I’ve probably picked this book up and thumbed through it at the bookstore a hundred times over the last ten years. After watching the new DVD of Blade Runner recently, I decided to bite the bullet and buy it. I gotta tell you that the first few chapters of Future Noir made me a little nervous. Some of the writing was awkward, author Paul Sammon has some annoying habits (for instance, he tends to refer to himself as “this author” quite a bit), and the information being presented came off as cursory. Now that last one may be unfair in the sense that the documentary on the aforementioned DVD was four hours long and was pretty exhaustive in its details. Reading the book, I felt as though I had heard it all before, but I’ll bet that doc took a lot of its info and structure straight from the book. In fact, I’d wager that, in the decade prior to that DVD, “Noir” was probably your best source of info on all things Blade Runner.
After a couple of chapters, Sammon’s writing settles into a comfortable pattern and “Noir” becomes a good read. My only recommendation would be that you not read it immediately after watching the DVD. You’ll end up with Blade Runner overload.
All in all, Rambo’s a really solid little action film. It tells a good (if simple) story, it’s well-directed (by Rambo himself Sylvester Stallone), and it’s got some of the most heinous villains I’ve seen in a long time. By the time Johnny Rambo starts meting out justice, you’re ready for it. I’m recommending the flick, but I do have two qualifications I would put on the endorsement: 1) Rambo is one of the most violent films I’ve ever seen. Don’t take your grandmother. 2) Despite what is otherwise a quality production, has some of the worst visual effects in recent memory. At times, they’re poorly executed to the point of being distracting. These issues aside, however, I can say “see it” without reservation. (Especially since it was beaten in this weekend’s box office race byMeet the Spartans — a “comedy” that appears to be aimed at the niche people-with-severe-head-trauma audience).
The Complete Peanuts: 1950 to 1952
For the past few years, Fantagraphics Books has been collecting the nearly 50 year run of Charles Schultz’s Peanuts into neat little hardcover books. I saw the first volume at our local library and gave in to temptation. For me, this process took me back to trips to my school library when I was a wee one. I would always grab two or three books and at least one of those books would be a Peanuts collection. To put it in the modern vernacular, I grew up on this shit. I don’t think I’d ever seen any strips from the first couple of years before picking up “1950 to 1952″. It was crazy seeing all of the firsts. Oh, look, Schroeder’s taking up the piano. Hey, that’s the first time we got to see what Snoopy was thinking. Lucy just pulled the football away — righteous.
Tell me I’m regressing if you like, but I was struck yet again by how adult the sensibility of the strip really is, how existential its nature. One gets the impression that Schultz himself wasn’t entirely comfortable in his own skin and a lot of that angst shows through. I think we can all relate to that, can’t we?
We’ve all seen science fiction shows get canceled followed by a rush of rabid fanboys (and girls) doing everything short of donating body parts to get said show resuscitated. I’ll be honest with you: that type of behavior turns me off. Seeing grown men and women carrying on like that reminds me of that famous William Shatner sketch from Saturday Night Live years ago (”Move out of your parents basement! You, you must be thirty years old. Have you ever kissed a girl?”). For that very reason, I avoided Firefly when it first appeared on DVD and I was even more adamant about not seeing Serenity since the movie wouldn’t have existed at all had it not been for the efforts of the aforementioned fanatics.
Well, I’m here to tell you I was wrong.
What is it about the Firefly Saga that works so well? I think I can answer that question by knocking another supposedly terrific science fiction show. I have friends that absolutely swear by Battlestar Galactica; say it’s the best show on television right now, bar none. I tried to give “Galactica” it’s day in court, but it just didn’t grab me. I couldn’t make it through the first season. My friends said “Well, you didn’t give it enough time. It starts to get good right about the time you quit”. Do I look like I’ve got nothing but time on my hands? If a show hasn’t grabbed me in six episodes, then I don’t feel bad at all about walking away. That’s more than a reasonable shot. So, is “Galactica” a bad show then? No, I’m not saying that at all. For me, here’s what it came down to: I just didn’t care about any of the characters. I didn’t care if any of them lived or died.
With Firefly, it’s the exact opposite. Creator Joss Whedon knows how to write good people. I felt connected to each and every person in that cast and I was invested in their successes and failures. At the end of the day, isn’t that what storytelling is supposed to be all about? Watching the whole thing again just reinforced for me how good it really is. Which is not to say that it’s perfect. At times, the whole enterprise seems to be held together with tape and baling wire. But even that lends a certain charm — like the show was lovingly handcrafted by people with limited resources but no shortage of passion.
A friend and I refer to Firefly and Serenity as one long twelve hour mini-series, and it is. Not all of the loose ends from the show are wrapped up in the movie, but taken as a whole, it’s one of the most satisfying sci-fi experiences you’re likely to have. So, if you ever find yourself with half a day to kill, spend a little time with the whole Firefly gang. At the risk of sounding like a rabid fanboy, I think you’ll feel like you’ve made some new friends.
Update 3/12/08:
Embedded below is the pilot to Firefly. This comes courtesy of NBC Universal’s new video-on demand service Hulu.
You know, I don’t think Cloverfield would exist at all if it weren’t for two mid-nineties phenomena: The Blair Witch Project and the horrible American remake of Godzilla. Like “Blair Witch”, Cloverfield uses the conceit of the entire movie being a found videotape of a horrific event. This introduces a couple of problems also found in the earlier film: nausea inducing “shaky cam” and things being implausibly filmed just because they’re necessary for a cohesive narrative (things that no normal person would ever film). I mention Godzilla because Cloverfield too has a gigantic monster destroying a city — a gigantic monster with human-sized offspring which can attack our heroes at street level (oh, sorry — Spoiler Alert). I really was struck by the absolute lifts from these two earlier flicks.
So, does Cloverfield stand on its own despite these parallels? Well, yeah it does actually. I’m not sure it works as a film per se, but it definitely works as a piece of sheer spectacle. You really do buy into its world. Throughout the whole thing, I was completely convinced that some serious shit was going down in the Big Apple. I wish I’d been a little more invested in the characters, but it’s not surprising that I wasn’t given the format of the film. It works while you’re taking in your first viewing, but I doubt seriously it would stand up to repeat business.
Should you see Cloverfield then? Yeah, absolutely. It ain’t Shakespeare, but it is a helluva ride.
Michael Barrier spends some time in the final pages of his Walt Disney biography talking about the inaccuracies and the repetition in similar books by other authors throughout the years. Which is weird since I learned nothing new and saw no wrongs righted in “The Animated Man”. At the end of the day, this is just another Disney biography. Is it a bad book? No, not at all. It just blazes no new trails and, at times, even seems cursory. For instance, one of the most formative (not to mention traumatic) events in Disney’s life had to have been the death of his mother. Flora Disney died due to a gas leak from a defective heater in the house that Walt bought for her. If something like that doesn’t mess with a fella’s head then I don’t know what does. Barrier mentions it in passing, giving it the same sort of emphasis as he might in telling us that Walt picked up his shirts from the cleaners that day. I also expected a lot more in-depth analysis of Walt’s work on his animated films since this is Barrier’s stated area of expertise. I felt that Barrier spent no more time on this era than any other prior biographer and this was a disappointment to me.
So, on the whole, I’d say “The Animated Man” is a decent enough book, but it still doesn’t supplant Neal Gabler’s monster tome of last year as my personal favorite.
I didn’t catch V for Vendetta in the theaters. Daddy likes his free HBO.
Overall, I thought “V” was a really solid film. Well written, well acted and well directed. I guess the Wachowski brothers really can still write a coherent and meaningful piece of work when they put their minds to it. (My faith — along with everyone else’s — was shaken by The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions).
“V” did a good job of reminding me that totalitarian governments like the one depicted in the film not only have happened in the past but could (and probably will) happen again.
Just like Shrek 3 (and practically every Dreamworks Feature Animation film to date) Bee Movie is a pretty, but ultimately empty experience. Almost without exception, these flicks fail to connect on an emotional level — a real shame since animation is difficult and time-consuming.
Oh well, at least this one isn’t brimming over with loud non-sequitur songs, inappropriate pop culture references and gratuitous shots to the crotch. That’s something, I guess.
I’ve gotten really behind in my DVD viewing. This one was sitting around in a partially watched state for more than a year. I also have Season 9 and it’s been taken out of its cellophane, but never viewed. I think part of this lag is attributable to something I know is coming: Somewhere around Season 10, The Simpsons lost its luster and I stopped watching altogether. I honestly haven’t seen a first run episode is something like eight years (Christ, can you believe this show’s been on the air for going on twenty years? The mind boggles.).
That antsyness aside, I did enjoy this set quite a bit. It doesn’t have the solidness of some earlier seasons, but there’s still some serious laughs to be had. Let’s see if the cracks start to show for me once I finally dive into that Season 9 box.
A buddy of mine (a fellow Robert E. Howard-ophile) brought this over to the house and we checked it out last night. “Whole Wide World” tells the story of a doomed love affair between Howard (the creator of Conan the Barbarian, portrayed here by Vincent D’Onofrio) and a Texas school teacher played by Renee Zellweger. It’s a generally well-made flick with some sporadically good acting. Let me elaborate since I’m sure that sounds like a left-handed compliment: tonally, the movie’s a little off — the performances are inconsistent and some bad aesthetic decisions are made (like providing Howard’s periodic flights of fancy with cheezy sound effects). Right or wrong, I chalk these patches of dissonance up to clumsy directing. Overall, I’d recommend the film though — especially if you know anything about Robert E. Howard and his work.
Two things happened serendipitously right on the heels of one another: 1) Our cable provider gave us a coupon for six months of free HBO, no strings attached and 2) HBO did an Entourage Season 4 marathon on New Year’s Eve. One whole night of the Tivo cranking overtime and I’ve now managed to see the shows before they hit DVD (for a change).
What can I say? After a shaky start (I didn’t like the faux documentary approach in the premiere episode), all of the reasons I like the show in the first place resurfaced. Good writing, good acting and a keen observation of Hollywood culture and of the movie business in general. Here’s my vow to you: some day soon I will bite the bullet and add the entire series to my collection.
I really enjoyed most of “No Country”. For the majority of its running time, it’s a well-acted, well-directed crime film with a compelling story and a doozy of a villain. Then the primary plot line ended (rather abruptly, I might add) and I got another twenty minutes of Tommy Lee Jones mooning about his retirement and the fact that the world has changed irrevocably around him. I didn’t mind the sentiments, but the presentation was befuddling and I didn’t feel that I knew Jones’ character well enough to empathize with him. That whole last chapter just left me scratching my head.
So, would I recommend the film? Oh, hell yeah. Just know going in that you might not dig “No Country”’s closing minutes.
![Firefly - The Complete Series [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ibK1BytML._SL75_.jpg)
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