Zombieland: The Movie Review

Posted by Dan as Movie Review, Movies, Video Clips

Zombieland isn’t really the end all be all of zombie horror movies. It probably won’t even go down in history as one of the great masterpieces of the zombie horror sub-genre, but there is a real possibility that it should. It’s a fantastic film that adds a comedic spin to a genre that admittedly lends itself to comedy, but it does it so well that it rises above films like Fido and Shaun of the Dead. It all comes down to the primary actors. There are four (and one special surprise towards the middle of the film) who don’t play the walking dead.

Woody Harrelson is brilliant as Tallahassee. He’s pretty much the dumbass hick character he’s perfected over a score of movies, but he also happens to have a natural talent for killing zombies. He also has a bizarre predilection for Twinkies which becomes a running theme through the film. Harrelson’s comic timing really shines though and he adds depth and a lot of pathos to a character that in less skilled hands would be a hollow caricature. His partner in zombie killing, and the straight man of the piece is Columbus, adeptly played by Jesse Eisenberg. Columbus is pretty much an agoraphobic coward, who has survived thus far by strictly adhering to a self imposed set of rules for survival. Part of the fun of the movie is spotting the places where Columbus’ rules come in to play, something the film uses to brilliant comic effect. Together the two eventually meet up with Wichita and Little Rock played by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin. Their first meeting starts off on the decidedly wrong foot, but being the only humans in the movie, they eventually end up working together, if not entirely trusting each other.

At its core, this movie is a classic buddy movie with the obvious twist that the rest of the world are flesh eating zombies. The characters actually change and grow through the film, and as bits of their respective backgrounds are revealed, we get characters that aren’t just cartoons. The movie is told primarily through Columbus’ first person narrative which has the added bonus of rapidly sucking the viewer into the world on screen. We come to care about these lost survivors of the zombie apocalypse, and as viewers we get to be part of the family. It’s a rare movie that can do that at all, let alone a horror comedy.

Zombieland is a brilliant script by writing partners Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and directed with gusto by first time director Ruben Fleischer. Everything in this movie works together with a brilliant synergy, from the jump cuts to the integration of words into the set foregrounds when the rules come up. The movie runs riot with visual puns and clever background Easter eggs, and I think this will be an essential grab when it comes out on DVD and BluRay. As it is though, it’s well worth multiple viewings at the theater.

The soundtrack is an odd hodge-podge of Country and Rock that works marvelously. The opening credits are set to Metallica’s For Whom The Bell Tolls which is something I always wanted to see happen. There’s also stand out scenes that use Willie Nelson’s Blue Eyes Cryin’ In The Rain and Everybody Wants Some by Van Halen. The soundtrack’s greatest strength is that it enhances the film, rather than running rampant over the top of it, which is a problem with a lot of the horror genre. If you can’t scare them, bludgeon them to death with the music.

Zombieland won’t be winning much of anything in the way of awards, and if you come in looking for anything other than a fun, light, end of summer roller-coaster ride, you will be sorely disappointed. If you’re in the mood for a solidly entertaining, fun movie, and you don’t mind lots of goo and a bit of gore (turns out zombies are pretty juicy) you will definitely enjoy this movie.

Channeling Roger Zelazny

Posted by Dan as Blogcritics, Comics, Graphic Novel Review

I always thought Jack Kirby’s series, The Eternals was a cool idea. The premise was that all intelligent life on Earth was created by gigantic aliens that needed these massive inverse square law violating battle suits to move around. These Celestials accelerated the evolution of the Geico style cavemen that were running around doing whatever it was modern stone-age families did. To protect these newly mutated humans, the Celestials created another race, this time with superpowers, called The Eternals. The Celestials went back into outer space, and as humanity matured, they modeled their gods off the Eternals, and they in turn helped us when we needed it. They kept us safe from harm, functioning as a kind of planetary immune system. It was a cool book. You could tell that Jack loved working on it, but then he always did grand, cosmic themed stories better than anybody.

Kirby’s Eternals series was a hard act to follow, and I was disappointed, but not surprised when the first issue of Neil Gaiman’s restart was just this side of unimpressive. Oh sure, the Romita Jr. artwork was flat out brilliant, but it was the story that initially put me off. It was typical Gaiman, fantasy stepping on reality, but there was something about the way the characters interacted with each other, and the way the plot of that first issue unfolded that bothered me. There was something oddly familiar about the scene where Mark Curry visits Ike in the hospital, after he gets attacked. There was something about the amnesia the main characters were suffering. I’d seen all this before. It took a few days to dawn on me that Gaiman was doing Nine Princes In Amber, something that I really didn’t want to see meshed with The Eternals. Somewhere in the interim that first issue was tossed into a long box and forgotten.

Cut to many months later and I decided that if anyone can effectively pull off a Roger Zelazny story, It’s Neil Gaiman. I put some thought into this book before I bought it, and decided that at its worst it would be like Sammy Hagar replacing the Van Halen brothers with Joe Satriani and Chad Smith, and let’s face it, Chickenfoot put out a great album. Needless to say, I bought it.

Story wise, there are indeed some vague similarities to Roger Zelazny’s work, but once you take in the entire series, you realize that it’s okay. Whether Gaiman channeled Roger Zelazny’s spirit or if it was purely unconscious riffing, the story works, and it’s better than anything Marvel has put out in a long while. I grabbed the hardback edition of this one because I wanted all the extras. It’s like an expanded director’s cut double disc DVD. Not only do you get the complete eight issue series, but you also get Gaiman’s original story proposal, a lengthy interview that Gaiman did for Marvel Spotlight, and a slew of Romita Jr.’s character sketches, as well as the alternate covers for the series. It’s a fine package, and well worth the 30 dollar price tag.

Neil Gaiman does channel Roger Zelazny with this story. While it’s not Nine Princes In Amber, it does have one big similarity in that they are both masterfully told fantasy adventure stories. In retrospect, I think the reason the Eternals series seems so similar is that Jack Kirby’s core concept is close to Zelazny’s. In Gaiman’s extremely skilled hands, the Eternals are given new life and more depth of character than they’ve ever had. He’s even updated them and progressed their story into the post Civil War Marvel Universe. Of all the myriad of Civil War tie-ins we’ve endured, including the Dark Reign follow-up, this one above all others seemed to flow naturally as a part of the story progression. Gaiman is fully able to make the worst intruder imaginable, (the summer mega-crossover) seem like an old friend of the family.

John Romita Jr., the other half of this stellar creative team, absolutely knocks it out of the stratosphere. He updated all the Kirby designs without really deviating too far from the master’s original design concepts. Romita Jr.’s art gets better with each project he takes on, and with this Eternals series, he reached a pinnacle at which his design skills and line work nearly outshone his father’s. He turned in some brilliantly stunning pages on this book that would make both his father and Jack Kirby beam with pride. From the subtle scenes if Icarus always floating about six inches above the floor, to his powerful double page spread of The Dreaming Celestial reawakened, Romita Jr. proves that he’s a prodigious talent that will eventually surpass the master artists that taught him.

The Eternals is well done all around, and most assuredly a must read. In his interview at the back of the book, Neil Gaiman talks about how when he was writing his novel American Gods that he was thinking of his recently deceased friend Roger Zelazny, and how he hoped that he’d written a book Roger would have liked. He goes on to discuss a bit about his new Eternals series and how he hoped he’d written a story that Jack Kirby would have liked. The end result, I think Is a seamless blending of writing and art that both master creators would have treasured.

Building The Perfect Beat: A review of Paul Sizer’s BPM

Posted by Dan as Blogcritics, Comics, Graphic Novel Review

Every person on Earth, every man, woman and child has a soundtrack. We all have that personal set-list that sparks memory triggers both good and bad, and these memories mark different places and events in our lives. Music is with us constantly, from the time our ears develop and we are able to process signal in utero, to the time when we breathe our final rattle. Humanity has one constant in life, music. It’s one of the most important concepts we share as a species, and it has proven itself time and again as a better communication tool than language or mathematics. It’s no wonder that we measure music and the rhythm of the human heart in beats per minute.

Let me narrow this down a bit, by spilling a not-so-secret confidence. Every writer I know, and I highly suspect that you can comfortably make the blanket statement, “every writer”, either hears a soundtrack in his head while he’s writing, or simply listens to music as he writes. Whenever I get the chance to meet a writer one of the questions I always ask is, “Do you listen to music while you write, and if so what?” The answer is always yes. Stephen King listens to rock n roll, the great comics creator Brian Wood listens to indie rock (and is really good about publishing his set lists.) Both Harlan Ellison and Roger Zelazny told me they listen to jazz while they write. When I asked Harlan Ellison the music question, he told me he listens to jazz cranked to 11. He then proceeded to argue with me for about forty-five minutes or so, when I stubbornly refused to admit that Django Reinhardt was a better guitarist than Les Paul. That one ended with him bonking his signing pen off my noggin and cursing me out in Yiddish, great fun. (And just to prove what a mensch Harlan is, he not only let me keep the pen, but he signed for an extra hour so that everybody got their books autographed.) I digress, but it proves my point that music is inexorably tied to the human soul.

Paul Sizer knows this as well as any of us, and with his newest graphic novel he has tapped into that ever-present soundtrack of humanity. Herein, he presents a story of music and how it penetrates the human heart. B.P.M. is the tale of Roxy, a twentysomething working as a DJ on the New York City club scene.

When we first pick up her story, Roxy is at that most dangerous and exciting point in any artist’s career where she’s dancing across the razor’s edge of either breaking big, or giving up for good. We get to follow her through the transition from gifted amateur to professional, as she learns what it takes to become a star DJ. Sizer lays out the track that all young artists must follow to make this transition. As an artist himself he knows all-too-well what you have to give up to succeed, and as readers, we are left with the lingering question of “was it worth it?”

The characters in this story are the most spot-on, fully realized people that Sizer has written to date. Even minor characters who don’t rate much panel time are intriguing to the point that you find yourself wondering about their back stories. The protagonist Roxy is alive on the page, warts and all, as Sizer masterfully weaves her story. The relationships she shares with her friends, her lovers, even her mentors, have the ring of truth. Roxy, like all of us, sometimes makes bad choices. She’s occasionally unfair, and she’s filled with self doubt, but she’s honest, loyal, and a great student. Like the wonderful storyteller he is, Sizer sucks you in to the story, and keeps you dancing with these people until the music finally stops and you walk out into the night, humming a tune and feeling fulfilled for having known these people. B.P.M. is something increasingly rare in the world of comics. It is a story told with passion and fire, filled with the absolute joy of being alive, and an affirmation of how important music is to the human soul.

The artwork on B.P.M. is a bit of a change from Sizer’s usual visuals. He brings his prodigious talents as a graphic designer full force, deftly combining computer enhanced photographs with detailed hand drawn backgrounds. Sizer uses a computerized palette of coloring and visual presentation techniques that are new to his stories. Light smears signify the passing of time, lens flashes in the clubs add depth and realism to his hand drawn artwork. His use of computer drawing techniques enhances his artwork, and detracts not one bit from the story. It’s the first time he’s really cut loose with his graphic design skills, and the pay-off is huge. B.P.M. is a sexy package with a running soundtrack (available on I-tunes, by the way), and it’s wrapped in one of the coolest covers to ever grace a graphic novel.

Sizer has never been one to skimp on extras with his graphic packages, and B.P.M. is no exception. With the addition of his I-tunes set list, he’s created an extended dance mix complete with liner notes, promotional artwork, sketches and research drawings. The whole graphic novel is a delicious feast for the eyes and ears of anyone lucky enough to lose themselves within this world of neon, chrome and concrete. The music tracks aren’t necessary to enjoy the story, but if you listen to them while reading it, taking time to let the songs play through before moving on to the next scene, the story rises to a new level, revealing layers to the narrative that you miss the first time you read it through.

B.P.M. is a unique audio visual package that entertains on every level imaginable. Like the perfect beat underlying a night spent lost within the mixes of a master DJ, the book sticks with you long after you’ve finished reading it. It’s a great read that will appeal to anyone who has ever heard the siren call of music, and that’s everyone on the planet. The perfect beat runs through the hearts and minds of all of us, and it’s measured in Beats Per Minute.

B.P.M.
THE GRAPHIC NOVEL BY PAUL SIZER
ISBN-10# 0-9768565-6-5
ISBN-13# 978-0-9768565-6-6
Diamond Distribution order code: OCT084169

Full color cover and interiors, 96 pages.
$15.99

Beats Per Minute is available online at:
Paul Sizer’s Online Store
Amazon.com
and Barnes & Noble.com
Or better yet, go order it from your local comic book store… and tell ‘em Dan sent ya.

The Oscars – The Pinnacle of the Zeitgeist

Posted by Dan as Uncategorized

The Academy Award of Merit

Every year like clockwork, the air grows thick with the cloying scent of hype. Actors start making the talk show rounds like mad dervishes, and movie studios power-shift their respective media machines into overdrive. Like a six-pack of ephedrine, washed down with a 24oz can of crack-laced Redbull, the Oscar race is everywhere, all invasive, and more than a little disturbing. Like Andy Williams crooned, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.”

You can always tell if a studio is pimping a movie for Oscar contention months before most of the Academy members have even seen the film. It’s the media’s equivalent of setting out the Christmas chotchkies the day after Thanksgiving. The media feeding frenzy continues until just when you’re ready to toss your television out a five story window, the nominees are announced, the Oscar’s host is set, the red carpet is rolled out, and the show begins. It’s not necessarily the most important awards ceremony on the planet, but it’s by far the most popular. Screw the Superbowl, the best television of the year is The Oscars.

That said, I wonder how many of you have actually seen the Movies that win the prestigeous “Academy Award of Merit”? I actually wondered how many I’d seen myself. Since Empire Online was gracious enough to put up its massive web archive of past Best picture Oscar winners, I figured a truncated list was in order with side notes. For those of you at home who want to play along, feel free to post a comment. You don’t even have to redirect to gsn online to do it.

1928 – Wings

- The first Academy Award winner for best picture. I’ve seen wings on TCM and it’s excellent.

1929 – The Broadway Melody

- I’ve seen this and though I love musicals, this film represents poorly. It’s awful. The songs are weak, and the plot is terribly cliche.

1930- All Quiet on the Western Front

-One of the greatest war films ever made. Seen and enjoyed.

1931 – Cimarron

-Based on the famous book by Edna Ferber, Cimarron translated well into film. I’ve seen this, but it’s racist undertone spoils the spectacle for me.

1932 – Grand Hotel

- I’ve seen this movie several times. It’s the template for the grand cavalcade of stars coming together to make a movie. Like the George Clooney Ocean’s 11, Grand Hotel was fun, but not really deserving of an Oscar.

1933 – Cavalcade

- I have never seen this one. Though it looks interesting.

1934 – It Happened One Night

- It’s a little known secret that I love Frank Capra movies, and this is one of the best. Well deserving of the Best Picture Award, and proof positive that Claudette Colbert was one of the sexiest women who ever lived.

1935 – Mutiny on the Bounty

- I’ve seen this movie, and I enjoyed it, but I much prefer the Marlon Brando version. Yes, I know the movie had plot holes you could drive a Semi Truck through, and they threw the historical facts of the story right out the window, but I still claim it’s a much more entertaining movie.

1936 – The Great Ziegfield

- I’ve seen this film and I enjoyed it. I am a sucker for a musical after all, however… Showboat, James Whale’s masterpiece was released the same year as this and it wasn’t even nominated. The first in a long series of shameful Academy snubs.

1937 – The Life of Emile Zola

- Paul Mune kicks out his acting chops portraying the French author Emile Zola. I’ve seen this film several times, and enjoyed it.
1938 – You Can’t Take It With You

- The second Capra film to win a well deserved Best Picture Oscar. It’s one of the best romantic comedies from a man who excelled at the genre.

1939 – Gone With The Wind

-If you haven’t seen this movie, you should stop reading right now, walk… no run to your nearest video store and rent it. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.

1940 – Rebecca

-Alfred Hitchcock sneaks one in under the Academy’s radar. One of the greatest film directors of all time, and he only won the best picture Oscar this once. More shameful Academy behavior.

1941 – How Green Was My Valley

- I love John Ford’s work as much as the next movie watcher. How could you not? I’ve seen this movie many, many times and I love it dearly. However, in no way was it a better film than either Citizen Kane or The Maltese Falcon, both of which it beat out for the Best Picture Oscar that year.

1942 – Mrs. Miniver

-I’ve seen this. It’s okay, but it’s really just a star vehicle for Greer Garson. She’s brilliant, the film, not so much.

1943 – Casablanca

- Please refer to my notes for the 1939 entry…moving on.

1944 – Going My Way

- This is a fun movie that ended up netting Bing Crosby his Best Actor Oscar. So for that I will always have a soft spot for it. I’m not really sure it was worthy of a Best Picture Oscar though.

1945 – The Lost Weekend

- This is a great movie, and notably, Billy Wilder’s first Best Picture win. The Lost weekend is classic film-noir and entertaining any way you look at it.

1946 – The Best Years Of Our Lives

- I haven’t yet seen this.

1947 – A Gentleman’s Agreement

- This was probably the catalyst that resulted in Elia Kazan testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Mr. Kazan subsequently proved that he was spineless and heartless when he decided to give the Congressmen the names of people who were members of the Communist Party with him. They were blacklisted, he was not. Yes, I’ve seen this movie. The man did a horrible thing, but the work he produced was brilliant.

1948 – Hamlet

I’ve seen this several times, and it holds up well with every viewing. A well deserved Best Picture Oscar.

1949 – All The King’s Men

- Based off the Robert Penn Warren novel, this actually translates well. It’s a solid movie, well worth a look.

1950 – All About Eve

- Few things in life are more satisfying than watching Bette Davis and Anne Baxter trade verbal punches in this masterpiece. Obviously the Academy agreed with me because it was nominated for an unprecedented 14 Academy Awards, winning Six.  This record would stand until 1997 when Titanic would win 11 of its 14 nominations.

1951 – An American in Paris

Again, I’m a sucker for musicals. When you combined Gene Kelly’s dancing with Vincinte Minnelli’s penchant for spending money, something wonderful always resulted.

1952 – The Greatest Show on Earth

- If you’re looking for massive grand spectacle, and no plot worth mentioning, this movie is for you. It’s seriously fun, and it definitely entertains, but it was a shoe in for the Oscars, considering everyone in movies worked on the damed thing. Classic DeMille.

1953 – From Here to Eternity

- One of the greatest love scenes ever filmed, and who knew Frank Sinatra could act. An excellent movie, well worth repeated watching.

1954 – On The Waterfront

- How terribly ironic that Elia Kazan won Best Picture for this tale of “naming names”. The director isn’t what sells this film though, it’s Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger’s performances.

1955 – Marty

- What happened to Ernest Borgnine from this to Airwolf? Talk about a long downward career spiral.

1956 – Around The World In 80 Days

- A great movie, brilliantly directed. I actually saw this long after I suffered through the original Casino Royale, and immediately forgave David Niven for his trespasses in the world of James Bond.

1957 – Bridge Over The River Kwai

- A brilliant film, and the most whistleable movie theme song ever.

1958 – Gigi

- More Minnelli madness, and one of the best musicals ever.

1959 – Ben Hur

Charleton Heston at his classic best, and a chariot race that was literally to die for.

1960 – The Apartment

- Billy Wilder finally gets another win under his belt. This dark and gorgeous comedy is one of the greatest films ever made.

1961 – West Side Story

- A classic musical, seen and enjoyed many times.

1962 – Lawrence of Arabia

Peter O’Toole was on the map before this movie, but his portrayal of  T.E. Lawrence, in this grand David Lean epic cemented his reputation as a national treasure for all time.

1963 – Tom Jones

Albert Finney turned down the T.E. Lawrence role for this, and it obviously worked. Tom Jones is lots of fun, and a great movie.

1964 – My Fair Lady

- Not really my favorite adaptation of this classic play, it was just okay. Interesting trivia bit, Julie Andrews was Rex Harrison’s Eliza Doolittle in the stage play, and she was ignored for the role in favor of Audrey Hepburn, who was considered a better box office draw at the time. Oddly enough Julie  beat out Audrey for the best actress award that same year for Mary Poppins, and look what happened in 1965. Anyone willing to take any bets that Dame Julie had a bit of a chip on her shoulder for that little snub?

1965 – The Sound of Music

- Due to its continual airplay on television, I doubt there are many people in the US who haven’t seen and enjoyed this brilliant musical.

1966 – A Man For All Seasons

- This film, loosely based on the life of Sir Thomas More, was a huge box office success. It’s also really excellent filmmaking.

1967 – In The Heat of the Night

-This film was groundbreaking, and resulted in Sidney Poitier uttering one of the most quotable quotes in cinematic history. Seen and enjoyed many times.

1968 – Oliver

- The last of the great Hollywood musicals to win the best picture oscar. It’s excellent, but you can tell the genre is dying. The musical would stay firmly planted in the cultural graveyard until Chicago brought it back for one last zombie shuffle in 2002.

1969 – Midnight Cowboy

- The only X Rated movie to win the best picture award, it was later changed to an R so that it could be released on more screens during its re-release. Interestingly enough, Midnight Cowboy also has one of the most notable quotes in movie history, uttered by Dustin Hoffman.

1970 – Patton

This is one of my favorite movies. It’s not terribly accurate historically, but there’s just something about the way George C. Scott chewed scenery that really makes the film. Rod Steiger was originally offered the title role and turned it down because he didn’t want to “glorify war.” Shortly after he saw the movie he was quoted as admitting, “It was one of the biggest mistakes of my career.”

1971 – The French Connection

The first “action movie” to win the best picture oscar, and one of my favorites.

1972 – The Godfather

- Francis Ford Coppola’s magnum opus, and the best role of Marlon Brando’s career. What’s not to love?

1973 – The Sting

-Putting Paul Newman and Robert Redford together in the same movie was always box office platinum. This time they took home the gold.

1974 – The Godfather Part 2

-Technically speaking, this movie was better than the original, and it absolutely deserved this Oscar win.

1975 – One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

-The movie that put Jack Nicholson on the map, and set the tone of his career for years to come.

1976 – Rocky

- The movie that put Sylvester Stallone on the map, and set the tone of his career for years to come.

1977 – Annie Hall

-I actually sat through a revival showing of this movie at gunpoint. I can’t stand Woody Allen. I don’t find him either charming or funny, and Diane Keaton is neither quirky nor charming. This movie was terrible. I would like to find the person who nominated this and bitch-slap him.

1978 – The Deer Hunter

-The Academy redeems itself with this masterwork. It’s a hard movie to watch, but it’s got brilliant acting, and incredible storytelling.

1979 – Kramer Vs. Kramer

-I didn’t really like this movie, but I cannot fault the wonderful acting by Meril Streep and Dustin Hoffman. It’s a good film, just not my thing I guess.

1980 – Ordinary People

- This movie was terrible, and had no business winning best picture over Raging Bull. Bad Academy, shame on you…PHOOEY!

1981 – Chariots of Fire

- This is one of the greatest sports movies ever made, and a definite best picture.

1982 – Gandhi

- Ben Kingsley gets the role of a lifetime, and the world gets yet another sanitized picture of the great leader.

1983 – Terms of Endearment

- I think this is another case of the movie just not being my cup of tea.

1984 – Amadeus

- A masterpiece of filmmaking, and acting. A work of genius about a genius working, brilliant.

1985 – Out of Africa

-Every so often you come across a movie that sucks about two hours out of your life that you will never get back. That’s how I felt after sitting through this terrible, lumbering brain-dead thing.

1986 – Platoon

- Oliver Stone won the Oscars that should have gone to his other movie released that same year, Salvador.

1987 – The Last Emperor

-A quiet and beautiful movie, it was a total shock that this won the award for best picture. It wasn’t that the movie didn’t deserve it, far from it, but that the Academy picked it.

1988 – Rain Man

-Barry Levinson created a solid film, and proved my theory that Tom Cruise can only act, when faced with excellent actors. These are definitely not my underwear.

1989 – Driving Miss Daisy

-This was a good movie, but not something that I would consider worthy of the Best Picture award.

1990 – Dances With Wolves

-An excellent movie from an unlikely director.

1991 – Silence of the Lambs

-Jonathan Demme created a masterpiece vehicle for his undeniably talented actors. No one will ever look at fava beans the same way ever again.

1992 – Unforgiven

-Clint Eastwood’s elegy to the great hollywood westerns, and a phenomenal movie in its own right.

1993 – Schindler’s List

-Steven Spielberg finally captures that elusive Oscar by caving in and making a Holocaust film. It worked.

1994 – Forrest Gump

-This movie was a triumph of special effects work, but I’m a little iffy about its message. Still, it was entertaining.

1995 – Braveheart

-See my note for the 1990 Best picture winner… moving on.

1996 – The English Patient

-I liked this movie well enough. It’s a solid representation of what you can do when you decide to film “an unfilmable” book.

1997 – Titanic

-Even though we all knew how the movie would end, we all still went to see this movie multiple times. It made more money than The Vatican, and allowed James Cameron to take a 12 year break from directing motion pictures.

1998 – Shakespeare in Love

-I really liked this movie. I’m not really sure what it’s doing here with all these great films, but I liked it well enough.

1999 – American Beauty

- A wierd and beautifully filmed movie with a classic wtf ending. I absolutely loved it.

2000 – Gladiator

-Ridley Scott finally scores a long deserved Oscar with his revival of the classic sword and sandals epic.

2001 – A Beautiful Mind

I haven’t seen this. I’m not sure why, I just kind of ignore it every time I see it.

2002 – Chicago

Rob Marshall’s revival of the big Hollywood musical for one last dance.

2003 – Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

-One Oscar for three movies, oh well, at least they recognized all the work Peter Jackson put in to this project.

2004 – Million Dollar Baby

-I haven’t seen this yet either.

2005 – Crash

-Crash was a wierd and violent film that was absolutely brilliant.

2006 – The Departed

-Scorsese finally gets his long delayed oscar.

2007 – No Country For Old Men

-I know, I’ve been slacking in the last couple years.

2008 – Slumdog Millionaire

-I haven’t seen this yet, but the DVD release is just around the corner.

…and that’s a wrap everybody. How many have you seen?

As we mourn the passing of another great scribe…

Posted by Dan as Movie Review, Uncategorized

Michael Crichton 1942-2008

Michael Crichton passed away today after a long and really clandestine bout with cancer. While he lived, Mr. Crichton was an excellent writer, a solid motion picture director, and one a select few voices that directly resulted in the wide acceptance of the Science Fiction Genre. His books read like tightly plotted, balls-out action movies on paper, and Hollywood ate his stories up like piranhas on a stray Gurnsey. It’s a great and tragic loss for the Science Fiction world, but instead of mourning his passing, let’s remember four decades of solid entertainment in movies, TV, and reads.

The Andromeda Strain 1972

One of the coolest and creepiest Science Fiction movies ever made, The Andromeda Strain is a good example of what happens when the writer of the source material also understands how to write a screenplay. Skip the 2008 remake, this film is one for the ages.

Westworld 1973

Crichton proves he knows how to direct a feature film, and Yul Brynner chews scenery in circles around James Brolin and Richard Benjamin. Westworld is a near future scenario set in an amusement park where the inhabitants are androids programmed to act like old west heroes and villains.

The Terminal Man 1974

I’ve seen this on TV and as far as I know it’s never been released on DVD, which is criminal because the movie is a great study on the whole man vs machine debate… and it stars the always awesome George Segal.

Coma 1978

Coma isn’t really science fiction, but it’s such a cool movie that it bears mention here. Based on Robin Cook’s novel, Crichton wrote the screenplay and Directed this sweetly paranoid medical drama. It’s sort of a precursor to E.R. only gone horribly, horribly awry.

Looker 1981

One of my favorite criminally underated Science Fiction films (which really needs to be a future post), Crichton wrote and directed this little seen gem. It’s got evil corporations, supermodels, James Coburn, Susan Dey, Albert Finney, and of course the L.O.O.K.E.R. gun. What’s not to love?

Runaway 1984

Runaway was a big budget movie, with big name stars and a high profile director, that got stomped into oblivion by a low budget, no stars flick directed by a little known graduate of Roger Corman’s grindhouse whose only real fame at the time was that he’d tried to take his name off the directing credits for Piranha II: The Spawning (you remember the one with the flying piranhas…. oh yeah.)
Really bad luck for Crichton, but Runaway still rocked.

Jurassic Park 1993

The Lost World Jurassic Park 1997

I’ll skip out on Jurassic Park III here because Crichton had little to do with it. The Jurassic Park pictures became a huge moneymaking juggernaut (as Spielberg movies are wont to do) and made us truly believe that dinosaurs could one day walk the Earth again.

Sphere 1998

Sphere was a competent if somewhat rushed Science Fiction thriller. It wasn’t nearly as richly detailed and suspenseful as Crichton’s book, but then what movie ever is. The triple threat of Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson couldn’t save Sphere at the box office, but it’s still a decent movie, well worth anyone’s time.

Timeline 2003

It’s too bad that this movie was devastated at the box office. It’s pretty good, probably not worth the $80mil they spent to make it, but it’s still a decent time travel story.

Michael Crichton told riveting stories that covered relevant issues from a completely humanist perspective. In addition to the above works, he also created Rising Sun and Disclosure, not to mention E.R. He was an auteur that did great things for the Science Fiction genre and he will be greatly missed.

Yes We Can!

Posted by Dan as Politics

Sometimes, the United States surprises me in a good way. Good job America.

My Top 5 List Is Starting To Look Like A Frikkin Necrology!

Posted by Dan as Uncategorized

So I came home from work tonight and Courtney tells me George Carlin died. Fuck!

The really depressing thing is that out of my top 5 favorite comedians, all but one of them are dead. Still, there’s quite a lot of great comics out there so I have hope that my list may one day mutate into something a bit less morbid.

With respect to George Carlin who I never met in real life, but who was always one of my favorite teachers, I prefer not to think of him as dead so much as simply no longer producing new material.

Here’s my Top 5 favorite stand-up comedians, bringin’ the funny as only they can.

Nobody out there is thinking Dennis is looking a little moribund lately are they?

New and Improved with cool stuff… like content!

Posted by Dan as Actual Blogging, Video Clips, music

Yeah, okay, I haven’t updated in a while. Probably just long enough to have to start over with a new reader base. That’s okay though, I never claimed I was a good blogger. I’ve got lots of new essays in the pipe and I’ll start posting them soon. In the meantime, anyone out there who’s still listening chime in and tell me what y’all think of the new digs.

So, Courtney has been obsessively watching and re-watching Kingdom Hospital (like she does). Anyway there’s this cool song called Red Dragon Tattoo that plays several times throughout the show. Never realized that it was by Fountains of Wayne. These are the guys that do Stacy’s Mom, Someone To Love, and Strapped For Cash, the latter two of which are all over alterna-radio right now. I liked this little confluence of epiphanies so much that I just had to go out and buy their newest album. It was a sign from the music gods, you see. Anyway, the new album is cool so far. I’ll post a proper review after I’ve listened through it 10 times. That way, if it’s bad I’ll have built up enough venom to be really entertaining. In the meantime, here’s a quickie acoustic set they did for Capital 106.3 which is the big rock station in Des Moines. Enjoy.

The Art of Juli Adams

Posted by Dan as Actual Blogging, Link Blogging, Promoting

Every year our local arts museum The Hockaday Museum of the Arts sponsors an arts festival in Depot Park. Depot is a small park on Main Street in Kalispell, but they cram it full of potters and statue makers, and crafts makers of all kinds, musicians, and artists… lots of artists. I usually don’t go because the artists, while good, mostly concentrate on the local landscape and the local flora and fauna. I grew up here. I got local flora and fauna coming out my wazoo. If I want to see the local landscape all I have to do is look out the window.

The wife, however, thinks differently. Being the smashingly brilliant lady that she is and coming here from Illinois, she has a whole different level of appreciation for the local artists (not to mention art in general) than I do. So this year she dragged me to the thing, and imagine my surprise when I ran across this brilliant young lady from the Seattle Washington area.

Her name is Juli Adams and she’s a brilliant painter. She also needs to be working in comics (which I gather she is currently not, too bad really.) Her stuff has a definite Slave Labor Graphics vibe to it, and it’s just amazing.

Check out her website at Juli Adams.com.

She also has a blog at The Art of Juli Adams.

And if you have a yen to show some love for this wonderful painter, you can get her prints online at Ladieninscollectibles.com.

As the owners of five cats, we couldn’t resist buying the print pictured at the top of the post. The print is called Showdown, and it captures perfectly that slow build to a hissy fit that all cats go through every so often.

Back from the dead, and ready to party!

Posted by Dan as Blogcritics, Comics, Graphic Novel Review, Link Blogging

So okay, I haven’t really updated this thing in eons, but I haven’t exactly been idle either. Case in point is the new review of the excellent new graphic novel from Big Head Press, The Architect. Written by the great Mike Baron and drawn by artist without peer, Andie Tong, it’s a stellar read and I highly recommend picking up a copy at your earliest convenience.

The review is located here and I think it turned out well. I really like the new magazine style layout of Blogcritics. The site is much easier to navigate than it was.

As a special note to anyone who cares about things like this, yes… I know that’s a picture of The Probability Broach that accompanies the article. I’m pretty sure what happened is that the dingbat BC editor who put the final touches on my review temporarily got all lost and confused when he couldn’t find a product picture of The Architect on Amazon.com, and instead of use an outside source for a picture or maybe… oh, I dunno… NO PICTURE AT ALL!!! He instead used something from the same company. Ah well, irritating to be sure, but not the end of the world I expect.