Chadzilla ROARS!!!

Just After Sunset: Stories - by Stephen King

As I nibbled away at Just After Sunset, I kept thinking about a comment that Stephen King made during an interview on the radio program Fresh Air.  He said, with his trademark candor, that he was very well aware that his creative hot streak was over, and that it would not be heating up again, ever.  The reason that I kept thinking about that comment was due to the fact so many of the stories collected in this book are tired rehashes of material King has done before, and far better.

The best two examples of just how cold that creative hot steak has become, came early in the anthology.  The Gingerbread Girl covers the exact same ground as Misery and the almost identical Lunch at the Gotham Cafe, while Rest Stop is just a bland and suspense free recycling of themes King explored to far greater effect in The Dark Half.  Other examples are the slight to the point of pointlessness Harvey's Dream and Graduation Afternoon.  Dream, with a little effort, could have been shaped into something more than the wasted opportunity that it is; but Graduation Afternoon, from start to finish, is the kind of tired narrative cliche one would expect from a High School student, not a seasoned professional of King's caliber.

Willa and Ayana are middle of the road disappointments.  The former is a ghost story that is far too heavy handed to achieve the emotional resonance it clearly is striving for, while the latter is a "miracle worker" fantasy that is far too light handed to satisfy.  The other middle of the road story is The Cat from Hell, a "Golden Oldie" from King's hot streak era that will be familiar to any that have seen Tales from the Darkside: The Movie.  It is an entertaining tale, both not a particularly memorable one.

The book perked up when I finally reached the suspenseful fantasy thriller, Stationary Bike, an enthusiastic "Fuck You" to all those pieces of exercise equipment (and exercise junkies) that are clogging up those ubiquitous Fitness Centers out there.  The Things They Left Behind packs the emotional punch that is missing from the above mentioned stories and is a great meditation on survivor's guilt and the need for "closure."  The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates is a fine little story that sits somewhere between Willa and The Things They Left Behind.

But the crown jewel of the book is N., which is, flat out, the collection's best offering.  A spooky slow burn of a nightmare that is a gorgeous narrative homage to Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan and the celebrated mythology created by H.P. Lovecraft.

Which leaves A Very Tight Place, the book's final yarn.  The less said about this nauseating story of a man forced to work is way out of the business end of one of those Port-O-Sans, the better.  It's disgusting, nasty, gross, and very well written.  Stephen King is every bit as sick in the head as he is talented, which is why I always look forward to reading him.  Make of that comment what you will.

Pontypool (2008)

"Sydney Briar is alive..."

Although Pontypool (currently available as a Blockbuster Video exclusive rental) is being marketed as a straight forward horror movie, and being reviewed as such, I am going to break with the rank and file and say that it is not a straight forward horror movie, at all.  Instead I am going to call it an utterly kick ass science-fiction thriller.  One that has been compared, in one particular review, to the early "body horror" work of David Cronenberg; a comparison that I agree with.  In many ways, Pontypool is to the English language what Videodrome was (and is) to television.

Those that go into Pontypool expecting some kind of traditional zombie horror film are going to be very disappointed, as it is not a traditional zombie horror movie in the slightest.  Pontypool, although its trailer is made to look it, is not a movie about people becoming infected with some kind of bizarre "rage virus" knockoff and then ripping people apart.  No, Pontypool is a movie about the potent destructive power of the spoken word.  The English language is the weapon here.  Not guns, or knives, or blunt force trauma inducing clubs, but spoken words.

Set exclusively inside of a talk radio station, with a "zombie virus" threat that is spread via infected words spoken in the English language, Pontypool is ninety-five percent talk and only five percent bloody carnage, if that.  It is sure to bore the living hell out of those expecting some kind of rehash of Dawn of the Dead (remake) or 28 Days Later.

A reaction that is not only unfortunate, but also quite sad.

Character actor Stephen McHattie (TV's #1 go to guy for playing steely eyed cops, crooks, federal agents, and/or assassins) stars as Grant Mazzy, a shock jock (and obvious fictional composite of real life shock jock Don Imus and conspiracy theorist commentator Art Bell) who has fallen from the big time, all the way down to the very bottom of the broadcasting industry: a small hole-in-the-ice radio station located on the outskirts of the town of Pontypool, in Ontario, Canada.  Angry and resentful, Mazzy cannot keep himself from spewing his anger out onto the airwaves in the form of mean-spirited "comedy" routines.  Something that has created tension with his producer, Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle).  Sydney knows Pontypool, literally as well as figuratively, and she wants Mazzy to know it as well, so that he knows the people he is talking to.  Mazzy wants none of it.  All he wants is out.

The day of the outbreak begins like any other, with Mazzy angrily mouthing off to listeners and Sydney trying to get him to tone it down.  Then a report of a riot at a local Doctor's office comes in over the air and, shortly thereafter, all hell seems to break loose.  Seems to, because there is no official information confirming what is being described by those who are calling in from the scene of what sounds like a rapidly escalating incident.  Soon they are trapped inside the station by the spreading "speech virus."

Screenwriter Tony Burgess, who adapted his own novel Pontypool Changes Everything, makes a wise and challenging decision to keep any and all blatant in-your-face George A. Romero style social commentary out of his story, so the exact nature of the "speech virus" is kept in the abstract.  It is not hidden in, or triggered by, any particular statement or code word.  It could be hidden in any English language word and the trigger is nothing more than simply understanding the infected word, in a particular context.

At first this idea seemed odd, almost laughable.  Then it occurred to me just how complex the English language (the virus is specially rooted in the English language and no other) and how so many words have multiple meanings.  Someone could hear a word in one context and catch the virus, but not know it.  Then that person would hear, or think of, that very same word in an entirely different context, and that would activate the virus.

Fascinating and challenging viewing, I cannot wait to watch Pontypool again, and again.

Three and a half stars out of four.

Star Trek New Frontier Book Four: End Game - by Peter David

Thanks in large part to DVD and Tivo, I can watch a fair amount of TV shows without suffering the hassles of having to watch broadcast TV.  I can also pick and choose when to watch an episode of a show, according to my own personal schedule, rather than having to adjust my schedule to catch an episode of a show that I do not want to miss.  I am also old enough of a show to remember even those pre-VCR days, when, if you missed an episode of a show, you could really and truly miss it; for it might not be rebroadcast, much less released for syndicated reruns.

While these changes in technology are a distinct improvement over my viewing options of old, I can still fall behind and miss out on "my shows," losing track of the serial threads running through the various characters and story arcs.  Which is what I discovered to have happened when I started tearing through End Game, the concluding chapter in Peter David's four part serial introduction to his popular, and ongoing, Star Trek TNG tie-in spin-off series, New Frontier. There were moments when I was just lost amongst all the political backstabbing and skullduggery, for I had allowed far too much reading time to elapse between installments. This really is a series that would be best enjoyed as one book, not as four separate ones.

The definite highlights in this chapter were the scenes involving Si Cwan and Zak Kebron in captivity.  I must admit that Kebron the Brikar has become my favorite character in the series.  The low points were the tiresome arguments over that pesky Prime Directive of non-interference (and the non-surprise that whether or not it should be invoked as a reason NOT taking action is an entirely subjective one, rather than an objective one) and the rushed and oversimplified manner in which the hostage situation that was The Two Front War's cliffhanger was resolved.

Then again, the book's climax features what appears to be a giant Anti-Matter Space Buzzard.  Something that David dubs The Great Bird Bird of the Galaxy.  It is impossible for me to dislike, and thus not recommend, a book that features a one-two in-joke.  Although I doubt that Peter David intended to make any reference to The Giant Claw. Or did he?

Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)

Call me old-fashioned, but I think that I should actually learn something whenever I watch a documentary.  I am of the firm belief that I should finish a documentary with a greater sense of awareness, understanding, or insight into whatever subject - be it an issue, a person, an event, or an art form - that is being examined.

Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story did not tell me anything that I did not already know.  That the United States economic crash was the result of Common Sense being replaced with Greed.  That it had been 30 plus years of bad policy decisions in the making.  That a great many lives had been ruined because of it, and that the economic stimulus packages rewarded those that most well informed citizens consider to be responsible for this whole mess.  Regardless of where you get your news and information, or which political commentator you prefer to listen bleat over the airwaves, the above facts are not just self-evident, they are also simple common knowledge.  However, the source of news and information, and preferred political commentator bleating, does seem to be the motivator in deciding where the Finger of Blame should be pointed.

Since Capitalism is a Michael Moore documentary, it should come as a surprise to no one that Moore skews his sympathetic point of view to a select sampling of ruined lives.  We see numerous people losing their homes, some of which have been in their family for generations and is the only home that some have ever known.  While their plight is sad, and presented to us as tragic, Moore avoids such pesky necessities as letting us know the how and why of these victims getting into their horrible situations.  We are just supposed to feel sorry about their losing their homes and rage against the heartless corporations that have destroyed them.  Such blatant emotional pandering, without any context whatsoever, is both contemptible and an insult to the viewer.

Which is sad, since I think that Moore's film does, at times, present some valid, and even commendable, economic and political viewpoints that, if they had been presented fairly and intelligently, and with greater depth, would have cut past all of the needless political finger pointing and blame assigning and have given the viewer a glimmer of hope to focus on.  Those moments rip several pages from Jim Hightower's superior book, Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow.  I think that there is far greater reward in reading Hightower's book, than there is in viewing Moore's bitter polemic.

One and a half stars out of four.

Mistborn Volume I: The Final Empire - by Brandon Sanderson

For an epic fantasy that feels like it has been cobbled together from a variety of different sources (during one book club discussion one member described a pivotal moment as one character "going all Obi-Wan," and the Lord Ruler and his breeding program feel like something that was lifted out of God Emperor of Dune) Brandon Sanderson's The Final Empire reads fresh, thanks in large part to a likable cast of underdogs and several rousing actions sequences. The familiar yet tasty concoction moves fast and smooth, making this 643 page novel read as if it were 100 to 200 pages shorter.

Street urchin Vin has an unique gift for soothing the emotions of those around her.  A gift that is quite useful to the abusive con man that Vin's missing brother has left her a slave to.  But Vin's gift is so much more than what it appears to be.  She is actually an Allomancer, what some call a Mistborn.  Vin can, after ingesting them, "burn" various types of metals that gift her, depending on the metal being "burned," with increased strength, stamina, vision, hearing, and even some impressive telekinetic ability.

There is just one minor problem, Vin is a half breed.  The child of a coupling between a nobleman and slave.  That means certain death if she were ever to be discovered by those that wield the power of the Lord Ruler, a ruthless and apparently immortal dictator bestowed with the magical powers of a God.

The Lord Ruler has ruled for one thousand years and there are, among the slave laborers, those feel that has been one thousand years too many.  Vin becomes a key figure in one charismatic rebel's plan for overthrowing the Lord Ruler's "Final Empire" and bringing freedom to those that have forgotten it.

Okay, enough of the recap.  Sanderson, in addition to the aforementioned likable cast of characters and rousing action sequences, has also done a terrific job of world building.  The barren wasteland and ash cloaked city that are The Final Empire's settings read as if Sanderson were describing actual locations.  The cutthroat politicking that the nobility masquerades as a series of "frivolous" fancy dress balls, ones that Vin is required to infiltrate as a spy for the rebellion, has enough credible skulduggery to maintain a level of interest holding tension.

While I am on the subject of tension, Sanderson understands perfectly that a hero (or heroine) is only as good as the villain he or she must face.  The Lord Ruler is not the only evil in his Final Empire.  There are also the Inquisitors, a terrifying group of metal spike-eyed and torture loving sadists that seem to be every bit as indestructible as they are murderous.  Sanderson also understands that less is more and keeps the Inquisitors inexorable chasing down of the rebels to a potent minimum, so they never stop being utterly terrifying.  All of it makes for an exciting and suspenseful story that, despite being the first in a trilogy, builds to an exciting and emotionally satisfying conclusion.

A Princess of Mars - by Edgar Rice Burroughs

It has been awhile since I have read a book that has gone of its narrative rails as badly as Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars; the first story in the John Carter of Mars series and, according to the author bio at the back of the book, the very first novel that Burroughs ever wrote.

Boy, does it ever show.

A Princess of Mars is filled with all sorts of first time writer mistakes.  Telling instead of showing, needless info dump digressions that have nothing to do with what is currently going on in the story, and ham fisted deus ex machina contrivances that are presented as if they were startling plot twists.

I enjoyed the first two books in Buroughs' Tarzan series and was quite looking forward to reading this early space opera adventure.  But those Tarzan books were from a seasoned Burroughs at the top of his story telling game.  A Princess of Mars is Burroughs just getting started.

Despite the above listed narrative faults, there are some pulp delights to be found in the book.  Burroughs' imaginary Martian world is a vivid one, populated with all manner of delightful flora and vicious fauna, and his impressive skill at choreographing larger than life action scenes is easy to see, even at this, the earliest stage in his legendary writing career.

Burroughs did have me for most of the book, when Carter is a captive learning the ways of the brutal Thark, the Green Men of Mars.   That is when A Princess of Mars is basically a western set on another world.  But then Carter escapes, is recaptured by a different tribe of Green Men, escapes yet again and then sets off on a Wizard of Oz style road trip that leads to his becoming embroiled in a war between the two humanoid societies on Mars.  Burroughs piles far too many wild details upon wild details (atmosphere generators, aerial warplanes, etc) that the story becomes a jumble of stuff.  The reader does not experience the story, he or she is simply pelted with it.

By the end, though, I had learned what a tremendous debt the climax of Total Recall owes to A Princess of Mars.

Primal fear and Paranormal Activity

In the last few years I have managed to whittle down my description of the horror genre to a very simple and very universal general truth.  It is the fear, or terror, if done well enough, that results when the irrational intrudes upon the rational, and that is all.

Stephen King wrote the very same thing, albeit it in a slightly different manner, thirty-one plus years ago, in his foreword to his anthology Night Shift:

"At night, when I go to bed, I am still at pains to be sure that my legs are under the blanket after the lights go out.  I'm not a child any more but...I don't like to sleep with one leg sticking out.  Because if a cool hand ever reached out from under the bed and grasped my ankle, I might scream.  Yes, I might scream to wake the dead.  That sort of thing doesn't happen, of course, and we all know that.  In the stories that follow you will encounter all manner of night creatures; vampires, demon lovers, a thing that lives in the closet, all sorts of other terrors.  None of them are real.  The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real.  I know that, and I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle."

I'm much the same way.  I suffer from the same semi-irrational fear.  My adult mind knows that my and, more than likely, King's collective fear is rooted in the dread of having an actual intruder attack while we are asleep, when we are unaware of the danger that looms over us.  Oren Peli, Paranormal Activity's writer and director, understands this perfectly, for he enacts that familiar to us all nightmare scenario of something grabbing an exposed foot and yanking someone out of bed while she sleeps with gooseflesh inducing power in his film.  That scene, and the ones before it, as well as the final one that followed it, are nothing more than our most primal nightmares brought to life.

I understood that intellectually, when driving to the theater last night.  I knew that I would be seeing those primal fears of the dark and the unknown played out as entertainment.  Like King, I knew that what I would be seeing was not real (and, being an atheist, I do not believe that "paranormal activity" itself is real) but I was uneasy about seeing the film.  I was afraid, you see, that it would have a negative effect on me beyond simply getting me to the edge of my seat and nervously anticipating the moment when the next jump scare would explode out of the sound system.

I suffer from Night Terrors.  A sleeping disorder that causes me to snap awake in terror shortly after falling to sleep.  Sometimes I just snap awake.  Other times I grab my fiance and repeatedly ask her if she is all right.

And sometimes I wake up screaming my throat raw, leap from bed, and try to escape whatever it is that mind is threatening me with.

My fear going into Paranormal Activity was that it would strike the Night Terror nerve, and it did.  Watching the movie, at times, was like watching some of my worst episodes happening to other people.  I lost a night's sleep worrying about whether or not I would have an episode, which brings my line of thought back to the film's title.  

It was once believed that nightmares were caused by assorted demons (their names are legion, you know) tormenting some poor unfortunate soul.  Many still believe that to be true.  I do not.  I just cannot buy Ultimate Evil doing the psychological equivalent of sneaking up behind me and going, "BOO!"  I mean, I expect more out of Ultimate Evil than some stomping footsteps in the night.  In the dark.

But as I lay in bed alone last night (the fiance is out of town this weekend, hence my night out at the horror show) I worried about having an episode to the point of getting angry.  I eventually fell asleep and woke up this morning without incident.  Unless I had one and just don't remember it.  That happens, a lot.

Although my critical assessment of Paranormal Activity remains unchanged (while it is certainly an unnerving viewing experience, it is also not very "good" as an actual film) I nonetheless have to tip my hat to Oren Peli for making me fearful of going to sleep last night.  Even if it was not quite the way he intended.

Until next time, pleasant dreams...?

Paranormal Activity (2009)

What makes Paranormal Activity, the horror genre's current "little movie that could" box office darling, such a bluntly effective thrill ride, is its makers complete and utter understanding of H.P. Lovecraft's famous statement, "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."

Paranormal Activity invokes that fear in a series of well staged scenes that not only play on our collective fear of the dark, and of the strange noises that can rattle through a house in the dead of night, but also the chilling concept that something horrible might be happening around us while we are sound asleep in bed.  A time when we are as helpless as a newborn and utterly unable to defend ourselves from whatever is slithering towards us out of the shadows of nightmare.

A young couple (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, playing characters that share their real life names) suspect that they are being plagued by the titular activity and have decided to document their haunting by filming it.  They also consult with a psychic (Mark Fredrichs) that warns them that what is happening is very dangerous (I don't think that it is a spoiler to say that the activity is the result of a demon that "wants" Katie) and that they should not do anything whatsoever to encourage contact.  That would only agitate the entity and escalate the activity.  Micah scoffs at the advice and not only continues filming, but also tries to make the very contact that the psychic warned them not to.  A considerable amount of agitation and activity escalation result.

As I said, Paranormal Activity is bluntly effective and it appeared to scare the living bejesus out of several audience members at the screening I attended.  Good for them.  It's almost Halloween and everyone is entitled to at least one good scare.  The most I got out of it, however, were some choice moments of tension rooted in that deliciously creepy dread of what might come next, but nothing more heart pounding than that.

Two and a half stars out of four.

Zombieland (2009)

"Welcome to the United States of Zombieland."

To say that Zombieland is some kind of breath of fresh air in what has become the fetid genre of zombie mayhem movies is a disservice to both the film and its viewer.  While the movie is funny, and blessed with a celebrity cameo (one that was, reportedly, a last minute fill in for a to ill to work Patrick Swayze) that is both chuckle inducing and, in a nostalgic sort of way, charming, it is also not some invigorating new take on the zombie mythos.  The film does not contain a single scene or idea that has not been done in some other zombie movie.  No, Zombieland is nothing more than an amusing, entertaining, and diverting comedy.

It is also not a "pure" horror-comedy, despite its having flesh-eating zombies in it.  Yes, the first twenty or so minutes contains all the graphic carnage that one would expect from a zombie movie, but all that fades away and the zombies slip into the background to the point of almost vanishing from the film entirely, until the rousing ending.  Zombieland is the type of movie where two unarmed, and therefor defenseless, characters can stroll down a devastated city street while engaged in a humorous conversation that commands all of their attention, so they are unaware of their surroundings and potential threats, before pausing to loudly smash apart a vehicle with a crowbar and then firing some newly discovered weapons into the air with abandon.  All without a single zombie showing up to interrupt the fun.  Unless there is more fun to be had if the zombies do show up.  Like at the end.

The thing that I liked most about Zombieland, and all horror-comedies that take the very same approach, was how the horror seasonings were played reasonably straight throughout.  Not once do the zombies cease to be an honest to goodness life threatening menace and degenerate into comedic buffoons to laugh at.  No, Zombieland wisely keeps its humor rooted in how its surviving human characters act and interact with each other and the zombies.

The movie gets more things right than it does wrong, so it is well worth seeing, if you have not already done so.  The only error nit that I feel compelled to pick is in the film trivia department.  Sorry Wichita, but Anaconda is NOT rated R, it is rated PG-13.

Three stars out of four.

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

As the closing credits rolled on Spike Jonze's surprisingly faithful and visually stunning adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, I could only think about how this movie will probably wind up being embraced by college students everywhere, while callously dismissed by mainstream audiences looking for some good-natured and heart-warming escapist family fare.  I knew that it would be an important film for my son to see, for he is struggling with the same kind of out of control emotions as the lead character, and I am happy that he understood, on some level, what the film was trying to say.

Max (Max Records, being quite the realistic troubled child) is an imaginative and lonely boy that cannot control his anger.  His outbursts are violent and destructive and, after a particular nasty episode that ends with him biting his mother, he runs away from home, escaping into a vibrant fantasy world of seemingly wild monsters.  The wildest of the bunch, and their evident leader, is Carol (voiced of James Gandolfini).  Carol is quick to find a kindred spirit in Max, which is not surprising, as it becomes clear that they are the same person, and convinces the other monsters not to eat the boy, but to make him their King.  Max's paramount duty is to make sure that everybody stays happy and that no sorrow intrudes on their world.  A seemingly simple duty that Max attacks with relish, at first.

Things do not work out, of course, and tense conflicts and volatile emotions between the various monsters soon arise.  The strongest, to the point of malevolence, is Carol's complicated relationship with the far more emotionally mature and, at times, maternal KW (voiced by Lauren Ambrose).  A character that alternates between symbolizing Max's mother (Catherine Keener) and his sister, Claire (Pepita Emmerichs).

Where the Wild Things Are is not a "hero's journey" film.  There is no emotional or psychological learning experience story arc for its human character to go on.  It only covers a few hours of time and only concerns itself with Max's highly subjective coming to awareness of his need for emotional maturity, responsibility, and control.  Just how much Max actually learns during his time with his emotional monsters is left for the audience to decide.  There is no happily ever after at the end.  It is a daring and challenging risk for a film of this nature and genre to take, and it is all the more rewarding for doing so.

Three stars out of four. 

The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle - by Jim Butcher (Writer) & Ardian Syaf (Art)

Sometimes I am just stupid.  The number of years that I willing wasted putting off reading a Harry Dresden story being a perfect example of one of those sometimes.

For those of you out there that do not know who Harry Dresden is, or why my not cracking open a Dresden Files novel before now would make me admit to just being stupid, at times, then let me explain.  Harry is a smart mouthed wizard, one with a dark and tragic past, of course, that does freelance investigative work for the Chicago Police Department's Special Investigations Unit, helping them out whenever a crime scene has a hint of the bizarre or paranormal to it.

How can it be that I have not yet become a steady reader of a series about a smart mouthed dude in Chicago fighting all manner of ghouls, ghosts, and paranormal beasts?  Where have I...  Wait just a minute...  A series with a smart mouthed hero investigating cases of the bizarre or paranormal?  In Chicago?  Please let me find an in joke or reference to Kolchak: The Night Stalker in at least one Dresden File.  Please!

Yeah, I really should have started tearing into this series years ago.

Welcome to the Jungle, a graphic novel prequel to the popular novel series, and the perfect place for me to start righting the wrong of taking too damn long to start reading the series, begins with the brutal murder of a security guard at the Lincoln Park Zoo.  Although circumstantial evidence points to a particular gorilla, something about the crime scene is more than a bit off.  While there is some political pressure to close the case quickly, the security guard was related to someone a bit higher up on the power chain, it seems, the thread of clues cannot be satisfactorily tied to together.  Enter Harry Dresden, investigative wizard.

Dresden soon discovers that, while the killer is not a gorilla, it is not human, either.  It also does not want a smart mouthed wizard fouling up its vile plan of ascendancy.  A battle magic royal rumble caps an action packed, humor filled, and monster full story that, when I finished it, had me eager to race out and snag some more Harry Dresden adventures to read.  You just might finish the book feeling the exact same way.

The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings - by Jan Harold Brunvand

Urban Legends are false, but seeming easy to verify, verbally shared stories, the narrators of which believe are true.  They usually spread via word of mouth at social gathering places such as school cafeterias, office lunchrooms, parties, campfires, etc.  Other distribution methods have been photocopies at the workplace and, most common these days, e-mail and instant messages sent through cyberspace.

Although Urban Legends have been repeatedly debunked, and shown to be false time and time again, they have kept circulating because people continue believe that they are true, or inspired by some kind of true event, because they manage to sound so credible.

The two Urban Legends I remember hearing most during my childhood were (1) the story of the kid who made the unfortunate mistake of swallowing an entire packet of Pop Rocks (a popular "fizzing" chewing gum candy) only to have his stomach explode and (2) the warning that there were spider eggs in Bubble Yum gum.  Whether or not those spider eggs would manage to hatch and all the baby creepy crawlies inside, somehow able to withstand the human body's formidable digestive juices, would then skitter about to cause all manner of nasty gastrointestinal distress, depended on the variant of the legend being told.

Jan Harold Brunvand mentions those two legends in passing, in a chapter titled Dreadful Contaminations, and deconstructs and examines the root causes of numerous others in his seminal folklore study, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings.

You may not have heard some of the Urban Legends collected in its pages, but you might have seen them enacted in numerous horror movies (the Urban Legend series, When a Stranger Calls, et al), television shows (Supernatural, The X-Files, etc) and even some TV commercials.  

From dead boyfriends hung over parked cars, to alligators in the sewers of New York City, to dogs, or babies, cooked in ovens or microwaves, spiders in hairdos, and rat parts in fast food, Brunvand shows how these Urban Legends illustrate sexual frustration, the importance of following societal rules and morals, and our collective distrust of both foreigners and large, impersonal corporations.  

Reading this book was an entertaining and eye opening experience.  One that had me thinking of those endless chains of e-letters (the ones that warn about poisoned ATM envelopes and and praise the beer delivery guy that refused to make a delivery to some suspicious middle easterners at a local convenience store) in a new way.

Trick r Treat (2007)

After sitting in a Warner Brothers film vault for two years, writer/director Michael Dougherty's Halloween themed horror anthology Trick 'r Treat has finally been released, albeit as a bare bones DVD afterthought, just in time for the "holiday" it pays such a loving tribute to.

For awhile it seemed that this movie would never come out.  Its parent studio, despite having a nifty little ad campaign for it, seemed to have little to no faith in the film.  A release date would be announced, then canceled, another announced, then canceled again.  The release was pushed farther and farther into the future, until the movie was simply shelved "indefinitely."  The two most popular theories that I have read for all the release foot dragging were (1) producer Bryan Singer, after the critical and box office disappointment of his Superman Returns, was persona non grata at Warner Brothers and the studio had no interest in releasing anything with Singer's fingerprints on it, or (2) the studio did not think that Trick 'r Treat had the proverbial snowball's chance in Hell going up against the Halloween box office juggernaut of the Saw franchise.

While I still think that theory number one has more than a bit of truth to it, now that I have actually seen the film, I have to say that theory number two makes far more sense.  Trick 'r Treat, while a lot of fun to watch, is very old fashioned and comic book in both style and tone.  An approach that a distributor could have perceived as a weakness when comparing the film to the harder edged "torture porn" that audiences were flocking to at the time.

Unlike the grim and unpleasant Saw films, Trick 'r Treat is playful, almost childlike.  While there is gore and bloodletting for those that enjoy it, the film does not over indulge in the wet stuff to the point of making it an unpleasant viewing experience for those that do not.  Dougherty understands when a mere hint of nastiness works far more magic than dousing the set and actors with gallons of fake blood and then having them toss around some prop severed limbs.  He does not want his audience walking out feeling as if they have to take a hot, cleansing shower.  He wants them walking out with a big grin on their collective faces and a desire in their hearts to get busy carving some jack o' lanterns, decorating their homes with all things spooky, and getting dressed up in a fitting costume.  Since that is how I felt when I took out my DVD, I have to say that Michael Dougherty succeeded.

Darkly comic and homage heavy, Trick 'r Treat "borrows" its visual style and lighthearted tone from George Romero's Creepshow and its non-linear narrative structure from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.  The film starts at what is eventually revealed to be its ending, then it swoops back around - after a comic panel filled credit sequence - to what appears to its beginning.  It was hard to tell, really, because everything afterwards was out of sequence.  Dead characters from an earlier story pop up alive in a later one and interact with characters from both the current story and the one(s) that follow.  Some of the stories even take place at the exact same time.  (Which, now that I think about it, has me wondering how it could be that the candy tampering serial killer did not hear the shotgun blasts coming from his reclusive next door neighbor's battle with a trick or treating demonic tyke.)  Mentally editing the jumble into an exact chronology will take at least one additional viewing, at the very least.

On its surface, the film looks to be a confusing mess.  But it is not.  Trick 'r Treat just requires its viewing audience to pay close attention and to figure out how its various stories truly fit together, and fit together they do, very well.  That the film requires some mental effort to fully enjoy led to my thinking of third reason why the film was not released theatrically, despite its being a solid enough genre effort to warrant it.  Thought, especially when it involves horror movies, is considered by many to be a bad thing.  Trick 'r Treat may have been dismissed as a failure simply because someone thought that it required too much mental effort for its audience to fully understand, much less enjoy.  That you have to pay attention and think while watching it should be considered a genuine treat, not an unpleasant trick.

Three and a half stars out of four.

Whip It (2009)

My opinion of Whip It, Drew Barrymore's entertaining and assured directing debut, can best be summed up by a single lyric from an iconic song from the band Devo, "Whip It good."

Whip It is not just good, however, it's "Damn Good."  Good enough that I walked out of the sneak preview screening last Saturday certain that the film would be somwhere on my list of the Ten Best Films of 2009, come the end of the year.

Yes, the film truly is "that good."

Ellen Page (Juno, Hard Candy) stars as Bliss Cavender, a seventeen year old girl suffering through the last years of her teenaged life in Bodeen, Texas, a small town on the outskirts of Austin.  Awkward and shy on the surfrace, Bliss is teased and ridiculed by a more popular girl.  Her mother (Marcia Gay Harden) is "forcing" her to enroll in the Blue Bonnet Pagaent, while her father (Daniel Stern, in lovable old dork mode), although clearly kind hearted and well intentioned, is far more interested in football and cannot quite hide his disappointment in not having fathered a son to play the sport.  (This is Texas, after all.  Remember Friday Night Lights?)

All that changes when Bliss learns of a Roller Derby tournament being played in Austin.  She sneaks off with her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat) to watch and more than just falls in love with the game and those who play it.  Bliss straps on old pair of roller skates, lies about her age (players must be over 21 to play, or have parental permission) and tries out.  She makes the team and, in the game, Bliss not only finds a healthy and fun way to vent her meager teenage frustrations, she also finds a way to empower herself.

But there is a price to be paid for gaining that empowerment, of course.  As Peter Parker's late Uncle Ben once said to him, "With great power comes great responsibility."  Bliss makes some questionable decisions and takes some even more questionable actions.  How Bliss deals with the inevitable fallout, when those decisions and actions impact her friend and, finally, come to the attention of her famly, makes for a very satisfying third act.  A refreshing one as well, for Barrymore and Shauna Cross, who adapted her own novel, do not make the parents into stereotypical "Stupid Adult Obstacles" for an impossibly wise beyond her years child heroine to out smart and overcome.  No, the teenagers act like teenagers and the adults act like adults.  They are all real people that learn, grow, and handle the situation the way real people would.  Like I said, refreshing.

Some might take offense that the rough and tumble "Bad Girl" world of Roller Derby is shown in such a positive, not to mention exciting, manner.  But Barrymore and Cross clearly anticipated that possibility, for their movie makes enough subtle references to the idolatry of the rough and tumble sport of football to make its point very clear.  It is every bit as healthy, and normal, for the girls to play rough sports, as it is for the boys. 

Four stars out of four.

Surrogates (2009)

Surrogates, a movie about robot avatars, looks to have been made by actual robots; while it is a slick and efficient entertainment, it is also a cold and soulless viewing experience that lacks in much needed humanity.

Bruce Willis stars as Tom Greer, a Boston police detective in the not-too-distant future where just about everyone (who can afford it) can escape into the physical perfection of thought controlled robots.  These surrogates allow their users the ultimate in risk free adventure and hedonistic pleasure.  A person can stay youthful, fit and trim without ever having to leave the comfort of his or her recliner control device.  In this Brave New World of tomorrow, there is no pain, no physical deformity or blemish.  There is only the pleasure of looking perfect and doing just about whatever you want, with no ill effects whatsoever.  It's a couch potato/Internet junkie's dream come true.  Surrogates works best whenever it takes a moment to point those facts out, and the film is sprinkled with wonderful little touches.

A sexy blonde woman surrogate turns out to have a hairy and overweight man as its user.  There are frequent comparisons of the artificially exaggerated perfection of the surrogate robots with the equally exaggerated imperfection - flabby from lack of exercise physiques and unsightly skin blemishes - of their users, although that trick becomes a tiresome gimmick by the third or fourth time around.  One emotionally painful scene has an in the flesh Willis punching a surrogate to pieces and, since its user cannot feel any pain, he is mocked and laughed at by both the surrogate and those watching.  But the choicest moment is when a female agent (Radha Mitchell) discovers that there is a law enforcement program that monitors surrogate usage.  She seems to be far more concerned with the questionable legality of the preemptive shutting down of two male surrogates during what appears to be a sexual assault against an actual human, who are affectionately referred to as Meat Bags by surrogate users, than by the brutal crime that was about to be committed.

Unfortunately those colorful touches are only that, touches of color on an otherwise bland action movie canvas.  Again and again Johnathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) chooses to ignore those choice moments of potential satire and/or socio-political commentary.  Instead he focuses on a mundane murder mystery involving the creator of the surrogates (James Cromwell, phoning in a performance for a character no different from the one he played in I, Robot) and peppers the investigation with plenty of stale science-fiction/action movie special effects bombast.

Most, if not all, surrogates seem to have enhanced strength and/or stamina.  They can run, leap and scale buildings, like some kind of hybrid of Spider-Man and the T-1000 from Terminator 2 - Judgment Day.  Once upon a time visuals like that were exciting and new.  Now they look every bit as tired and lackluster as the surrogate using humans do.

Two stars out of four.

Fame (2009)

The students attending the New York City High School for the Performing Arts struggle as they learn and grow into their individual talents.  Some succeed, some fail, and a very lucky few will manage to achieve FAME.

This Kevin Tancharoen directed remake of Alan Parker's Fame is one of the most, meaningless, and pedestrian movies that it has been my displeasure to sit through in quite some time.  There is not a single moment of true emotion in this film.  No plot twist that does not feel fabricated by committee, nor that cannot be seen coming well in advance; so the audience is in the unenviable position of waiting for the plastic dolls moving around on the screen they are watching to catch up with them.  The musical numbers are lifeless and do not feel like a part of the movie or the spontaneous expression of its characters.  The worst offender is the first, when the Freshman class breaks into a dance number in the school cafeteria.  One that is indistinguishable from countless television commercials where a large group of ethnically diverse and exceptionally bland talent, overcome with the joy of drinking a particular soda, eating a particular chip, or wearing some expensive (or inexpensive) clothing, begin dancing in joy and/or singing about about the glories of the product being sold.

None of the characters are truly challenged in this film by the harsh realities of life or the cut throat performance art industries they strive to become a part of.  The core struggles (those getting the most screen time, at least) revolve around three students.  Jenny Garrison (Kay Panabaker) cannot seem to "loosen up" and truly enjoy her art.  Denise Dupree (Naturi Naughton) hungers to be far more than the strictly classical pianist that her domineering father demands her to be.  Then there is Malik Washburn (Collins Pennie) yet another bland boy from the hood that cannot tap into his bland anger to become a better bland rapper/actor.  Judging from the talent he displays in class, neither Ice Cube nor Ice-T need worry about Malik taking any of their rapper/actor turf.  That they will all overcome their obstacles and succeed without any need to compromise or grow, either intellectually or emotionally, is a forgone conclusion.  Hell, I don't think they even aged during the four years they were supposedly attending school. 

Even the single student that does "fail" is given a convenient happy ending that requires no emotional growth, hence his failure is nonexistent.  Then there was the offensive praise heaped on two students that drop out because their burgeoning careers are hampered by getting an education.  How about less praise for the willfully stupid and more for the hardworking people that truly earn a place in society, rather than having one gifted to them by a lazy screenwriter, okay?

 

One and a half star out of four.

Chadzilla's "Top Ten" Favorite Movies of All Time.

Two of the many things that you should know before reading this list: (1) I can count and (2) I am very well aware of the fact that my Top Ten list does in fact contain 11 movies.

A few more things that you should know:  (3) This is a list of my ten favorite movies, not a Ten Best Films list.  If it were a Ten Best Films list, then one of my Honorable Mentions would be on it and more than a few of the movies on the list wouldn't be.  A favorite movie, to me, at least, is far different from a best (or great) one.  While some of the listed movies (two, at the very least) do represent significant contributions to the art of cinematic story telling, most of them are simply movies that I love to curl up with.  Some give me warm and fuzzy feelings, some engage my intellect, and most of them fall somewhere in the middle.  All of them mean more to me than the average "flick" and, as I move down the list, I will try to explain to you, at times, why that is.  I am not searching for agreement, just a nod of understanding.  (4) My explanations, when given, are just that, explanations.  I will get around to reviewing (if I haven't already) the movies listed here at some other time.

The fifth (5) and final "you should know" thing: the listing order of the movies.  I have put them in order of release date for ease and comfort.  But if I were to have to list them in order of personal/critical importance, then the first two movies would retain their first and second place slots.  The rest could be shuffled around to various points, depending on my given mood and feeling about a particular movie at the time.  Since my number one choice is, without a doubt, the most important movie I feel I have ever seen in my life, I have, for my own odd reasons, kept the list limited to those films that had an emotional and intellectual impact on me during my formative years that were released during my formative years; hence my other preference for listing them by release date.  That also explains why so many of them (the first seven) are from one ten year period and why they do not represent a wider critical sampling of genres, filmmakers and eras.

Okay, enough of this yammering!  On to the movies:

1) Jaws (1975): Of all the movies that I have ever seen (and I have seen a lot of movies) not a one has come anywhere close to the impact that this super thriller had on me.  For me, JAWS is so much more than the very first summer blockbuster, or the first movie to ever gross in excess of 100 million dollars during its first run domestic theatrical release. JAWS was, and remains, a defining moment in my childhood.  The movie not only terrifies as a horror/monster movie, it also exhilarates as an adventure movie.  Its characters look, sound and feel like real people.  People that you come to care deeply about.  Its monster is iconic and, during the second half, becomes far more than just a mere shark.  Every monster movie that has come after it has either copied it outright, or riffed on its story beats.  Thus JAWS has become more than just a textbook example of the art of telling a certain type of story, it has become the textbook.  It is my opinion that no other movie has ever come close to its story telling perfection.

2) Halloween (1978): Simplistic and simple minded, this cheap (it only cost $300,000 to make) and quick (shot in 28 days) exploitation thriller made the filmmaking team of John Carpenter (director/co-writer) and Debra Hill (producer/co-writer) a genre powerhouse for the next few years.  It also had as big an impact on me, in its way, as JAWS did.  Up until the time I saw Halloween, horror was something that happened somewhere out there, either in another time (those old and dated black and white movies from the 30s, 40s and 50s, or the Hammer Studios period Gothic thrillers, etc.) or some other, easily avoided place (JAWS and Alien, as scary as they were, both took place in areas easy to avoid, the ocean and outer space, respectively).  But Halloween was set in a small town that looked just like mine.  The streets and houses where it was filmed (in Pasadena, California) looked like the streets I walked to school on and the houses my friends and family lived in.  When the movie ended (and oh, how I remember just how powerful and terrifying the ending of Halloween was back in 1979, before it had been carbon copied into a tiresome and to be expected/dreaded cliche) I could easily imagine the bogeyman himself could be lurking in the shadows of the house I lived in.

Like JAWS, Halloween went on to break box office records and it became the top grossing independent film of all time (until The Blair Witch Project came along in 1999) and every mad killer on the loose movie that came after it either copied it outright, or riffed on its story beats.  But, like my number one choice, Halloween is a classic of its kind that can be copied, but never replicated.  No matter how hard they try; and try they have, repeatedly.

3) Manhattan (1979): I hope that you didn't get whiplash from the jarring switch in tone from my first two choices.  While Woody Allen has stated that he is not too fond of this particular movie - and the real life scandal involving him falling in love with, and eventually marrying, the daughter of his former romantic partner taint it - I flat out adore it and consider it to his very best movie.  Manhattan is a scrumptious love letter to the vistas of its titular setting, with the wonderful music of George Gershwin providing a perfect counter balance to the story's cynicism and neurotic humor.  Now that I am older (and I have to admit here that I saw this movie while in college, rather than during its theatrical run; but that I do remember its theatrical run with remarkable clarity) I appreciate and understand Allen's self-absorbed characters and how their selfish romantic entanglements and wanderings serve as his artistic farewell to the 1970s with each repeat viewing.

4) The Fog (1980):  Remember my warn and fuzzy comment?  Well, The Fog applies.  I know how strange it sounds to call a movie about zombie-style sailors ripping people apart with fish hooks "warm and fuzzy," but there is just something cozy about this movie.  I once read a comment on a message board describing the feeling of the film as "lived in."  That works for me.  Also working for me is the excellent locations used for filming.  Stinson Beach, Bodega Bay, Point Reyes National Seashore, and the towns of Olema and Point Reyes Station, were all used to bring the fictional Northern California town of Antonio Bay to picturesque life.  Also helping are the aforementioned powerhouse team of John Carpenter (director/co-writer) and Debra Hill (producer/co-writer) casting their movie with actors that look and sound like real people.  While no cinematic classic, The Fog remains a Halloween viewing favorite of mine to this very day.  It also contains my favorite John Carpenter score.

5) Maniac (1980):  Although he appeared in numerous classic movies (The Godfather Parts I and II, Taxi Driver, and Rocky, to name but a select few) character actor Joe Spinell could very well be best remembered for co-writing and starring in this notorious and gruesome splatter movie; one that the famous film critic Gene Siskel identified as one of only three movies that he ever walked out on, without finishing, during his professional career.  I can't fault Siskel for doing that.  As much as I like Maniac, and I like it very, very much, I still have to admit that it is a largely plotless and, on its surface, quite pointless collection of violent murder and bloody mayhem.  Something that looks far better suited for an all time worst list.  Then why did I put it here, on this list?  Because, from the very first time that I saw it, this movie has fascinated me.  It is not the gore; any hack with a camera can film gore, and has.  It fascinates because I can see what it was that Spinell was aiming for and, truth be told, not quite able to pull off.

On the commentary track for the laserdisc and DVD, a close friend of Spinell's talks about how much work Spinell put into creating the character of serial killer Frank Zito.  Spinell claimed that his performance was "for the children," the children of abuse that could grow up to become abusers.  According to some sources, Spinell spent time interviewing both police and criminal psychiatrists to help "get inside" his character's head.  The resulting performance, I think, is one of the best, if not the most realistic, depictions of a disorganized serial killer to ever be captured on film.  One that would not be equaled, if not surpassed, when Michael Rooker played the title character in the far more successful (artistically, at least) Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

6) The Thing (1982):  John Carpenter's box office hot streak came to an abrupt end with this critically and commercially reviled adaptation of John Campbell's classic short story Who Goes There?  The Thing was such a catastrophic failure that it was something of a minor miracle that Carpenter managed to retain a directing career after making it.  But he did and, in time, this dark and almost nihilistic examination of paranoia and identity crisis ("If I were an imitation, a perfect imitation, how would you know if it wasn't really me?") has become one of the most respected genre films of the 1980s.  Who would have thought that possible back in 1982?  Me!  I've loved The Thing from day one and knew it was one of John Carpenter's best films.  Sometimes you just know and have to wait for the rest to catch up with you.

7) Day of the Dead (1985):  George A. Romero's eagerly anticipated "conclusion" to his Zombie Trilogy met a fate at the box office similar to Carpenter's The Thing.  Critics felt that Romero had run out of interesting things to say and do with the zombies and his "fans" whined bitterly that the movie was talky and took forever to get to the wet stuff, which is evidently the only thing they seem to like about his movies.  I disagree with the former opinion and have no respect whatsoever for the latter one.  With fans like that, who the hell needs naysayer critics?  This entry (production woes stopped it from being the final film in a trilogy) won the top place in my heart with Romero fearlessly pushing his "they [the zombies] are us" conceit (first stated outright in Dawn of the Dead) into the literal with his most wondrous of creations, Bub, the zombie with a "soul."  Great stuff.

8) Tremors (1990): Just how much did I fall in love with Tremors on the first day I saw it?  I paid to watch it second time on the big screen; on the same day.  As far as I am concerned, this monster movie has the best set of easy to relate to blue collar heroes since Jaws.  Val and Earl, as played by Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward, are real to the point of casting their own shadows in real light.  Another bonus in the film's favor, it is a horror/comedy that knows enough to root its humor in its human characters and its frights in the monsters.  It strikes and keeps a balance between the two that, at times, achieves in practice the very name of the fictional Nevada town in which it is set, Perfection.

9) TIE - Darkman (1990) / Ed Wood (1994):  That something made by the inimitable Sam Raimi (made long before his Spider-Man mega-success) would make it onto my all time favorite movies list could be considered a given.  I was quite the Horror Geek back in the day.  But a film made by Tim Burton?  My mind boggles!  (I am far from the biggest Tim Burton fan.)  Darkman beat out Evil Dead II by a sizable margin, because it got me hooked back on reading comic books again.  At the time of its release, I liked to refer to it as, "The Best Comic Book Movie never made, ever."  Still feel that way, actually.

Burton's Ed Wood, on the other hand, is a wonderful biopic of a man that never was.  His version of the sad and pathetic life of Ed Wood is the fairy tale that every bad movie fan needs to see.  Because it manages to give a reasonably happy ending to what was a very unhappy life story.  Don't believe me?  Then read Rudolph Grey's book Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. and then watch Tim Burton's film immediately thereafter.  You will understand what I am saying.

10) Up (2009):  As lovable and fun to quote as Doug the Dog is - SQUIRREL! - it is the touching love story of Carl and Ellie that begins the film, and Carl's palpable grief over her death, that make UP such a wonderful viewing experience for me.  This movie has me laughing and crying every time I watch it.  No other film I have seen has ever got across just how memorable and meaningful the "boring stuff" in life truly is.  How just being deeply in love with someone can be all the adventure a person truly needs for a happy life.  It is also one of the few films that really gets across the power of grief and what kind of journey the grieving process can take you on.  Damn, now I want to sit down and watch it again, right now!

And that is pretty much it, folks.  Now you know what I have been doodling about for the first half of September.

Honorable Mentions: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), the Western that explained the genre to me well enough to turn this one time Western hater into a genuine Western fan.  Rollercoaster (1977), a cracking good suspense thriller with a top notch score by Lalo Schifrin.  Magic (1978), The Brood (1979), David Cronenberg's harrowing family thriller, and, on the flip side, John Hughes touching look at the pains of growing into a true adult, She's Having a Baby (1988). Highly recommended movies, one and all.

September (1987)

"...your daughter hates me."

Lane (Mia Farrow) has spent the summer at her family's Vermont home recuperating from a nervous breakdown and subsequent suicide attempt.  During this time she has befriended a kindly neighbor, Howard (Denholm Elliott) an elderly widower that has fallen in love with her, although the feeling is not mutual.  Lane has also rented her guest house to a would be novelist named Peter (Sam Waterson) who she has fallen in love with, although the feeling is not mutual.  Peter has developed strong feelings for Stephanie (Dianne Wiest) a friend of Lane's that has come to Vermont seeking relief from a troubled marriage;  by trying to recreate, with Peter, her youthful memories of a romantic summer spent in Paris.

As the emotional tensions between the four simmer, Lane's mother, Diane (Elaine Stritch, delivering an incredible performance) and her latest husband, Lloyd (Jack Warden) arrive at the house with all the emotional subtly and grace of a Typhoon.  As the Labor Day weekend fast approaches and the summer draws to its definitive end, dark secrets and painful truths are revealed and laid bare, for all to see.

The memory I had of Woody Allen's September - his 1987 dramatic film most famous for its having been filmed twice, with two different casts, and for actor/playwright Sam Shepard's harsh criticism of Allen's writing and directing style - was of a quiet and powerful drama filled with fascinating characters and raw emotional moments.  Revisiting it some 22 years later, I was taken aback at how awkward the performances were in the opening act of what Allen has referred to as his "chamber piece."  Had my memory been wrong?

No.  It had not.  As the characters and their stories developed, I relearned what I had forgotten about them.  Their awkwardness was not the result of the actors receiving poor direction from Woody Allen (which was the gist of Shepard's ire) but was caused by the intense and barely repressed emotions boiling within them.  Peter's wooden introductory statement about his continued lack of success with his writing ("I'm discouraged," he sighs with all the emotional energy of a pod person ) is just a lazy facade  to mask his growing desire for Stephanie, which is revealed a short time later.  Howard's scathing assessment of Peter as an unimaginative hack is rooted in his jealousy over Lane's obvious affection for the man.  But Allen layers the bitterness, making it quite clear that, in a way, Peter is a motivationless hack.  Just watch how animated he is whenever he is talking about penning Lane's mother's tell all memoir (something Lane resents) versus his lackadaisical and vague rambling about his own failed summer writing project.  When asked what his novel is about, Peter shrugs and says, "It's about survival" and nothing more after that.  That Peter is so uninterested in writing a story inspired by his blacklisted father - who supported his family by playing poker and betting on horses - while intrigued by the stories told by Lane's black sheep of a mother is some wonderful psychological shading on Allen's part.

Lloyd clearly adores being the object of affection of a faded star more than the faded star herself.  Something he admits without admitting when talking with Peter about being able to admire starlight without being able to believe in any higher power or purpose behind its creation.  That it all just happens without any meaning or purpose.  A viewpoint that is  foreshadowed when Lloyd and Diane talk about the utterly random (and admittedly cliche) manner in which they first met.  Lloyd also goes to great lengths to make excuses and defenses for Diane whenever needed, to protect the illusion he has that his marriage to her will be both a happy and long lasting one.  The self-absorbed Diane is Allen's dominating character in the piece, both figuratively and literally.  She is a woman clinging to, and at one point actually speaking with, her memories of "better" days past.  Which is ironic, considering that her primary mode of emotional and psychological defense is to "forget" the pains of the past and "reinvent" both them and herself.  Pay close attention to the differences in how she speaks of her potential memoirs both before and after the "Big Reveal."  To quote Stan Lee, "Nuff said."

Cynicism and pessimism have long been the prime ingredients in Woody Allen's movies.  While his deft hand with humor has tempered that cynicism and pessimism in his comedies, Allen's dramas offer very little in the way of relief.  They are dark, heavy and dense viewing experiences.  While their deliberate pacing and slow build-up can be trying, at times, the payoff is well worth the viewing effort required to get there. 

The Final Destination (2009)

After a young man's psychic vision helps a group of spectators survive a disaster at a local racetrack, the survivors begin dying off one-by-one in a series of gruesome, not to mention increasingly ludicrous, accidents.

First off, let me state that The Final Destination is one of the absolute worst films of 2009.  It is a plotless and characterless exercise in gruesome gimmickry that only has an optical illusion to provide any depth whatsoever to its blood soaked proceedings.

Let me also say that I thoroughly enjoyed it for the complete and utter trash that it was.  To quote the late, great Gene Siskel's review of Anaconda, "How's that for film criticism?"

Two descriptive cliches could, and more than likely will, be used to defend ones enjoyment of The Final Destination to those that do not: "Popcorn Movie" and "Rollercoaster Ride."  The Final Destination is every bit as lightweight and easily digested as the former, and just as soulless and mechanical as the latter.

But there is a third descriptive cliche that I think could be used for this movie.  Pornographic.

The Final Destination is the closest I have come to seeing a movie that replicates the viewing experience of a pornographic film.  The entire viewing experiece exists to simply show the viewer the money shot.  It has no other reason for existing.  If you excised the sex from a porn film, there would be nothing left to watch. (Doonesbury did an absolutely hilarious strip illustrating that very fact when it showed a couple watching the broadcast network premiere of Debbie Does Dallas, a classic porn film, that lasted, maybe, 30 seconds.)  Likewise, if the fatal accidents were excised from The Final Destination, there would be nothing left to watch.

The Final Destination is superior to almost all porn, though, because it understands the immense pleasure to be found in foreplay.  The build-up to the big moments are just as important as the big moments themselves.  The Final Destination knows how to tease and when to deliver.  Just be ready to feel in need of a long cleansing shower when you exit the theater.

Broken Angels - by Richard K. Morgan

Thirty years have passed since the events described in Altered Carbon.  Former U.N. Envoy Takeshi Kovacs is now a gun-for-hire for the government of a planet in the midst of a bloody revolution.  While recovering from wounds sustained on the battlefield, Kovacs meets Jan Schneider, a pilot with a lucrative scheme.  He, or someone he is associated with, has uncovered an apparently fully functional piece of Martian technology.  Kovacs and Schneider go AWOL, spring an Archaeologue (the far flung future's equivalent of an Archaeologist) and hunt for someone willing to fund the treasure hunt of the 25th century.

Things don't go well.

After enjoying Takeshi Kovacs's first adventure, I went into his second with high hopes for a plot filled with sudden twists and jarring turns, heavy doses of bone crunching action, and a cast of colorful and fascinating characters.  Well, after 198 pages, I can say that the plot is pretty straight forward, the action nonexistent, and the cast large and bland.  This one just did not hold my interest.

Author Richard K. Morgan painted such a vivid and somewhat believable futurist nightmare in Altered Carbon that it baffles me why he chose to ignore it in this follow-up.  Broken Angels is so unconnected to the first book (at least in its first half) that it reads like a completely different story that went through a hasty and poorly thought out rewrite in order to fulfill a demand for a new Takeshi Kovacs story from the publisher.

At the point that I am closing this particular book for good, the identity of the turncoat within the group's ranks is still unknown, the nano-blob has yet to go on the offensive, and the Martian technology has yet to become anything other than a MacGuffin.  If there is a big payoff at the end, I have lost all interest in working my way through the remaining 160+ pages to collect it.

The Runelords Volume One: The Sum of All Men - by David Farland

Prince Gaborn Val Orden of Castle Mystarria has come to Castle Sylvarresta to ask for the hand of Princess Iome in marriage, so that two powerful kingdoms can be joined by more than the friendship of their respective Kings.  Gaborn arrives too late, for Raj Ahten, a Wolf Lord from the Southern Kingdoms, has begun a war of conquest in the North, and Castle Sylvarresta has come under attack.

The first skirmish in what looks to be a long battle between the forces of Good (Earth & Water) and Evil (Fire & Air) is waged in The Sum of All Men, the first volume in David Farland's epic fantasy series.  (Volume eight will be released this fall.) 

As a first novel in a much larger series, Sum does an excellent job of introducing the primary characters and the magical world that they live in.  When I closed the book, both the characters and their kingdoms and battlefields felt real to me.  They felt so real, in fact, that certain sections were difficult to read.  The forces of Good seemed, at times, to be nothing more than punching bags for the forces of Evil to toy with.  Raj Ahten, the series heavy, is truly, and apparently irredeemably, Evil, and he comes to enjoy the suffering he brings upon the novel's numerous sympathetic characters.

Serving as Luke Skywalker to Ahten's Emperor Palpatine is Prince Gaborn, the young hero destined to become the new Earth King and who is tasked with waging war against the enemies of the Earth. Unfortunately Gaborn's crown does not come with an instruction manual, so the newly crowned Earth King only has his instincts to go by.  He makes far too many snap judgments that result in costly mistakes both on and off of the battlefield.  It's a good thing that his crown does come with a Yoda type Earth Wizard to help him with advice and some much needed moral support.

Gaborn is a quick study and a good and decent man with strong leadership abilities. When Volume One reaches its emotionally satisfying conclusion, one capped with the inevitable cliffhanger to wet the reader's appetite for Volume Two, Gaborn is fast becoming the King he is required to be.

As a stand alone story - for The Sum of All Men could, and will, be read as such by some - the cliffhanger comes only after Farland delivers a solid conclusion to his introductory story.  So you won't finish the book feeling as if you have wasted your time reading nothing more than a lengthy teaser for a novel you aren't interested in reading.  I think that you will be interested in reading it, though, and soon.

A Special Place: The Heart of a Dark Matter - by Peter Straub

Keith Hayward's Uncle Til is supposed to give the boy a stern talking to about what Keith has done to a neighborhood cat.  Instead the man educates Keith on the importance of having a special place in which to torture and kill, so as not to be interrupted or discovered...

While many a writer has had a segment, or even an entire section, of a work in progress grow and split off into a separate "stand alone" story- F. Paul Wilson describes just such an occurrence when introducing a tale in his anthology Soft & Others that began as a chapter in his novel The Touch- Peter Straub has made it an integral part of his body of work ever since the publication of Koko, the first book in his Blue Rose trilogy.

A Special Place is a small part, a mere 80 pages small, in fact, of A Dark Matter, a soon to be published novel formerly titled The Skylark, that grew apart and fell off of the larger manuscript during the creative process.  While this brief and brutal story sheds crucial light on an integral character in the forthcoming novel, A Special Place stands alone.  For very good reason.  Those who dare to read it must be very careful, for its bite is savage and wounding.  Place is one of Straub's darker, if not one of his darkest, short stories in ages.  (Straub's Bunny Is Good Bread, also known as Fee, is its only current rival.)  It builds slowly and methodically to a stomach churning finish that cannot be easily shaken off, and I loved every word of it.  It is easy to see why Borderlands Press opted to publish A Special Place as a limited edition book.  (At the time of this writing there are only 250 copies available, signed and numbered by the author.)  Despite its brevity, or because of it, A Special Place is a powerful story that deserves to be read.

Having had a taste of what is to come, I am now looking forward to reading A Dark Matter even more.

Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters - by August Ragone

The life and work story of one of the most famous and influential members of the Japanese Motion Picture Industry.

And the emphasis is very much on the latter than it is on the former.  While author August Ragone, a friendly fixture at local (for me, at least) Science-Fiction/Fantasy themed events such as Wondercon, got an unprecedented amount of access to the Toho and Tsuburaya Productions vaults, and the listing of Eiji's contributions to both film and television is definitive, readers of Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters will set the book down knowing far more about the cinematic contributions of the Old Man (as he was affectionately called by those around him) than the man himself.  Then again, it is my understanding that Japanese society is notoriously closed mouth about personal matters to outsiders in general and foreigners in particular, so getting any more up close and personal with the Master of Monsters beyond this volume is probably impossible.

For many, if not most, genre movie fans, Eiji Tsuburaya stands shoulder to shoulder with another special effects giant, Ray Harryhausen.  His many creations, two of the most famous being Godzilla and Ultraman, remain well known and well loved to this very day by new and old fans across the globe.   I should warn any and all that reading this book will strike you with the urge to splurge.  The countless stills and behind the scenes photos will only wet your appetite to see these beloved characters back in action.  So be prepared to invest in some DVD purchases or rentals.

Tsuburaya, like his well known counterpart Harryhausen, knew that the key to making the magic real was in creating a creature (or hero) with a distinctive character for the viewer to invest in emotionally.  There was, and remains, a childlike joy to his work that is infectious.  You cannot watch a Tsuburaya effect and not walk away smiling.  A reaction that the Old Man wanted more than anything else.

That Tsuburaya was more interested in creating something to be enjoyed is explained perfectly in a passage wherein Ragone details the making of Frankenstein vs. Baragon (released stateside as Frankenstein Conquers the World):

"Some critics have wondered why Tsuburaya employed a puppet horse for the scene when Baragon raids a small ranch...When Tsuburaya was asked why he didn't use a composite of a real horse or use a rear-screen process to create something more realistic, he had replied, "Because using a model horse was more fun!"

That explains it all, perfectly, and for those that did not need to have it explained to them, Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters is essential.  No fan's library should be without it.

Creature from the Black Lagoon: Time's Black Lagoon - by Paul Di Filippo

The year is 2015 and Global Warming is changing the Earth's ecosystem.  Forward thinking scientist Brice Chalefant believes that humanity's long term survival depends on its adapting to a more amphibious state of being.  Big fan of Waterworld, I guess.  Although his theory is not embraced by the scientific community, Tarquin Hasselrude, an elderly and highly respected scientist, shares with Chalefant the startling discovery of an honest to goodness Gill-Man in the upper Amazon in 1954...

There's more to it than that, stuff involving time machines and ancient Gill-Men and women from the stars, I think, settling Devonian era Earth, but I didn't make it that far.  I gave up at the start of Chapter Five.

When Dark Horse books first announced that they would be publishing a series of novels based on the classic Universal Monster movies of yesteryear (Frankenstein and his Bride, Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon) I was every bit as excited and I was intrigued.  What better place to start, I thought, than with my all-time favorite Universal Monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon?

I went into Creature from the Back Lagoon: Time's Black Lagoon hoping for a loving retro-style return to the "Lost World" pulp adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs and others.  What I got instead was a mix of shoddy futurist dystopia tinged science-fiction, clumsy plotting, and stick figure sketching that was somehow meant to pass for character development.  Not once in the sixty pages I managed to wade through did I find a single solitary moment of 50s B-movie fun.  Where were the larger than life heroes?  The smart talking heroine that delivers coffee to the LTLHs before getting carried off, kicking and screaming, in the arms of the Creature?

Come to think of it, where was the Creature?  Yes, I know, there was that prologue featuring a "smart and gentle" Creature fleeing from the "Coarsened Ones".  But that wasn't the Creature of the 1950s movie series and that, more than anything, is what I wanted.  I wanted Beauty, Beast, and a square jawed Man of Action that fights the Beast to save the Beauty for himself.

I know enough about write-for-hire projects to not lay the blame entirely at author Paul Di Filippo's word processor.  Whoever was given editorial control over how the property was handled by the owner of the rights to the Creature (which would probably be someone representing the commercial interests of Universal) is to blame for allowing the Creature to be mucked up this badly, and mucked up badly it was.  I tossed Creature from the Black Lagoon: Time's Black Lagoon back.  It can sleep with the fishes as far as I am concerned.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: The Cask of Amontillado (Ep. 203 - January 12, 1975)

"...put in the last stone..."

Arno Montressor is deeply in debt to the Amontillado guzzling Fortunato Benini.  When Arno cannot supply Fortunato with the amount of Amontillado desired, Benini, who believes that Montressor is holding out on him, demands that all of Arno's debts be repaid within a week.  Repaying the debt so quickly would ruin Arno, and would lead to the loss of both his vineyards and his home.  However, Fortunato would be willing to grant an extension if Arno would only allow him to "have dinner" with the lovely Mrs. Montressor.  Arno would rather be financially ruined than be disgraced by having to prostitute his wife.  Benini shrugs off his insult and demands payment by the week's end.  Arno's wife discovers the blackmail and, unbeknownst to Arno, agrees to "have lunch" with Benini.  The clandestine meeting is discovered by Margarita, Fortunato's daughter, and she informs Arno.  Arno confronts his wife about her infidelity and, consumed by rage directed at both her as well as Margarita and Fortunato, he attacks and, he believes, kills hers.  He then hides her body in the catacombs beneath his home, by walling it in one of the many crevices.  But Mrs. Montressor isn't dead yet, and the rage and guilt over what he has done drives the now insane Arno to complete his revenge against Margarita and Fortunato Benini.

Poe's The Cask of Amontillado is a story of gruesome and terrible revenge, but Poe never revealed just what the horrible insult Fortunato made that drove Montressor to bury him alive within the catacombs beneath his home.  Playwright George Lother does an excellent job of expanding the scope of Poe's tale to include the insult, which is quite credible.  As he did with The Tell-Tale Heart, Lother manages to completely reinvent Poe's story while still remaining quite faithful to it.  The entombing sequences are actually quite horrific, as each of the three individuals are well aware of the fate that awaits them.  The only quibble I have is the inclusion of a Colombo style police detective in the third act, which leads to a pedestrian "gotcha" ending that ruins the gooseflesh inducing conclusion of Poe's original tale.

"Until next time...pleasant dreams...?"