explaining away budget issues, as well as a directorial choice).

Another fact to cite about this film are the issues it dealt with of the time. When the 1968 film was released, America was in the middle of the Civil Rights movement, and riots were breaking out all over the country because of this. It may not be a coincidence that Night‘s lead protagonist is an African-American named Ben, who almost immediately is challenged by an alpha-white male named Mr. Cooper, who wants to take control of the small group of survivors. Another sobering and unnerving aspect is the fact that after the climax of the film, poor Ben is the only one to survive this horrible and brutal night, only to be mistaken in the denouncement for a zombie inside the farmhouse and is shot by a faraway hillbilly posse who are approaching the home.

Romero’s original must see trilogy, Night, Dawn and Day of the Dead all were topical with their themes and allegories; it was the reflection of mindless, ‘zombie-like’ consumerism of the masses that was born out of the advent of the shopping mall in the 1970′s that’s reflected in 78′s Dawn, or the shades of the AIDs epidemic of the 1980′s, shown through the prism in 1985′s Day.

Shocking and terrifying for audiences, this 1968 drive-in double feature became a massive hit and helped revitalize the horror genre right into the 70′s that had previously died down from the re-releases of the Universal Studios Horror cannon in the 50′s, and was at the time on ‘life support’ with sparing installments from the Hammer Studios or the Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe series.

Night‘s continuous onslaught of suspense, tension and action, along with its grim finale struck a chord with audiences around the world and it instantly became a cult classic. It’s sequel actually invented the now popular Italian horror genre which was pioneered in the 79′s by Lucio Fulci who did the Italian sequel to Dawn, titled Zombie 2 (known in the states as simply Zombie)  and influenced the man who some call the God of the Italian horror genre, Dario Agento, a man who himself has influenced practically every horror director and fan internationally since.

On a side note, the biggest problem that Night of the Living Dead saw was its loss of copyright through an error of the film’s distributor. In 1968 it was the law to put a copyright notice on every film, which the distributor had done under the film’s original working title, Night of the Flesh Eaters, but removed and never put back on the prints that were sent out with its final title. Because of this fatal error, the film entered public domain and anyone could walk into 7-11 and buy it for $5; and a string of films were made capitalizing on the iconic title in 1980′s, like the Return of the Living Dead series, and at one point the film was even colorized, repackaged and sold.

Around 1989, George Romero approached his long-time friend and collaborator, the legendary make-up effects artist Tom Savini to explain that there was interest in remaking the film. Partly financial, so to get the title back and keep it, there also was a willingness to breathe life into the franchise. To Savini’s surprise and delight, he was asked to direct this remake, as Romero was currently in preproduction of The Dark Half, so would only write and produce. But almost immediately there was a huge conflict between Savini and the studios, which quickly spread to he and Romero, ultimately causing a huge break in their relationship that lasted almost 10 years. Though Savini had been assured by Romero that he would be there to help and pretty much have the make-up man’s back against the studio in directing the film, Romero was a complete no-show for the production of 1990′s Night, because of his preoccupation of The Dark Half.

So you must remember this while grading the 1990 remake, because according to Savini, it was not at all the version he wanted to put out. In the 1997 book Savini- The Wizard of Gore, Savini described first his huge problem with the censors, and being forced to cut a lot of the gore out that he intended in using. To remake such an iconic film, the ‘King of Splatter’ as he is called in the industry, planned on his remake to be the best and most realistic effects to date; but that was shot down by the studio who quickly pulled a Touch of Evil, and in fact idiotically recut his film without the director’s approval. Most of the ultra gore and homage to other zombie films he’d shot was omitted, and instead the film was filled with more dialogue and less action.

His second major complaint with the final version of his Night was its soundtrack. He’d shot names out like Danny Elman to compose it but was instead assigned someone he did not pick. Savini supplied the composer with a rough cut of the film filled with his take on the music, which was a collection of cues from films like Ben-Hur and Planet of the Apes, to help illustrate his ‘vision’ and asked the man to develop something along those lines. Instead, the composer returned with a completely different score because as Savini says in the book, “he said he decided to go in another direction.” That became the score that the director was forced to use in the film.

Sadly, I have to completely agree with Savini. The score is quite bad, even for 1990 standards (that said, the cue over the titles that shows up throughout the film is pretty terrifying).

But the film does follow through on a number of themes that were only touched upon in the original. The 1990 piece successfully conveys the notion that the undead are actually not monsters, but are in fact versions of us (which they essentially are -I know- Huh!), but we (the humans) are in fact the monsters.

At the end of the film, bikers in a make-shift camp, are seen drunkenly throwing themselves into a pen they’ve erected and sadistically wrestle and fight the zombies, clearly having the time of their lives at the mockery of a drunk fighting a mindless ghoul; we also see members of the hillbilly posse lynching other zombies, then using them as target practice as they hang from the trees, a vignette which legend has it, Romero wanted to include in the original film, but it was deemed way too controversial for the time when the 1968 film was released. These two scenes are quite startling for the brutality humans can still participate in, even at the darkest moments of our existence.

Another brilliant change to Savini’s version, is the arch of the Barbara character who is the person that brings us, the audience, to the farmhouse. In both versions, Barbara goes through a very traumatising incident in the first scene, and after escaping to the farmhouse to seek refuge, in the Romero version, enters into an almost catatonic state because of shock, and is pretty much useless for the rest of the film. But in the 1990 version, Barbara instead becomes empowered after retreating to the house, and much like Ridley Scott’s Ripley character, she becomes a fighter and along with Ben, takes an active role in her own survival over the course of the night.

A neat little thing Savini adds to his version which I love, is in the final hours of the siege, Ben (played amazingly by Tony Todd, who I think should have earned a nomination for how good his portrayal was) is forced to barricade himself in the basement as a last resort while the house is finally overrun by the undead.  He only then accidentally stumbles over the keys to the gas pump the property, that was something the entire group of survivors desperately searched the farmhouse for earlier in the film, which could have refueled the vehicles allowing them all to escape. Now the only one left, Ben finding the keys is meaningless and like the best twists in a Twilight Zone or EC Comics tale, he can only laugh hysterically realizing the final irony, as the scene fades out.

So both films have a lot of positives. The original inspired a completely new genre, while the remake had some of the best SFX work to date, and enough fresh polishes added that it was not a complete reworking of the overall idea of the 1968 version, but just enough to give the viewer some new twists and turns. Both are highly recommended, and though the 1990 version is flawed in certain ways, I think seasoned horror or cinema fans can find them forgivable, and look at it as it was, a decent enough remake that was able to breathe life back into a dying genre.

But this got me thinking- there are a ton, and I mean a TON of crappy (for use of a better word) remakes out there of some really great movies. I mean at this point, it’s now running into the hundreds.

With that said, there’s a handful of really great remakes that are classics in their own right, and translate the themes and motifs of the original films, and update them for a modern audience.

So I figured I’d start a series of posts highlighting film remakes, which in my humble opinion stand up to their original counterparts, and in some cases continue to explore great ideas that their predecessor may have only touched on. I don’t necessarily think it would be my place to say if a certain remake is better than the original because that is for you and you to decide.

The first one I’d like to bring up is a classic in the thriller genre, something that was quite ballsy for the director to helm at the time, because it was a tad out of his usual genre he was comfortable in.

I’m talking about Martin Scorsese’s 1991 classic, Cape Fear.

Now loads of material has been written on this film and the 1962 original, so I can only do my best to add my two cents.

Robert Mitchum as Max Cady

The aforementioned original was directed by J. Lee Thompson, who had oversaw such classics as The Guns of Navarone, Mackenna’s Gold, Conquest and Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and a slew of Charles Bronson vehicles. Cape Fear was adapted from a novel by John D. MacDonald, and starred the greats: Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck, Martin Balsam, and Telly Savalas, and scored by the legendary Bernard Hermann.

The basic story followed ex-convict Max Cady’s (Mitchum), release from prison after spending a number of years incarcerated. He immediately goes back and re-enters the life of his ex-public defender, attorney Sam Bowden (Peck), a small time lawyer who Cady blames for his lengthy prison sentence. Max begins a vicious and sadistic campaign of stalking and harassment of the Bowden family, slowly upping the ante, getting more brazen with each encounter, culminating in a fiery climax on Cape Fear, in North Carolina, a place where the family flees to escape his wrath.

Mitchum, Policeman Martin Balsam & Gregory Peck

Overall, the 1962 film presents the Bowden family as a very wholesome, middle American family, which are brutalized by this insane and brilliant maniac who is completely bent on revenge for the years in prison and the life he lost. The only really thing that Sam Bowden eventually does that is questionable, is out of desperation, he hires some thugs through P. I. Telly Savalas to beat up and scare off Cady. But this completely backfires, and only enrages and emboldens the ex-con, enlisting probably the most quoted line from the 1962 film, “I got something planned for your wife and kid that they ain’t never gonna forget- and neither will you Councilor…”

Now Scorsese’s 1991 version updated the story and concept behind the film, while still staying extremely faithful to the 1962 original. It was a bold step for the legendary director at the time, coming off the heels of his massive hit and genre-instilling film, Goodfellas, and a very bold decision frankly, which could have easily backfired on him. Up until that point, Scorsese had mostly been known for mobster related films, occasionally venturing out on some brilliant directions like the very dark comedy King of Comedy, the brilliant documentary The Last Waltz, or the very controversiall take of the last days of Jesus, in The Last Temptation of Christ.

But Scorsese had a number of great things going for him; he was a master of the camera, more specific cinematography; he also was a huge student of film, which probably gave him his greatest angle in updating Cape Fear. He saw this almost as an Alfred Hitchcock movie in pacing and suspense, and basically modeled his version as one. (A great read about him and this film in particular, is Scorsese on Scorsese, which comes highly recommended from this podwit.)

Robert DeNiro as the updated Maximillian Cady

The new cast consisted of Robert DeNiro as Max Cady, Nick Nolte as Sam Bowden, Jessica Lange as his wife Leigh, Juliette Lewis as their daughter Danielle, Joe Don Baker as the Private Detective and Fred Thompson as the head of the firm Bowden works for. Mitchum, Peck and Balsam were all brought back for cameos, which was a marvelous choice and nod to the original film.

 So Marty did some clever updates to the script, which really enhanced the new version, while at the same time staying true to the source material. Not only taking elements from the original film, Scorsese also seems to take some inspiration from one of the greatest thrillers of all time The Night of the Hunter, which also starred Mitchum and was the only picture that was directed by the great Charles Laughton, regarding shot composition, use of vivid colors, and bookending the film as almost a dark bedtime story.

The new Bowden family were made more realistic, so not to be too picture perfect, as the original family seemed to be. Sam seemed to be cheating on his wife with Illeana Douglas and having visible problems in his marriage, while Juliette Lewis’ relationship with her parents is severely strained; like most families with teenagers endure. These added nuisances which became things Cady would later exploit.

DeNiro, with Mrs. Bowden Jessica Lange, and Mr. B, Nick Nolte

Now to DeNiro’s performance. I know this may be a very hotly debated topic within the world of DeNiro fans, but aside from Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, I believe this may be his single greatest role. Taking nothing away from Robert Mitchum, who being an amazing legend in his own right, and recognizing his equally dangerous and very effective portrayal of psychopath Max Cady (PLEASE check him out in the aforementioned The Night of the Hunter for his frightening portrayal of the psychopathic preacher Harry Powell, who has ’Love’ and ‘Hate’ tattooed on each knuckle), Mr. DeNiro seemed to be at the height of his career and in top form with his ’method’ acting, and really jumped into this role. “The height’s the depth” to quote DeNiro from the film.

“I don’t know if to look at him or read him…”

First DeNiro started a workout regime so that he could look the most toned he had looked in over a decade (supposedly taking his body fat down to only 3%!), and listened to prison recordings of convicts to find the right dialect to be able to master for the uneducated southern-draw of Cady. He decided that his character would be completely inked with jailhouse tatts, like someone who had spent 14 years in prison would have. Consequently, he then had his body tattooed with vegetable dye, which would last for 6 months, so the body art would not have to be reapplied everyday before shooting. He grew his hair out to his shoulders, and lastly, but maybe most extreme (and costly!), he paid a dentist $5000 to yellow, add caps and do other things to make his teeth look dirty and crooked (He later had to pay 20K to have them then fixed!).

Robert Mitchum back but as the Policeman

But DeNiro made the character very intelligent, which made him even more menacing. He went into prison practically uneducated and illiterate, and came out as his own public defender and extremely well read, and with a plan to seek revenge on Bowden and his family.

Which leads to one of the most startling changes Scorsese made to story, which adds an entire new level that was absent from the 1962 film. Unlike the original, Nolte’s Bowden actively suppressed a report that would have cleared Cady and saved him a 14 year bid, all those years before, believing Cady was in fact guilty of the crime (rape) and should be punished for it. So this action in itself, almost justifies Cady’s savage attack that he lays on the Bowden family.

This brings us to a major theme in the film which Scorsese levels on the audience: the issue of class. It is inherit in the film that Bowden’s character 14 years prior and once Cady is released from prison always felt that he was above or more plainly, not on the same level as Cady in terms of social class. This is a point that is danced around in almost every conversation Sam and Max have, from their first encounter, to the film’s climax on the banks of a river during a hurricane. “You think you’re better than me?” Surprisingly though, Max does seem to succeed with his goal and at the end of the movie Cady in fact lowers Bowden down to the primal, animalist level he resides in. So in fact, DeNiro’s character does succeed in getting what he wants, and essentially wins, and in the denouncement, Max being satisfied is completely neutral about his eventual death.

On set with Martin Scorsese

Lastly, from a technical stand point, the film is brilliant. Scorsese shot and paced it like a Hitchcock film and even used the original Hermann score, which once you hear, you will never forget or unmarry the two. Elmer Bernstein, who adapted the original Hermann score for the 1991 hit, encountered a huge problem in the process. He actually ran out of source music for the new film, having used all the music cues already from the original score, still had key scenes needing music. So in a stroke of brilliance, Bernstein went back through the Hermann catalog, and actually found unused tracks Hermann had penned for Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain, using them to fill in the holes seamlessly.

So along with an action-packed climax, Scorsese really directed a masterpiece which ended up being a hit in the box office. It just goes to show you, even though one might be pigeon-holed in a field or genre, that does not mean they still can’t branch out and be brilliant in another. But don’t take my word for it, just go watch his version of Cape Fear.

(For the Tor.com rewatch of Batman: The Animated Series that Brian mentions in the podcast, click here.)

I saw images which still freak me out to this day, some of which took me years to figure out what films they were from: the dogs mauling Gregory Peck at the end of The Boys From Brazil; the truck il Lazaro dangling at almost a 50 degree angle on the collapsing rope bridge during a hurricane, desperately trying to get across in William Friedkin’s Sorcerer; George C. Scott’s hopeless race against death to try and figure out about the top secret government program that accidently poisoned him and his son, in his self-directed tour-de-force Rage; the reveal of Vincent Price’s face when his dead wife comes back from the dead in The Last Man on Earth; the entire film of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead; and low and behold, the death scene of young Kim Richards in John Carpenter’s classic, Assault on Precinct 13.

There are probably another ten movies I can think of that seared images into my brain from that impressionable age, but one of the most vivid is from Assault on Precinct 13.

I hadn’t seen the film since childhood and had been meaning to sit down and watch it after the remake in 2005, a film I purposefully haven’t watched yet, so I could revisit the original first.

I always knew it held up, and being a huge fan of John Carpenter and specifically his early work, I couldn’t wait to check this film out again. But funny enough, because of the brutality of the death of Kim Richards, I for some childish reason, put the Assault off.

I can’t tell you how impressed I was at the film, and of what young John Carpenter was putting out at the time. Not only did he direct the movie, (as would become the norm for Carpenter) he wrote and did the soundtrack. Not only does it hold up, it is still as chilling as it was when released back in 1976. Hell, Quentin Tarantino sites it as one of his favorite films of all time.

I think if helmed by another less talented or unskilled director, Assault could of just turned out to be another crappy 70′s action film that fell through the cracks of the era. But Carpenters direction and staging  goes beyond that, and turns it not only into a thriller, but seems to even present itself as a horror film.

Carpenter admits that after seeing Howard Hawk’s Rio Bravo, the idea fascinated him of a group of people stuck within a single location, fighting for their lives against an outside evil. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead also comes to mind with this concept, which Carpenter also has spoken about influencing him, and this idea is something that will again surface in this filmography, in movies like his remake of Hawk’s The Thing from 1982, or more directly in his questionable attempt, Ghost of Mars from 2001.

What makes Assault a classic is its pacing. The evil gangs of L.A. are fed up and in an opening scene right out of the darkest horror him, they make a blood oath to fight to the death for each other.

They then begin an ungodly offensive against the city and it’s people, going out on suspense-filled rides, with a car filled with gang members and a high-powered automatic weapon and scope, trolling for innocent victims to murder.

These scenes are shot beautifully, as the viewer slowly sees the seductive barrell of the rifle poke out of the backwindow, and like a serpent, starts to look for victims.  The weapon becomes almost phallic as it finds a victim, before it goes momentary limp after loosing interest. Carpenter’s music is amazing here, and really adds to the suspense of the entire scene.

One of the best sequences in the film, and most famous

The first act ends with the shocking scene that burnt into my young impressionable mind (which I would hate to give away here in case you haven’t seen it, but it does involve an ice cream truck and a very young Kim Richards), the gang then follows an innocent father that flees to the nearby Precinct 13, which is within hours of closing it’s obselete doors for good because of department down sizing. There the gang surrounds the precinct and feeling slided after one of their leaders being killed, begins an unrelenting assault on the police station and it’s inhabitants.

The film is fairly low budget, being the director’s first official theatrical film (he had done Dark Star, his student film that ended up award winning and which allowed him to turn it into feature-length) but from Carpenter’s directing and editing you could not at all tell, and his shot composition really makes you believe that Los Angeles is decaying and only steps away from the fate of New York City in his 1981 film, Escape From New York.

Another chilling element to my young mind at the time was (if you take out the politics of urban street gangs and other things a young child would be oblivious to), the gangs in the film (to Carpenter’s credit), all become almost one entity, and are no longer viewed as a group of individuals. Much like the ghost pirates in his 1980′s The Fog, the group become a single mass, all working for one purpose, which is to kill the poor souls inside Precinct 13. They become like zombies out of the already mentioned Night of the Living Dead (not literally mind you), which I found truly terrifying.

A violent street gang named Street Thunder likes to kill people, including the ice-cream seller.

For the most part, the film is quite believable and plausible. And there are a handful of very scary, and quite a few memorable surprises in the film that are still brilliant.

So if you’re looking for a real treat, something from a master whose next film is now viewed as a horror classic, Halloween, check out  Assault on Precinct 13. It is a real gem of a low-budget 1976 film, and really gives insight into where Carpenter was starting to lean toward within movie genres.

And if you are anything like me, you’ll never hear an ice cream truck’s music the same way ever again.

DO NOT READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS EPISODE YET!

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I’m glad I got that warning out of the way.  Quite frankly, my review of this episode is all about the spoilers, so be aware that you have been warned.

Having been a Star Trek fan lo these many years, I was completely prepared for the fact that the saintly doctor Kahler Jex was going to be a bad guy.  After all, anyone who violates the Federation’s “prime directive” of non-interference (curing diseases and giving out electricity a few years too early) was bound to be a baddie.

Of course, Doctor Who pulls a fast one and actually makes both “villains” of the piece much more complex and multi-dimensional than you would initially be led to believe.  Both Jex and the Gunslinger are given more than their fair share of baggage and motivation to make how they behave completely believable and not-at-all cliché.

While all of this is happening, the Doctor and Amy revisit some old ground last trod by the Doctor and Donna a few years ago: the idea that the Doctor needs someone to travel with him to ground him and, as Donna put it, to stop him.

This year’s episodes have had a few themes running through them, but this one touches on the idea that, despite his protestations in “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,” the Doctor is weaning himself off the Ponds.  Whether this is intentional or not is still unexplained, but never before has he gone back to revisit old companions with this kind of regularity… or should I say irregularity, depending on who you ask.

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Because the Ponds aren’t with him, we’re seeing a Doctor reminiscent of some of the darker David Tennant days, as well as some Sylvester McCoy wrapped in.  Dramatically it’s good for the Doctor, but as far as storytelling is concerned it left me a little cold.  The Doctor made too many easy turns from hot-to-cold in this episode for my liking.  And while it may very well be that the rift between the Doctor and Amy in this episode was the real reason why the Ponds went home at the end, it’s undercut by the fact that they’ve gone home at the end of every episode this season.  Who’s weaning who off whom?

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Another theme that is becoming more apparent as the season is progressing is the idea of misdirection when it comes to “the Doctor”.  At the end of “Asylum of the Daleks”, we’re left with the Doctor’s legend being wiped from the Daleks’ memories.  In “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”, Solomon seems really eager at the Doctor’s arrival.  Later we find out it’s because Solomon needs A doctor and not THE Doctor.  And again, when Solomon begins to talk about an item of extreme value that the Doctor has brought aboard the ship, most seemed to think he was referring to the TARDIS.  Instead it was an Egyptian queen.  Finally in this episode, we find that the gunslinger is looking for an alien doctor.  Another alien doctor, not our alien Doctor.

Seriously, this is getting a little old and it’s leading me back to my theory that the question asked at the end of last season… the all-important “dock tore hoo?” is, in fact, not asking who the Doctor is but is, again, another bit of misdirection.  If I’m right, I think I’ll be a bit depressed.  If I’m wrong and that question is answered, I think I will be a bit depressed.  Just call me Marvin.

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“A Town Called Mercy” also saw the return of Ben Browder to my television in a part that he was born to play.  A fan of his work on Farscape (I never watched Stargate so I missed his turn there), I was glad to see him again.  As always, his acting is genuine and heartfelt.  He was perfectly believable as the voice of reason in this episode.

Unfortunately, I’m beginning to worry about the way everyone seems to buy into the premise of this show. In “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,” Rory’s dad was introduced to the idea of travelling through time and space fairly quickly and adapted quicker than most would.  You could say that maybe it’s because he’s an enlightened 20-21st century man and that maybe he’s where Rory gets his modicum of level-headedness from.  However… now we have a whole Western town which seems to be going with the flow of everything they’re seeing?  I think we all know that an old-time American town would be making fusses about devils and magic.  I’m just saying it struck me as odd, though I’m sure everyone will say I’m picking nits.

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Anyway, I’ll give this one 3/5 TARDISes.  It wasn’t terrible, though while I understand why Jex is wearing period garb, I’m not entirely sure how or why the Gunslinger wound up being dressed like a cowboy.

Every other Thursday, Brian goes out of this world, waxing recommendatious on great reading that will transport you to fantastic, far-away worlds and times.  Looking to escape? Escape Velocity is your bi-weekly ticket!

Within the world of science fiction and fantasy, possibly my favorite little sub-sub-genre is one I recently decided to call the crypto-historical. Most usually employed in service of an epic fantasy tale, a crypto-historical story takes a setting from our real Earth history and basically just changes the names and a few of the details to suit the needs of the author and the story. The author can thus explore the political or social themes that drew him to that historical setting in the first place but, freed from any obligation to adhere to the events of actual history, can also go as far afield and wreak as much physical and sociological havoc as they like.

Currently, the most famous example of the form is George R.R. Martin’s world-beating mega-epic A Song of Ice and Fire (along with the TV series derived from it, Game of Thrones). It’s well documented that while the continent of Westeros, on which much of that series’ action is set, is roughly the size of South America, in terms of its geography and political situation, Martin based it not-very-loosely on England at the time of the Wars of the Roses. The Stark and Lannister families neatly stand in for the real-world Yorks and Lancasters, Valyria is similar to the Roman Empire (complete with decline and fall Doom), and the Targaryen conquest of Westeros parallels the Norman conquest of Britain on several levels.

Meanwhile, Guy Gavriel Kay has made a very respectable career out of such novels. (His gorgeously poetic 2010 novel Under Heaven, based on 8th-century China during the Tang Dynasty, has the distinction of being one of the very best novels I’ve ever read.)

While the late, lamented David Gemmell (1948-2006) made his mark on the fantasy genre with traditional medieval adventure novels like Morningstar, Dark Moon and his many tales of the Drenai (the classic Legend—no relation to the 1985 Ridley Scott/Tom Cruise film—was the first), he ventured into the crypto-historical field with his four novels of the Rigante, and in doing so created a truly magnificent story of faith, redemption and liberation (with plenty of fighting to keep things exciting) that deserves to be read far and wide.

The four-book Rigante series is actually two separate stories, each taking two books to tell, united by a common setting and history. Although the last two books (Ravenheart and Stormrider) take place several hundred years after the first two (Sword in the Storm and Midnight Falcon), many elements are derived from points set up in the first two, so I think of the Rigante books as one four book series that should be read in order.

The first book, Sword in the Storm, introduces us to the the Keltoi—a loose confederation of tribal peoples patterned after the Celts (the Rigante are one such tribe), complete with god-like nature spirits called the Seidh (Sidhe)—and the city and ever-expanding empire of Stone, patterned after the Roman Republic/Empire. For good measure, Gemmell throws in the “tree cult,” a persecuted religion that meets in secret and preaches peace, love, and harmony, very much like first- and second-century Christians.

As the regimented armies of Stone march towards an apparently inevitable collision with the less disciplined, wilder Keltoi, cultures and subcultures within each of those societies clash with each other. Through well-drawn characters from both sides, Gemmell is able to portray in a fascinating light the eternal struggle between man’s innate nature of venality and violence and selfishness, and our ever-present impulse towards something better, more generous and peaceful. The conflict between our nature and our better nature is played out in an oh-so-satisfying manner in the political maneuvering, bloody death bouts, and emotional batterings (intentional and otherwise) in which Gemmell’s oh-so-human characters engage.

And there are so many wonderful and important characters. The first two books’ “main characters”—the young Rigante named Connavar and, in Midnight Falcon, his hot-tempered son Bane—are but one part of this story. We also meet young Banouin, torn between two cultural identities and living too much inside his own head; Rage, a famed gladiator whose nature belies his deadly skills; the surprisingly sweet and funny Persis Albitane and his snarky servant Norwin; the darkly inscrutable Seidh goddess called the Morrigu; and scores of other significant supporting characters.

Then, in Ravenheart, we are moved eight hundred years later, with the still-Celt-like Rigante now (barely) subjugated by their neighbors the Varlish (highly reminiscent of the English), in a colonial-era society that includes rifles. In this world we meet a young Rigante named Kaelin, a descendant of the first two books’ protagonists, and his not-entirely-civilized kind-of-guardian Jaim. Together, they will spark the Rigante rebellion that has so long simmered under Varlish domination, but it won’t go as anyone planned.

Meanwhile, magicks both light and dark, the old gods of the Seidh and the continuing influence of the tree cult will all affect the tides of history and change that will engulf all these characters. Against the sweeping backdrop of magic, war, and intimately-portrayed cultures pleasingly drawn from recognizable history, we see events both world-shaking and intensely personal.

Like the rest of Gemmell’s excellent works, the Rigante books are combat-rich heroic fantasy, but are definitely not just random blood-and-thunder Conan knockoffs. They are a layered and infinitely effective portrayal of cultures at war, peopled with memorable and believable characters who live through the crucible in which their characters, and the ideas we all must contemplate but ultimately never can fully resolve, are tested to the fullest. These four books fulfill the potential of the crypto-historical genre, and I cannot recommend them more highly.

Dinosaurs! Robots! Time Lord! (Image © BBC)

One of the often-cited strengths of Doctor Who as a series is the flexibility of its concept—when your one permanent concept is an alien do-gooder with a time-and-space machine shaped like a police box, well, there’s not a whole lot you can’t do with that. Mostly, people refer to this wide-open imaginative potential when the show goes from an outer space shoot-’em-up one week to a gaslit Victorian costume drama the next.

This past Saturday night, though, we got “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” as an illustration of that idea executed concurrently rather than consecutively. I’m sure that this one originated with a one-line brief (“Dinosaurs! On a spaceship!“) and a story conceived that way could have been knocked off in a perfunctory and disappointing way. But no, for this one, writer Chris Chibnall and director Saul Metzstein (with, I have no doubt, plenty of input from showrunner Steven Moffat) seemed to throw everything but the kitchen sink into one big crockpot of an episode. Dinosaurs. Spaceships. Silurians. Not one, but two Harry Potter actors. Lestrade from Sherlock. Bitchy robots. The straight-up nastiest villain the show’s seen in a while. Gender politics played for laughs. An Indian Space Agency. Queen freakin’ Nefertiti!

And you know what? The goulash that emerged from that (metaphorical) crockpot might not have been the most “nourishing” meal our Saturday night Who brains have ever consumed, but it was certainly rich and certainly satisfying.

Spoilers ahead, by the way…

I think the reason “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” was, ultimately, a successful episode was that for all the stuff Chibnall et al threw into the mix, the core of it was one of the more solid Doctor Who plots we’ve seen in a while. (Skip to the next paragraph if you haven’t watched it yet, ’cause I’m about to illustrate my point about the solidity of the plot by explaining the big reveal we got halfway through the episode.) The ignorant rapine of an unscrupulous trader (read that as “soulless capitalist” if you wish) not only utterly ruins the mission of a spaceship, but dooms himself in the process, unless he can trick or force our hero into saving him. See, I think that’s a great central concept, as long as the creators do a good job of making us care about the incidentals… which they really do.

Really, only fifty years of Doctor Who can justify this shot (Image © BBC)

On the face of it, it’s an insane number of layers to roll into one 45-minute piece of television, and yet they managed it and managed it well. We had the race-against-time of the impending crash (with bonus missiles), the mystery of the ship’s nature, and the menace of Solomon as the big main layers, mortared together by the consistently entertaining character presentation.

Yes, a reasonable person could complain that it’s never explained exactly why the Doctor felt the need to recruit the fiery Nefertiti (Riann Steele), or the comedically sexist Riddell (played with manliest gusto by Rupert “Inspector Lestrade” Graves, rapidly becoming one of my favorite British actors), but in my opinion that would be missing the point. If their only purpose in the story was to be a sort of ersatz screwball-flavored Amy & Rory analogue for Amy’s turn as a sort-of-Doctor, then that would have more than justified their inclusion. (While some may disagree that they did any more than that, in my opinion they did and both the performances and the story were better for it.)

I can’t blame him for being a bit freaked out (Image © BBC)

Rory’s dad Brian, played by the perfectly-cast Mark “Arthur Weasley” Williams, was a lovely thread within the story. Amy and Rory are so experienced that they get to function on occasion as mini-Doctors themselves, while as one-off guest stars with strong personalities, Nefertiti and Riddell wouldn’t be convincing in the traditional companion role. So instead we’re given Brian, a perfectly lovely, old-school British dad who gets to view this absolutely bonkers (albeit kind of typical) day in the life of our favorite time-traveling adventurers through utterly human eyes, and in the process go from befuddled and provincial to, well…

Brian: We can. Me and Rory. We must be the same gene-thingy you just said.
Doctor: Brian Pond, you are delicious.
Brian: I’m not a Pond.
Doctor: ‘Course you are.

Ooh, he’s a mean one! (Image © BBC)

Meanwhile, as his turns as Harry Potter‘s Argus Filch and Game of Thrones‘ Lord Walder Frey have proven, when you want small, mean, nasty, and rotten-to-the-core, you call David Bradley. His venom-spitting, tiny-souled Solomon was an amazingly complete and satisfying antagonist for the Doctor given that he only turned up about halfway through the episode. And while, yes, the practical upshot of his little scheme was the possible destruction of Earth, the fact that it was caused not by a megalomaniacal desire for universal domination or a murderous long-standing hatred for the Doctor but by simple, uncaring, petty greed was refreshing.

You’re going straight on the naughty step! (Image © BBC)

While I’m totally unfamiliar with the (apparently quite successful) British comedy duo Mitchell and Webb, they were an absolute scream as Solomon’s perpetually bitching, idiotic robot sidekicks. That the hulking robots managed to be constantly hilarious but genuinely threatening when they were needed to be was one of this episode’s many smaller delights. There were other touches, too, subtly woven into to this otherwise hugely romp-y tapestry—the utterly believable conceit that India will have the space agency responsible for Earth’s protection in the future was probably one of my favorite bits.

Oh, the dinosaurs themselves? Frankly, when all was said and done they wound up as almost an afterthought, nearly lost in the stampede of other madly entertaining bits that stuffed the episode. They wound up being a means to an end—they were an illustration of the spaceship’s mission, the obligatory pack of velociraptors was just an excuse for more hilarious verbal sparring between Amy and Riddell, and the triceratops with a thing for Brian’s golf ball was both a convenient ride and an excuse for Solomon to Kick the Puppy.

All in all, yes, this was new-style Doctor Who par excellence—manic, bonkers, high-concept, and effectively grounded by a well-established heart of gold underneath it all. Okay, okay, in the spirit of gleeful abandon embodied by this episode, I’ll give in to temptation and make the ridonkulously obvious Samuel L. Jackson reference:

I was never tired of these megglefrexin’ dinosaurs on this megglefrexin’ spaceship!

(Oh, one more note: I was finally clued in to the fact that the opening sequences of both the episodes we’ve gotten so far this season have featured logos with story-appropriate “skins”—Dalek bumps for “Asylum of the Daleks” and scaly reptile skin for this one. If they’re gonna keep it up the whole season, it could be a lot of fun. Or gimmicky. Or both. We’ll see…)

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I want to be gung-ho for A Christmas Story 2, but it really seems to be pandering to the fans out there, only trying to capitalize on the glory of the original. None of the original cast have returned (some, like Peter Billingsley, because they have just outgrown their roles; others, sadly, like the original director Bob Clark and the legendary Darren McGavin, have passed away), and this looks like it takes place five years or so after the first installment.

I want to keep my hopes up because of my love for the original, and even though Ralph’s dad (the “Old Man”) is here played by the great Daniel Stern, to me the only thing the sequel has working for it is the period setting.

It seems to have a completely different style of comedy, a kind that has come to dominate films of late: the silly, slapstick-stupid, dorky style that you see in American Pie, Dumb and Dumber or The Three Stooges. It does not at all belong in a sequel to a film that presented a kind of nostalgic comedy that the audience could remember and identify with.

Even Ralphie is now played as a goof or nerd, who would seem to be more at home in a Revenge of the Nerds film then in a beloved Christmas classic. There seem to be a lot of call-backs to gags and jokes from the 1983 film, which if done right can work, but when done wrong (as commonly happens) can make a new film just hopelessly show us the same bits. You could just go watch the original for that.

But as they’d say on the old show Reading Rainbow, ”Hey, don’t take my word for it.” Take a look at the trailer and share your own thoughts with us.

I just hope this doesn’t live up to my fear that it will be the worst, most unwarranted and unwanted sequel of all time.

It’s been over a year since DC Comics launched its “New 52″ storyline which rebooted all of its continuity.  The storyline leading up to this historic change was called Flashpoint and after all this time, I finally got a chance to read it.  Flashpoint is a truly monumental piece of comic literature which forever changes the status quo for universe-shattering stories.  I only wish I meant that in a good way.

© DC Comics

To sum up, Flashpoint was a five-issue miniseries that had crossover issues throughout the DC Universe.  In Flashpoint, the Flash wakes up and discovers that all history is changed.  Superman never existed, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are fighting a war that is raging throughout the world and Bruce Wayne was killed instead of his parents, leading to his father becoming Batman.

The world is in turmoil and the Flash has to set things right again.  His every action in this five-part miniseries is about putting the universe back the way it was.  In the end he discovers that he himself is responsible for corrupting the timeline and races back in time to stop himself from making this fatal mistake. Of course, anyone who’s seen Back to the Future II knows that this should not work.  But I digress.

Once he sets the timeline straight, a mysterious figure (later identified as Pandora) tells him that the timeline had been fractured long ago, and that it was time to put the various lines back together as that they would be more powerful this way and ready to fight an oncoming evil.  Thus ends everything we knew about the DC Universe.

© DC Comics – Click to Enlarge

This isn’t the first time that DC has pressed the reset button, but it is the first time that we were given false hope.  I grant you that unless you were living under a rock, you knew these changes were coming.  HOWEVER, from a reader perspective… we were all cheated.

Let’s take a quick look at all some of the more famous times DC has rebooted… what was promised and what was delivered:

© DC Comics

1) CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS (1985): The Crisis was about streamlining the DCU into something a bit more understandable for the casual reader.  Over the course of a few decades various alternate Earths had cropped up to encompass all the various continuities and even to reflect some of the characters that DC had inherited over the years.  The Crisis destroyed all the other Earths leaving one behind.  This Earth was an amalgamation of all the others, consolidating most of the characters into its history.  For the most part, the only characters who really suffered were outdated variations on the current character.  For example, the Golden Age Superman & Wonder Woman were no longer necessary as they were just unused versions of the characters currently in circulation.  They were abandoned, but sent off gracefully.  Unpopular characters like Supergirl and the Flash were killed in action and given proper sendoffs.  And so the DCU was now consolidated and all would be right with the world.  For a few months, anyway.

© DC Comics

2) POST-CRISIS REBOOTS: Within a year, DC rebooted Superman thanks to the work of John Byrne.  The Crisis had provided a decent enough consolidation, but now DC needed to put the characters themselves to rights.  Superman was first, followed in brief order by Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Captain Marvel.  Other characters were rebooted as well.  The most notable exception to this was the Flash.  In the Crisis, the Flash (Barry Allen) was killed.  In post-Crisis continuity, his protege Wally West (Kid Flash) took over.  And so the story continued.  Some of the other reboots (like Green Lantern and Captain Marvel) served merely to retell their origins in modern settings and not to turn the clock back on their respective continuities.  For those who were rebooted, again it was more about setting the characters on a more contemporary Earth.  Superman and Wonder Woman both went through the most changes, though, again, you’d be hard-pressed to notice them at a causal glance.

© DC Comics

3) ZERO HOUR (1994): Unfortunately while the Crisis had consolidated things, there were still some continuity gaffes.  Most notable of them was Hawkman, who had gone through a few creative teams and whose personal continuity had gotten so jumbled that it was no longer clear even where he came from.  The conceit of Zero Hour was that the Crisis had sent ripples through the timestream which caused the occasional continuity hicccup.  The villain Parallax took advantage of this and decided to restart the universe so that he could fix everything that had gone wrong.  The heroes stop him, but not before the universe is wiped out.  A new big bang sets everything back in motion, and the heroes trapped outside of time are forced to sit back and let nature take its course, putting the universe back on the path that it was meant to be on.  When it was all over, a few minor characters (like Guy Gardner) got a few minor changes to their powers, but for the most part, the universe was just as we left it.

© DC Comics

4) INFINITE CRISIS (2005-06)/52 (2006): Like Zero Hour before it, Infinite Crisis was really just used to tweak the backstories of some of the major DCU characters.  Thanks to Infinite Crisis, Superman could once again have been a hero in his youth (the concept of Clark Kent being Superboy in Smallville had been erased as part of the 1986 Byrne reboot).  There were a few other changes made, though none of these would really become apparent for a while.

© DC Comics

Infinite Crisis was followed up by 52, a 52-part weekly series which told the story of what happened in the weeks following Infinite Crisis while allowing the regular titles to engage in storylines like “One Year Later”.  The major headline to come out of 52 was the return of the multiverse for the first time since Crisis on Infinite Earths (unless you count Hypertime which had been introduced in The Kingdom, the abortive sequel to Mark Waid and Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come.)

© DC Comics – The “New Earth” as seen in “Infinite Crisis”
Click to Enlarge

The new multiverse consisted of 52 Earths which reflected some of the best Elseworlds stories DC had told to date (like Kingdom Come) and promised the return of the Golden Age Earth 2 and the evil Earth 3.

While it seemed patently unnecessary for the multiversre to return (and completely strange that there be only 52 other Earths), so it was written and so it was done.

Until Flashpoint!  After having continuity shaken and slashed and scorched so many times (and even moreso in recent years), did we have to do it again?  I guess DC felt it was necessary.  But then why not return things to the way they were?  Why go through all the steps in 52 of giving us this “New Earth” only to hit the reset button just a few years later?  If they wanted a new continuity, why not just set it on one of the other 51 Earths?  They gave themselves the perfect out to create an “ultimate” continuity like their Marvelous competition.  But instead, they completely eradicated everything we knew about our heroes.  Sure, Superman is still a survivor of the planet Krypton who was raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent (now dead again) and who, disguised as Clark Kent—mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper—fights a never-ending battle for truth and justice, but now he was an urban fighter in his youth who dressed in mountain boots, jeans and a t-shirt?

I’ll admit, I haven’t read any of the “New 52″.  A lot of it is sour grapes, I suppose, for losing my childhood heroes to their slicker 21st-century counterparts.  Or maybe it’s something more.

For the first time ever, DC hit the reset button with the justification that their product was inferior.  The heroes we knew and loved weren’t good enough.  It’s the very subtext of what Pandora says to the Flash as our continuity is wiped out.  In every prior instance that DC rebooted, it was always done with the idea of updating only.  It was never about trying to fix a fundamental inadequacy to the characters or the universe.  DC always gave the impression that they were proud of their pantheon.

Only this time… It seems like more was changed than was left intact.  And I really just don’t understand why.

© DC Comics – Click To Enlarge

Flashpoint was unnecessary.  It was a lifeline that was yanked at the last minute.  It was the promise of a return to continuity as it had been before… only to have the proud words “It All Changes Here” emblazoned on the final issue, heralding the end of how it was.

In the early ’90s, when DC killed Superman, they made no secret of the fact that he would be back very soon.  Killing him may have been a marketing ploy, but it was also a way to tell the story of Superman’s mortality and to delve deeper into the character’s meaning and his impact on the world around him.

DC has made it clear that the “New 52″ is the new status quo for the DC Universe.  A return to the old days doesn’t seem to be in the cards.  So be it.  It was dirty pool, but I suppose you had to get there somehow.

I take solace however in DC’s history of being unable to live with change.  About 15 years ago there were two characters who were forbidden in the DC Universe.  Both Barry Allen (the Flash) and Jason Todd (the second Robin) were killed in action and were signs of permanence in the DC Universe.  They were constant reminders that people actually could die in the DCU and that nothing is forever… at least until both characters were brought back and all the drama sparked by their deaths was rendered more-or-less ineffectual.

Should DC continue on this “rigid” path… maybe there is some hope that my characters will be back.  Someday.

In the 49 years that the show has been on the air, Doctor Who has been waging an uphill battle against convention.  No, I’m not talking about the show’s premise or its use of time travel.  I am, instead, referring to the name of the show itself.  The name, Doctor Who, has more-or-less remained one of the most trivial aspects of the show itself.  By virtue of the name of the title character, the Doctor, one immediately is forced to ask “Doctor who?”  In fact, several characters over the course of the series have off-handedly asked this very question.  For the most part, at least until the Cartmel Masterplan of the late-’80s, the question was generally asked to the camera right before we cut away to something of significantly greater import.

That said, it has been the ongoing bane of many a Whovian over the course of almost a half-century when the public-at-large merely assumes that the character’s name is “Doctor Who” because, well, that’s the name of the show.  We are then forced to explain how the two are not connected.

With last year’s season finale, “The Wedding of River Song”, we were told that the first question, the one that must never be answered, hidden in plain sight is… “Doctor Who?”  Or, to be more precise, “Doc Tor Who?”

“Asylum of the Daleks” ends on very-much the same note, this time with the Doctor himself uttering that same question, in the very same stilted manner.

If not for this, I would have been very happy to dismiss the original presentation as a tongue-in-cheek nod to the fans.  After all, it is the first question.  It’s the first thing we see in the first episode, before a single line of dialogue is spoken.  It’s the first thing we can read at the start of almost every episode.  It’s been sitting in plain sight for all of us to see for almost five decades.  So why not mess around with it a little?

But now, it is clear that this is going to be the theme of this season of Doctor Who, leading into the show’s 50th anniversary.

I am perfectly willing to believe that this might be a strange attempt by Steven Moffat to completely throw us off.  That perhaps the staccato way in which the question is asked belies some secret meaning to the question, and that it may not actually be a question asking who the Doctor is at all.  If that’s the case, I can’t wait to hear what kind of explanation he’s got for this one.

If, however, he is going to tackle the question of just who the Doctor is, you’d better grab a hold of something really quick, because this should be a doozy.  The problem with tackling this question is that it is one of those things that can be a defining moment for the series and for the character himself.  Much like the aborted idea of “he’s half-human,” it could conceivably be retconned out if it turns out to be a dud of an idea, but let’s be fair… no one wants to have to do that again.

Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.  I know that Brian would be much better at explaining this than I, but here’s a brief rundown of Who-gone-wrong…

In the late ’80s, the show’s producer decided to try to reintroduce some mystery into the character of the Doctor.  It was felt that too much information about his backstory had been revealed and that he needed to be mysterious again.  An ambitious plan was conceived and drafted by then-script-editor Andrew Cartmel, cunningly dubbed the “Cartmel Masterplan,” and then not-so-subtle clues were dropped in what turned out to be the final season of the original run of Doctor Who. The whole shebang was meant to lead one to believe the Doctor was “far more than just another Time Lord.”

After the show was cancelled in 1989, the series of original “New Adventures” novels published by Virgin Books delved into more of the Cartmel Masterplan, ultimately generating an almost biblical backstory for the Doctor. All of this… this weighty “canon” was originally going to be shoehorned into a Doctor Who feature film and even survived to some of the earlier drafts of what would be the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie starring Paul McGann.

Ideas abounded about the Doctor being one of the founding members of Time Lord society whose origins are shrouded in mystery, etc. etc. etc.

While not many on the inside would have ever said this out loud, let’s be fair for a second and all admit that none of this would have helped the (at the time) fledgling series attract new viewers.  As we at the Podwits have often said about other series, this would have threatened to have Doctor Who get swallowed whole by its own continuity.

It’s weird to me that it has taken the new Doctor Who seven years to accomplish what the original series took 30 to do, namely to go from a show about a guy named the Doctor who travels in time and space, to being about a Time Lord named the Doctor who is a crusader for what is right and happens to be much more than anyone could possibly expect.

Again, all of this could be moot if Mr. Moffat is, in fact, trying to pull a fast one on us.  Nothing would make me happier than to see all of this hoohah be a flash-in-the-pan so that we can enjoy a raucous celebration for the show’s 50th anniversary, filled with fan-wank and all the glorious guest spots we could hope for (assuming that’s a tack they’re willing to take).

But if not… I warn us all… this could very well be the jump-the-shark moment in the new Doctor Who.

Oh yeah, and I really did like “Asylum of the Daleks” on the whole… though I swear we really need to retire all the errant forms of “timey-wimey” before I have an aneurysm.

Anyone who loves the medium of filmmaking will love the compendious rhapsodizing on film vs digital technology in Side by Side. This docu examines the intrinsically fascinating technical specifications of the two formats that have dynamically altered the way we view and interpret art on screen. Over the last ten years, the titans of the film industry have switched over to digital cameras to convey their art. Acting as the dominant voice and one of the pic’s prodigious producers, Keanu Reeves orchestrates and comprises a plethora of A-list filmmakers whom espouse their view on the photochemical film process against the indelible, newfangled capabilities.

 

There are plenty of rousing opinions, ranging from James Cameron praising digital 3D as a mind-altering experience (if used correctly), to one cinematographer bemoaning that the digital age is like trading in his oil paintings for a box of crayons. Also, we see a brief history of 35mm film and the genesis of digital in a flutter, without giving us enough time to process all the complicated and detailed information. In a flurry, the glorification of silver halide, the precious grain, and the dynamic range ingrained in 35mm is deemed insurmountable by the old school auteurs.

 

 

Writer-director Chris Kenneally and Reeves take us through the process of how digital is used in its endeavor of filmmaking: color correction, editing, projection and visual effects. We see how digital information is stored and archived compared to 35mm film. This comparison is the most contentious issue discussed in the documentary. David Fincher laments how he can’t even view his older film projects due to not having anything to screen them through. He is a very robust advocate of the digital age, and articulates his points with precision.

 

Keanu Reeves interviewing Cinema Auteurs in Side by Side

Keanu sits down with Christopher Nolan who advocates that film will always be his format for storytelling, and praises film for its latitude and its other nuances. Keanu typed a letter to Nolan on an old typewriter, instead of using todays high caliber digital technologies to pique Nolan’s interest in participating in the documentary. Keanu understands that Nolan is a purist, an old school visionary with a particular style.

 

The filmmakers do lay out some technical issues that even a layperson can comprehend, like how the number of “pixels” in the Redcamera and a Sony F950 is much better than the standard-definition cameras. And we see clips that illustrate how the dynamic range in film surpasses the pixel rate in these high def formats.

 

Plenty of interview time is given to other prolific filmmakers who prefer the aesthetic of photochemical over digital. Joel Schumacher has a funny segment where he says digital gives the actors more time to look at their hair rather than their performance. He doesn’t like how digital provides the actors and crew with instant playback. David Lynch and Martin Scorsese want the two formats to coexist so artist can have a choice of what aesthetic they want to achieve.

 

Overall, the documentary is extremely informative and educational for anyone who has a strong love for filmmaking. The creators accentuate the issues with clarity and do an impeccable job of giving an honest assessment of each format. All the filmmakers agree that film is better, but the power of digital is shifting ineluctably every year, simply because it’s cheaper and easier to manipulate.

 

Bottom line: An educational feast for fan boys!

 

* * * * * (5 out of 5 stars

For a film to center around a crass and sordid child’s toy–the titular teddy bear, wished to life on Christmas night by a child–it doesn’t feel like a generic device we have viewed before. What makes this fuzzy-wuzzy cinematic experience profound and compelling is, the wit and strong character dimensions given to Ted. He is treated as a character with heart, rather than a squalid, one-dimensional gimmick. You actually care about this teddy bear and his relationship with others.

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarland–who wrote, directed and providing Ted‘s voice, gives us a very humorous, raucous and intelligent comedy. If you love MacFarland’s Family Guy, then you and the other devotees will cherish his cinematic debut. And I believe a lot of fans, as well as the uninitiated will find this film to be much more nuanced and cerebral than his TV work. Mark Wahlberg plays the grown-up version of John Bennett–the child who wished his only childhood friend to life, Ted. John is a 35-year-old man living in a flat with Ted and his longtime girlfriend of four years, Lori (Milia Kunis). Ted is no longer the sweet, innocent bear we are introduced to in the beginning, and Lori constantly asks John to grow up, kick Ted out, and propose to her.

The suspension of disbelief works very well due to MacFarland’s way of structuring the prologue–showing us a wonderful montage of the world finding out about Ted’s living existence with John and Lori. And within this montage we see a very funny segment of Ted as a guest on The Johnny Carson Show! So by the time we get to the present day, everything is old news about Ted’s miraculous existence. John and Lori and the rest of society interact with Ted very convincingly without it being too jarring or faux. MacFarland sets this up brilliantly with impeccable time-lapse photography and dainty editing. The real brilliance and sophistication of the film are the pokes and nabs at pop-culture, political incorrectness and political correctness, male bonding in its social and emotional context, and the cringe worthy anti-Semitism and racial slurs. All this permeates the very fabric of the film, making the narrative thrive furiously and risible!

MacFarland constructs a social satire that never looses its main objective, and that’s a finely wrought comedy. Much of this is helped by the wonderful CGI that has brought Ted to life. His expressions and intonations are perfect, and they bring a depth and emotional resonance to the different social situations with John and Lori. Wahlberg and Kunis have proven to be amazing comedic performers, and they elevate Ted’s existence and banter, making him all the more real and authentic to the audience. MacFarland’s genius really shows whenever these three are on-screen together. The film also carries a Noir style subplot that renders the film unique, an efficient method of storytelling. Intertwined within the story that weaves in and out is, a dark, brooding presence looming over Ted.

Donny (Giovani Ribisi) and his son, Robert (Aedin Mincks), want to buy Ted from John. Donny and Robert are emotionally and mentally off-balance. They will do just about anything to get Ted away from John and Lori. This twisted subplot adds so much depth and really completes the plot device surrounding the underlying theme of love and friendship. So many writers and directors try to mesh other genre styles together and fail miserably, but MacFarland succeeds greatly! How?! It is his keen eye for direction, emotion, clever dialogue, and his ability to develop wonderful, compelling characters we relate to. His three main protagonists–Ted, John and Lori, all have grace-notes that are well-conceived and polished.

Bottom Line: Ted is irreverent, foul-mouthed and crude, but it’s the funniest film of the year! A very clever and intelligent spin on the buddy comedy genre.Ted has sophistication and heart–maybe we can too.

* * * * ( 4 stars out of 5 )

Though commonly associated as Ridley’s younger brother and consequently often relegated to that role, Tony in his own right made some of the best action movies of the 1980′s and 90′s.

He emerged on the scene in the early 80′s and helmed the now cult classic The Hunger, starring Susan Sarandon, Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie. This landed him his next project, which almost became the action movie for an entire generation who craved ‘a need, for some speed!’; 1986′s iconic Top Gun.

Robert DeNiro as the psycho baseball fan in 1995′s The Fan

He went on to do another film with Tom Cruise, the seminal racing movie for some, Days of Thunder, in 1990. Mr. Scott soon developed a style that became his own, and soon would set him apart from his contemporaries, and made his work as identifiable as a piece of celluloid from auteurs like Hitchcock or Kubrick. You could watch a sequence out of The Last Boyscout with Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans from 1991, or  Beverly Hills Cop II from 1987 with Eddie Murphy, and identify that fast-paced, action fury that only he could translate from page to screen. He seemed to love to employ radically different cinematography in his films for the time, some looking almost as avant-garde in style as I dare say Oliver Stone; and Scott always seemed to bring all the various villains and heroes of his film together in the climax, all shoved in the same room, with guns drawn and everyone screaming at the other.

Tom Cruise in Top Gun

His peak in cinematic style hit in the late 90′s and early 00′s, with the technology action/thriller Enemy of the State from 1998 starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman, and 2005′s biopic, Domino, starring Keira Knightley.

In 1993, he directed one of his most legendary films (from a script penned by a young man who sold it along with another script, Natural Born Killers, to get the cash to make his own debut, Reservoir Dogs, who turned out to be cinema icon Quentin Tarantino), which starred a true cavalcade of stars, like Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Tom Sizemore, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Penn, Michael Rapaport, Val Kilmer, Bronson Pinchot and James Gandolfini- wooh!- all in the cult classic, True Romance.

Gary Oldman in probably his best role, as Drexl Spivey in True Romance

He also went on to make 5 films with Denzel Washington: 1995′s Crimson Tide; the remake of 1987′s Man on Fire in 2004; 2006′s Deja Vu; a remake of the 1974 classic, Taking of the Pelham 1 2 3 in 2009; and his final feature, 2010′s Unstoppable.

Denzel told E! Online:

Tony Scott was a great director, a genuine friend and it is unfathomable to think that he is now gone. He had a tremendous passion for life and for the art of filmmaking and was able to share this passion with all of us through his cinematic brilliance.  My family sends their prayers and deepest condolences to the entire Scott family.”

Looking at his IMDB page you sit back and realize, the man has directed probably some of your favorite action films. Not only was he an acclaimed director, but like his brother Ridley, he was an executive producer of many successful films and television shows like CBS’ The Good Wife, and also like his brother, used his off time to direct television commercials in the states and his native England.

His genius was he would use those ‘short films’ if you could call them that, to experiment on new styles, cameras, or visual look; and perfecting it so to then bring it to his next feature-length project.

Denzel Washington in the remake, Man on Fire

One of these was a true short in the sense of the word he did for BMW, which I would like to leave you with.

In 2001 into 2002, BMW commissioned a series of 8 short films to be done and be released online as well as for 2 mail away dvds called The Hire, which focused on a driver played by Clive Owen who performed different jobs for various celebrities, all to highlight the various BMW automobiles for those 2 years. Directors from all over the world, like Guy Ritchie to John Woo oversaw installments in the two season series.

Clive Owen, in the BMW Short Film Series, The Hire

Mr. Scott delivered the best of the series in 2002, entitled Beat the Devil, starring Owen, James Brown, Danny Trejo and Gary Oldman, as the Prince of Darkness.

The Godfather of Soul hires Owen to drive him to Vegas, so he can renegotiate the contract he had made at the crossroads with the Devil, which landed him his fame. It is a seldom seen film, with a running time of just under 10 minutes, and probably sums up Mr. Scott’s entire career and highlights the style he’d become known for, and what made him so great; for I implore you to find a better job of story, acting, presentation; and the utmost- style.

So have a look at the short BMW film Beat the Devil and remember a cinematic great, who left us far too early.

Thanks for the memories Tony.

I’ll be honest: Expendables 2 is a shoddy and lazy film with careless acting, clumsy story structure, cheesy dialogue, and awful CGI.

This film truly is a nonsensical and emotional detached opus that redundantly serves up an untrammeled mess of exaggerated carnage. Elementary filmmaking at its worst.

Sylvester Stallone structures this sequel just as he did with the first film—no subtext or underlying theme to empower the high-octane action sequences or the cast of muscle-bound meatheads with pathos or dimensional characteristics. We are once again served a plethora of incongruous scenes of mayhem, while our expendable heroes show up out of nowhere and shoot and blow stuff up. There is no logic or narrative cohesiveness whatsoever.

The campy one-liners from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris are horrendous.

Stallone: That plane belongs in a museum.
Schwarzenegger:  We all do.

What hurts is that these two geriatric legends are really speaking the truth. Then Chuck Norris shows up after saving the Expendables and tells a joke about surviving a Cobra bite! What?! Again, very bad scripting by Sly and his co-writer, Richard Wenk. I didn’t know if they were trying to be funny or not! Pretty much all the dialogue is redundant, lame and cheekily self-aware, especially from Schwarzenegger.

Another new addition to the Expendables cast is Jean-Claude Van Damme as the sneery and cavalier Jean Vilain. I read somewhere that Van Damme gives something new every take, and it shows positively in every scene he’s in. He is the real actor and star of the film, adding flourishes to his dialogue and showing off his amazing physical dexterity. Van Damme is the only positive in the film; he brings a dynamic presence to the company of self-styled alpha males.

This time around the film is helmed by Simon West (Con Air, Tomb Raider), and he is a more skillful action director than Stallone. Simon gives us more wide shots and more efficiently choreographed fight scenes than Sly constructed in the first film. No more of the shaky-cam or unfocused shots that really burdened its predecessor. This sequel is several notches above the first film due to Simon’s keen eye for direction. At least this time we have a director that lets the actors charm their way through a hackneyed and conventional parody.

Arnold, Sly, & Willis in The Expendables 2

Stallone attempts to give the viewer a glorious satire on the 80′s action genre, but fails on every level to devise a compelling formula. Expendables 2 is a vacuous, self-referential tale that’s all brawn and no brains. The film spends a lot of serious time with our old heroes, paying homage to their better glory days. But, this film doesn’t know what it wanted to be a lot of times–action/parody or action/drama? What it was was a befuddled mess of ideas and concepts.

Furthermore, I was really hoping for a clever, nostalgic action fantasy—a sort of wish-fulfillment spectacle for hard core action fans. Instead we are treated to a lame, semi-automatic experience of septuagenarians who have devalued over time.

Bottom line: A  bulging, flexing, brute-force disappointment!

**  (2 stars out of 5)

Join us for that, a look at the demise of torrent aggregator Demonoid, the vocal stylings of the original Transformers cartoon, and plenty of other clearly avoidable shenanigans here in the latest Podwits Podcast!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

I LOVE THIS FILM IMMENSELY! The best in the series!

Well, the political pundits on both sides have been bickering back and forth about the sociopolitical message in The Dark Knight. I don’t know if you have heard.

OK, before I write about the quality of the film—you probably want to know now if this Batman film is leaning towards the liberal or the conservative agenda. Well, allow me to elucidate. I don’t think it’s overtly siding with a particular political ideology; after seeing it for myself, the political aspect of the film seems muddled. All the politics and jabs at economic inequality feel hollow, used as wallpaper for the narrative. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if the left-leaning commentators seize on the notion of prisons being packed under false pretenses, while those on the right note that an oppressed Gotham City being held hostage by Bane resembles an anti-Soviet propaganda film, complete with show trials, masses of poor people huddling by open fires in office lobbies and rich people being thrown out of their homes while gun-toting thugs roam the streets. The political allegory is cagey. Yes, the movie makes some political thunder, but it’s empty, used as a mirror and story thread to illuminate the sociopolitical time we live in. Nolan focuses the narrative on other ideas and concepts rather than political ideologies to propel the narrative along. As a matter of fact, Nolan shows the elite within the government as the heroes of Gotham! To me, Nolan’s underlying political message is: anarchy and terror will never resolve any injustice, economic or otherwise. Any mob form (poor, middle class, wealthy, conservative or liberal) is worthless and obtuse to institute an ideology. Furthermore, Nolan examines the need for truth and the accountability of justice without siding with a political party.

I thought the second entry had a more precise and clear political message than this film. The Dark Knight was about our new age of terror, with the Joker—who only wanted to “watch the world burn”—standing in for Osama bin Laden, and Wayne’s invasive use of surveillance meant to evoke the Patriot Act.

This film’s portrayal of Bane is a little arcane. There has been a little controversy over BANE representing Mitt Romney’s ideology and his BAIN CAPITAL. Well, his attacks on Gotham City are rooted in Occupy Wall Street and militant Marxism, yet at the same time he simply wants to destroy Gotham by blowing it up.

Bane (Tom Hardy) in The Dark Knight Rises (Image © Warner Bros. Pictures)

What is Bane—anarchist, communist or apocalyptic madman? He is not some right or left-wing political symbol! And then what, in opposition, is Bruce Wayne, and how does the film interpret their conflict? It’s all a little too vague, but I like that aspect in Nolan’s films.

So, does Bane represent Mitt Romney? NO! I think a very small faction on the left and right are trying to use the little politics this film does contain to further their campaign power for November. Bane is really a terrorist manipulating both the wealthy and the poor for his own evil agenda—destroy the imbalanced society to bring balance back to society. Bane doesn’t like the peasants or the aristocrats’ cruelty that reciprocates from both classes. Bane eventually deceives and rallies the poor as a mob for his own revolution. This made me think of the French Revolution. And yes, Bane’s background is similar to Mitt Romney’s. Both are highly intelligent with offshore interests, a powerful father and a past they are seeking to cover up. I think it’s all a coincidence. All I know is that a billionaire, instituted in the %1, becomes a Christ-like symbol and saves the” poor”and “rich” from a dystopia. Is Nolan saying a plutocracy is the key to a thriving society?? Seems like this might be a little thematically conservative to me and I’ll leave it at that.

Batman (Christian Bale) in The Dark Knight Rises (Image © Warner Bros. Pictures)

In my opinion, Nolan has always made us find our own answers, and the ambiguity could be what makes this trilogy and the rest of his films so unique and successful. I believe Nolan is just showing an accurate assessment of what’s happening in today’s culture. He also is paying homage to Charles Dickens’ famous masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities, one of my favorite literary works growing up! The film is textured with Charles Dickens.

Well, The Dark Knight Rises truly is an action opus that is viscerally and intellectually engaging! Wow—a film that generates a furious surge of emotion that all the other super-hero films before it combined couldn’t muster!!! Even at its most heated moments, the movie remains elegantly cool andfantastic!!! Chris Nolan’s denouement is epic, yet so personal and pertinent to our time. A wonderful and singular catharsis that accentuates all issues and themes in the previous films.

Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and Alfred (Michael Caine) in The Dark Knight Rises (Image © Warner Bros. Pictures)

I associate the word “PORTENTOUS” with this film—a sonorous undertone that rumbles underneath. Nolan is a very classical director, which makes the Dark Knight films, especially this one, stand out from other comic-book movies. As I watched this film, I couldn’t believe how well Nolan is grounded in an old-school aesthetic, even though he devised this robust, mainstream movie. The second act is a little bloated, but the scope here is unashamedly novelistic.

This Batman film is darker, more complex, ambiguous, and mines the depths of despair and pushes the story to an extreme place, so the heroic figure of Batman is needed more than he has ever been needed. His symbol achieves an even greater stature! Bruce Wayne’s heroic undertaking is primal, physical, and emotional. We finally get to see the man behind the mask showing an authentic human side up close—a very poignant and powerful image!

Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) in The Dark Knight Rises (Image © Warner Bros. Pictures)

Also, We witness Bruce becoming Batman twice, but both times it’s amazingly effective and really makes you invest in Bruce’s hero journey. Chris Nolan stages both these setups so efficiently.

The coolest dynamic in this new batman film is Chris Nolan’s assertion and belief in the possibility of “resurrection” and “transformation”, both on a personal level and on a societal level. He also asserts a strong theme of duality that’s very effective with all the main characters that gives the film a more profound narrative!! the film has a direct and indirect allusions to the French and Russian Revolutions, and the class warfare we are witnessing in our generation, which gives the movie more of the feeling of a historical epic. Nolan illuminates our current financial woes, but like I said above, he doesn’t praise or side with any one political agenda from the right or the left. Maybe I’m reading too much into all this, but that’s pretty much what I deduced from the narrative sub-plots. Other than James Cameron, Chris Nolan has a creative genius that really supersedes all other directors working in the Hollywood system today.

This film encapsulates for me the notion of “rebirth” and “spiritual renewal”. The first film dealt with the themes of fear and father figures. The second film dealt with the theme of chaos and moral code. This third entry focuses on duality, transformation, resurrection and belief. The recurring theme of belief is the foundation of this film. Very cerebral themes that resonate and are the very fabric of the Bruce Wayne story arc.

Bane (Tom Hardy) menaces Gotham City in The Dark Knight Rises (Image © Warner Bros. Pictures)

Furthermore, is the there a Christ allegory in the title?? The Dark Knight RISES—the word “RISE” in the title ties an important arc in the film. What I found to be interesting and very compelling about this film is that each character has to destroy their demons to find happiness and purpose. They all have to rise out of despair or a particular stronghold in their lives.

Later in the film Bruce Wayne is held prisoner in an ancient hell across the world. This prison is dark, underground, with a hundred-foot stone shaft that the prisoners can choose to climb their way to freedom. Only one person in history has made it up the stone shaft to liberation. In fact, we’ve been told that the shaft and its promise of freedom are there only to offer the prisoners in the pit some delusional hope, much as some Christian doctrines hold that the damned souls in hell can see Paradise, but can never get there. Bruce makes it out on his third attempt after he goes through an arduous rehabilitation process of conquering his fear and despair—after he has been “recalled to life”. Only then can Bruce rise to redemption. Jesus Christ rose from the shackles of death on the third day. Bruce Wayne is a tortured Savior, a Christ figure for a fallen city.

It always seems like man has to be broken first before man can be used in extraordinary ways.

Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) in The Dark Knight Rises (Image © Warner Bros. Pictures)

The protagonist and antagonist are as diverse and complex as they are intriguing. Bruce Wayne/Batman, played by the dark and brooding Christian Bale, has reached the crossroads of his relatively short life. He has isolated himself, while indolence and apathy have become his refuge. Bruce is unresponsive with a broken spirit, wallowing in self-pity. This time Batman has no hope, he is broken inside and doesn’t know how to heal the people and chaos around him, due to his negative actions. There is a sense that he has regressed back to the fearful boy from the first film. Selina Kyle/Catwoman, played by the beautiful and curvaceous Anne Hathaway, gives an intoxicating performance. She invests her catlike woman with verve and impertinence. Her story thread is woven together so efficiently. And Bane, played by Tom Hardy, is the chaos in the film, the villain that escalates the dystopia in Gotham City. Hardy’s performance is absolutely vicious and menacing—just a look from his cold, emotionless eyes could destroy you! Bane is a different sort of villain—a focused and more ideologically developed version of Heath Ledger’s—but one with equally ruthless charm. He leads with a combination of ruthless control and facetious empowerment, turning Gotham into a battleground for his own nefarious agenda by starting a revolution. He is an embodiment of invincible, a force-of-nature terrorism, a kind of figure that manipulates the system and its people.

Bane (Tom Hardy) fights Batman (Christian Bale) in The Dark Knight Rises (Image © Warner Bros. Pictures)

Bottom line: I found the last thirty minutes or so almost unbearably emotional, a great stretch from any of the previous films. A dignified conclusion for the Caped Crusader, but also the most outstanding installment in Nolan’s Batman series. Rest easy, Mr. Nolan has outdone himself and has devised a masterpiece! The Dark Knight Rises is emotionally inspiring, aesthetically significant and critically important for America itself—as a mirror of reflection and resilient hope. This may go down as one of the great classics in cinema history!

* * * * */5 out of 5 stars

Every other Thursday, Brian goes out of this world, waxing recommendatious on great reading that will transport you to fantastic, far-away worlds and times.  Looking to escape? Escape Velocity is your bi-weekly ticket!

In 1989, the Science Fiction Book Club published all the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories in a massive two-volume omnibus, of which The Three of Swords was the first half.

Fantasy doesn’t have to be epic to be great reading. Today’s case in point: Fritz Leiber’s long-running series of stories about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Say the words “fantasy story” these days and most people will likely think of the ginormous fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin and their countless imitators and followers. The shelves of (the few remaining) bookstores are overrun with multi-volume, multi-thousand-page series that depict in painstaking, soap-opera detail a lowly street urchin’s discovery that they possess great power because they are in fact their world’s prophesied Chosen One, and their subsequent massive struggles against the forces of tyranny, darkness, and more-or-less-ultimate evil.

(Don’t get me wrong, I love those ten-doorstop-sized-volume series as a general rule, and I know more than one of them will get a shout-out in this column.)

But, as the title of their debut story states, “Two Sought Adventure”—for almost fifty years, Fafhrd the northern barbarian and the wizard’s apprentice-turned-rogue the Gray Mouser were the all-too-believable stars of a succession of tales that were consistently inventive, exciting, and even, often, very funny. Come, let me introduce you to the two greatest fantasy heroes you’ve likely never heard of.

In the mid-twentieth century, before Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings became the standard-bearing template we know today, stories of magic and adventure in more-or-less medieval-ish settings coalesced into the fantasy genre in the pages of magazines like Weird Tales, Fantastic, and Unknown, and as often as not those stories were what we would now call “sword and sorcery.”

Sword and Sorcery distilled: the first Flashing Swords! anthology edited by Lin Carter (This 1973 volume also contained the first publication of the Lankhmar story “The Sadness of the Executioner”)

The protagonists of these tales aren’t long-lost princes or unwitting messiahs, and the focus isn’t on the scheming intrigues of the highborn or the last stand of good against ultimate evil. No, these “heroes” tend to be more morally ambiguous adventurers, wanderers who live by their swords and fight to escape the clutches of a scheming sorcerer or escape an exotic city with their lives (and possibly treasure) intact.

Robert E. Howard’s Kull the Conqueror and, later, Conan the Barbarian were the first popular ongoing characters, and many followed in their wakes: Michael Moorcock’s moody, albino anti-hero Elric of Melniboné; David Gemmel’s Druss the Legend and the long series of associated novels set in the larger Drenai setting; Catherine (C.L.) Moore’s Jirel of Joiry, the first sword-and-sorcery heroine; and Clark Ashton Smith’s extremely strange Conan-meets-Lovecraft “Hyperborean Cycle.”

It was in the August 1939 issue of Unknown (the fantasy and weird fiction sister magazine to editor John W. Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction), ten years after Conan’s print debut, that the world met two very different fantasy heroes. In “Two Sought Adventure,” a red-haired northern barbarian named Fafhrd and his cunning sneak-thief friend called the Gray Mouser sought out a treasure hidden in a mysteriously deserted stone house in a forest.

More stories followed, fleshing out the pair, the city of Lankhmar in which many of their adventures are set, and the larger world of Nehwon. Between magazines, anthologies, and original stories written for the “definitive” paperback collections that were published starting in 1968, a total of 37 stories saw print, the last being the novella “The Mouser Goes Below” in 1988. There was also the full-length novel The Swords of Lankhmar in 1968 (an expansion of the 1961 story “Scylla’s Daughter,” itself an update of a very early Lankhmar story that pre-dated the pair’s 1939 debut).  (Leiber died, aged 81, in September 1992.)

The August 1939 issue of Unknown, in which Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser made their debut

As was Leiber’s stated intention, the romantic-but-pragmatic Fafhrd and the cynical-with-a-heart Mouser were more recognizably human kinds of characters than the scowling, violent, blood-and-thunder warriors of Robert E. Howard and his earlier contemporaries. Fafhrd and the Mouser joked and bantered, they made mistakes, they fooled their adversaries, and they had their hearts broken. Reading a Conan story is like sitting around an ancient campfire hearing the tribe’s elder recount a thrilling legend of gods and heroes. Reading a Lankhmar story is like going there, smelling the smoke-filled taverns and filthy alleyways, meeting colorful people that live and breathe. (Again, I’m not disparaging Conan and the other sword-and-sorcery heroes, I’m merely pointing out via contrast how Leiber innovated a more immediately relatable flavor of this versatile genre.)

It was only after many years and many published stories that we learned the origins of our two slightly soiled and worn heroes. In “The Snow Women,” first published in the April 1970 issue of Fantastic, a traveling dancer from the south offers a way for the young barbarian Fafhrd to escape his predestined future in the northern Cold Waste, but his plans incur the wrath of his mother, his bride, and the other women who dominate the frozen land. Meanwhile, in “The Unholy Grail” (Fantastic, October 1962), we learn that the Gray Mouser was once a young wizard’s apprentice named Mouse, whose world is destroyed when a cruel lord murders his master. The two young adventurers first meet in the magnificent, tragic novella “Ill Met in Lankhmar,” which won a richly deserved Hugo award after its first publication in the April 1970 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Those three stories form the 1970 collection Swords and Deviltry, which is chronologically the first of the seven book series that most often collects Leiber’s Lankhmar stories. (Check out the series’ Wikipedia page for the complete set.) I started there and read the stories in order of their internal chronology, but since the stories were originally published very much out of order, you could probably jump in anywhere and enjoy yourself thoroughly.

The influence of Leiber’s duo is far-reaching. Along with Jack Vance’s stories of the Dying Earth, Leiber’s Lankhmar tales were one of the main conceptual influences on the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, and via D&D they influenced a whole new generation of fantasy stories from the 1980s on. Trust me, if you’ve read much fantasy at all over the last thirty years, you’ve read something that was informed somewhere along the line by Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser make their comic book debut in Wonder Woman #202, October 1972

Perhaps most unexpectedly, Fafhrd and the Mouser turned up in Wonder Woman #202 (October 1972), the first of two issues that were written by prominent science fiction novelist Samuel R. Delany, before starring in their own short-lived DC series called Sword of Sorcery. Howard Chaykin and Mike Mignola later produced another short-lived series of comic adaptations for Marvel’s Epic Comics imprint in 1990 and 1991, the trade paperback collection of which was released by Dark Horse in 2007.

Meanwhile, thinly-disguised but very recognizable versions of the pair have turned up in Marvel’s Conan comics, DC’s Fables, and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.

But pound-for-pound, the most enjoyable iteration of the duo remains the original canon of Fritz Leiber stories, which also make a case for being the most enjoyable product of the entire sword-and-sorcery genre. Sadly, as of this writing some of the collections are out of print, but the series has been going in and out of print periodically since their initial publication, so they might soon be available again. Electronic editions are currently available both for the Kindle and in other formats through Fictionwise. However you gotta get ‘em, I can unreservedly recommend doing so—Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser will deservedly (and characteristically) live large in your imagination for a long time.

Speculation over the ‘net was rampant. Was it a tour?! Maybe a newly-recorded album with the celebrities he’d put together to do his two recent late night television appearances on David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon?!

Well, every other day, a new clue was left on his site.

On August 2, this image below was added with the caption: “I breathe better underwater.”

Then yesterday the last clue was dropped on his site, with a caption that read: “Never Bring a Spoon to a Gun Fight,” and the image below had everyone champing at the bit.

Lo and behold, the hype worked, and today everyone finally learned what the glorious surprise would be: A new video has been released for Hell Broke Luce, the stomping march off his latest album, Bad as Me (which the Podwits reviewed here), directed by Santa Cruz-based photographer Matt Mahurin and featuring Keith Richards on guitar and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on bass. Richards is all over the album as well, even duetting with Waits on the song Last Leaf.

This is the second video released for the album; the song Satisfied, found here, was the first. Last summer, when Amazon.com outed Waits’ secret plan to release a new album in October 2011, Waits retaliated and released a “Listening Party“, which was his response to the disclosure.

A still from Waits’ music video, Hell Broke Luce

Hell Broke Luce is the only cut off the album that has the particular flavor that Waits is known for, the incredibly unique and avant-garde style  that he cultivated in the early-’80s Island Records trilogy—Swordfishtrombones(1983), Rain Dogs(1985), and Frank’s Wild Years (1987)—that took fans, critics and the world by storm. Some critics called Rain Dogs the best album of the 1980s.

Pulling the house in Hell Broke Luce

With 2004′s Real Gone, Waits started to revert to his rhythm and blues roots (which is in no way meant to say he ever really “departed” from that style). Bad As Me, released this past October, is a heavy dose of blues and rockabilly tunes mixed with some slow ballads that only Waits (and his wife and long time collaborator Kathleen Brennan) can write.

Alcatraz graffiti from the 1946 Prison Riot in A Block, Cell 23

Hell Broke Luce is an anti-war song, seeming to be geared specifically to the Middle Eastern conflicts that the United States and other countries are presently involved in. This isn’t a first for the iconic musician, having penned the widely popular anti-war song Day After Tomorrow from 2004′s Real Gone, Road to Peace (which takes a hard and unwavering look at the long running Israeli/Palestinian conflict) from ’06′s Orphans box set, and Canon Song, which was an exclusive for those who bought Orphans on vinyl.

But with this latest song, the lyrics seemed geared straight towards American and coalition soldiers, with lines like: “Humvee mechanic put his Kevlar on wrong; guaranteed to meet up with a suicide bomb” or “Now I’m home, and I’m blind, and I’m broke; what-is-next?!” It is also worth noting this may be the only song in the entire Waits canon that has swearing in it; two f-bombs are dropped, which seem to indicate the frustation he or, more specifically, the soldiers in his song are feeling about an endless war.

The title of the song has its origins in the notorious prison riot that occurred at Alcatraz on May 2-4, 1946, in which two guards and five inmates were ultimately killed. During the riot one of the prisoners carved “Hell Broke Luce” into a cement cell wall in block A, cell 23, spelling it as it sounds. Waits evidently saw the graffiti on a tour and the rest is history.

I think it is an extremely imaginative video, and fits right in with the catalog of music videos he’s done over his career, which always seem to be right out of the creative-right-field of thought; it kind of reminds me of the imagery you’d see in Pink Floyd’s old videos and films. He and Mahurin have worked together before on the music videos for his songs Hold On and What’s He Building in There?

Parachuting into the war from “Hell Broke Luce “

According to his press release, Waits told NPR:

Matt Mahurin has created an apocalyptic war dream to accompany the song ‘Hell Broke Luce’. Kathleen and I envisioned it as an enlightened drill sergeant yelling the hard truths of war to a brand new batch of recruits. The video grew from the gnawing image of a soldier pulling his home, through a battlefield, at the end of a rope.

Have a look and see for yourself.

Growing up, I never was really able to fully wrap my head around heroes with super powers, or anything else of the sort. I was I guess what you’d call a realist, and preferred a normal guy who would just go out and fight crime like Charlie Bronson or Clint Eastwood might: with a crapload of guns and a mad attitude.

Image Courtesy of Marvel

So it came across my radar this week that the ultimate fan film had just been released, and call me impressed. I call it the ‘ultimate fan film’ because though we have seen scores of fan films over the years, celebrating everything from Batman and Spiderman to Star Trek and Star Wars; but to my knowledge, I have never seen one made by a Hollywood actor who has already played the role, just to reignite interest in the franchise; or more importantly, to give the hardcore fans like myself a little fix of what we’ve been longing for.

Last month, Thomas Jane released a Punisher Fan film he did himself, without a sign-off from Marvel over the project. Jane played the role of Frank Castle in the 2004 film The Punisher, which was borderline ok-to not very good; but none of this could be attributed to Jane whatsoever. He was great.

Thomas Jane as Frank Castle, AKA ‘The Punisher’

Jane became fascinated with the character and signed on to do a sequel, but after years of company flip-flops and the dragging of feet, a reboot was released in 2008 entitled Punisher War Zone, which starred Ray Stevenson as the title character Frank Castle. This installment was again quite disappointing to the diehard fans (though was a step in the right direction), and I still longed for the studio to get it just right. That film now being the third reboot of the character (let’s not forget the forgetable Dolph Lundgren version from 1989 called The Punisher, co-starring Louis Gossett Jr.), so at this point the fans have been beating their heads against the wall for a proper adaptation.

The Man, the Myth, the Legend. Punisher War Journal #11, image courtesy of Marvel

Jane had stayed close to the character, and released the independently financed short that premiered at Comic-Con, called Dirty Laundry, which co-starred Ron Perlman. The tagline to the film reads: “Question: What’s the difference between justice and punishment?”

Here’s what Mr. Jane had to say about the film, which was released along with it:

I wanted to make a fan film for a character I’ve always loved and believed in – a love letter to Frank Castle & his fans. It was an incredible experience with everyone on the project throwing in their time just for the fun of it. It’s been a blast to be a part of from start to finish — we hope the friends of Frank enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.”

Hopefully this will ignite a flame under Marvel’s bum to do a PROPER reboot of the series, since the rights have reverted back to them from Disney. Enough with all the BS they’ve given us.

You would think a Punisher reboot for Marvel would: 1. be a no brainer since it would be a straightforward action movie; and 2. be the cheapest to produce out of their canon, since no real superhero SFXs are needed.

The 3 Castles: Dolph Lundgren in ’89, Thomas Jane in ’04, & Ray Stevenson in ’08

Well we can only hope. Now that we are in King Kong reboot franchise territory, hopefully something good and monumental will be developed for the character.

In the meantime, have a look at the brilliant new short to get your Frank Castle fix. It isn’t knock-your-socks-off amazing; but again it’s paving the road in the right direction.

Join Brian every other Tuesday as he talks comic books from a reader’s perspective, both his new experiences with the medium and reflections on over thirty years of enjoying the finest in sequential art.

Excalibur #1, October 1988 (Image © Marvel)

In 1989, when I was at the height of my teenaged X-Men fandom, I discovered a slightly different flavor of X-book. Like the other X-books I was reading at that time (Uncanny X-Men and The New Mutants), Excalibur was written by Chris Claremont. Unlike the other X-books I was reading at that time, Excalibur was aggressively whimsical, often hilariously funny, and above all very, very British.

What I didn’t realize then was that the Claremont-penned, X-affiliated Excalibur was the end product of a line of story that had been developed over years in British comic magazines I never had access to, by a succession of writers that included most prominently the great Alan Moore (before his run on Swamp Thing and then Watchmen made him a household name in the world of comics), and that was infinitely, delightfully weirder than anything Marvel had been associated with up until that point.

So let me introduce you to the surreally entertaining and utterly English little corner of the Marvel Universe inhabited by Captain Britain.

In Great Britain in the 1970s and ’80s, comics were a very different thing from their American cousins. Instead of the monthly, full-color stories of about 20 or so pages that we were used to on this side of the Atlantic, the standard model for Marvel UK was weekly black-and-white magazines that contained one or more running “strips” of about seven pages (give or take), plus a number of reprints of American comics like The Avengers.

Captain Britain Weekly #1, October 13, 1976 (Image © Marvel)

In 1976, Claremont and artist Herb Trimpe were hired to create a British analogue to Captain America for just such a weekly magazine. Captain Britain Weekly #1 was cover-dated October 13, 1976, and introduced the reading public to the proud, aristocratic young physics student Brian Braddock. When Brian is badly hurt in a motorcycle accident, Merlin and his daughter Roma appear and give Brian the mystical Amulet of Right, which transforms him into the super-strong, flying superhero called Captain Britain.

Captain Britain and his supporting cast (including his psychic twin sister Betsy, his girlfriend Courtney Ross, his odd elf sidekick Jackdaw, and the superhero-hating Welsh policeman Dai Thomas, who was mostly an adversary) soldiered on through a succession of relatively disposable adventures, surviving the cancellation of his own magazine in 1977 and even making a U.S. debut in Marvel Team-Up #65 (January 1978) alongside Spider-Man.

Despite Marvel UK’s best efforts, the character never really caught on, and by 1979, he was relegated to supporting character status as a guest star in the Black Knight’s strip in Hulk Comic. The character was so moribund the time was perfect for a drastic revamp and relaunch, which is exactly what happened in the pages of the Marvel Superheroes anthology magazine in 1981.

Editor Paul Neary gave the project to a young pair of rookies, writer Dave Thorpe and artist Alan Davis, and they immediately changed everything. Captain Britain’s uniform was completely redesigned, his Star-Sceptre (which had replaced the Amulet of Right as the source of his superpowers) was eliminated, and he was now adventuring in the gritty, grimy England that was so prevalent in comics of the Thatcher era (see V for Vendetta and Miracleman).

Or was he?

‘Cause, see, one of the first seeds that Thorpe and Davis planted was a mindbending matryoshka doll of alternate universes that made the Crisis on Infinite Earths look like a child’s tea party. It is quickly made apparent that Captain Britain and Jackdaw aren’t on our Earth, but instead on an alternate but similar world, one of many whose development is being interfered with, for the good of the Omniverse, by Majestrix Opal Luna Saturnyne and her Avant Guard. (This idea was a seed that would bear far-reaching fruit: the designation by which the “main” Marvel Universe Earth was known to Saturnyne and her bunch was “Earth-616″, and that, along with the various other Earth designations, has become the standard system for describing the various alternate realities of Marvel’s multiverse.) Thorpe’s ten-month run as writer also introduced the Crazy Gang, a hilarious bunch of Alice in Wonderland-inspired goons with extra playing-card flavor, and a loony MP called Sir Jim Jaspers.

And that’s when Alan Moore stepped in.

Before taking over the Captain Britain strip in 1982, Moore’s CV consisted mostly of one-off stories for Doctor Who Magazine and the legendary SF/adventure anthology 2000 A.D. The world was not yet truly acquainted with Moore’s particular brand of dark, brilliant storytelling that enriched worlds even as it tore them to shreds. It would meet that Alan Moore in Captain Britain.

The redesigned Captain Britain gets put through the Alan Moore wringer in this page from Marvel Super-Heroes #387, July 1982 (colorized version from the 2002 trade paperback collection © Marvel)

In his two year run on the title, Moore wrote 20 installments of the Captain Britain strip comprising a relatively concise 183 pages, all at the same time he was also producing the better-remembered early masterpieces V for Vendetta and Marvelman/Miracleman. But in that space Moore kicked over the traces and created one of the darkest, most epic superhero sagas I’ve ever read, the “Jaspers Warp” storyline. He started by killing Jackdaw for the second (and final) time. More importantly, he turned Sir Jim Jaspers from the relatively mundane criminal of Thorpe’s creation into Mad Jim Jaspers, a truly frightening figure whose campaign to outlaw superheroes combined with his mutant ability to alter reality and his descent into madness to make him, not just a villain, but a destructive force of nature. To implement his anti-hero agenda, Jaspers created the Fury, an unstoppable android killing machine that truly was unstoppable.

As much as I love superhero comics, I have to say that they’re often very comfortable to read, and that’s part of their appeal. But as Mad Jim Jaspers progressively imploded an entire reality, and Captain Britain grew increasingly ineffective in the face of the Fury’s onslaught, I was not comfortable. I didn’t know how it was going to end. I wasn’t sure the heroes were going to survive. Everything was uncertain and tense… and it was great.

(Side note: In the course of telling the Jaspers Warp story, Moore also pulled in a group of time-traveling alien mercenaries known as the Special Executive, which he’d created for his “Black Sun Rising” strip in Doctor Who Monthly in 1981—making what I believe might be the only official link between Doctor Who and the Marvel Universe.)

By the time the story wrapped up in the pages of The Mighty World of Marvel #13 (June 1984), the reading audience had been put through a wringer of suspense and drama, and I’ve never been able to figure out why this storyline isn’t better remembered among the likes of the Kree-Skrull War and the Infinity Gauntlet.

This retrospective is getting much longer than I thought it would, so I’ll save the rest of the story—Jamie Delano’s equally weird and excellent run on the post-Moore Captain Britain and how Claremont and Excalibur folded all this good stuff into the X-Men’s world for American audiences—for my next column.

Note: Sadly, it looks like the original trade paperback collecting Moore’s run is out of print, but this more recent collection may still be available. But however you go about it, I can unreservedly recommend getting your hands on this unique, landmark storyline.

The restaurant has been a staple in Harlem since 1962, when Mrs. Woods opened a small little diner-style place that was no bigger than the long counter inside, surrounded by stools that could seat only thirty-five. Now it has grown to nearly the size of a city block.

I’ve been fascinated with Sylvia’s since my early teens, when I discovered what “soul food” was and saw the line of products the Sylvia’s empire has been able to sell in every supermarket across the country. My mother was a huge fan of soul food and collard greens in particular. She had a coworker who’d been cooking it all her life, and would always make a little extra and bring it in for my mom. I never really remembered my mother attempting to cook any of those gorgeous dishes herself, but she would occasionally bring home Sylvia’s products from the supermarket, and that was when I was first introduced to that lovely woman with the trademark smile that adorned all her products.

Courtesy of Sylviasrestaurant.com

Sylvia Woods’ story is a testament to the American dream. She was born in Hemingway, South Carolina in 1926 and named after her grandmother. She ended up meeting her future husband Herbert in 1937 when she was eleven, while they both worked in a bean field. They married in 1944 and moved up to New York City in search of new opportunities, like many African-Americans of the era did. She earned her beautician license by working at night and going to high school during the day.

In 1954 she started waitressing at Johnson’s Luncheonette in Harlem. In 1962, Johnson offered to sell the luncheonette to her, recognizing her determination and strong work ethic. So Sylvia borrowed the money from her mother, who’d mortgaged the family farm in order to front the cash. The young entrepreneur changed the name to Sylvia’s, and the rest is history.

The modest eatery has grown into a large restaurant (which can seat up to 450 people!), which also includes Sylvia’s Lounge and “Sylvia’s Also” (a full-time catering hall); but the small luncheonette is still inside as the nucleus, all in its original location on Lenox Avenue in Harlem. As stated above, she also has a line of soul food products sold nationwide, as well as a line of beauty products, two cookbooks, and a line of children’s books.

Matt and I ventured up there for lunch and luckily got seats before the lunch rush hit. The menu touts soul food staples like “Sautéed Chicken Livers,” “Fried or Grilled Catfish,” “Grandma Julia’s Cornmeal Fried Whiting,” or the odd-sounding combo that is now a soul food standard, “Chicken & Waffles.” That last one originated in the old days, with the nighthawks who would go to greasy spoons in the wee small hours of the morning after a late night of drinking and dancing, but couldn’t decide whether to have dinner because of the late hour, or to instead have breakfast. So why not combine the two? Genius!

I had the Sautéed Chicken Livers (something I would never have normally, but after seeing a special on the Food Network on how Sylvia’s prepared it I couldn’t resist), a side of corn bread, and the item that began it all for me, collard greens. Matt got catfish, a side of corn bread, and mac & cheese.

The meal was glorious. I cannot put into words how good the food was. Luckily, the restaurant has stayed in the family—Sylvia’s children have taken over both the operations and the corporation, so we all can rest assured that the legacy Miss Sylvia Woods started over fifty years ago will be with us for another fifty years to come.

If anyone is visiting New York City, I strongly recommend taking the ride up to Harlem to treat yourself to the “Queen of Soul Food’s” landmark restaurant, Sylvia’s. If you can’t make the trip, try her delicious line of products.

Not only has her place become a landmark for celebrities from Quincy Jones to President Bill Clinton (who spoke at her funeral), but Sylvia became an ambassador for the culinary delight of soul food, and as a result it has firmly rooted itself in our culture.

God bless you, Sylvia Woods! I cannot wait to go back and have some of that gorgeous home-style cooking in the very near future.

He also plans to use a tie-in reality show to help fund the mission. Sci-fi + reality TV= humans on Mars by April 2023? According to Mars One.com, it could work.

The plan is to begin a worldwide lottery next year to select forty people who will then begin training for the mission. Lansdorp told FoxNews.com, that the next step after the lottery would be to set up a colony in an Earth desert, where for three months the group will be isolated and train under conditions similar to what would be found on the red planet. Eventually, this group will be ultimately reduced to ten. Then, in 2023, Mars One plans to start sending teams of four every two years (the trip takes between six to eight months).

If all goes as planned, Mars One hopes to have over twenty people working on Mars by 2033.

Courtesy of Mars One (mars-one.com/en/)

In October 2016, the company will launch the first supply vessel, which will land food and other supplies at a location close to where the outpost is to be set up. Then, in 2018, they will send another ship with a rover. In 2021, all the other components will arrive at the location, including habitat structures, living and life support units, and another rover. The two rovers would then move everything into position to await the astronauts.

So where does reality TV play a role in all of this? Well, Lansdorp hopes to develop a show around the lottery process and the colony training phase, to be shown both on television and online. Heck, this could be the next Survivor, or The Apprentice. Once “history is made” (as the website states) when the first four astronauts are launched on September 14, 2022, every aspect of the mission will be available to view online 24/7.

Sounds crazy up to this point? Well, Mars One has a lot of support in the right places. Paul Romer, the executive producer and co-founder of Big Brother, is an adviser on the project. On the science end of the project, Lansdorp has the support of Nobel Prize winning physicist Gerard ‘t Hooft, who is quoted on Mars One’s site:

Mars One is an extraordinarily daring initiative by people with vision and imagination. This project seems to me to be the only way to fulfill dreams of mankind’s expansion into space.

Space researcher Brian Enke of the Southwest Research Institute is also an adviser, and Prof. Dr. Ir. Boudewijn Ambrosius, the chairman of Astrodynamics and Space Missions at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands, is one of the project’s ambassadors.

So why a one-way mission to Mars?

It seems to be more economically feasible to only focus on getting the people there, and not having to worry about the cargo, apparatus, and fuel making a return trip. This theoretically makes the proposal a lot more realistic and possible, and therefore a lot more likely. According to the same Foxnews.com article, legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin has maintained for years that the only way to get humans to Mars would be a one-way mission. Lansdorp does explain that, although the initial plan is a one-way ticket, a later trip to retrieve the astronauts could be possible.

Another reason to send humans instead of robots is the cost, both financial and intellectual. It would cost almost the same or more to send robotic technology there, but it seems more realistic and cost-effective at this point to just send humans. Also, there seems to be a six-minute delay with the remote contact from Earth to the machines on the Martian surface, so averting a disaster as small as telling a rover to stop may be as easy as having a technician on site instead of relying on a program to make that determination while it awaits instructions from us, millions of miles away.

As this seems all well and good, it would also be necessary for the people selected to be exhaustively vetted by psychologists and psychiatrists to deal with the “cabin fever” element of the mission. We surely wouldn’t want an Event Horizon scenario playing out up there.

I think this is great news for supporters of space exploration. Since Obama canned NASA’s programs, relegating them to testing Toyota brake pedal malfunctions, it’s good to see companies and dreamers alike with the desire and ambition to attempt to pull all this off. Hopefully (God willing) everything will go as planned and the reality show will become a hit, getting public support behind the mission, much like how Kennedy rallied the nation for the cold war space race of the 1960s.

Then we all can get back into the old dreams of conquering the stars. Before we know it we’ll have that functional Starship Enterprise built in orbit, though I do not know how far that plan will get. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope with all seriousness that this comes to pass.

In the meantime, want to contact Mars One or put your name in the hat to try to get a ride to Mars? Click here. Happy trails!

Okay, mission statement out of the way. Let’s kick things off with a conscious, deliberate, and completely effective throwback to the historically-based pulp adventures of yore. The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones drops the reader into an eighth-century Baghdad that is, by the author’s own admission, based as much on the legends of the Thousand and One Nights as it is on real history. There we follow the clever (if headstrong) scholar Dabir ibn Khalil and his occasionally reluctant companion Asim el Abbas, servants of the caliph’s vizier (chief minister), as their pursuit of a stolen treasure might leave them the only men standing between the glorious city of Baghdad and a vengeful, sorcerous plot to wipe it from the world forever.

In addition to being the managing editor of the fine fantasy e-zine Black Gate, Howard Andrew Jones is also an acknowledged authority on the works of one Harold Lamb, a prolific author whose exotic, historically-based adventure tales frequently graced the pages of pulp adventure magazines like Argosy, All-Story, and Adventure from the late 1910s through the 1940s. In The Desert of Souls, Jones clearly wanted to channel the spirit of Lamb with a story rich in historical detail, exotic magicks, and swashbuckling derring-do. In that he has succeeded in grand fashion.

In the late eighth century, under the rule of the caliph Harun al-Rashid, Baghdad was at the height of its legendary magnificence, a jewel of the civilized world. In the household of the caliph’s young vizier Jaffar, the brilliant scholar Dabir ibn Khalil studies the sciences of the world (and tutors Jaffar’s beautiful niece Sabirah), while the stalwart Asim el Abbas serves steadfastly as the captain of the vizier’s guard. Of these men, only Dabir realizes that there is more to the world than the merely natural, so when a daring and sorcerous attack results in the theft of one of the caliph’s fabulous treasures, Dabir’s pursuit of the thieves will lead them far out into the dangerous Desert of Souls, where an evil magician is trying to use the stolen treasure to find the Keeper of Secrets and a mystical power that will allow him to destroy Baghdad utterly. Then Sabirah complicates the mission by stowing away. Even Dabir’s cunning and learning, and Asim’s courage and strength might not be enough to solve the mystery, stop the villain, and save the girl. But they’re sure as heck gonna try!

The best thing about The Desert of Souls is that it does satisfy on a few different levels. There is, of course, the simple excitement of the plot, as the danger and mystery draw Dabir and Asim into one exciting predicament after another. The reader never lacks for spectacle or action with this story.

But, in addition to the skillfully told adventure plot—one definitely worthy of Jones’ idol Lamb—there are layers to the story that work for a more modern sensibility. Dabir the brain and Asim the brawn are definitely part of the buddy-film tradition, as they bicker and butt heads, then seamlessly transition into thinking alike and kicking butt as one. There’s almost a Holmes and Watson vibe to them that does a good job of playing up the mystery aspect of the plot, as Dabir thinks his way through the theft and the scheming of their opponents while Asim (the generally somewhat wooly-headed narrator) relays his reasoning and revelations to the audience. The two have been the subject of a number of short stories Jones has written, which have appeared in various magazines and anthologies over the last decade and which have now been collected in an e-book titled The Waters of Eternity—highly recommended if you read The Desert of Souls and want a further fix of Dabir & Asim goodness. Although The Desert of Souls is the most recently-published story to feature this great duo, chronologically it’s one of their first adventures together, so this makes a great introduction to the pair and their world.

And then there are the gender issues, which don’t beat the reader over the head in a modern political sense, but still provoke thought. For all its opulence and relative scientific modernity, eighth-century Baghdad was still a seriously patriarchal society, and the trials and tribulation poor Sabirah goes through simply for wanting to develop her mind are portrayed with a clear and unsentimental eye. The attitudes of the characters towards the issues surrounding Sabirah and her situation are believable and not anachronistic, but still raise interesting questions for the modern-day reader to contemplate.

All in all, The Desert of Souls offers an exciting plot in a fascinating and well-drawn historical setting, with fun characters facing real physical, magical, and even societal dangers. Never boring, this novel is a classic, pulpy adventure yarn with a modern storytelling sensibility. It will transport you to another world and thrill you while you’re there. A definite escapist win.

I don’t know what the deal is with the good folks over at Pizza Hut nowadays, but I feel like they’ve let college students into their test kitchens.  It’s the only way to explain the recent rash of recipes to hit their stores.

Take, for example, the Middle East, where Pizza Hut unleashed the Cheeseburger Pizza earlier this year.  I know it sounds innocuous enough, but no… it’s not a pizza with cheeseburger pieces on top.  Instead, it’s a pizza RINGED with mini-cheeseburgers in the crust!  Now while I couldn’t make my way out to the Middle East to try this delicacy (which wouldn’t really appeal to me anyway — too much cheese), I did get to try their new offering here at home… the Garlic Bread Pizza.

Like the Cheeseburger Pizza, the Garlic Bread Pizza sounds like something a bored college student would put together after a late night of drinking heavily.  Unlike the Cheeseburger Pizza, however, this one sounded rather palatable to me anyway and like it could be a good idea, so I decided to go give it a try.

As advertised, the pizza costs $9.99 and comes with one topping.  I don’t normally do toppings, but since it was included I went with pepperoni.  Unfortunately, since Pizza Hut is a Pepsi establishment, I had to go without a drink.

When the pizza arrived, I was pleasantly surprised by the very mild smell of garlic.  I almost expected it to be overwhelming, but the smell was just right.  A good start.  The pizza looked so delicious that I had to consciously resist the urge to dive right in and, most likely, singe the roof of my mouth.  This gave me some time to inspect the whole kit-and-kaboodle.  The pizza itself is exactly as advertised.  It’s nine slices of Italian/garlic bread with the pizza toppings right on.

I don’t know if this was just the way mine was prepared, but each slice had the same number of pepperoni slices on it (4), guaranteeing that each piece would be as good or as bad as the others.  The pepperoni was sliced thin.  This is important because it allows you to actually bite through the pepperoni instead of having to tear it off the pizza, getting more in your mouth than you bargained for.

The first bite of the pizza had the unmistakable flavor of garlic bread.  The bread itself was soft, not as crispy as garlic breads tend to be.  This made eating it a lot easier and, like the pepperoni thickness, meant that you could eat it easily without fighting to not make a mess.

Despite how the pizza looked when I first saw it (a mountain of cheese and pepperoni), there was actually a decent amount of sauce on the pizza as well.  A thicker sauce than you find at most pizzerias, it was nice and sweet and mixed well with the garlic and pepperoni.

I do wonder, however, if the pepperoni (or other toppings) are what really make this pizza work.  Every once in a while I would hit a pocket of more concentrated garlic.  This was mitigated by the flavors of the pepperoni (again, present in every bite).  If not for the pepperoni, I’m left to wonder if the garlic would be too overpowering.

All-in-all, the pizza was very tasty. I loved the combination of ingredients and the care with which it was prepared.  I did actually get to witness some of the preparation so I do know that this doesn’t come out of a freezer pre-made.  It was made with a level of care that I wish everyone shared.  For $10 it will make you feel like you’re in college again.  And that’s just the right price.

Try the Garlic Bread Pizza now at your local Pizza Hut.  It should feed 2-3 people per pie, depending on your appetite.

Join Brian every other Tuesday as he talks comic books from a reader’s perspective, both his new experiences with the medium and reflections on over thirty years of enjoying the finest in sequential art.

Comics get cosmic: a panel from Fantastic Four #74, May 1968, by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott (Image © Marvel)

I’ve made no secret of the fact I’m not a fan of “New Wave” science fiction. Don’t get me wrong, the movement’s goals were admirable and its influence laid groundwork that made many of the great science fiction books of my lifetime possible. But although the motivations were entirely legitimate, I’ve always felt that the works themselves leeched space travel, aliens, and most of the epic sense of wonder out of the genre for a good decade and a half.

However, in those years following the cancellation of Star Trek, when even the movies were following the New Wave’s lead (with films like Soylent Green, Silent Running, and The Andromeda Strain as sci-fi’s face on the big screen), there was one unlikely place you could go for big, weird stories about aliens and outer space: comic books!

(Remember how I trashed ol’ Jack “King” Kirby in my last column? Hang on to your hats, folks, I’m about to talk him up big time.)

I understand why the New Wave happened, of course. As a print medium based in aging pulp magazines and cheap paperback novels, the old tropes of square-jawed adventurers fighting their way across the moons of Venus and avuncular, pipe-smoking gentleman scientists inventing time machines in their garage laboratories were not only getting creaky in their own right, but were increasingly out of step with the tumultuous “real world” of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the growing counterculture movements of the 1960s. The readers and writers of science fiction wanted to grow up, both conceptually and commercially—they wanted stories that addressed the issues of race, sexuality, and society that concerned them and their communities on a daily basis, and works that were serious enough to rate “mainstream” book publication.

A 1970 example of New Wave SF

Just ’cause I get it doesn’t mean I enjoyed it, though. Aside from a few stalwart holdouts like Larry Niven and Poul Anderson, most of the sci-fi published between 1965 and 1980 just fails to fire my imagination the way works before and since that New Wave interregnum have.

But during that depressingly whizbang-free period, there was still a venue for that old-school storytelling sensibility, and that was in the four-color world of the comics.

As Marvel Comics grew in respectability and sales, editor Stan Lee and publisher Martin Goodman were able to hire new artists and lighten up the workload of the small handful of artists (Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck, Dick Ayers) that had produced the lion’s share of Marvel’s early work. Although Kirby had already been a comic book illustrator for 25 years when he launched Fantastic Four with Lee in 1961, once his workload was significantly reduced his art—or, more specifically, his graphic storytelling—enjoyed a real period of further development and maturation.

The larger-than-life spirit of Edmond “World Wrecker” Hamilton and E.E. Smith lives on: Thor prepares to face Galactus in The Mighty Thor #161, February 1969 (Image © Marvel)

Kirby clearly liked his stories epic, and from about 1965 or ’66 on Lee was willing to indulge him. The Fantastic Four started meeting the Inhumans and going to the Negative Zone, and once Galactus showed up the cosmic nature of their stories became the new normal. And Lee and Kirby were doing the same thing on an even crazier scale over in the pages of The Mighty Thor, where the Thunder God and his colorful cohorts from Asgard were up against monumentally mythic threats like Mangog (the embodiment of the rage of billions of people) or Ego the Living Planet (a frikkin’ planet, people!).

When things went sour between Kirby and Marvel in 1970, he took his brushes over to DC and did the same thing with his short-lived Fourth World titles (The New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People) in 1971 and ’72. Then in ’76 the King returned to Marvel to carry on that magnificent tradition with the (similarly short-lived) Eternals series.

Kirby’s post-’65 art, along with Lee’s storytelling (and later, on the 1970s works, his own writing), had a mass and solidity to it that added weight to go along with the scale. When you read Thor or Fantastic Four in the late ’60s, you came away feeling like you’d just experienced something heavy, something so colossal that your mortal brain could only grasp it dimly—not the weird, druggy inconclusiveness of Philip K. Dick or other New Wave authors, but rather allowing your imagination to fill in the blanks your conscious brain couldn’t encompass. I found that very satisfying. (Part of the great effect was the improved coloring of those late-’60s Kirby epics, a bright, full palette that often bordered on the psychedelic. Sadly, Marvel did not start crediting its colorists until 1973, so I don’t know who to praise for that very enjoyable part of these comics.)

A moment from the Kree-Skrull War, from The Avengers #94, December 1971 (Image © Marvel)

Thankfully, Lee and Kirby didn’t keep the cosmic to themselves, either. The Avengers got in on the act when Roy Thomas put them through the now-legendary Kree-Skrull War in 1971 and ’72. Unlike the increasingly cosmic FF, or the fundamentally mythic-by-definition Asgardians, the generally down-to-earth Avengers were unlikely participants in an interstellar war, but when Captain Marvel and professional sidekick Rick Jones brought one to their doorstep, the result was the best gee-whiz-golly space adventure going at that time. (The Kree-Skrull War’s connection to its pulp antecedents got lampshaded in Avengers #96 when the Kree tyrant Ronan the Accuser makes a casual reference to a calot, which in the John Carter stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs was the Martian equivalent of a dog.)

Thomas was also the writer of the excellent, award-winning Conan the Barbarian titles Marvel started publishing in 1970, and again that link to the pulps was made explicit when Marvel launched Kull the Conqueror, Red Sonja, and John Carter: Warlord of Mars in the late ’70s.

Sadly, those last three titles were all short-lived, but the point remains valid: in the dark days of the New Wave, when science fiction gained its hard-won maturity and literary worthiness, the lost innocence of the genre’s childhood lived on for those of us who craved it (and continue to crave it to this day) in their comic counterparts.

And for that one epic, brightly-colored moment in time, Kirby truly was King.

“Borgnine Night” at Tortilla Flats, in New York City

We dug up this package, courtesy of CBS News, that was done in 2009, at the 17th Annual Installment, and you’d be surprised who showed up. Aside from a celebrity or two, you may also see a Podwit mixed up in there as well. Just play attention to the “look-alike” contest.

Enjoy!

While on a much-needed honeymoon to the Lake George region of upstate New York (if you’ve seen or read The Last of the Mohicans, then that’s the lake it all occurred on), my bride and I took in a custom that I thankfully have been enjoying since since childhood, which was see a double feature at the old drive-in movie theater.

This passed June marked the 79th anniversary of the drive-in, as we discussed in our Sci-Fi Schlock Double Features podcast, so I was really looking forward to going up there and visiting the old theater. I’ve been vacationing there all my life, and one of the traditions for my family was packing into the Chrysler mini van and visit the old Drive In.

The Glen Falls Drive In has been around since 1958, and luckily hasn’t changed a bit.  It boosts 2 screens, which both play double features that start at dusk. We had a choice of The Amazing Spider-Man and Brave, or Ted and That’s My Boy, so like any sane person, we picked the former, which ironically turned out to be a true “creature-feature”. The theater opens at 7pm, and costs only- wait for it!- $8 for 2 brand-new movies! When it costs nearly 20 bones to see a damned 3D movie nowadays (which the man then has the gall to try and get you to “recycle” your glasses you just spent $5 on- like they’re not just cleaning them and repackaging those suckers!- but I digress), it is quiet refreshing and rewarding, if I may be so bold as to say, to pay $4 per film and also, have them be brand new films to boot (though at those prices, I’d pay to see anything there).

The very large “turnstiles” of the Drive In Movie

We arrived around quarter after 7 and found a space next to an old pole that still held an old-school RCA speaker, so you could put it on your window, which I really loved. Just to think how many movies and for the matter, how many classics have been pumped through those bad-boys since 1958! But alas, if you’re not quite as retro as my wife and I, you can tune in on your FM dial and find the film’s audio there.

There she is: a original RCA Drive In speaker

It was slowly turning to twilight when we parked the car, applied bug-spray, opened the windows, and started to devour two books as we waited for sunset. To our delight (though it could have easily turned to our dismay), the lot slowly filled up, until there was not a spot to be had by movie time.

It was wonderful to see parents our age, or grandparents now my parent’s age, bringing their kids to share in this timeless experience of going to the drive in. Luckily, no one parked a mega “Excursion” or “Expedition” SUV in front of us, but it really seemed any space could yield you a perfect view of the screen, lest the guy in front of you is driving a “Peterbilt” 18-wheeler Semi.

As dusk started to slip over us, we ventured to the large snack bar building that sat between the two lots, for some fresh popcorn and whatever else you heart desired.

The Amazing Spider-Man was the first film to kick-off on our screen at about 9pm, once the sun had completely disappeared from the sky, and as I alluded to before, we realized we were really watching a “creature-feature”, filled with monsters, superheroes- everything you’d expect to see on a classic drive-in double bill. Though this drive-in seems to be only open seasonally, if I were the owner, I’d try to rent older prints too and have classic horror nights, grindhouse double-features- you name it, I’d try to bring the audiences in for a pure retro experience.

The intermission hit and spliced in was a truly ancient, pure late 60′s/70′s short highlighting all the food that’s available at the snack bar. Ah, it was amazing. The faded colors, the deep scratches in the print, and the “vintage” ambient music track really brought you back to the days when going to the Drive In with a date was the norm.

The “Refreshment Stand” short in between the films. That’s actually mustard being applied with a popicle stick to a hotdog, circa 1976. Yep, freakin’ sweet…

Brave followed and before you knew it, it was passed 1am, and the night was over. I tell you, if I had a place like that closer to me, I’d be going ever week for those prices.

Drive-in’s are really a doorway to another time, and luckily like vinyl, have somehow managed to stick around, be it in very small pockets of the country. There’s been a resurgence in the drive-in experience in the early 2000′s, so let’s hope just like the re-interest in buying vinyl, some new drive-in’s will pop up in a town near you. But you’d be surprised to find that there may actually be one already in your area that has been able to stick it out, much like the Glen Falls location, so do a quick search.

Do yourself a favor and treat yourself to a night at the drive-in. It’s an experience, and something you can one day tell you kids about… or God willing, take them to.

So ’til next time, keep those headlights off, and make sure not to accidentally pump the brake.

Where can one begin to discuss the life of the man who has practically become the patron saint of the Podwits, someone who is so loved by this site that the last story of every podcast is a moment from the actor’s work, followed by a fact about the great man’s life? Borgnine’s career spanned the last eight decades, and was friends or had worked with every icon in the world of cinema. His body of work is a testament to not only his work ethic, but to a versatility that had allowed him to work right up to his passing. He was a genius thespian and should be studied by future generations of actors.

“Marty”, 1955

Ermes Effron Borgnino was born on January 17, 1917, in Hamden Connecticut to Italian parents who had just immigrated to the United States. When he was two, his mother brought him back to Italy, where he lived on the isle of Capri off the coast of Sorrento, until his mother brought him back to his father in Hamden after a brief separation, five years later. After graduating from Hill House High School in New Haven in 1935, he briefly worked selling vegetables from a cart before enlisting in the Navy to see the world. He was discharged in 1941, only to re-enlist after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that led America into World War II. Mr. Borgnine worked on the destroyer USS Lamberton, before being honorably discharged in 1945 as a 1st Gunner’s mate after ten years of service.

Setting back in Hamden, Borgnine was unsure what to do with his life, and according to his highly recommended 2008 biography Ernie, Mr. Borgnine would see “very old, young men” entering and exiting the factories in the area and, after seeing the world, couldn’t settle into such a steady, monotonous life. He tried various jobs like sweeping out barbershops and working as an apprentice before his mother gave him some advice that would change his life. While he was sitting in the kitchen one night, contemplating the “ifs” of life, his mother suggested he become an actor, saying that since he already made a damned fool of himself anyway, why not try a career at it. A light went off in his head and brought him to his lifelong passion.

“From Here To Eternity”, 1953

He went to school in Hartford before settling at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, where he honed his craft for several years, working his way up from a stage carpenter, to featured actor onstage. His first break came in 1949 on Broadway as a nurse in the play Harvey.  That led to several other stage roles, and then to the blossoming new market of television. He and his then-wife Rhoda moved to New York City where he could cultivate a career. Times were tough, though, and acting parts were hard to get, so between roles on television’s Captain Video or other teleplays like the Goodyear Television Playhouse, he worked at Grand Central as a luggage porter. On one of those cold nights, Mr. Borgnine was walking down 8th Avenue, second-guessing his career choices in life and worrying about supporting a new family, when saw a mantra that would become his motto for life. A corner food vendor selling warm nuts in the cold night had written on his cart, “I don’t want to set the world on fire, I just want a place to keep my nuts warm.”

“Marty”

Shortly after that his luck changed, and he got his first motion picture role in The Whistle at Eaton Falls. Because of his stocky frame, he often played “heavies” in films like 1951′s The Mob, or 1953′s The Stranger Wore a Gun. It was his third film role that put him on the map, that of the sadistic bruiser “Fatso Judson” in 1953′s From Here to Eternity. The part gave him instant notoriety for beating a young Frank Sinatra to death in the film. It would be a role that audiences would remember for eternity and fans would mention to him for the rest of his life.

He stayed active and would have become typecast, but in 1954 Burt Lancaster’s production company agreed to translate a teleplay starring Rod Steiger onto the big screen as a tax write-off, and that big-screen translation immortalized Mr. Borgnine. The title role in 1955′s Marty, as a lovable but insecure butcher on Arthur Avenue who worries about finding a wife, not only highlighted the warm-hearted and sweet side of the actor, but also won him the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Now established as a multi-dimensional actor, Mr. Borgnine would go on to act in scores of pictures in every genre, from epics like The Vikings, Barabbas, and Jesus of Nazareth, to thrillers like Ice Station Zebra, The Flight of the Phoenix, and Escape From New York, blockbusters like The Poseidon Adventure, Fire! and The Wild Bunch, and even horror films like Willard and Devil’s Rain. You name it, Mr. Borgnine did it. The key to his success and popularity was not only his extreme versatility, for example his ability to take even the most mundane piece of exposition and make it Shakespeare-worthy, but also his non-pretentious attitude toward acting. He did not look down on certain parts or pieces of work, and instead accepted roles based on the interest the piece or character offered.

“McHale’s Navy”, 1963

That led to hugely famous parts on the small screen as well, with numerous series under his belt that let him continue to expose himself to new generations of fans. Baby boomers knew him as ”Commander McHale” on the cult classic McHale’s Navy, people my age and “Generation X” knew him from Airwolf and the sitcom The Single Guy, while the younger generation of today knows him from the TV incarnation of the animated All Dogs Go to Heaven or the immortal “Mermaid Man” on SpongeBob Squarepants.

Mr. Borgnine constantly worked for causes he believed in, such as helping and supporting Navy families and causes, and working as the “Grand Clown” from 1973 to 2002 in Milwaukee’s Great Circus Parade. He continued to work into his 95th year, never slowing, and constantly reinventing himself for new generations of audience to discover.

Ernest Borgnine held a unique place for the Podwits—he was almost a muse of sorts. He represented what cinema was and is, what could be achieved and what has been lost in the medium. Be it in the realm of the big screen or the small screen, Mr. Borgnine taught us how to laugh, cry, love and hate. He could do it all and, in fact, had done it all, and he was already a legend before the members of this small, humble site were even born, even before their parents were married.

It’s been said here before, but Mr. Borgnine linked us back to the time of legends, to what it meant to be a ”Hollywood star” and “cinema royalty”. Scholars of film have lost an icon, fans have lost an idol, a family has lost a member, and the world has lost a shining light of greatness. We love you, Ernie, and will continue to love you for now and for eternity.

Rest in Peace old friend.