Tag: Storytelling

Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric

2012-09-13, 9:06 pm
Categories: TV

Continuing from Ghost Light; originally posted on Brontoforumus 2008-04-06.

Curse of Fenric makes a fine followup to Ghost Light. It's got vampires, Ragnarok, game theory, cryptography, World War II, sea monsters, time paradoxes, causality loops, and ancient exiled evil.

Most interesting is the "Battle not with monsters lest you become one" theme. I can't recall an American children's show ever uttering the word "Dresden"; hell, I'm hard-pressed even to think of one that actually showed a swastika. Acknowledging that the Allies were far from innocent in the war is powerful stuff for -- what was the expression Sharkey used? -- goofball foreign children's television.

The plot twists are obvious, the characters are simplistic, and all in all it's a lot easier to follow than Ghost Light. But simplicity aside, the characterization is excellent, particularly from the Doctor and Ace during the climax.

All in all, a great mix of elements, well-written and well-acted. I think I'm going to have to agree with the fanboys: it's a pity the show was cancelled just when it was starting to turn around.

Available on Netflix and Amazon Prime; well worth watching.

Great Opening Titles: Gravity Falls

2012-09-12, 8:18 pm
Categories: Announcements, Cartoons, TV

I saw this cartoon getting rave reviews as the latest in the trend of Adventure Time and My Little Pony -- a cartoon for kids with surreal humor that appeals to adults.

It had me at hello.

Hello.

Seriously, it's great. It's funny, it gives an immediate sense of the characters, the atmosphere, and the wacky world. The theme song conveys a sense of mystery and weirdness.

Also: there's a picture of Bat-Boy.

I knew this show was going to be great before the opening titles were over. And that's exactly what opening titles are for.

BTW I've added a little update to the bottom of Monday's Bissette/Ditko post. Bissette's posted a followup which includes some feedback from Craig Yoe, and there's some great insight in the comments besides.

Serenity

2012-09-03, 10:01 pm
Categories: Comics, Movies, Stream of Consciousness, TV

Watched Serenity again. Spoilers for a movie from 2005 follow.

I hadn't actually seen it the full way through since the theater in 2005 -- and that was before I'd watched the series.

It's a decent enough movie, but heavily compromised.

Because Firefly is not a show about big adventures or high stakes. It's a show about a family surviving together.

On that score, Serenity fails. Book and Inara are barely in the damn thing, and the rest of the crew not named Malcolm Reynolds don't fare much better. For a movie that revolves so heavily around River, we get precious little of her as a character -- we see her as sleeper agent, killing machine, and damaged person, but barely a shred of who she actually is. Right at the end of the movie, when Simon and Kaylee are going to bed and River's peeking down at them, not creepy but just a little curious -- that is the most fundamentally River Tam moment in the entire movie. And it's barely there. She's unrecognizable as the same River from the show -- indeed, when I started watching it, I spent most of the series wondering when she was going to start showing off her crazy ninja skills. The answer is "for about three seconds in one episode near the end."

And then there's the MacGuffin.

Speaking of things that are significant in the movie and barely even crop up in the series: the Reavers. They're in two episodes. And yet are fundamental to the plot of the movie.

And the movie revolves around a twist that, really, does not much qualify as a twist.

Was anyone in the audience even remotely surprised to learn that the Alliance created the Reavers? Because, having never watched one single episode of the series at the time, I can honestly say I wasn't.

Indeed, the single most implausible thing in this movie about space smugglers, assassins, and cartoons with subliminal messages activating sleeper agents to flip out and kill everybody is this: two Confederate soldiers are surprised by the existence of a government conspiracy.

Now, here's the thing.

Here on Earth-that-Was, there's a vocal contingent of people who believe that 9/11 was an inside job.

There's a vocal contingent of people who believe that our black President is a Secret Kenyan Muslim -- and yeah, those people are mostly from the region of the country that rebelled against the Federal Government. But they're not veterans themselves, they're people still holding a grudge a hundred and fifty years later.

Hell, the guy from Megadeth is convinced that Obama deliberately orchestrated the shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin as a conspiracy to ban guns.

So yeah, the idea that nobody in the 'verse has ever floated the idea that the Alliance created the Reavers? Never mind faster-than-light travel, artificial gravity on a ship that doesn't rotate, or the sheer number of other ships the Serenity constantly bumps into in deep space -- that's the most implausible thing about this entire mythology.

If anything, Mal and co should have been saying, "Holy shit, those crazy assholes on the Future Internet were right!"

I haven't read much of the followups, post-movie. I picked up the first issue of each of the comic miniseries and couldn't get engaged -- I find it incredibly off-putting when an artist slavishly reproduces the likenesses of actors instead of just drawing the characters.

That said, I thought Serenity: Float Out, by Patton Oswalt and Patric Reynolds, did not commit that sin and was an excellent read. And managed to give a good little send-off for Wash and a little hint of where the story goes next.

I never got around to reading Shepherd's Tale -- it's still on my to-do list; doesn't appear that it ever came out in paperback -- but I do quite like Chris Samnee. I'm told it still doesn't answer the fundamental questions about Book, which is probably for the best; one of the best bits in the movie is where Mal tells Book he'll have to tell his story someday and Book responds that no, he won't.

While Whedon's tendency to leave his biggest mysteries dangling instead of resolving them can be vexing, I think it's good storytelling instinct -- how many stories can you name where a big mystery gets resolved and it's just a disappointment? (For a recent example: that other River, on Doctor Who.)

Similarly, I picked up the first issue of the new Dollhouse miniseries because it was focused on Alpha, and -- spoiler for a TV show from 2010 follows -- the only question dangling at the end of the series that I was interested in finding out the answer to was what happened to him, what made him change. The comic, pointedly, picks up his story after he's already changed, with no explanation.

Joss Whedon, you sneaky bastard.

Maybe we really will get a reunion someday, see what happens next, with the (surviving) cast intact. Whedon's certainly got the money and cachet to do it, since Avengers. But obviously I'm not holding my breath.

Meantime, Nathan Fillion is Castle, and I'm perfectly okay with that.

(Still hoping for that Dr. Horrible sequel, though.)

Happy Birthday, Jack

2012-08-28, 7:54 pm
Categories: Comics, Stream of Consciousness

Image: Orion and Lightray on the rocket, New Gods #6
Scan found at Glass Walking-Stick in a Google Image Search

Today would have been Jack Kirby's 95th birthday.

I think it's safe to say that he was not only the most important figure in the history of superhero comics, but the most important figure in American comics, of any genre.

And according to Mark Evanier's afterword to Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus, Volume 2 (now in paperback!), he drew that page up top in an hour.

Speaking of Evanier, he posted a remembrance today, along with Steve Bissette and countless others. Heidi MacDonald has a great selection of Jack's art, plus a photo of Alan Moore towering over him.

It's also Read Comics in Public Day.

But most importantly of all:

Jack's granddaughter Jillian has started a campaign called Kirby4Heroes, a fundraiser for the Hero Intiative. I've spoken of the Hero Initiative before, but to review: it's a charity that helps support comic book creators who are down on their luck. Unfortunately, there are quite a lot of those; here are some testimonials (including some from folks who are, sadly, no longer with us):

Kirby's legacy is not only as an artist, storyteller, innovator, and Man with Big Ideas -- he worked hard to make sure his fellow creators could make a decent living. Because in the old days many of them didn't -- and, sadly, today many still don't.

Doctor Who: Ghost Light

2012-08-27, 6:06 pm
Categories: TV

Well, by now Who fans have presumably watched the first Pond Life minisode, and the show's coming back on Saturday. So here's another of my old reviews, originally posted on Brontoforumus on 2008-03-28.

The Seventh Doctor era gets a lot of (presumably well-deserved) flack, and some fans blame McCoy and Aldred for the waning quality and ultimate cancellation of the show. Others blame the writers, and Ghost Light seems to vindicate that view, as it shows McCoy and Aldred do a perfectly good job when they have a decent script to work from.

Ghost Light tends a bit toward the confusing and I found myself hitting up Wikipedia to explain what it was I'd just seen when it was over, but that's not necessarily a negative; some of my favorite sci-fi is inscrutable.

It's something of a mishmash of references to such works as The Shining, Pygmalion, and Heart of Darkness, with a dash of Douglas Adams thrown in. But the Victorian haunted-house ambience is suitably creepy, and most of the cast -- creepy housekeeper, insane hunter, lord of the manor who wears glasses indoors, caveman, crazy hooded figure, monstrous angel -- is interesting. The Seventh Doctor comes across as a mysteryman who manipulates Ace to force her to confront fears out of her past, and when he confronts Light in the final act, reminds the audience that he is indeed both ancient and alien. Ace is a far more complex character than most companions in the original series, and paves the way for Rose and Martha to have involved and (sometimes) interesting backstories 15 years later.

All in all, it's better than the Tom Baker/Terry Nation/Douglas Adams Dalek story I watched two weeks ago, and that has to count for something.

$12.99 on Amazon -- worth buying. Or you can stream it -- free if you've got Prime, $1.99 for each episode ($6 total) for a 7-day rental, or, inexplicably, the same price for a purchase.

Doctor Who: Destiny of the Daleks

2012-08-21, 10:06 pm
Categories: TV

Hey, here's another old Who review. Originally posted on Brontoforumus, 2008-03-14. (I guess my last Who review post was a Dalek serial too, but what the hell, that was like 6 weeks ago.)

Destiny of the Daleks is Tom Baker's second and final confrontation with the titular monsters (memo to Rusty: yes, they only did two Dalek stories in eight years), as well as Lalla Ward's first appearance as Romana (she'd played Princess Astra in the previous serial) and the second appearance of Davros.

It's a pretty run-of-the-mill story; by far the best sequences are the creepy, antediluvian ruins of the Dalek city, best used in the end of the second chapter when a cobweb-covered Davros begins to awaken.

It's sort of downhill after that. The creepy aliens of indeterminate race and sex turn out to be bad guys, Davros and the Doctor banter back and forth about their respective philosophies, and the whole thing sort of falls apart in the last chapter where it turns out the two alien races are in a stalemate because their battle computers are evenly matched.

The Daleks' blind obedience to Davros is a pretty radical change; not only have they, over the few hundred years since Genesis of the Daleks, gone from attempting to exterminate him for being inferior to reviving him because he's much smarter than they are, but within the span of two episodes they go from "Self-sacrifice is illogical and therefore impossible" to strapping bombs to themselves on his orders.

And on the subject of logic -- I've noticed more than one fan bellyache about the "Daleks trapped in a logical impasse" element, as that sort of story is much better suited to the Cybermen; Daleks aren't generally depicted as slaves to logic.

For a serial with both Terry Nation (writer) and Douglas Adams (editor) named in the credits, it disappoints. There are a few good Adams-y one-liners in there, but they're far between. As for the "comedy" in the opening segment, Romana's regeneration scene painfully fails to amuse, and of course reminds us that no two writers can agree on how regeneration works anyway.

It's not great, it's not terrible. Rent, don't buy.

Shooting Yourself in the Hoof

2012-08-20, 10:47 pm
Categories: Games, Movies, Stream of Consciousness, TV

You know how a single ill-considered comment can overshadow absolutely everything else you say in an interview?

Well, if you've read the news today you can probably think of a pretty good case-in-point, but that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

Last Thursday I went to a Rifftrax presentation of Manos: The Hands of Fate, which ended with a fan video entitled Take It Easy, Torgo Style which I duly posted here.

The fellow in the video is Rupert Talbot Munch, who runs the site torgolives.com and who is working on an honest-to-God sequel to Manos, featuring as much of the original cast, and their families, as he could find.

The other night I poked around his (turn-of-the-century throwback red-on-black Flash) site and, after a series of dead-end "Coming Soon" links that directed me back to the main page with its autoplay music, eventually ran across a link to a Fangoria interview with Munch.

Now, Munch seems like a neat dude. Clearly he's an über fan; he's got a good costume, a sense of humor, and has shown legitimate dedication in getting the band back together and getting this sequel made. Plus a documentary. Plus...well, this is where everything goes wrong.

And if that wasn't enough, Munch and co. have been busy spiffing up MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE for high definition. "We, the people who represent the original cast and all things MANOS, have been working on the HD restoration for over 14 months," he says. "Recently, some kid who found a print of MANOS at an auction is trying to cash in with the same idea. Myself and Joe Warren do not acknowledge, recognize, or approve of what this kid is doing. In the end, we just ask that the fans hold onto their money and wait for our version. It will include tons of never-before-seen footage, plenty of extras, cast and crew commentary, interviews...plus surprises. And the proceeds will go back to Joe Warren and the MANOS faithful."

Now -- possibly due to how legitimately difficult it is to find the link to this article from the torgolives site -- there are only 5 comments at the bottom of the article. And four of them are eight months old and the fifth is from me. But I do think it's telling that four of them (including mine) are negative responses to that one little paragraph out of the entire article.

Let's back up a bit. The "kid" he's talking about is Ben Solovey, and the restoration project he's talking about is Manos in HD.

Solovey, as Munch notes, got his hands on a work print of Manos and decided to restore it; he wrote about the experience.

Here is a truly independent horror film from the 60′s, a contemporary of 1962′s Carnival of Souls and 1968′s Night of the Living Dead. The main difference being, of course, that those movies came from career filmmakers Herk Harvey and George Romero, who had already made commercials and industrials and knew how a set should be run. Hal Warren, director of Manos, did not have that sort of experience and the deck was truly stacked against him.

[...]

If you yourself have ever been involved in an independent movie, Manos becomes somewhat poignant as you see evidence of the problems that have arisen and have been worked around or willfully ignored. [...] It's all very relatable stuff. And because this is a movie where the artifices of filmmaking are constantly crumbling and being rebuilt, a little shakier every time, it holds a certain fascination to film buffs that places it above worse and more boring films (which there are no shortage of, then or now). Simply put, it's memorable.

[...]

So rather than have Manos fade away as a footnote with only a cruddy video transfer to remember it by, I've resolved to make it a personal project to restore it.

[...]

In addition to making a digital restoration of Manos of sufficient quality to produce a new print or digital projection files, I will be creating a limited run Blu-ray and making the restoration available for repertory screenings. While it remains to be seen if this film is for anything but a niche market, I also feel that if I don't restore it no one else will.

Film restoration is something that too often falls by the wayside in troubled economic times. Though it's doubtful I will change anyone's minds about Manos, I would like to send a message that every film, regardless of the place it holds in movie history, deserves a fair shot to be maintained and presented in the best way possible.

Now does that sound to you like "some kid trying to cash in"?

Because, okay, first of all? If a guy were looking for a get-rich-quick scheme, and he told you he had a plan to release Manos: The Hands of Fate on Blu-Ray...well, look, that's a pretty fucking terrible get-rich-quick scheme, is what I'm getting at.

Yes, Solovey wound up exceeding his Kickstarter goal by some $38,000 -- but he had no idea that was going to happen when he bought the print. Even with the extra money, it's not clear if he's turned a profit or simply put that money back into making the project better than he had originally planned.

Point is, this sounds a lot more like a labor of love, born of a genuine desire to preserve a historical curiosity. And Munch kinda just pissed all over it.

And here's the thing: Manos has a pretty fucking small fanbase. If "fanbase" is even the right word. There is a whole hell of a lot of overlap between Munch's audience and Solovey's audience.

And I can relate to Munch realizing this and being upset -- to him, Solovey is unwelcome, unexpected competition, and threatens not just his bottom line but the exposure of a project that, to him, Joe Warren, and the rest, is also a labor of love.

But dude, one fan dumping on another fan? Very bad form. And incredibly off-putting to the fellow fans who you are trying to convince to buy your product instead of his.

So Mr. Munch, if you're reading this? (Not implausible, really; I'm often surprised by what kind of searches pull this site up.) Here's how I think you should handle it:

"We are aware of Ben Solovey's unofficial restoration project; he is not affiliated with myself, Joe Warren, or the Search for Valley Lodge team. We wish him the best but believe our restored version will be the superior product, as we have access to a higher-quality print, a larger restoration team, and many of the original cast and crew members."

Something like that. Make your case, explain why you think people should buy your version instead of his -- by all means! Nothing wrong with some friendly competition! But don't insult the guy. Don't mock his skill or his motives.

And I also get that Joe Warren may have a sense of ownership over his father's film. That's totally understandable! But the thing is, he doesn't own Manos. Manos belongs to all of us -- and that's not in some fanboy "Star Wars belongs to all of us" sense; Manos is public domain and legally belongs to all of us.

Somebody besides you and Warren wants to restore Manos? He has every right to. Somebody else wants to adapt it as a Zelda 2-style iPhone game? Totally acceptable too. And -- not to put too fine a point on it -- some guys from Minnesota want to put it on a show where a couple of puppets make sarcastic remarks about it? Yeah, that's legal too.

And so while, again, it's totally understandable if Warren has a sense of ownership toward the property, and is miffed when somebody else exploits its public-domain status without his family's blessing -- well, if somebody hadn't exploited its public-domain status without his family's blessing, we wouldn't be having this conversation. If Manos hadn't entered into the public domain and wound up in a box of movies that eventually made their way to Frank Conniff and MST3K, there would be no Manos sequel, no Manos restoration, no Manos documentary -- because nobody would know what the fuck Manos was.

All of this may seem a little harsh, but really, if you ever read this, Mr. Munch, I'd like to repeat that you seem like a cool guy, I love what you're doing, and I look forward to seeing your finished work. I just think you've made a pretty unfortunate misstep on this -- unfortunate enough that it overshadows all the cool stuff you talk about in that interview -- and in the future I'd advise a couple of things:

  1. Remember that Ben Solovey is a fan just like you and me, and just like you and unlike me he has put a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears into making something lasting out of this silly-ass movie.
  2. And dude, seriously, do something about that website.

It-Girl and the Atomics #1

2012-08-17, 6:21 am
Categories: Books, Comics, Games, Stream of Consciousness

Haven't picked up this week's comics; still going through the last two weeks' worth.

It-Girl and the Atomics is a mixed bag, but I think I'll be sticking around.

The trouble, I think, is that Allred fans are spoiled. Mike Allred's lines and Laura Allred's colors feel inseparable from their work -- to the point that I was actually disappointed when Darwyn Cooke would do a fill-in on X-Statix! Darwyn Cooke! And I don't even remember Paul Pope doing one! (I am older and wiser now and one of these days should really get all those old issues out, read through them, and give Cooke and Pope the respect they deserve.)

So this is a Madman spinoff that doesn't have Madman in it and -- the cover aside -- is not written, drawn, or inked by Doc, or colored by Laura. Instead, we've got Jamie Rich writing, Mike Norton on art, and Allen Passalaqua on colors. And, well, it's not Allred but it's not bad.

First, to the art. Norton does a pretty solid job -- I'm not familiar with his previous work, and his best bits make me feel like he's referencing Amanda Conner or Jaime Hernandez (and Dr. Flem bears a certain resemblance to Dr. Venture), but you know, if he's copying then he's picked damn fine people to copy, and if he isn't, then it's still a pretty favorable comparison. Plus he seems to know how to draw women with different body types, which is unfortunately a rarity in superhero comics.

And, in this age of muddy digital inking, it bears adding that Norton's inks look really good.

To the writing, well, some of it's really good and some of it's mediocre, but none of it's bad. The real highlight is the dilemma faced by the Skunk, the small-time supervillain who killed It-Girl's sister. This being a superhero comic, she got better -- so his conviction's been overturned and he's out of prison, but the experience scared him straight and he's doing his best to walk the straight and narrow.

So, a couple of great things about that setup: first of all, "criminal tries to reform but finds it's not so easy" is a classic premise for a story; it's an easy conflict to relate to and gives you an underdog to root for. And second, it's a pleasing bit of metacommentary on the nature of superhero comics -- and fits right in to the oddball world Allred has crafted in Snap City.

So that's the high point. The low point is probably a segment early on where It-Girl is playing an online game and, interrupted, complains that she has to save her settings or someone will steal the shoes she just got.

Jamie, that is not how online games work. That doesn't even make sense.

But, you know, that's my biggest gripe about this issue, and that's small potatoes. Really I think the comic is pretty good, and I expect I'll be back for the next one.

Special bonus comics thought: Godzilla: The Half-Century War: Oh, IDW, you had me at "James Stokoe". But you're telling me this is actually Marvels in the Godzilla universe?! This is the best "something I didn't even know I wanted" revelation since Charles Stross crossed James Bond with HP Lovecraft with Office Space.

Go Ask Alice

2012-08-15, 10:04 pm
Categories: Music

Local boy Alice Cooper talking about how Zappa signed him for his first record. It's an incomplete cell phone clip, recorded in 2010, but it's good stuff.

He's a good storyteller; I catch Nights with Alice Cooper now and again.

Closer Closer

2012-08-15, 7:31 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness, TV

So The Closer ended this past Monday, sort of.

Really it's kinda funny how the entire season built up an arc that could have explained Brenda leaving, and yet the finale felt forced, rushed, and last-minute. Hey, let's resolve the one remaining loose thread and usher her out the door!

The biggest problem with the episode, really, was that it required a villain previously depicted as a criminal mastermind to turn into a complete fucking moron at the last minute. One character even points out, in dialogue, that his actions in this episode don't match the MO established in his previous appearances. This is never resolved, nor explained even a little bit, but I guess it's nice the writers acknowledged the part where it didn't really make any fucking sense based on what had come before.

And then the goodbye felt awfully abrupt. It didn't feel much like an ending at all.

Because it wasn't, really, because it led straight into Major Crimes, which the writers and network have taken great pains to establish is the same show with a new title.

It's not a jumping-on point. It continues directly from the Closer finale, picks up threads from the previous season, and even has Fritz wandering around the office talking to Brenda on the phone and picking up her things for her.

Really, it's a smart move -- a jumping-on point is also a jumping-off point, and TNT made the right decision in trying to reassure its existing viewers that this was still the same show instead of trying to make it appealing to a new audience that may or may not actually exist to tune in on a Monday night in the middle of August.

And if they had given Brenda a big sendoff, well...how many people quit watching The Office after Michael left? I know I didn't watch the last season of Scrubs because My Finale was such a great damn note to end it on.

So Brenda's shown the door, roll credits, show the new titles in the same old font, and life goes on. A fairly savvy bit of television-making, really.