More movies, ...And comics!

Movies:

Lady in the Water- Well, it's not the worst movie that I've ever seen in a theater... M. Night Shaymalayan's little homage to fairy tales falls apart on so many levels it's not even entertaining in a 'MSt3k' way. A water sprite comes to Earth to inspire a writer (M. Night Shaymalayan-ho,ho,ho) to publish his masterwork. She then has to rely on the help of several different denizens of an apartment complex to return her to her world.
The whole film is a homage to Shaymalayan's self-indulgence. (Note the blatant rip on film critics...) Shaymalayan's shallow well of ideas is starting to run dry. Surely actors aren't such a rare breed that he had to cast himself in a pivotal role?

Clerks II- Kevin's Smith's saving grace is that he just doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, he builds a giant costume of a heart and climbs inside. The question is, where does he go from here? Degrassi High: the movie? For what it's worth, the story's pretty solid, his stock cast does their job well enough,(Rosario Dawson blows everyone else out of the water, truthfully) and his gags are pretty funny. What's a little 'inter-species erotica' between friends, anyway?

Comics:

Acme Novelty Library #16 and The Acme Novelty Library Compendium - Given the glacial pace of his output, I'll probably be coming up on fifty by the time Chris Ware finished this little epic. On the other hand, it's Chris Ware, so you can count on me lining up for each and every one. I'd have to say that Ware's the flat-out best pure cartoonist working today, and I can prove it on a slide rule and a tablet of graph paper. Right now, it appears to be the prologue as to how the two geeky characters, Rusty Brown and Chalky White came to meet and be friends. Like all social outcasts, their friendship probably won't be based on mutual interests as much as that there's no one else to hang out with. Friendship by default, as it were. Chris Ware is possibly the most ANAL artist in history, so much so that I was concerned his sense of draftmanship would overwhelm the story. Not so, in the Rusty/Chalky prologue. The 'building stories' piece near the end, however, may diagram into incoherence. Like I said, however, I'm in for the long haul.

The Compendium is a collection of all the ephemera from his 'Jimmy Corrigan' stuff in the previous Acme Library issues, and I'd have to say it's literally impossible to read in one sitting. (I had to buy a magnifying glass, so's to enjoy it more fully.) I'm being facetious here, but I'm starting to get worried that Ware might wind up the 21st century equivalent of that 19th century cat artist, Louis Wain. (After Wain was committed to an asylum, his cat portraits became more and more geometric and abstract as to become indecipherable.)

Rocco Vargas - Spanish cartoonist Daniel Torres does a pastiche of the 'Terry and the Pirates'-style adventure genre, and it comes out good. If Torres had done it tongue-in-cheek, it would've been unbearable. In playing it straight, he reminds me that the old-fashioned adventure serial was a genre I didn't realize I missed. In this day and age, the only way you can pull it off without appearing too hokey is by putting an 'ironic' spin on it. (Like the Incredibles, Venture Brothers, the Tick...) My understanding is that Torres is an illustrator dabbling in comics. When commercial illustrators get into the comics medium, you get a terminal case of 'inventing the wheel'. By learning more from Milt Caniff then Will Eisner, Torres makes a solid, enjoyable yarn.

Ego and Hubris: The story of Michael Malice -The appropriately named Malice was a peripheral influence in Harvey Pekar's 'Our Movie Year'. After getting to know the guy, Pekar decided he deserved his own book. He's a self-involved near sociopath who proudly brags about the petty acts of revenge he's enacted against bosses or co-workers who've wronged him. During the course of the book, we learn about Malice's personal philosophy. (is there any doubt Ayn Rand figures heavily into his values?) We also get the subplot of Malice writing a screenplay about a semi-obscure rockabilly band from the 80's. I don't think Malice is evil, just really self-involved. (Malice's reaction to 9/11 was a little shocking to me, though) Here's the thing: Being witness to all of Malice's acts of corporate vengeance, I got the impression that this is par for the course in contemporary American business culture. It's taken as a given nowadays that anyone in business who's even moderately successful has gotten to where he is by being under-handed, scheming, and engaging in outright criminal behavior. I suspect Pekar's picked up on this as well, which is why Malice's corporate behavior is played up so prominently.

Johnny Ryan's output-Ca-ca and Poo-poo humor done well, if such a thing is possible. It's hard to go away offended, since Ryan saves his most savage beatings for the 'comics-as-art' elite. Case in point: one panel of Art Speigleman saying, 'It's not boring enough! I have to borify it even more!'

Schitzo #4 - In the released-ages-and-ages-ago Schitzo #2, Ivan Brunetti prints a letter from comic shaman Jim Woodring, where Woodring predicts that once Brunetti burns off the bitterness, self-hatred and nihilism from his work, Brunetti will be a force to be reckoned with. Woodring was right, except for one thing. Brunetti's mindset would've literally killed him if he didn't seek professional help, which he did. The price Brunetti pays for survival is an infrequent output. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big tragedy. And in the case of a major talent like Brunetti, some art is better than no art at all, and a little goes a long way.

Stuff I hate that everyone else likes...

A few weeks ago the Onion's A.V. Club (the only bit on the site I'm inclined to read nowadays) had a short bit entitled, "Classic Movies it's Okay to Hate". A poster on the site pointed out that this is the type of 'controversial' piece usually saved for Entertainment Weekly or Us magazine. They list Network, The Shawshank Redemption, Star Wars, A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, Fantasia, Caddyshack, Roger and Me, Carrie, and The Big Lebowski as talking points in their theme. Fair enough, but it kinda got me thinking. I'm sure everyone has their "Pfft. You gotta be kidding!" moments when it comes to popular movies (and t.v. shows), so I thought I'd just beak off on mine...

Network- I'm totally on board with their assessment of this one. Paddy Chaefsky's script is smug, self-righteous, and condesending. Coming out when it did, in the 70's, beating on televison would be like beating on a cripple in a wheelchair with one hand tied behind his back. Every character is shrill and didactic. It's Chaefsky's passive-aggressive revenge on an industry that didn't kiss his fat ass enough in the thirty-odd years he wrote for it. Of particular contempt: Max Schumacher's (William Holden) wife's speech to him after he informs her of his affair with Diana Christensen(Faye Dunaway). Up to this point, she's been essentially a non-entity in the film. After Max confronts her over his infidelity, we get this bit of histronics...

"Get out, go anywhere you want, go to a hotel, go live with her, and don't come back. Because, after 25 years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain that we have inflicted on each other, I'm damned if I'm going to stand here and have you tell me you're in love with somebody else. Because this isn't a convention weekend with your secretary, is it? Or - or some broad that you picked up after three belts of booze. This is your great winter romance, isn't it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what's left for me? Is that my share? She gets the winter passion, and I get the dotage? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sit at home knitting and purling while you slink back like some penitent drunk? I'm your wife, damn it. And, if you can't work up a winter passion for me, the least I require is respect and allegiance. I hurt. Don't you understand that? I hurt badly."

Boo-fuckin'-hoo. Then she drops off the face of the movie. The actress, Beatrice Straight, won a best supporting actress Oscar.I envision Chaefsky sitting in front of his typewriter, cackling to himself about how he'd love to see the faces of every network executive when they screen his little magnum opus. What was his reaction, I wonder, when Network got all those Oscars in '77? It's too bitter and heavy-handed to work as satire. In an interview at the time, he disingenously claimed that, "he wasn't writing satire; all t.v. execs aspire to be Diana." Bullshit.

I'd argue the Onion's other choices are just attacking mainstream entertainment for doing its job. I mean, come on, no one is going to compare The Shawshank Redemption to, say, Renoir's Grand Illusion. And their take on 'The Big Lebowski' is wrong. Just. Plain. Wrong.

So here's some of my other personal picks for Movies (and T.V.) that everyone likes but I think suck:

Napoleon Dynamite- I am told that this is a comedy. I am told that the title character is a loveable outsider with a eccentric family. I've been told it is a coming of age tale that takes a loving look at growing up in small-town Idaho. I had to turn this movie off about two-thirds of the way through. The main character comes across as a victim of Asperger's syndrome in such a chronic manner that he could replace Dustin Hoffman's Rainman character. When another student crushes his cache of tater tots in his cargo pants, I felt a small twinge of pleasure at Dynamite's abuse. Because the character is closed off from everyone else in the film, you can't empathize with him. In the South Park t.v. show, one comedic bit is to have a character say or do something incredibly absurd, then cut to a reaction shot of other characters giving that character a blank stare of hostile incomprehension. The whole movie of Napoleon Dyanamite's humour is essentially relying on the audience staring blankly in hostile incomprehension at the goings on in the movie. There's another bit where Dynamite is part of an extracuricular school club called 'singing hands', where he and some blank-faced girls wave their hands about to sappy new-age music. There's a cut to their audience, some other blank-faced students. (If we had got a shot of a student snickering at this display of absurdity, followed by being cut short from a faculty member's disapproving stare, THAT would've been funny.) I felt exactly like those kids after watching this.

Sex and the City- It's been mentioned that if a man truly wants to understand women, he will watch this show. In theory, it has a lot on its side; modern single women seeking sexual gratification for its own sake, and not suffering any backlash or societal disapproval for their actions. It's not hard to figure out why it was so popular during its run. The main characters have vibrant, successful lives, and the conflicts that they face in the course of the show are the type of problems that their audience would give their eye teeth to have.

The problem for me, after I bit the bullet and actually watched a few episodes, is that it's like some odd disease swept through Lower Manhattan and removed any trace of empathy or selflessness or altruism from every single human being in that region. While some of the dialogue is clever, I'm reminded of a point the television writer, Maria Semple, made. If anyone ever said to her even one of the things that the people on sitcoms routinely say to each other she would probably burst into tears and go running out of the room. When the four main characters get together to 'dish' about their love lives, I got the impression that they hung out together not because they had formed a sisterhood of like-minded mutually suportive libertines, but that the unspoken agreement amoungst them was, "I'll endure listening to all your petty whinging, but in return, you all have to listen to my epic life story, because I am such a fascinating and unique person, and no one in history has ever faced the dillemas and struggles of me." It would've been more interesting a series if it was revealed that the four main characters in fact, hated each other, and sought to undermine the others at every opportunity. In reality, I've endured self-obsessed 'tards like this many a time in my life, and the only reason they aren't dead, or beaten within an inch of their lives, is because it's illegal for me to inflict damage on them...

As an example, one of the episodes I saw had as it's plot the dilemma Carrie Bradshaw faced when her apartment went condo, leaving her facing the inconvience of apartment-hunting in Manhattan. In steps her boyfriend of three months, offering her to move in with him. Just as she is about to accept, her friend Meredith reveals that Carrie's boyfriend went shopping with her for an engagement ring for Carrie. (Why Meredith didn't try and give Bonehead the "aren't you moving kinda fast?" speech isn't explained.) I missed the rest of the story, but let me guess-Carrie finds her own place, refuses boyfriend's offer of marriage, Samantha makes some comment about her cooze you'd expect to come from a crazy homeless woman of sixty, The End.

I hate to get all preachy on you, but if this show, is in fact, how all women everywhere aspire to be, then I must chop my genitals off and fling 'em into the ocean. It's based on a series of columns by a woman named Candace Bushnell, written, no doubt, in the same smug,devil-may-care-hurray for sexuality tone of the series. I can't help thinking, however, about some single mother in the midwest stuck making under twenty four grand a year at her shitty, dead-end job with no real free time for a social life watching this show and being made to feel like she's not only missing the party, but that she's not welcome in the first place.

...And more stuff...

Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang- Shane Black does a parody of Shane Black movies, and by god, it works. Robert Downey Jr. plays a New York B-and-E man of the hopeless fuckup variety transported by a fluke to Los Angeles. He's being groomed for a part in a movie, and Val Kilmer plays a private eye, Gay Perry, who's coaching him on 'private eye stuff'. The consciously chaotic plot is something about a prominent producer's daughter's stand-in getting killed, so the real daughter's lawsuit against her dad is dropped, or something. Actually, if you
don't pay attention to the plot, you'll have a better time. The whole movie is a self-conscious take on the cliche's of Black's action-movie genre. Lovable fuck-up hero, straight-laced sidekick, cute girl in peril, it's all here. I'm more willing to go with it here then in, say, Kevin Smith's work, mainly since Smith's self-consciousness in his films comes across as whiny and defensive. Plus, Black's stock in trade, coming up with zingers for his characters, has never been better. Part of the fun for me was figuring out Black's mindset in writing this. Why is Gay Perry, well, gay? So there wouldn't be any conflict over Michelle Monaghan, the dame who's the pivot of the plot. Also, because in traditional Hollywood, gay is shorthand for 'sexually non-threatening, but gets all the best lines'. As he's gotten older, Val Kilmer's starting to get some of the mentor roles usually reserved for Liam Neeson. He's too boyish to ever have been a successful leading man, anyway.

It's unfortunate how drug abuse fucked up Robert Downey's career, but in this role, it seems to have given him a much needed humility. If Downey had played his character as smug and world-weary, the whole movie would've crashed on take-off. His tone through the movie is shellshocked, and his little bits of twitchy delivery send his role off into the sky. It's like everyone in the movie is in on a private joke, and Downey's character's attempts to get in on it make the gag that much funnier.

Venture Brothers- Did you ever wonder what Johnny Quest, boy adventurer, would've turned out as when he grew up? Me neither, actually. Venture Brothers takes a 'The Tick'-like premise, (Boy adventurer grows up, becomes under-achieving pill-popper, has two sheltered teen sons and a frightenly competent sidekick) and actually does something with it. I suppose the comparisons to 'The Tick' were what kept me away from it for so long. Well, now I'm a fan. While the stories have the same 'heros in their underwear doin' their laundry' theme that the Tick had, the writing is much sharper, (Christopher McCulloch, the series creator, worked on both the animated and live-action Tick) and the understated Alex Toth-inspired design is perfect. Another thing; unlike Family Guy, when Venture Brothers dives into 'non-sequitur' gags, they actually connect with the characters. It's the type of series that can only get better with time.

Tom's Media Round-up, Part 3

Television:

Samurai Champolo- The anime invasion into North America has left me mostly indifferent towards anime as a genuine creative outlet. You watch enough of this stuff and it all starts to blur together. My antipathy towards it is due to the utterly undiscerning tastes of anime fans. (I suspect Japanese fans are as low in their standards as audiences are over here.) Quantity over quality, as they say. Anyone wanting to see what all the fuss is about might watch, say, Yugi-oh, or Inayusha and quite understandably, give the rest of the subgenre a pass. Which is a shame, since Samurai Champolo isn't going to get the casual viewer as an audience that it deserves. It's a solidly crafted piece of work, about an unemployed waitress in 1880's Japan on a search for her father, accompanied by two very different swordsmen that she's hired as bodyguards.

The thing is, given the limited financial resources animation's given in Japan, stuff like Samurai Champolo and Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex wind up being the 'prestige' titles of animation studios, when ideally, they should be the meat-and-potatoes of the industry. Pandering to your lowest common denominator might pay off in the short term, but in the long run, you're only cutting off your nose to spite your face...

The Boondocks- "Did that little coloured boy just say 'Nigger'?" "Oh, it's okay if they say it!" Maybe it's my latent liberal sentiments kicking in, but Aaron McGruder's use of the 'n' word tends to grate on me after a while. He has to realize that racial slurs, used even in an 'ironic' context don't numb the impact of them after repeated use, as I had previously thought. Rather, it sends a message that it's okay to hurl hateful epithets at people to intimidate them, and then, when called on the rug to account for one's behavior, claim that you were 'kidding', and disingenuously attack your accusers of being 'overly sensitive pussies'. I suspect that one of the influences behind Dave Chapelle walking away from his massively successful t.v. show, besides the awesome responsibility Comedy Central was putting on his narrow shoulders, was the question that was his mostly white audience laughing with him, or at him? It's a tough thing to face for any black comedian, and the only one I've seen to even reach a stand-off was Richard Pryor. I'd be more ambivalent about Aaron McGruder, but the style choice he took in animating his comic (low-budget anime that rips off Samurai Champoloo in the opening credits) clinched the deal for me.

Deadwood- Well, it isn't 'Gunsmoke',for sure. Using the setting of the pre-annexed South Dakota gold-mining boom town, 'Deadwood', creator David Milch gives us one of the best shows on cable. It's a struggle for control between the aptly-named saloon-brothel owner/unofficial mayor Al Swearengen(Ian McBride) and upstart saloon-brothel owner Cy Tolliver(Powers Boothe). The pivot of the series is store owner Seth Bullock(Timothy Olyphant). Swearengen and Tolliver are respectively, a bad man and a worse man. While Swearengen is a thief, a cheat, and a murderer, he has an agenda to maintain order in Deadwood, mainly since too much stealing, cheating and killing is bad for business. Tolliver, on the other hand, is a locust; he swoops in from Chicago and is in the process of sucking the town dry. Tolliver is gratuitously cruel, as well. Seth Bullock, starting a drygoods store in Deadwood, falls into the position of the unofficial law in Deadwood.

Swearengen hates and fears Bullock, not only because Bullock interferes with Swearengen's plots, but because Bullock is the first real authority to make his presence in Swearengen's little corner of Paradise. For Swearengen, Bullock's arrival indicates that his days of limitless power and wealth are numbered. The series doesn't make it explicit, but I believe that America's taming of the west in the late 19th century was due to amoral dirtbags like Swearengen, but credited to decent,moral men like Bullock.

Deadwood's run into some controversy in regards to its use of foul language, and in Deadwood's case, harsh language is a vital component of the series. In the Victorian-era setting, and in the pre-civilized state it's set, swearing is done by uneducated men to denote their authority. (It's why series creator Milch put cussin' in N.Y.P.D Blue) Note how Swearengen curses the most of any other character. Note that when Bullock curses, we're genuinely shocked. I don't think the swearing in Deadwood is distracting, especially considering the care the characters put into their everyday conversations. The dialogue is literary.

Brasseye, Jam!, and Nathan Barley-the world of Christopher Morris- While 'missing the point' seems to be replacing baseball as the national pastime in the Colonies, 'taking the piss' is replacing football (that's British for 'soccer') in Dear Old Blighty. I suspect most t.v. people in Britain figure that since nobody really gives a shit about what England's point of view in global discourse is these days, British television's taken up the role of the disenfranchised A.V. high school nerd. 'Ali G' sets up the pompous to make retarded statements, and 'The Office' tore apart day-to-day workplace politics.

Dropped into this comes Christopher Morris, a acolyte of the late comedic writer Michael O'Donoghe's belief that 'making people laugh is the lowest form of humor'. Jam! was a collection of sketches so dark that light bent around them. (a six year old girl works as a Jean Reno-in-the-Professional-type cleaner, fr' instance) His most controversial series was a send-up of hysterical, melodramatic 'life-style' t.v.news magazines called 'Brasseye'. In the 'drugs' episode, he manages to get an actual m.p. propose a bill in the House to ban the made-up drug, 'Cake'. The delivery is so dry, dust hits you in the face. The most controversial episode, the special on pedophilia, essentially ended his career as a producer in T.V.

He bounced back, sort of, with 'Nathan Barley', a six-episode series depicting a column writer, Dan Ashcroft, for an urban weekly newspaper called 'Sugar Ape', Dan's sister,(a struggling documentary filmmaker) and the writer's nemesis, Nathan Barley, a self-obsessed, vulgar lout. Dan is in a constant struggle to discredit Nathan. The paradox of the tale is that whilst Dan dislikes everything about Nathan Barley, Dan achieves the least in his life and is incapable of staying true to any of his own morals making him the real 'idiot'. On the other hand, it's Barley with his own 'Jackass'-style website who's becoming more and more popular as the series continues. It's funny as hell, and believe me when I say that I've felt more and more like Dan Ashcroft as days go by...

Wonder Showzen- One of the most bizarre things I've ever seen in my life. The only way to understand it is this: Imagine a troupe of avant-guarde performance artists influenced by Amand Artaurd are approached by an NPR-type leftist production company to put on a six-episode children's t.v. show. After signing the necessicary contracts and receiving the budget, the troupe collectively realizes that they have signed a deal with the Devil and decide to put on the most vile, offensive, insane and mean-spirited t.v. show for children that has ever been conceived by the human mind. Their intent that if any human child glimpses even five minutes of their production, the child will look like a progeria victim. The production company will immediately cancel the contract, hire a Catholic priest to sprinkle the video tapes with holy water, and the avant-guarde troupe will keep what's left over of the budget. Fornicating puppets, blasphemy, and little kids asking inappropriate questions at the race track. ("Here's my impression of you, Mr. Race track tout.-'Gamble,gamble,gamble-Die.') It's got too much vitriol in it to last past a second season, but as they say- 'Take a long look at it, miss...You may never see it's like again..'(Addendum: I should, of course, point out that Wonder Showzen falls under the same category of 'shock humour' as 'Jackass' and 'the Tom Green show'. The comedy is based on 'oh-my-god-I-can't-believe-I'm-seeing-this-how-do-they-get-away-with-it?'. Once the shock wears off, the show wears somewhat thin after the first viewing.)

House, M.D. -Took me a while to watch enough of it to get an impression, but now I'm hooked. Hugh Laurie's anti-social doctor plays Sherlock Holmes while infectious diseases play Moriarty. What blew me away was Laurie's internalized performance. He's a miserable, rude, passive-aggressive asshole. When he gets shot at the end of the second season, your first thought is, 'Well, that figures..". I had taken him for granted in 'Jeeves and Wooster' and 'Blackadder' where his stock in trade was British upper class twits played for comedic value. I really didn't expect this type of performance from him. Usually in television, when you have a character like this, we get a glimpse of the soft, mushy center in the course of a show. Not in Dr. House's case. When he makes biting zingers, he's really being a prick.

Tom's Media Round-up, Part Two...

V for Vendetta-INT. JOEL SILVER'S OFFICE. IT IS A VAST SPACE, DEFINED BY EXPENSIVE WOOD AND CHROME FURNISHINGS. IF WE CARE TO MAKE A FILM REFERENCE, IT COULD BE COMPARED TO ELDON TYRELL'S OFFICE IN 'BLADE RUNNER' JOEL SILVER IS SITTING AT HIS DESK, MUTTERING INTO A BLUETOOTH PHONE PARKED IN HIS EAR WHILE SHOVELING HALVAH INTO HIS FAT FACE WITH HIS FINGERS.

JOEL SILVER: -and get me more halvah! (The phone beeps.) What? Who is this?

SECRETARY (V.O.) Mr. Silver, sir, it's the Wachowski brothers. They're here to pitch another script to you-

JOEL SILVER: Well, why didn't you say so, you stupid bitch! Send 'em in!

FROM STAGE LEFT ENTER THE WACHOWSKI BROTHERS, LARRY AND ANDY. BOTH MEN ARE DRESSED LIKE A HOUSE PAINTERS.

JOEL SILVER:(getting up from his desk, arms open) Guys! How ya doin! Good to see ya! Got another hit for me?

LARRY AND ANDY SIT DOWN ON THE MONSTROUS LEATHER CONTRAPTIONS WHICH WE ARE TO ASSUME ARE CHAIRS IN FRONT OF MR. SILVER'S DESK.

LARRY AND ANDY:(simultaneously) We're fine, Mr. Silver, sir. Thanks for asking!

JOEL SILVER:(nodding happily, sitting down) Good, good. You fellas hungry? Thirsty?

LARRY AND ANDY: Nope, nope.

ANDY: So anyway, Mr. Silver-

JOEL SILVER:(making supplicating gestures with his hands) Please, please! For you, today, I'm just Joel!

LARRY: Alrighty, then. Joel. So, Joel, The Andinator and me were in my game room playing 'grand theft auto:san andreas' and we were thinking-

JOEL SILVER:(interrupting)You wanna make a movie of the game! So it is written, so it is done! (scribbles on a check on his desk) I'm making out a check for you boychiks! How's fifty million dollars sound?

ANDY: Um, hold on, Joel. While we were driving C.J. through the desert, we got to talking about that graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd? You know, 'V for Vendetta'?

JOEL: Mmnooo... but take the check anyway! Hell, It's not my money, right?

THEY ALL LAUGH, THEN FALL SILENT FOR A MOMENT.

LARRY: So, like, it's this really cool comic book-

ANDY:(interrupting)Graphic novel.

LARRY:Right. Did I say 'comic book'?

ANDY: Yeparoonie!

LARRY: Oh. Anyway, it's this really neat-o graphic novel about a futuristic England where Fascists have taken over and this guy who was the victim of government experiments escapes, dresses up as Guy Fawlks-

JOEL: Who?

ANDY: Guy Faulks. He tried to blow up the British Parliment a couple hundred years ago. So this guy, called "V" dresses up as him and brings down the Fascist regime with the help of a plucky sixteen year old girl named Eve.

JOEL:(rooting around in his desk for a bottle of water) Keep talkin'!

LARRY:So we were thinkin',and it gave us the idea about doing a screenplay about this guy who escapes from a medical laboratory in the future in this like, totally totalitarian American government in the future.

ANDY: Yeah, yeah,and the experiments give this guy like, super-speed and strength, and he dresses up as Paul Revere-

LARRY:(interrupting)-and brings down the like, totally, crypto-fascist future American Government from the future with the help of this plucky sixteen year old girl named Karen.

LARRY AND ANDY SIMULTANEOUSLY: We wanna call it "The Midnight Rider".

JOEL:(opening his water bottle and taking a swig) Hmm.. (suddenly he does a spit take, looks at the water bottle, and angrily throws it at a nearby underling) THIS IS 'EVIAN', YOU STUPID SHIT! GET ME A PELLEGRINO!!(The underling rushes off.)

ANDY: See, not only is it a cool action thriller, but we figure we can take a dig at the Bush administration in a kinda oblique way!

JOEL:(scratching the bottom of his third chin) Ookaaay... Boys, are there any lesbians in this movie of yours?

LARRY: Joel! It's us!!

ANDY:(giggling and snickering under his hand) Lesbians are awesome!

JOEL:(leaning back in his chair, arms under his head, pausing to angrily snatch a bottle of Pellegrino proffered by the aforementioned underling) See, fellas. I like where you're going with this treatment. Just one thing, though...

LARRY AND ANDY SIMULTANEOUSLY AS THEY LEAN FORWARD: What?

JOEL:(takes a sip of his water before speaking as the wise voice of experience)My people tell me that 'graphic novels'(he makes the quotemarks with his fingers) are super hot right now. Hell, even girls read 'em, or so I'm told. I figure we can all just cut to the chase and do "V for Vendetta" as a movie! These 'graphic novels"(he makes the quotemarks with his fingers again) have a built-in audience! That always means mucho dinero at the box office, boys! You see?

LARRY: Mmm. I dunno, Joel. See, those Limeys Moore and Lloyd wanted it as a parable against Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government and I'm not so sure it would really translate to an American audience. Ya know?

ANDY: Besides-(pause. He looks at Larry. Larry looks at him.)

JOEL: What?

LARRY: Alan Moore's comic books have always come out bad when they translate to film. Remember "From Hell"?

ANDY: Or 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?"

LARRY: Or 'Constantine'?

LARRY: Moore's pretty much washed his hands of us movie types. Getting him to sign over the rights would be impossible!

JOEL:Heh,heh,heh. You two are so cute, you know that? Who published "V for Vendetta"?

ANDY: Um, DC comics, I think?

JOEL: And who owns DC?

LARRY:(realization dawns over him) Hey! That's right! Warner Brothers!

JOEL:(slaps the desk) So we don't even have to negotiate with him! We already own it!

ANDY: You rock, Joel!

JOEL:(chuckles)So all you scamps have to do is fit your little stab at Bush into your "V for Vendetta" screenplay and we're off to the races, as they say!

LARRY:(excitedly bouncing in his seat) Oh, man! This is gonna be great!

JOEL:(raising up one stubby finger) Just one thing, fellas. Were there any lesbians in "V for Vendetta"?

LARRY AND ANDY SIMULTANEOUSLY: You betcha!

JOEL:(standing up) Then why are we all sitting around here, then! We've got a movie to make! (Joel signs another check) Here's another check for fifty million! Now, shoo, you scalawags!

ANDY AND LARRY BOTH SPRING UP FROM THEIR SEATS, EAGER TO GET STARTED. LARRY SNATCHES THE CHECK FROM JOEL'S OUTSTRETCHED HAND.

ANDY:(hesitating) Uh, Joel. You do realize that Alan Moore will never forgive us.

JOEL:(making a dismissive gesture)Pfft. When has a writer had any power in Hollywood? You guys hear about the dumb blonde who tried to break into the movie business? She slept with the writer! I'll make up some bullshit press release about him being totally excited and send him a couple a t-shirts and maybe a check. That always shuts 'em up.

LARRY: But Joel? Doesn't our behaving like a pack of amoral rats devouring a sheep carcass sort of undermine the 'V' story of personal integrity against government oppression? In shoehorning other media into the lowest common denominator of the mainstream movie industry, aren't we in effect reducing 'graphic novel's into the 'feeder' media that intelligent comics have tried to escape from? For all but a few, "V for Vendetta" will be this overblown, effects-laden potboiler with the escapist mentality of every other movie based on a comic book that's out there. Given Hollywood's pervasive influence on the media, aren't we dissuading genuine talent from exploring the comic book as a legitimate vehicle of expression? Those selfsame people will migrate into real books, if not movies and television. In the end, aren't we ultimately doing more harm than good to our culture?

JOEL: Wh-what are you saying, Larry?

LARRY: I'm saying we want another fifty million.

JOEL: (sighs, signs another check)Fine, here you are.

LARRY AND ANDY EXIT STAGE LEFT.
FADE TO BLACK

Tom's Media Roundup, Part one:

I thought I'd take a tip from Robert Fiore's piece in the latest (#275) Comics Journal and do a bit where I touch on most of the stuff that I've seen since last November and give you a short(ish) bit on each of them. Obviously, I've had a lot more stuff floating through my perception than this, but this list is pretty indicative of what I've been up to recently...

Movies-

X-Men 3: -Consider the plight of the poor movie studio doing an adaptation of a comic-book franchise. On one hand, they have to keep the fans of the original series happy, or at least not displease them. On the other hand, they've only got ninety minutes or so to tell a story, so for a large cast of characters, (like x-men) some of the primary characters get what amounts to a cameo appearance. A lot's been made about Brent Ratner taking over Bryan Singer on the directing chores, mostly bad. However, I don't think anyone could've made a good movie out of this franchise anymore, to be honest.

A 'cure' for the mutant gene is discovered, Magneto(Ian McKellar) calls up an army of mutants to storm the lab where the 'cure'(a little boy whose proximity turns mutants normal), and it's up to the x-men sans Dr. Xavier(Patrick Stewart) to save the day. As I said, they're stuck trying to shoehorn too many subplots into the movie, and it just becomes a drudge to sit through. It looks like it's going to be the last in the series, fortunately. Here's the odd thing: It's come pretty close to breaking some box-office records. I'd like to attribute that mostly to it's being released on the Memorial day weekend, but I suspect a lot of that is momentum from the first two movies. Studios, do me a favor- please stop digitally removing the wrinkles of older characters in flashback sequences. Made McKellar and Stewart look like embalmed corpses; creepy and distracting...

War of the Worlds -not too bad, considering that it's a foregone conclusion how it's going to end. (The Martians get the cold, don't have Sudafed, Deux ex Machina strikes again) What's notable is how Spielberg keeps all the big FX in the background, pumping up the sense of dread. I suppose you could view a subtext about how it's a metaphor for helplessness in the face of the New Terrorism, or the impotence of the left in facing the Republican Hordes, but I choose to see it as a straightforward thriller. Not really a counterpoint to "close encounters" as some suggested, (It's not really among Spielberg's best) but quite watchable. If you dislike Tom Cruise, like me, it's fun to watch him get knocked about. He's kind of a Mel Gibson-lite.
Cruise feels making his character suffer (Eyes Wide Shut, Minority Report, the new MI:3) makes him a 'deeper actor', but he's not fooling any one...

Munich- Manages to get that 'John LeCarre' feel of a heavy 70's thriller directed by Sidney Pollack. Spielberg reins in the melodrama he showed in 'Schindler's list'(except for that pointless sex scene near the end. What? Why?) He keeps the story moving at a brisk pace, and unlike X-Men 3, the characters get enough screen time to put themselves in your head without confusing you. Tony Kushner and Eric Roth's script is articulate and even-handed.

It puts us in a time when it was not unreasonable to believe that 'an eye for an eye' was an acceptable solution to combating terrorism. You can look at the Golda Meir regime now and think, aww. How naive; They think they can stay on top of it. About the only thing you can do now is realize that the instant terrorism is at its most effective, it becomes least effective. I doubt we're going to see anything like 9/11 again, but (especially in the west) we're going to have to accept that the world is a lot smaller than we think, and we haven't even begun to see the fallout from George the Younger's folly into Iraq...

Capote- A confident first film from Bennet Miller. I was surprised to see his previous effort was a slight documentary and had assumed he was stuck in television all this time. It helps that he's got Philip Seymour Hoffman on board, Hoffman's Oscar was a given. You can see why Capote was such a presence in the intelligentsia of the 60's-he wins over the taciturn Midwestern inhabitants of the town where the murders were committed (an accompanying documentary has Capote claiming after a couple of weeks, 'they wanted to make me
Mayor!)-while charming William Shawn, New Yorker editor into turning his proposed magazine series into a genre-changing 'non-fiction' novel. The price he pays, however, essentially destroys his subsequent writing career. (In the mid-70's, parts of his unfinished novel, Answered Prayers, came out in the New Yorker, and the thinly-veiled back-stabbing caricatures of his colleagues finished him. He drank himself to death later on.)

I've now got 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' and 'In Cold Blood' on order at Amazon.

Crash- I haven't seen 'Brokeback Mountain', and I don't know if I ever will-I'm not a homophobe, mind you, I just get the impression that the whole movie is a turgid downer. That having been said, I think it should've got the Oscar over Crash by default. When insulated Hollywood types make preachy- 'love good, racism bad' tripe like this, I just wanna smack 'em in the head. A bunch of stock characters gallivant around Los Angeles, Paul Figgis hits you over the head with his pat moralizing just like in 'million dollar baby', and I die a little inside.

A History of Violence- Cronenburg seems to be letting up on repressing his lead characters a bit, and it's not as unsettling as I'd expected. However, (and this might be telling you more about me as a person than I should) isn't the movie being a little hard on the Tom/Joey character? He doesn't take any pride (even a craftsmans' pride) in the killings, and he's put in a kill or be killed situation against truly reprehensible people every time. I suspect Cronenburg was asking us, 'is Joey or Tom the real person? Which is the made-up persona, and who's the real man? There's a dream motif running through the whole movie. (note the short order
cook's tale about his first wife stabbing him in her sleep) I did like it, but maybe Cronenburg's forgotten that violence in a narrative can be a catharsis. (I didn't feel any disgust at any of Tom/Joey's actions, and even his son's kicking the high school bully in the nuts seemed perfectly acceptable. Like I said, maybe I'm the one with the problem...)

Hostel- Standard gross-out grind-house fare from Eli Roth. I wasn't offended by this, mainly'cause I know what I'm getting into in this type of exploitation thriller. For what it's worth, Roth refrains from the type of misogyny you usually find in these movies. (A little gratuitous nudity never hurt anyone,though) If there's a 'how-to' manual on making this type of movie, Roth's copy must be pretty worn-through. Quentin Tarantino's the executive producer and he's responsible for the only real surprises in the movie. (the hero turns out to be the smug jock and not the nerdy writer wanna-be, the 'bad guy's' get their comeuppance in satisfying ways)

The thing I don't get is Roth's and Tarantino's reverence for this genre. If you were to babble to the original makers of this type of stuff how 'groundbreaking' and 'exciting' their 'oveure' was, they'd try and sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. This stuff is art in reverse. Still, I look forward to Eli Roth's next one. (Hostel 2)I'm a sucker for this stuff...

Howl's Moving Castle- It's a tribute to Studio Ghibli's high standard of craftmanship that the worst movie I've seen come out of their studio is still heads and shoulders above anything by Dreamworks. It loses it's narrative about a third of the way in, so by the time the scarecrow turns out to be the missing prince who can avert the war, you feel relieved that the movie's over, and kinda ripped off by the sloppy resolution. Also, can we please stop using B and C-level movie stars for voice overs? It's really distracting-moreso in this movie than others. (Hey, isn't that the American Psycho/Batman guy? and is that.. Billy Crystal? Huh.)

Layer Cake- speaking of following the 'how-to' manual comes Matthew Vaughn's debut. He was Guy Ritchie's producer on his first two films and he's got the 'bri-ish gangstaw' sub-genre down pat. Colorful characters? Check. Twists out of left field? Check. A lead digging himself in deeper the more he tries to extricate himself from a situation he was thrown into? Check-a-roonie. No surprises here, though after this movie, I'm looking forward to Daniel Craig's turn as the new James Bond. Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoyed myself. (like in Hostel, it's the type of movie where I know where it's going, but I'm enjoying the ride) Also, is Dexter Fletcher required by law to appear in all these type of movies? Couldn't they get Ewan Bremmer?

The Constant Gardner- Understated piece by Fernando Meirelles. Well, duh. Understatement is Meirelles' stock in trade, isn't it? The best part is Finnes' title character rediscovering his late wife through investigating her suspicious death. It's like a morbid honeymoon. Unlike every other 'fight-the-powers-that-be' plot, the characters show doubt, unease, and almost (but not quite) give up on their quests. When we (and Ralph Finnes) first meet his wife (Rachel Weisz), she's berating his party's callousness (he's a minor foreign minister giving a lecture at a polytechical institute), then realizing she's making an ass of herself. It's a moving
moment, and Finnes' attempt to comfort her after her outburst lets us understand why this gentle man (and us) loves this firebrand.

It's funny, but by keeping his point of view as dispassionate as possible (in both this and City of God), Meirelles is making some of the most emotional work I've ever seen. (I'm not sure, but I think he's a fan of Jean Renoir.) The callous testing of unproven drugs in third-world countries (still going on, by the way) hits you like a thud in the gut when you see it's effects. Once we see what's at stake for activists in the third world, even a libertarian-leaner like me can't help but be moved. Only one complaint (and I really have to stretch for this one)-the condescending British Lord getting his comeuppance at Weisz' memorial service. It seemed a little too neat, I guess we needed it for some closure.

Now if I could track down Meirelles' TV series, 'City of Men'...

Jarhead-The only Sam Mendes film I've liked so far. I don't know if it works as a parallel to the current situation in Iraq. The lead trains and trains to become an elite sniper, and his only chance to actually do his job and kill an enemy officer is thwarted by a low-level Marine officer. It's hard to do a movie where the enemy is boredom, not the Iraqi Republican Guards (dunno if you remember, but in the beginning of the Kuwait conflict, the Republican Guard was sold to the American public as an awesome fighting force of death. Turns out they surrendered as quickly to the Americans as the lowest Iraqi Army conscript. Oh well..) Mendes could've gone
for the same black humor as Altman's "M.A.S.H", but in the end, we (and Jake Gyllenhaal's character) come away with "meh."

Part two coming soon...

Just adding my 'photo profile', folks. Move along.