Just a Few Before We Go.....

The problem with making and posting any "Best of the Year" lists before the true end of the year is the possibility that you'll discover more films that deserve to be on the list. While only one of these films I saw after I posted my Best Films list is really exceptional, I enjoyed all three.

I wasn't aware of it at the time, but I watched three Steven Soderbergh films in as many weeks. (I guess that makes me a Soderboy?) While Haywire is not one of his best films, it was enjoyable on several levels. Sure, it's mainly an action flick with its share of action flick problems, but it was still fun to watch. I especially appreciate the fight scenes: there's no fancy camerawork, lightning-fast cuts or in-your-face shots. Soderbergh just sets up the camera and records the action. Gina Carano may not be the greatest actress, but her fighting and stunts are amazing. (Of course it helps when you're a mixed martial artist.)

Basil Dearden's Victim from 1961 takes on homosexuality in the context of blackmail, a very taboo subject for its time and delivers a pretty good dramatic mystery with some noir elements. If you've never seen any of Dearden's work, you're missing out. Check out the Criterion Collection Eclipse Series 25: Basil Dearden's London Underground for four of his films, all of which are good. 

Finally, there's Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law, a film that I hope to discuss more in a few days. You'll hear some people say that Jarmusch's films are too slow, or that they don't go anywhere, but I would disagree. It's one of those films that may not seem like much while you're watching it, but as you think about it and especially its characters, it starts to open up for you. Wonderful black and white cinematography, too. Again, more on this one later. 

Happy New Year, everyone! 

Stop Making Sense (1984) Jonathan Demme

Stop Making Sense (1984)

Directed by Jonathan Demme

David Byrne - vocals, guitar

Chris Franz - drums

Tina Weymouth - bass

Jerry Harrison - keyboards, guitar

88 min.

Extras:

Commentary by Jonathan Demme and the four band members

1999 Press Conference celebrating the film’s 15th anniversary (just over one hour)

David Byrne Interviews...David Byrne (5 min.)

Montage (3 min.)

Bonus Songs “Cities” (4 min.) and “Big Business/I Zimbra” (8 min.)

Storyboards

Big Suit (text)

Trailer (2 min.)

Previews (6 min.)

Pauline Kael, in her review, said “Stop Making Sense makes wonderful sense.” It does and it doesn’t.

Jack Klugman (1922-2012)

One of my favorite actors, Jack Klugman, passed away today at the age of 90. Most people remember Klugman from the television show The Odd Couple and later, Quincy, but I'll always remember him for his four appearances on The Twilight Zone. (Only Burgess Meredith appeared in as many episodes.)

Klugman appeared in these episodes, all of them good, especially the first:

A Game of Pool

A Passage for Trumpet

Death Ship

In Praise of Pip

The Naked Kiss (1964) - Samuel Fuller

The Naked Kiss (1964) Directed by Samuel Fuller

Black and white, 90 minutes

Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray editions

Special Features and Extras:

Constance Towers interview (28 min.)

The South Bank Show: "Sam Fuller" (32 min.)

Cineastes de notre temps (featuring Fuller discussing film, in English, 24 min.)

Cinema Cinemas (more Fuller discussing his career, in French and English with subtitles, 13 min.)

Theatrical Trailer (2 min.)

24-page booklet 

The Naked Kiss is a strange little film, made even stranger when you consider that it was released in 1964, the same year that gave us Beatlemania, My Fair Lady, and the Ford Mustang. We might consider it somewhat tame today, but for 1964, The Naked Kiss was a shocking, defiant, in-your-face film that dealt with then-taboo topics of prostitution and molestation in a bold, unflinching manner. 

Constance Towers plays Kelly, a prostitute running away from her former pimp after a highly charged opening scene that grabs your attention. Kelly steps off a bus, landing in the small All-American town of Grantville. After spending the night with Griff, a local cop, Kelly decides to go straight, working for a local hospital for handicapped children. Eventually Kelly meets and falls in love with one of the pillars of the community, J.L. Grant, causing great disturbances among the locals. 

Of course the previous paragraph sounds absolutely preposterous. Yet Fuller makes it work, showing the audience the seedy underside of small-town crime and making you believe that Kelly is caught between trying to do the right thing and utter anguish. Most of the time you’re unsure whether you’re witnessing a video tabloid or trapped inside a surreal nightmare. Yet Fuller insists on keeping the viewer focused on this noir-ish low-budget melodrama. The Naked Kiss a strange, nightmarish world that often creeps you out, but it’s nearly impossible to look away. As such, I think of it as a sort of precursor to a later (and much more disturbing) film like Blue Velvet. 

Yet The Naked Kiss is ultimately a film of hope and redemption, even if some of those aspects seem a bit forced at the film’s end. Towers does a great job of pulling off the role of Kelly, one of the strongest female characters I’ve seen from this era of film, but it’s Fuller’s unrelenting refusal to sugar-coat the story that makes The Naked Kiss potent.  

I’ve only seen one other Samuel Fuller film before this, Pickup on South Street, a great noir film from 1953 starring Richard Widmark, but it’s now obvious that I clearly need to see more. Perhaps the Eclipse Series 5: The First Films of Samuel Fuller...  

4/5

Best of 2012 Lists for Your Viewing Pleasure

Thanks largely to my good friend Kelly, here are a few of the Best Films of 2012 lists floating around, many of which are now on DVD or streaming (or still in theaters). Enjoy! 

Sight and Sound

Film Comment

Indiewire

The Village Voice

The New Yorker

And finally, some Great Movies You Might Have Missed from IGN.

Soon this blog will cover only movies and television. More coming in 2013.

The Next Stop

At least for now, the blog has moved to this location.

Movin' Out

This blog will soon be moving to a new location. Stay tuned!

Where Have All the Westerns Gone?

I weed every day. Not outdoors in the yard or garden, but in the library, specifically Adult Fiction. We have a pretty small section of Westerns, as I suspect most libraries do these days. A very dedicated few are keeping that section going, checking out the same 20 or 30 titles over and over. Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour are mainstays with a few Elmer Kelton and Elmore Leonard titles thrown in, but otherwise the Western is dying a slow death.



Maybe you have to have been from an older generation to truly appreciate a Western novel or story. I've only read a handful of Westerns but I saw lots of Western movies as a kid. Maybe that's a generational thing, too. When I was a kid, Gunsmoke was nearing the end of its 20-year run on television. I watched it from time to time, but even as a kid, the show struck me as somewhat sanitized, a little too squeaky-clean for the Old West.



In sharp contrast were the Western movies. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, watching Clint Eastwood as The Man With No Name and some of the more non-traditional Westerns like High Plains Drifter, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and A Fistful of Dynamite. I didn't even know about the earlier tradition of classic Westerns like Stagecoach, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, My Darling Clementine, The Searchers and tons of others.

So I suppose I came to the table after most of the good cards had been dealt. Later I understood the attraction (and sometimes, even, the genius) of the American Western film, even though I largely ignored Western Fiction. Maybe I should make it a point to check out one of those Louis L'Amour books and see what the fuss was all about. Before they're all gone.

The City and the City (2009) - China Miéville

While I confess to never having read a China Miéville novel before The City and the City, I have read a few of his short stories. From those I came away with the sense that one of Miéville’s favorite themes is the uneasy, sometimes foreboding feeling one gets after realizing that the forces in this world that can’t be seen are more unsettling than the ones we can. The City and the City is, in a very fundamental way, about this feeling, but it is so much more.

The novel begins with a detective named Borlú assigned to solve the murder of a young woman in his home city of Beszel. No problem, right? Ah, but Beszel co-exists in the same place as another city, Ul Qoma. The citizens of one city have been trained for generations to ignore or “un-see” anything that might go on in the other city. Each city has its own police force and judicial system, but anyone caught “crossing over” into a place they don’t belong or participating in an activity that would cause one to “recognize” the other city comes under the jurisdiction of the Breach, a powerful entity that seemingly sees all, knows all, and tells nothing.

If it all sounds ludicrous, trust me that Miéville is talented (okay, brilliant) enough to make it all work. Even when Borlú is granted permission to investigate the case in Ul Qoma, I thought the whole thing was going to fall apart, but Miéville clearly has it all figured out in a way that, if you think about it, makes perfect sense.

The easy danger in reading The City and the City is in trying to turn everything into a metaphor. Yes, anyone who’s lived in a city (or even visited one, for that matter) knows that certain people can be ignored or un-seen, that the culture of a city sometimes exists on such behavior, but Miéville is doing far more than tossing metaphors around. He’s showing us ideas, big ideas having to do with philosophy, perception, motivation, manipulation, behavior control, mind control and much more. And, by the way, it’s a darned good detective tale.

The City and the City is a labyrinthine tale that is the ultimate “You can get lost in it” novel. Yet reading it is anything but a frustrating experience. This is the most mind-expanding (and the best) novel I’ve run across this year. There’s a reason it’s been nominated for a long list of awards: it’s stellar. Read it.

Now What?

I've have much more to say about China Miéville's novel The City and the City next time, but for now, I'm in a quandary: The novel is so good and resonated so well with me that just about anything I read after it is bound to be a major disappointment. Maybe the thing to do is read something at the polar opposite of this book, something completely goofy or maybe a short story collection.

So what book(s) have you read that you finished, thinking, "That's it. Nothing will ever top this one!"?

Let Your Dog Organize Your NetFlix Queue

It's early on, but my dog is becoming quite the critic. We've had Broadway a little over a month and he's already making his movie tastes known to us. A couple of nights ago I tried watching Superman Returns. About 20 minutes into it, he started whining, so I stopped the movie and took him outside for a walk.

Last night I watched another hour of the film before I got bored with it. Broadway was way ahead of me. He got off his bed in the basement (in front of the TV) and went upstairs to his much less comfortable blanket.

Yet he stayed with me for every minute of the Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire (1987). (Maybe he picked up some German while he was racing?) I may just put him in charge of my NetFlix queue. I just shouldn't be too surprised if I see Space Buddies show up in the mail one day.

This is How It's Done

It astonishes me in this economy how few businesses get it right. Money is tight and when people do have a little bit that they can spend on entertainment (or anything, for that matter), they want it to count for something. People want to walk into a clean, well-maintained, well-stocked store run by friendly, knowledgeable staff who make you feel special. They want a good experience, they don't want to be intimidated or talked down to or jerked around.

The staff at Third Eye Comics in Annapolis know this. I can't think of any store that I've been in lately that's as well run as Third Eye. The entire store is spotless. Not only that, it's organized and has a natural flow to it. There's no wasted space, yet everything is in plain sight, no books hidden behind books, no stacks of merchandise littering the floor, and not a speck of dirt anywhere.

And these guys and gals know their stuff. On my initial visit, the store manager (one of the friendliest, most engaging guys I've ever met) asked me what type of comics/graphic novels I was interested in, made a few no-pressure suggestions and said to let him know if I had any questions. I did have a few and he answered them expertly.

Well, that can happen in lots of places, right? But the next time I came in, he called me by name, named the titles I'd bought previously and asked how I liked them. He does that every time. And he does it with everybody. The guy's memory is incredible.

During Free Comic Book Day last week, Third Eye was a madhouse. Yet the staff had the day exceptionally well planned out and never looked the least bit stressed or shaken. What was even more impressive was walking into the store this week, just days after FCBD. The shelves were completely restocked with incredible stuff. I remember seeing guys checking out on FCBD with several big ticket items. (I bought a fairly big ticket item myself.) Every one of those items had been reordered and were on the shelf.

These guys know their product. They know customer service. That's why they've been nominated for The Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award, honoring the best comic shops in the world. That's right: in the world.

If you want to see a comic shop done right, heck, if you want to see a business done right, take a drive over to Third Eye Comics.

Books Read April

Hellboy Library Edition Volume 1: Seed of Destruction and Wake the Devil (GN 2008) - Mike Mignola, John Byrne
Thoughts on this collection here.


The Weight of Silence (2009) - Heather Gruenkauf
Thoughts on this novel here.


The Losers, Volumes One and Two (GN 2010) - Andy Diggle, Jock
Why is it that British writers are so good at writing about international espionage? Brit Andy Diggle’s The Losers (also a current movie) is an former elite U.S. Special Forces unit that discovers a nasty C.I.A. secret and is wiped out by the agency. Or so the agency thinks. Violent, clever and often hilarious, The Losers won’t be for everyone, but it just might be for you.


Your Best Body at 40+ (NF 2010) - Jeff Csatari
Having been in my 40s for a few years now, and regretting that I don’t look more like the guy on the front cover, I checked this book out from the library and thought a lot of the advice inside was doable, some with a little work, some with a lot. I’m certainly not on the path to consistency, but after two weeks of implementing just a few of the suggestions in this book, I’ve lost ten pounds and feel great. Good advice on just about all aspects of health, but I think the greatest strength of the book is the section on nutrition.


Get Outta My Face! How to Reach Angry, Unmotivated Teens with Biblical Counsel (NF 2009) - Rick Horne
I read this book as research for the Sunday school class my friend Trip and I are currently teaching. Some really good stuff here for parents who’re just about at the end of their rope. Many of the concepts here also could apply to teaching.


Human Target: Final Cut (GN 2002) - Peter Milligan, Javier Pulido
Sort of a Mission: Impossible type of story: Christopher Chance impersonates his clients in order to keep them safe from those out to kill them. A bit confusing; I had to reread a few sections to make sure I was on the right page (no pun intended). An okay read, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to read more. Also a TV series on Fox.


Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn (GN 2010) - Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Philip Tan
Wow, what a fun book! More thoughts on this one here.


Pure Pleasure: Why Do Christians Feel So Bad about Feeling Good? (NF 2009) - Gary Thomas
The first book finished on the Kindle app. for iPhone. Thomas lets us in on some news that’s really no surprise: Christians (some of them, anyway) don’t know how to have a good time. That statement may offend some, but consider how many Christians you know who rarely smile, laugh or admit to enjoying something legitimately pleasurable. Thomas says it’s time to re-examine pleasure and celebrate it in light of Scripture. An excellent book.


A Beautiful Place to Die (2009) - Malla Nunn
An Edgar Award nominee and my favorite read of the month. In 1952 South Africa, a white police chief of Jacob’s Rest, a small village, is murdered. Detective Emmanuel Cooper is sent in from Johannesburg to investigate. Pressure comes down on Cooper to arrest a black man, but everyone on Cooper’s list of suspects is white. Although the novel sometimes relies on stereotypes, the characters are strong and the amount of racial, social and political tension sustained throughout is impressive. Nunn (who is also a screenwriter) really knows how to tell a story.


Nemesis (2002/2009) - Jo Nesbø
Nesbø’s hero’s name is probably the worst (translation) of any detective in the history of crime fiction: Harry Hole. Translated from the Norwegian, Nemesis is an often compelling hunt for a bank robber who also committed a disturbing murder during the robbery. Hole seeks the help of a hardened criminal in finding the robber/killer while Hole himself is being investigated for another murder. I enjoyed Nemesis, but didn’t have much trouble putting it down from time to time. I don’t really know why that was the case, other than this isn’t the first book in the series and maybe I didn’t know all the backstory required to fully enjoy it. (Once again, the American publishers have decided not to release these novels in their original order. The first two books in the series, The Bat Man and The Cockroaches, haven’t even been translated into English yet.)



Kane, Volume I: Greetings from New Eden (GN 2002) - Paul Grist
Police procedural graphic novel that is intriguing, sometimes funny, sometimes confusing. Grist juggles several story lines at once, yet often uses flashbacks that look no different from action going on in the present. Many of the characters look so similar, it’s often difficult to tell who’s who. Still, worth a look.

That's it for April. Get out there and read something.

What's Your (Guilty) Pleasure?

One of my guilty pleasure is the 70s TV show Sanford and Son. I grew up watching the show as a kid and always laugh at it when it's on, even if it's an episode I've seen a dozen times. (My favorite, which never fails to put me on the floor, is the episode focused on Fred's cigarette-smoking habit.)


I love all the characters: Fred, Lamont, Bubba, Grady, Woody, Rollo, and especially Aunt Esther. Nearly all the episodes end the same way, with Fred's get-rich-quick schemes amounting to nothing, but the characters are always nothing short of hilarious.



So what's your guilty pleasure? It can be anything: a TV show, novel, movie. Anything you're comfortable sharing (and I'm comfortable reading).

Edgar Award Winners and Everything Old is New Again

The Edgar Award winners have been announced! As usual with most awards, I'm more interested in reading the books that didn't win rather than those that did. If you read any of these, chime in.



And now from the "Everything Old Is New Again" category: Yesterday I drove over to a comic shop I hadn't been to in nearly ten years when I sold just about my entire collection of comics. It was a day of mixed emotions: I knew I had to make space in our new house and six long boxes of comics were just taking up too much room. Yet I hated to part with them. Some of them I'd collected since I was twelve years old, Silver-Age Spider-Man comics from as early as #18, Fantastic Four issues from the early #30s and more.

But yesterday I went to pick up comics for Free Comic Book Day at the library. I got in a conversation with the owner, the same guy I'd sold my comics to ten years ago. He remembered me and the transaction. I'll never forget that day ten years ago when I left and he'd said "When you're ready to get back into it (collecting comics), stop on in." I told him that, yes, I am back into it now in a manner of speaking, but I'm mainly buying graphic novels rather than individual comics, since they are much easier to store in bookcases.

"Tell you what," he says. "Any graphic novel you like - take 50% off!"

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, I'm serious."

"Okay."

So I pick up a hardcover edition of Batman: Arkham Asylum, a graphic novel I'd parted with in the collection I'd sold him ten years ago, one that has gone on to become something of a classic.

I left and got to the library and opened the book. I looked at it closely. This graphic novel has been reprinted many times, but this certainly looked like a first edition. Actually it looked like my first edition, the one I'd originally bought in a comic shop in Germantown, Tennessee in 1989 and sold to this guy in 2000. I didn't write my name in books in those days, but I did have a really stupid habit of putting labels carrying my name/address/phone number in the endpages. Sure enough, I saw sticker residue on the front endpage.

This was my graphic novel.

And at half-price it only cost me $12.50.

Let me tell you, it was worth every cent.

Books Bought April

The Skylark (2010) - Peter Straub

I was so zipped up after reading the slimmer version of the same novel A Dark Matter that I ordered the longer (200 pages longer, to be exact) version, The Skylark. Straub never ceases to amaze me. Creepy, supernatural, ultra-well-developed characters and a story you think about for days (or weeks) afterward. More Straub, please.


Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle (2010)

I've never read a Peter S. Beagle story I didn't like. Every time I finish one, I think, "Man, I should read more stuff by this guy." Now I can.


Planetary Vol. 2: The Fourth Man (GN 2001) - Warren Ellis, John Cassaday

The Planetary saga is now complete, but I've only read Volume 1. Time to catch up.


Kane Vol. 1: Greetings from New Eden (GN 2002) - Paul Grist

This book was highly recommended in Kennenburg's 500 Essential Graphic Novels, but I've never encountered anyone who'd read it. I figured since I picked it up at a used bookstore for store credit, it wouldn't exactly send me into depression if it's not all that.


Gregor the Overlander (J-Fic 2003) - Suzanne Collins

Orangerful has lately been singing (well, okay, speaking) the praises of this series and since I really like Collins's writing in The Hunger Games series, picking this one up on store credit was a no-brainer.


Kafka on the Shore (2005) - Haruki Murakami

A World Fantasy Award winner from a few years back. I listened to this one on audio a couple of years ago and was utterly captivated. You can't really talk about plot when discussing Murakami; just hang on and enjoy the surrealistic ride. Store credit - Cost: nada.


Zeroville (2007) - Steve Erickson

My favorite novel from 2007, one I wanted to own as soon as I read it. An ex-seminary student with a tattoo of Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor on his bald head arrives in Hollywood in 1969, obsessed with the movies. A wild ride that I hoped would never end. Can't wait to revisit it. Another store credit "purchase."


Hellboy Library Edition Volume 3: Conqueror Worm and Strange Places (GN 2009) - Mike Mignola

I've been on quite a Hellboy kick lately. I've borrowed the first two library editions from (where else?) the library and enjoyed them enough to know I'd like to own them. This volume came up on a Scratch & Dent sale at Things From Another World at half-price, so that was all the incentive I needed. Mignola rocks.

That's what I bought in April. Really, that's all. At least I think it is. Hey, what's this package on my desk?

Okay, Stop Everything...

That Dan Simmons, he's a wild man. Here's his new novel, Black Hills, about a young Sioux warrior named Paha Sapa, who witnesses the death of General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. Oh, did I mention that Custer's spirit decides to inhabit the Paha's body? And that Paha, later in life, works as a dynamite handler at the site of Mount Rushmore, just as the site is about to be visited by FDR?

For me, this is one of those "Drop everything and read this NOW!" books. Darn that Dan Simmons....

What Book Would You Memorize?

In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Clarisse introduces Montag to an underground society that has kept books and literature alive by memorizing them. My friend D. and I were talking about that scene yesterday between services at church. She wondered if there would be books in heaven. I told her I hoped so. She said if the Fahrenheit 451 scene played itself out in heaven with people memorizing books of the Bible, she'd like to have the Gospel of John. I told her that with my faulty memory, Philemon would probably be all I could handle.

So what book would you want to memorize? Don't let the difficulties of memorization hinder your choice. Just imagine you could memorize any book, but make it one book. Which would you choose? And why?