"Ode to Jamie D."

“Ode to Jamie D.”

I only met him twice in person

and spoke maybe three words to him

but I had his voice in my ears

a few hours every week for 3 years.

When a celebrity dies it feels the same

as the death of a distant cousin you saw

at a wedding ten years ago.

But his death feels different.

It is more like losing a friend

you went to high school with

or the co-worker who understood

your “Deep Space Nine” jokes.

I find myself constantly re-watching

the same old movies and TV shows,

not because of the stories or visual effects,

but because I just wanted to hang out

with those characters again.

While it is sad that he is not here anymore

it is comforting to know that there are literally

hundreds of hours of podcasts I can go back to

hear him wax poetic about the dynamic work

of John Byrne

and rail against the injustices

of double-shipping.

I can only hope

that when I speak into a microphone,

I can be the same friend to some stranger

that he was to me.

Dedicated to

James “Jamie D.” Dallessandro

Co-Host, Comic Geek Speak

(1966-2014)

Poem: "Unemployment"

I'm gonna try a new direction for this blog. I am going to try writing a few poems a week. Here is the first one called "Unemployment":

At first it’s like a day at the beach…

The wind at your back

and an ocean of opportunity in front of you.

Then day after day

as the fear and inaction set in

tides carry the water

further and further away

and the sand pulls you in

until it’s up to your waist…

Shotgun Reviews: Week of 11/6/13

Here is what I thought of my weekly stack of comics:

Superman Unchained #4 - I love the science behind the Wraith scenes. The ending leaves us with a ton of interesting questions.
Batman / Superman #5 - I didn't really see the purpose to the horizontal pages. Otherwise the story was cool and we get a totally different take on the Toymaker.
Green Arrow #25 - Writer Jeff Lemire does a great job drifting into Zero Year while keeping the series on-point. Even with heavy inking Andrea Sorrentino pulls out great facial expressions.
Green Lantern #25 - Billy Tan draws some of the most creative constructs I've seen in a while. Robert Venditti also provides some interesting moral quandaries.
Swamp Thing #25 - I pumped my fist to what I thought was the climax of this issue. A few pages later I hung my head in sorrow.
Trinity of Sin: The Phantom Stranger #13 - This issue bounces to a bunch of different places but it never gets confusing.
Forever Evil #3 (of 7) - All of the pieces are coming into place and you can start to see the showdown that Geoff Johns is setting up.
Alex + Ada #1 - The art is beautiful but the story is very subtle and so little happens that this feels boring.
Drumhellar #1 - We get some really interesting visuals and characters but the story is really confusing and hard to follow.
Protectors Inc. #1 - This feels very generic. It feels like the best aspects of the story have already been explored in a half dozen other books.

Nostalgia - The Films of Val Lewton

Halloween is fun no matter what your age. Is it because of the costumes, the parties, or the brief spurts of cardio rewarded with large amounts of sugar? Of course not, it’s because of all the horror movies on TV. Halloween is the one day of the year you are guaranteed to find Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers somewhere on your cable box. There are dozens of different sub-genres of horror that can be found today. There are slasher flicks, monster movies, and found footage films, but there is one small sliver of scary cinema that is much harder to find these days: Val Lewton’s pictures.

 In 1942 producer Val Lewton found himself with one of the luckiest set of circumstances in Hollywood history. The hugely popular Universal Monster movies were starting to plateau. People were craving horror and were starting to look for it in other forms. Plus, Orson Welles had nearly bankrupt RKO studios with the high cost and low box office performances of Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. In an effort to turn their fortunes around, RKO hired Lewton, a protégé of David O. Selznick, to produce low budget horror movies. In the next four years, Lewton made nine films: Cat People (1942), I Walked With a Zombie (1943), The Leopard Man (1943), The 7^th Victim (1943), The Ghost Ship (1943), The Curse of the Cat People (1944), The Body Snatcher (1945), Isle of the Dead (1945), and Bedlam (1946).

       

            All of these films are proof positive of a simple idea that I first heard from director Nicholas Meyer: Art thrives on restrictions. They were all made with relatively small budgets and Lewton made them look beautiful.  The most frightening things are never shown on screen. One scene in Cat People just shows a woman treading water in an indoor swimming pool. By playing with the lighting, shadows and sound effects, Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur create true terror and we all genuinely fear for the woman’s life. Earlier in that film the same woman is running through Central Park running from a Panther that we never see. Just when it seems like she is done for, a bus pulls up out of nowhere and all of the danger immediately disappears. Any time you see a coed run around a frat house screaming, and she opens a door to an empty room, it is a carbon copy of this moment.

Another interesting aspect of these films is that in many cases the studio would simply give Lewton a title and leave him to figure out the rest. So while I Walked with a Zombie sounds like a modern comedy starring Simon Pegg, Lewton decided to present a cryptic and cerebral story about guilt and human nature.  The Curse of the Cat People is about a small girl struggling to reconcile the difference between reality and childhood fantasy.

Every year hundreds of horror movies are made with even smaller budgets than Val Lewton worked with. Many of them are found footage films like The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity that trade on the fact that they look cheap and “homemade.” What makes Lewton’s work unique is that he refused to settle for generic Halloween schlock and instead made something truly artistic. It makes one wonder if today’s studio system would allow for someone like Val Lewton to take the same risks.

Shotgun Reviews - Week of 10/23/13

Superman #24 - Eddy Barrows rocks it on art. Lois' story arc is interesting but ends on a strange note.
Batman: The Dark Knight #24 - Here we get a very long and drawn-out origin for Clayface. I preferred the treatment he received during Villains Month. This story seemed completely unnecessary.
Catwoman #24 - I have no idea what is going on here. Catwoman is caught up in some kind of sewer gang war but I have no clue when this story takes place.
Talon #12 - The body forms and facial expressions in the art are inconsistent, especially during action beats.
Justice League #24 - That's what I'm talking about! There is a two-page splash that made me fist-pump and cheer.
Aquaman #24 - This issue is mostly exposition. It was written and drawn well but I would have liked to see more action and story development.
The Flash #24 - We get a really strong conclusion to the current storyline.  Every character gets sincere, emotional moments and Manapul's art hits every beat just right.
Larfleeze #4 - Everyone out there complaining that there is no fun in the DCU can find it all hiding in this title. Larfleeze's showdown with the Orange Corps is hysterical. Plus the b-plot provides some great cosmic world-building.
Red Lanterns #24 - This moves the "Lights Out" story forward but the art looks amateurish and needs to be more defined.
Justice League Dark #24 - I love the way J.M. DeMatteis can sneaks in great jokes and is still able to keep a dramatic tone. Mikel Janin's art is as strong as ever.
All-Star Western #24 - This storyline feels too gimmicky. I wish Jonah Hex was back in the Old West.
Teen Titans #24 - A storm of confusing exposition dump ends in an unsatisfying reveal. We get a peak at Kid Flash's backstory but not enough to make this issue worth it.
The Green Team: Teen Trillionaires #5 - Everyone keeps asking the same questions over and over. None of the characters are listening to each other.
DC Universe Vs. Masters of the Universe #2 (of 6) - Keith Giffen and Tony Bedard are not pulling any punches in what could have been a generic crossover. I also enjoy Dexter Soy's quirky art style.
Pretty Deadly #1 - The opening pages are beautiful and the style of storytelling is very original. I got a little lost in the middle but it picked up nicely towards the end.
Velvet #1 - The narration captions are well-written. I love it when you leave a book knowing everything and nothing at the same time. There is a brief essay on Spy novels at the back that is also a great read.

Shotgun Reviews - Week of 10/16/13

It's all DC books this week. Here goes:

Batman / Superman #4 - Interesting use of dueling inner monologues. The ending reflects Bruce and Clark's relationship nicely.
Supergirl #24 - We get more than our fill of explosions and exposition. Diogenes Neves kicks ass on art, giving us storng splash pages and detailed facial expressions.
Batman and Two-Face #24 - The best opening page of the week. We get a look into Two-Face's origin and Batman seems to completely move on from this title's previous arc.
Red Hood and the Outlaws #24 - The art here doesn't seem to have the same personality as previous Red Hood issues.
Batwoman #24 - This story feels too contrived. It is a shame that this is going to be J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman's last issue.
Birds of Prey #24 - I could barely get through this one. The story is way too convoluted and I just don't care about these characters anymore.
Justice League of America #8 - Oooooo... A Labyrinth... I love Labyrinths. Matt Kindt gives us an in-depth psychological look at the League.
Wonder Woman #24 - Oh, political intrigue. Giving writer Brian Azzarello free reign and creative control is the best decision DC has made in the past few years. Artist Goran Sudzuka's style is perfectly suited to fill in for Cliff Chiang.
Justice League of America's Vibe #8 - It's nice to see Amethyst again. We get some cool reveals and a nice setup for the upcoming storyline.
Green Lantern: New Guardians #24 - Lots of pretty colors. Hal Jordan is always wrong, no matter what. I did not see that ending coming.
Animal Man #24 - Rafael Albuquerque draws a gorgeous collage of monsters and animals who are all standing around talking about war. This guy was born to draw The Red.
Trinity of Sin: Pandora #4 - This starts slow with exposition dumps but gets cooking when Vandal Savage shows up.
Trinity of Sin: The Phantom Stranger #12 - Sin Eater sounds like a Hall and Oates song. Writer J.M. DeMatteis has put the Stranger through the ringer lately, but he is still searching for answers.
Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion #1 (of 6) - Bad guys with consciences are always fun. Patrick Zircher's art is very different from Scott Hepburn's and things get confusing but the personalities still shine through.

Review - "Machete Kills"

There have been several films I have heard everyone get excited about over the last few weeks, but the movie that I really wanted to see was Machete Kills. Evidently I was the only one. The Grindhouse sequel squeeked out a measly $3.7 million at the box office and is probably going to be called one of the biggest flops of the year.  Let’s explore why.

The premise of the first Machete was simple. A big Mexican guy (played by Danny Trejo) beats the crap out of a bunch of people in increasing gruesome ways. It was based on a fake trailer that ran with Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse experiment. The weird thing is that none of the movies I have mentioned in this review have been wildly successful, but they keep getting made because Robert Rodriguez literally shoots them in his garage (it’s a really big garage) and works as the Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Composer and Janitor (remember, it’s his garage). What made Machete so appealing was the quirky satire, solid action scenes, a barrage of celebrity cameos, and political commentary that was thinly veiled but not shoved down our throats. It also premiered right around the time of the Arizona ID controversy, so it had some social relevance.

Machete Kills has a more ambitious story with lacking execution. Rodriguez makes Machete less of an outlaw and more of a secret agent. The beginning feels like an early ‘70s James Bond movie with pretty girls running around and a bunch of knife fights and gun fights.  Later on it becomes a fugitive-on-the-run movie and by the end it shifts into a late ‘70s James Bond movie with futuristic technology, people in jumpsuits, and villains who can monologue with the best of them.  There are about a dozen different celebrities who pop in and out of the movie because they just wanted to hang out for a couple of days, chew all the scenery in site, and move on. These characters are fun but the film really needs more Machete. Trejo spends too much time reacting to everybody else and not enough time being proactive and taking the fight to the bad guys. I wanted to see him flex and get angry. I do not remember a single one-liner. That is a problem.

The saddest thing about the failure of Machete Kills is that now it is unlikely that we will get to see the planned sequel, Machete Kills Again… In Space. Doesn’t that sound amazing? Unfortunately, one can only wonder what could have been.