Everybody's A Critic

It Will Be Mine...

2006-09-22T00:17:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, it will be mine.

http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/790083

After all the toing and froing and will-they-or-won't-they dramas with this collection's release date, this is pretty much the best news ever. And it's not even that expensive! Woo!

For the record, the 13-disc set, which includes the original theatrical cut of 'Superman: The Movie', the 2001 Special Edition of 'Superman: The Movie', the original theatrical cut of 'Superman II', Richard Donner's brand-new cut of 'Superman II', deluxe editions of 'Superman III' and 'Superman IV', the 2-Disc edition of 'Superman Returns', the feature-length documentaries 'Look Up In The Sky' and 'You Will Believe- The Making of a Saga', as well as the classic George Reeves film 'Superman and the Mole Men' and remastered editions of the 1940s Superman cartoons, and a whole shitload of other special features, retails for $169.83.

Which is awesome.

For The Record

2006-09-13T19:58:00.000-07:00

This really has nothing to do with anything, but I haven't posted here much lately and I'd like to have this list I made for a totally different site recorded somewhere for my posterity. It's my favourite comic book writers and artists! Yay for me, and the zero people who care!

Writers
1. Grant Morrison
2. Alan Moore
3. Stan Lee
4. Frank Miller
5. Warren Ellis
6. Bill Finger
7. John Broome
8. Dan Slott
9. Otto Binder
10. Roger Stern

Artists
1. Jack Kirby
2. John Byrne
3. Steve Ditko
4. Frank Quitely
5. John Romita
6. David Mazzuccelli
7. Frank Miller
8. Dave Gibbons
9. Mark Bagley
10. Walt Simonson

Simonson might move up that list, after I read through his run on Fantastic Four that I picked up the other day. Quite a productive shopping trip, really- 66 comics for 100 Australian dollars! Yay!
Now, so this entry isn't a complete waste, here's a funny video.

The Word 'Fantastic' Has Never Been Used So Loosely

2006-09-09T21:18:00.000-07:00

So, awhile ago I was reading about a Fantastic Four movie that was made in the early 90s, and was so bad it was never released. In fact, rumour has it it was never meant to be released, and was filmed only so that the studio responsible could maintain its hold on the Fantastic Four license. My curiousity was well-and-truly piqued, and luckily, youtube is our friend. Here, for your viewing pleasure and/or chagrin, is a scene from the first Fantastic Four movie:

Here's another:

Another, quite quick but equally terrible, clip:

And here's the- quite frankly, truly incomprehensibly awful- trailer:

I know what you're thinking- 'where can I see the entire movie for myself?' Well, to be honest, I don't know. Apparently bootleg copies of it are fairly common, but to be honest, I'm not sure I could bring myself to watch the whole thing.
For that reason, here's the ending:

The Fantastic Four are awesome, though.

Don't Do Drugs, Kids

2006-08-31T06:04:00.000-07:00

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

I have never uttered that phrase more than I did during the two hours of my life I gave over to watching 'Casshern' on DVD. Honestly, I go into the videostore, I see a movie about a super-powered dude fighting giant robots based on a '70s Japanese cartoon, and what can I say? I'm a sucker for that stuff. But this was... not what I was expecting.

It didn't help matters that Rialto has apparently mass-produced a faulty DVD that unintentionally loops a fight scene so that it plays twice (exactly the same way, shot for shot) in the middle of the movie, totally fucking up any semblance of sense the story had been making up to that point. In fact, I'm not even convinced the loop was unintentional... given how coherent the rest of the story was, it was probably a deliberate nod to the repetitive nature of violence, or something.

This is easily one of the best-looking movies I've ever seen. Shot using the same sort of technology that made 'Sin City' and 'Sky Captain' so gorgeous, with a guy with a rocket pack fighting armies of giant robots thrown in for good measure, it's probably best to just watch this movie with the sound off.

The problem is that there isn't really enough robot-fighting. I mean, once I get a taste for that sort of thing, I must have more; but instead 'Casshern' goes off on incomprehensible philosophical tangents that the Wachowski Brothers would be proud of. I was totally down with all the 'trippy' elements of this one at first, even as I realised it must have fuck all to do with the anime it's based on (a quick perusal of the net just then confirmed this), but eventually, one slightly confusing moment led to another until it reached the point where I had no fucking idea what was going on. Which, in a way, is actually pretty cool, but not when it distracts from the guy with the rocket pack.

Seriously, my head still hurts now. A lot. But my god, did it look cool. A part of me wants to give this the worst recommendation possible, another part of me wants to watch it again right now. Not sure which part wins yet.

Snakes On A Motherfuckin' Aussie

2006-08-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

This interview is pretty old, but now that the movie's out, the copy of Scene it was in is off the street and any media embargo has been well and truly lifted, I feel better about putting it here.

When the Australian star of ‘Snakes on a Plane’ talks, you listen. Nathan Phillips Speaks!

“I was being a bit choosy with my first American film. I wanted to make a doozy, I wanted to come out with all guns blazing, you know? I sat down with the director, and he explained that the script was only a blueprint, that Sam Jackson was doing it, and that it was going to be a fun, fun movie. And I mean, you know, it wasn’t a taxing or terribly challenging role. I just had to bring as much life to it as I could and play a happy-go-lucky American guy on a plane full of snakes. Run for the hills! Run for the hills!

“The snakes weren’t too creepy. ‘Wolf Creek’ was creepy, so this was a walk in the park for me. It was funny, because you walk past a make-up trailer and there’s like 250 snakes in there, and they’re behind these little glass cases. What if there really was a pheromone that was let loose in the building and they got aggressive? Could it happen? So yeah, unfortunately nothing like that happened, but in the film it does. They’re still pretty scary when they open up their fangs, but most of the time it was CGI. And, you know, a lot of the time the actors were quite happy to use CGI!

“The Brazilian Boa was great. I’d never seen such an enormous snake, and I got to hold one. It ate people whole, you know. Just to see this ancient reptile that has older brothers and sisters still out in the rainforest, in all their glory, eating little men and llamas, I don’t know… It’s just an amazing specimen of ancient animal. We couldn’t have done it without the snakes, you know. They’re the heroes.

“I learned a lot from Sam (Jackson). Just about dedication and commitment. He was working on another film at the same time, and learning guitar for that film. I was just watching his dedication, and learning that life’s about learning, you know? You never stop, and as you get older you just realise that you don’t know enough about life, and it can continue to be a very rewarding and rich experience even in old age. But hanging out with Sam, you do start dropping the F-Bomb. I grew up with a very beautiful grandmother who would not allow me to be so bad-mouthed. I still look over my shoulder when I drop the F-Bomb, so I had an awkward time on set. It was originally never rated R, so there were no F-Drops. But we went back and did a week of re-shoots to make it a little more like what the fans wanted, and managed to get some into the final edit.

“They had a free marketing campaign, really. They had no test screenings; people’s imaginations were enough. But I don’t look at the internet, so I haven’t really had to deal with the hype. And I don’t tell people I’m in it, because I don’t tell people I’m an actor. Never do that, mate. There’s better things to talk about. But my dad’s gonna love it. It’s fun and lighthearted, it’s everything you’d want from a film called ‘Snakes on a Plane’. And I’m sure there’s gonna be a lot of people cashing in on it, as you said.

“Obviously everybody’s cashing in but me, you’ve made me fully aware of this, thank you. Maybe I should think about it, because I’m planning on having children one day. Maybe you could start up a site for me, ‘How to Help Nathan Cash in on Snakes on a Plane’. So, any ideas? ‘Snakes on a Nathan’, I don’t know… maybe we can find a blog we can do…

“But, you know, the film’s exactly what the director wanted it to be. It’s just a fun, popcorn in the air, screaming, tell-your-girlfriend-to-shut-up-because-I-wanna-watch-the-film-oh-shit-it’s-a-snake kind of film. I’m happy to say it’s a very tongue in cheek, old school film. Unnecessary tit shots, genre stuff... I got it, you know? I got it.”

Wild About Purple

2006-08-28T04:44:00.000-07:00

It's kind of bizarre that I finally got around to watching 'Purple Rain' (after buying it for five bucks or something on DVD) the night before I first listened to Outkast's 'Idlewild', which I quickly realised is basically a circa 2006 model of the exact same thing.

So, anyway, 'Purple Rain'. It's pretty cool, if you're into that sort of thing. I like a lot of Prince's stuff, but this movie is definitely more an artifact of its time than an actual good movie. It's one of those bizarre '80s flicks that's too 'mature' for kids and not really 'mature' enough for adults, and ended up being an absolute mega-smash regardless.

Incidentally, if you think that straight people could never look gayer than they did in the Glam Rock era, or that metrosexualism is some trend that started within the last decade, you need to see this movie.

Basically, it's a lot of fun (despite its slightly awkward lunges towards social relevance and hard-hitting themes) and if there's anyone else out there like me who has somehow never seen it, definitely check it out.

I intended to write an actual, critic-y review of this, but I have stuff to do, so I'll leave you with this video, just to prove Prince is still alive:

Unforgiven Not Forgotten

2006-08-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

'Unforgiven' is one of those movies that I could talk (or write) about all day. I won't right now, because I like to maintain the illusion that I have a life, but trust me, it's right up there as one of a handful of my all-time favourite movies. Having said that, I only got around to buying it on DVD a couple of days ago, hence this review.

This movie is the ultimate western- the final statement on the genre from the man who knew it better than most, Clint Eastwood. The story goes that Eastwood bought the rights to the script sometime in the early '80s, and then hung onto it until he was old enough to play the lead role. Needless to say, his patience paid off... he commands the screen with a degree of pathos and a sense of mortality that was only hinted at in his earlier performances, and was once again on display in 'Million Dollar Baby'.

Of course, credit for the film's genius must go to screenwriter David Webb Peoples ('Blade Runner') as well. There are so many well-developed characters here, each brought to life by brilliant performances from some of cinema's greatest acting talents. For sheer memorability, it's hard to go past Richard Harris' portrayal of English Bob, if only for the immortal line, "...well, why not shoot the President?"

Aside from Harris, there's Gene Hackman's splendidly complex Little Bill, a brutal sherriff with good intentions who protects his jurisdiction of Big Whiskey, Wyoming with what can only be described as excessively excessive force. Morgan Freeman brings his typical air of down-home grandeur to his wonderful role as Eastwood's old partner, and Saul Rubinek, who is usually forgotten in discussions about this film, provides metatextual fun as a journalist prone to writing overly dramatic biographies.

Like the classic westerns that it derives its inspiration from, 'Unforgiven' is not short on laughs despite its heady subject matter. To be honest, I'd forgotten just how many chuckles you can get out of it. After all, it's easy to forget such things in light of the towering dramatic arc that drives the work.

Reflecting its title in every possible way, 'Unforgiven' is the story of a woman hellbent for revenge, even if it means vastly overstating the wrong that was actually committed against her and refusing non-violent settlement; a man unable to ever forgive himself for his sins; and the inherent, unforgiving violence of the harsh Western frontier's last gasps before settling into domesticity. Truly, "deserve's got nothin' to do with it."

A famously laid-back director, Eastwood infuses 'Unforgiven' with an elegaic rythym that lulls you in rather than sending you to sleep, entrancing you with the beauty of its meditative moments before shocking you with staccato bursts of brutality.

After bidding a fitting farewell here to the genre that made him a star, Eastwood continues to make great films across a variety of genres... but this will always be seen as his true masterpiece.

Today's Shameless Plug

2006-08-24T04:06:00.000-07:00

So, be sure to check out this week's edition of Scene Magazine, featuring my interview with 'Snakes on a Plane' star Nathan Phillips, where he tells all about the production of the instant cult classic (that I still haven't seen) in his own words.

Today's 'movie of the day' is the telemovie that marked the debut of the Flash TV series in the very early '90s. Don't be fooled by the tone of the review, I really am looking forward to some of the other episodes in the set.

And following up on yesterday's Transformers post, the box set of the show's third season that I bought the other day is awesome, even if there's a to-be-expected massive drop in quality from the movie. Seriously, anything Marvel's Sunbow Productions did in the '80s, I'm a total whore for.

Flashdance

2006-08-24T03:12:00.000-07:00

Nostalgia is a cruel mistress. Oh, sure, she always speaks highly of you, and focuses on the positives in every situation, but at the end of the day she's just setting you up for a fall.

It was while under the seductive influence of Nostalgia that I recently found myself in posession of the complete 'Flash' television series on DVD. And, well... funnily enough, it's not quite as good as I remembered it.

Now, keep in mind, I'm only talking about the debut telemovie here. I was impressed by the second episode, and may yet be wowed by the 20 episodes to come. But that first telemovie... boy, has my mind been playing tricks on me.

Consider, too, that I couldn't have been any older than five or six when I last saw it, and back then, the idea of a live-action Flash running around was enough to make me oversee any cinematic or televisual sin. Still is, for the most part. So I'm not entirely surprised I had such fond memories of this movie-length premiere.

And, in fairness, there's some cool stuff going on here. It's hard to fault the first hour or so, wherein the Flash gets his powers and discovers how to use them in fairly comedic ways. Why, there's even some sly, Lois & Clark-style superheroic innuendo to laugh along with. And the story behind the costume makes sense, at least until he personalises it.

But my God, do things get seriously wrong-headed in the second half. Am I the only one who thinks a guy running around in a red suit with a lightning bolt insignia isn't intimidating? Am I the only one who thinks that with a Rogues Gallery consisting of guys like Captain Cold, Captain Boomerang, the Trickster and the Mirror Master, there should be a touch of whimsy and a light-hearted charm present here? Was anyone with any taste whatsoever present during the scripting process, when deep and meaningful exchanges from Burton's 'Batman' were stolen wholesale to be used much less effectively in this story?

For that matter, the whole show kind of has the feel of a cash-in on Batman '89. Central City has never looked more like Gotham than it did here, and Danny Elfman and Shirley Walker's music- which I've loved to death elsewhere- come off as recycled left-overs from the 'Batman' recording sessions. Having said that, Walker was given the musical reins of the Batman Animated Series after this show, so for that, it's hard not to be thankful.

Still, this is the freakin' FLASH. It should be FUN. Instead, co-writers Paul De Meo and Danny Bilson take us down the worst kind of forced, grim'n'gritty path. When I was five or six, I probably thought it was kewl that the Flash fought a goth motorcycle gang, so, you know, mission accomplished there. It just doesn't hold up well, not that it was probably supposed to.

Co-producers De Meo and Bilson (possibly most famous these days as the father of OC starlet Rachel) were recently handed the writing reigns of the Flash comic book, and surprise, surprise, it apparently sucks. I'm generally really supportive of everything Dan DiDio has done since he took over at DC Comics... I may not have liked all of it personally, but I have liked a lot of it, and the rest has appealed to a broad section of other readers. But did anyone ever really think that tying the comic into a TV show that got cancelled fifteen years ago was actually going to be successful? Are there really no better writers to handle one of the company's flagship characters?

Okay. So. Rant Over. Way to kick a television show's pilot fifteen years after it went down!

Anyway, like I said, the second episode was surprisingly good, and with Howard Chaykin on the writing staff and Mark Hammil coming up in a couple of episodes as the Trickster, I might end up looking at this as a good retro purchase.

But I have learnt a lesson here, and it is to be wary of Lady Nostalgia. Next time I'm scanning the DVD racks and I happen to catch her gaze, I will look the other way immediately... unless it's the Defenders of the Earth box set, or the second season of Lois & Clark, or about a trillion other things I'm totally going to buy for pure nostalgia value.

Have a Flash intro:

And an intro to a Flash cartoon, which kinda proves why animation rocks by comparison:

Transformer

2006-08-22T18:29:00.000-07:00

For some folks, the '80s were about enjoying the work of Michael Jackson unironically; extolling the virtues of greed; and wearing clothes that they must have known would look ridiculous in a week's time. For me, and many others born in that glorious decade, the '80s was about giant robots.

Which, of course, led me to extoll the virtues of greed in order to convince my parents to buy the toys, and probably licenced clothing that looked ridiculous. I didn't learn to unironically enjoy the work of Mr Jackson until about five years ago.

There's not much point in taking an overly analytical approach to this movie, made after the first two seasons of the hit TV show. There's no deeper meanings, themes or subtexts that bear drawing out here. Well, that isn't entirely true- you could argue that the movie is about the manifest destiny of good's triumph over evil, a point hammered home by Unicron's last words (he was voiced by Orson Welles, who has a way with that sort of thing)- but it isn't really worth the effort, and considering that the theme song famously tells us of the Autobot's imminent victory over the evil Decepticons, it's hardly a subtext.

The Transformers was a great introduction to sci-fi for a kid. It's not the show's fault that the geekier among us never truly let go and moved onto more sophisticated fare. Surely, most of the concepts had been done before, but it was the first time that I encountered planets entirely populated by robots, and, for that matter, a robot capable of transforming into and devouring planets. Among many, many other cool things. God, the Transformers rocked.

And rock, the movie did indeed. There's barely a frame that isn't backed by garish arena rock or overblown synths, as if the film makers were keenly aware that they were making a time capsule for their decade. Vince DiCola's score is firmly imprinted on my brain, to the point where virtually all of his music cues in this film have some sort of meaning for me. Stan Bush (whoever that is) contributed two hilariously bad tracks- Dare and Touch- and I have it on good authority that he still performs them regularly to packed crowds of Transformers Convention-goers. And if I don't have Lion's "rock" version of the Transformers theme on my iPod by the end of the week, I won't be a happy man.

Watching the film 20 years on from its release, it's clear that it was basically just a cynical marketing ploy to sell a bunch of new toys. Hell, a part of me remembers thinking that when I first saw it. But I'll be damned if they didn't do a great job of wringing every last ounce of action and drama out of the changeover to a new generation of Transformers. I suspect that for many people my age or slightly older, the blackened body of Optimus Prime (or, for that matter, all the other Autobots who died before him less famously) served as their version of Bambi's mother, and the transition from Megatron to Galvatron was quite stylish.

Honestly, has there ever been a cooler fight scene than Optimus Prime versus Megatron in 'Transformers: The Movie'? I mean, come on! The two main characters from the TV show get irrepairably fucked up within the opening half hour of the movie! "One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall!" I love it! I swear to God, I had the entire dialogue and choreography of that sequence at my instant mental disposal by the time I was four, tops.

Don't take my word (or your memory) for it, watch it for yourself:

And the fact that, upon taking control of the Matrix of Leadership, Hot Rod's name actually changed from Hot Rod to Roddimus Prime, is AWESOME. It sounds like a jokey nickname (like Azbats) that people on an internet message board might have given him 10 years after the fact, not something that the actual writers of the film would come up with.

I'd love to get nostalgic and say that they don't make films like this anymore, but that's probably not true. The 'kids these days' will probably look back on Spongebob Squarepants and Harry Potter and whatever with the exact same fondness with which I recall the one, the only, 'Transformers: The Movie'... but with the new, live-action movie (which is going to suck: there, I said it) due to hit our screens next year, I get the feeling I won't be the only one getting nostalgic.

And now, as a reward for reading down this far, a treasure trove of YouTube Transformers goodies.

First up, the announcement trailer for the new movie:

The classic intro to the first season of the TV show:

The intro to the second season of the show:

The intro to the third season of the show (the first post-movie, and by far my personal favourite intro):

The intro to the short-lived fourth season:

The intro to 'Transformers 2010', the Japanese version of Transformers Series 3.

A Japanese live-action trailer for 'Transformers 2010':

The intro to 'Transformers: Beast Wars':

I'm not really sure which order the latest series' go in, having never actually watched them, but here's the intro for 'Transformers: Armada':

'Transformers: Energon':

And, finally, what I believe to be the newest series- not too sure about that, but the intro's a lot better than the last two- 'Transformers: Cybertron':

Today's Ramblings

2006-08-21T23:53:00.000-07:00

So, the film under the spotlight today is 'Fingers'. What will it be tomorrow? Let's just say that if I can be bothered watching it before then, that it's beyond good, beyond evil, beyond your wildest imagination...

In unrelated news, I bought the 'Transformers' Volume 4 Box Set today. I don't have any of the others, I just skipped ahead to that one because it was cheap and has my favourite intro from the various seasons. Yes, I know which season had my favourite intro. Yes, that is sad. No, I haven't actually watched an episode since I was in primary school. But it will rock, I tell you!

I also got the box set of 'The Flash' TV show, and will be eagerly devouring it. No, I haven't actually watched an episode of that since primary school either. But it, too, will rock!

Speaking of 'The Flash' TV show, how good is it that 'Lois & Clark' is on DVD now? I finally finished Season 1 last night, and the last couple episodes were good enough to convince me I needed to get the other Seasons eventually. Not that it was ever really in question. The best episodes? 'The Foundling' and 'Barbarians at the Planet', no question.

If anyone on earth has actually read this far down, I salute you. And remember, be here tomorrow... One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall.

Sticky Fingers

2006-08-21T23:19:00.000-07:00

Harvey Keitel divides me. He's one of those performers that exudes an aura of preternatural cool, he's worked with a bunch of great independant directors over a bunch of years to make a bunch of great independant films, and, of course, he's a terrific actor.

And yet... in the quest for that independant cred, he seems to film a lot of pretty bad scenes, and these scenes always end up getting into the finished movies. So, a litmus test example: Keitel's scenes in 'Pulp Fiction' are usually my least favourite parts of the film. If you totally love those scenes, you're probably a bigger Keitel fan than me, so you'll probably like 'Fingers' more than me.

Having said that, 'Fingers' is a pretty great film. Essentially a 90-minute character piece with an interesting gimmick (which was stolen by those cowardly French for last year's 'The Beat My Heart Skipped'), it's the story of Jimmy 'Fingers', an amazingly talented pianist who aims to play at Carnegie Hall, and just happens to moonlight as a vicious debt collector in the meantime. So, kind of like 'Five Easy Pieces', but with more mobsters and more Kietel-isms.

You know what I'm talking about: gratutious dudity; random women unable to resist the man despite the fact that his character is kind of a loser; generally just moments that make for awkward viewing.

Which is the idea, of course. Keitel works with directors who set out to be confronting, and he gives them their money's worth. The overt sexuality isn't really gratuitous either, in the sense that in a film like 'Fingers'- or Scorsese's 'Who's That Knocking At My Door'- Keitel has to convey a barely repressed, primal and violent masculinity with a sensitive side.

In this case, he's doing so under the direction of James Toback, who would go on to make a bigger name for himself as the screenwriter of 'Bugsy'. Unfortunately, Toback is no Scorsese, and so in the sense that 'Fingers' and 'Who's That Knocking At My Door' are comparable- given their similar themes, and their relative chronological proximity in Keitel's career- 'Fingers' is poorer for it.

But there are definitely enough interesting things going on here to justify its viewing. Jimmy's conflict between his job as an enforcer (working for his loan shark dad) and his talent as a musician (seeking the approval of his insane mother) externalises the conflict between the 'masculine' and 'feminine' sides of our personalities, and it is truly sad (in the best tradition of tragedy) to see Jimmy using his fingers to clasp a trigger rather than tinkle the ivories. The music's pretty great, too: Jimmy insists on carrying around a blaring tape player everywhere he goes, which helps to develop his character and provide a pretty sweet diagetic soundtrack at the same time.

'Fingers' is more curio than masterpiece, but it's certainly worth a look if you get your hands on it.

Content Explosion! Woo!

2006-08-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

So, this blog has been fairly bare lately; and aside from that, my writing 'muscles' in general are atrophying a lot with all the 'slacking' I've been doing. So, here now is a promise from me to me: this blog will now have one new film review, in some form or another, posted by me everyday. They don't have to be new films, in fact, they probably won't be, but basically I'll be watching and reviewing one random film everyday. For a little while. Until I get distracted. Which will probably be tomorrow.

The first random film review is posted below- Shaft!- and others will continue. Freakily, I had no idea until I was watching the film that it was written by Ernest Tidyman, who also wrote 'High Plains Drifter', which I fell so completely in love with a few days ago.

I'll also be endeavouring to post weekly comics reviews, semi-regular installments of "Reasons To Buy 'Showcase Presents Superman Family' Vol. 1" and, of course, videos lazily stolen from youtube. Or I could, you know, attend to my university studies. Whichever comes first, really.

Shafted

2006-08-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

'Shaft' is one of those rare films that has both been given a raw deal and been grossly overcelebrated in terms of critical acclaim and pop culture infiltration.

Y'see, 'Shaft' really isn't a fun blaxploitation film. Don't get me wrong: it does have many of the hallmarks of such an enterprise, but in the end Isaac Hayes' classic 'Shaft' theme is a hell of a lot more fun than the film Gordon Parks actually made.

Which isn't to say that 'Shaft' is a bad film. When you think of 'exploitation' films, you normally think of crudely shot efforts by hacks appealing to a certain outrageous genre sensibility. And that's just not what Gordon Parks was about.

From all reports, Parks was a true Renaissance man. Widely considered one of the finest photographers in the world during his time at Life magazine, with his work demonstrating a masterful affinity for gritty urban cityscapes, Parks proved he was equally adept in the art of cinema with his first film, 'The Learning Tree'. The first major studio film directed by an African-American, the film is now preserved for all time in the U.S. National Film Registry.

So it's no surprise that rather than a wham-bam-thank-you-Foxy blaxploitation flick, Parks actually made a stark document of life in early '70s New York. Sure, it has its whimsical elements, but for all the bravado of super-fly Shaft teaming up with a ghetto gangster (played by Moses Gunn, who blatantly steals the film) to take on the mob, there's an almost depressing degree of reality to be seen here.

In fact, Richard Roundtree's John Shaft seems to spend as much time bitching about being black as he does embracing it. Which is obviously understandable, given the era, but probably not what you'd expect from the film given the legend that is 'Shaft'. The more ostentatious elements of what would quickly become a genre seem somewhat dulled here- the women that allegedly flock to Shaft seem fairly plain and are hardly in abundance, and for a hero advertised as being 'Hotter Than Bond and Cooler Than Bullit', there's barely an action sequence to be found until the film's rushed denouement.

This is a worthwhile film to track down for those who haven't seen it; both for what it is and what it isn't: It is a primal yet somewhat fantastical document of its times, but it isn't quite the hilarious period piece that many presume it to be.

'High Plains Drifter' Rules My World

2006-08-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

Seriously. I only saw 'High Plains Drifter' for the first time ever last night, and holy fucking shit. Why was I not made aware of this earlier? Why wasn't I told?

Every single person I have ever met who did not say to me, "Rohan, you should really watch High Plains Drifter," is now officially on notice.

This movie has rocked my world with its radness. Apparently, John Wayne wrote a letter to Clint Eastwood condemning him for making this film, which is awesome. It's a cruel, dark, downright rocksome motherfucker that proves Eastwood peaked as a director about 30 years before conventional wisdom says he did. And it was only the second film he directed!

I am so glad Eastwood's come back into critical acclaim in the last few years, because 'High Plains Drifter' proves how underrated he was for most of his career.

Incidentally, for those who have seen the film: Eastwood says the brother. I'm not buying it.

For those who haven't seen the film: Watch 'High Plains Drifter'. Right now. Drop everything. Are you still here?

That's What I Do. I Carry Things In My Belt.

2006-08-14T20:30:00.000-07:00

I've been kinda sick/busy lately, so my posting here has gotten pretty sporadic. Still, I thought these needed to be seen here:

You can find a stack more of the 'How It Should Have Ended' videos (including an awesome Wonka riff) here.
That is all.

Reasons to Buy 'Showcase Presents Superman Family' #1, or The Rainbow Ice Cube Machine

2006-08-08T19:20:00.001-07:00

Over at Scipio's blog- which is much better than this one, and I swear to God I will get around to adding a bunch more cool blogs such as his to my sidebar eventually- he has an ongoing feature called 'Reasons to Buy Manhunter'.

Well, I'm going to blatantly steal that schtick, except where Scipio provides thoughtful, measured reasons to buy a critically acclaimed book that examines the nature of vigilanteism and pays tribute to the rich heritage of its publishing company, I will be persuading you to buy a black-and-white book about a semi-retarded redhead cub reporter.

Come on... you know you want to. Actually, most people on the blogosphere already have, so this is really directed at an imaginary audience, and possibly Grace.

In 'Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen' #9, reprinted in this volume, perpetual cub reporter Jimmy Olsen tries his hand at becoming a cub inventor, with decidedly Jimmy-esque results. After failed attempts at building a robotic cat (which results in atomic fuel being spilled, which results in a magical hair-growth formula, which... anyway, it's important later on, trust me) Olsen finally strikes it lucky and creates a time radio, capable of picking up great speeches of the past. Seriously. The collected works of Winston Churchill, Mohammed, Jesus, MLK (ok, well, not MLK, it was the '50s), hell, the sounds of dinosaurs and the Big Bang, are all there for Jimmy to listen to.

Of course, he uses it to listen to a jewel heist that happened three days ago. His pal Superman needs clues, y'see. Word gets out that Olsen is using the time radio for this purpose, and the gangsters who commited the crime come to take care of our red-headed hero, just as Supes hoped they would...

You see, Jimmy's time radio didn't actually work. Superman just made him think it did, using Super ventriloquism, for the express purpose of luring three bandits out of hiding.
"Hope my "Lincoln" voice works..."

Oh, and what does Jimmy do when the 'diamond bandits' enter his apartment? Well, there's a pretty sweet single panel in which Superman turns their guns into handcuffs (Curt Swan's artwork is stellar throughout the volume), but more importantly, Jimmy uses the atomic fuel-powered hair growth serum from the start of the story to grow a lustrous red beard and convince them that "he can't be young Jimmy Olsen!"

Genius.

Keep in mind, an earlier story in this very same volume points out that "there is hardly a more ordinary crime than the theft of jewels". Wait'll you see the shit Supes and Jimmy get up to to solve the unusual cases.

Buy 'Showcase Presents Superman Family'.

My faith in humanity is restored

2006-08-08T19:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, it's easy to be down about the general state of the world. I mean, let's face it: most people, most of the time, think that most other people are stupid, and they're probably right. Occasionally though, something will happen that will make you rethink your position on the state of modern civilization.

For me, it was the news that 'Yasmin's Getting Married' has been cancelled after one week, and replaced by 'Futurama'.

Quality animation 1, Mind-numbingly bad reality television 0.

You Know What's Awesome?

2006-07-29T04:43:00.000-07:00

The fact that The Globe Cinema showed Tim Burton's 'Batman' today. Fuck yeah!

The bill actually advertised a double feature of 'Batman Begins' and 'Batman', but for some reason 'Begins' could not be shown, and so it was straight into 'Batman'! Considering I'd watched 'Begins' on DVD literally the day before, and it's absence made for cheaper tickets, I would consider that a comprehensive victory.

Let's get this straight at the outset: chalk it up to nostalgia or bizarre personal preference or whatever, but I realised as I was watching this classic on the big screen that, honest to God, this is my favourite film of all time. You know how when something's always been around, you forget to appreciate it? That must have been what I was doing when I gave 'favourite of all time' status to 'Superman Returns' and 'Spiderman 2', because 'Batman' would win a brawl in a cinematic dark alley with either of them.

From the time the opening credits start rolling, you know you're in for something special. Danny Eflman's opening theme rivals any of John Williams' best efforts, and sets the tone beautifully for the pop dark deco that Burton unleashes onto the screen. Seeing it again in a darkened cinema, I wondered what it must have felt like to have been an audience member in 1989 who only knew Batman from the Adam West TV show or the Superfriends cartoons. It must have been an eye-opening experience, to say the least.

This truly is a dark film, particularly for a Hollywood blockbuster. There seems to have been a time in the 1980s, a time certainly not as well documented as the iconoclastic early-to-mid 1970s, where 'family' films were really allowed to get their hands dirty in a decidely Grimm Brothers sort of way. I'm not sure you could make a 'Batman', a 'Gremlins' or even a 'Robocop' now... studio films have become entirely too sanitised, as sweeping a statement as that is. Of course, the entire premise of Batman and the Joker's rivalry can be seen as a sort of metacommentary on this very topic: the bright and cheery Joker is actually a dangerous maniac, and the dark and brooding Batman is actually a courageous hero. Be careful what you wish for...

The dark world that the characters of 'Batman' inhabit is perfectly realised by Anton Furst, of course. Undeniably, this film is a masterpiece of set design, and the fact that the Gotham of 'Batman Begins' looks so pedestrian by comparison says a lot about the homogenity of modern Hollywood. Certainly, 'Begins' takes place in a more 'realistic' world, but seriously, where's the fun in that?

Speaking of 'Begins' vs Burton... I'm not going to reignite the great Keaton/Bale debate. Keaton is damn impressive here, and we'll leave it at that!

Ultimately, Burton's film works better for me than Nolan's because it is a complete filmic experience. Burton took the basic elements of Kane and Finger's early work on the character and adapted them fairly accurately, but ultimately (probably because he doesn't read comics himself) Burton came at the material with a fresh enough perspective to create an immersive, stand-alone world with a complete operatic story as its centrepiece. In Burton's film, of course the Joker killed Batman's parents, because that's how it would work in an opera. This isn't a film with an eye towards sequels, or mundane believability, this is a film that aims to tell a tragic fairytale with a beginning, a middle and an ending, and it works on every level.

Likewise, unlike Nolan's film, Burton's 'Batman' opeates on these levels without beating you over the head with its themes. 'Begins' is often praised for being a more 'intelligent' film, but you know what? That's just because people are lazy. 'Begins' practically screams at you, "THIS IS A FILM ABOUT FEAR AND JUSTICE AND THE POWER OF MYTHS!", and while it is impressive in the way that all the elements of its larger story feed back into those themes, they are painfully well-telegraphed. 'Batman', on the other hand, deals subtextually with duality in a masterful fashion that informs every aspect of the film without drawing too much attention to itself. Chalk up another victory for Burton.

Anyway, none of this means anything, because growing up with Burton's film kinda willfully blinds me to its flaws, and I actually like 'Begins' a lot. It was just very cool of the Globe to show Burton's film on the big screen, so I'm on a total Burton high right now. I just wish so many goddamn emo kids didn't feel the same way... this must be what it was like to be a Bowie fan who had no interest in glam, or something. Regardless, I've had a pretty perfect day, and what better way to top it off than rambling about an old favourite?

New Hotness

2006-07-20T03:13:00.000-07:00

So, yes. A buncha reviews yesterday, since I haven't posted anything for awhile. A couple of latecomers in there- '16 Blocks' and 'Half Light' came out in America ages ago, we're only just getting them in Australia this week.

The big news in movies today, I suppose, is the alleged casting of Heath Ledger as the Joker. Seriously. Yes, I realise a thousand people have been 'cast' as the Joker in the 'Batman Begins' sequel by now, but this one is (supposedly) for real, and I can really see it working. It's a ballsy choice that fanboys are already objecting to, but I think they're going to be pleasantly surprised. Shades of Keaton, really.

Aside from movies, I've read a couple of really good comics in the last few weeks.

First off, Detective Comics #821, from the new writer/artist team of Paul Dini and J.H. Williams III... yes. THIS is what Batman comics are all about. A complete story, with genuine detective work, solid action and perfect characterisation. A fucking horrible trend in comics since at least the 90's is to introduce a new villain, build them up to be the greatest thing ever, and then spend months if not years teasing out the mystery of their identity and motivations, as our hero strives incompetently to stop them and readers just stop caring.
Dini says: no. In one issue, you see the brand new villain introduced and defeated, with his identity and motivations laid bare. And, because it only took one issue, I'm not sick of him yet, either.

Really, Dini nails it on the first page... it doesn't work so well without Williams' brilliant panel layout, but just this one piece of narration had me freaking out and putting Danny Elfman's 'Batman' theme on repeat on my ipod:
"I hear the soft gurgle of pleasure in the mugger's throat.

I'll turn it into a scream."

Please, Mr. Dini, please, stay on 'Detective Comics' forever.

I enjoyed Kurt Busiek's work on Superman #654 very much, as well. Busiek remembers that Clark is a journalist, damn it, and actually works that into the story. As a journalism student, I was thrilled that Superman has to go to press conferences about city planning, education and retiring judges, even if he was 'multi-tasking' at the time. Kurt makes the Clark/Lois marriage work as well. Not as good as Dini on 'Tec, and not even close to Morrison on All-Star, but I can tell Busiek's run is going to be something I look forward to on a monthly basis.

Finally, Justice League Unlimited #23 was great as well. Yes, it's based on a cartoon. Honestly, that just adds to the charm of it. JLU basically takes every DC character ever, and tells fun, done-in-one stories about them. This issue uses a typical heist by the Royal Flush Gang to tell a story about the common-place nature of heroism, and it hits all the right notes.

I couldn't recommend it any higher, even if it willfully doesn't fall into the "comics aren't for kids anymore! We're sophisticated, and tell grim and gritty stories about men in capes who can fly and see through walls!" line of thinking. Actually, I love it because it doesn't fall into that line of thinking.

Coming up here soon, or at least, you know, within the next two weeks-- a review of the fantastic new Aussie movie 'Footy Legends' and an interview with its director, 2005's Young Australian of the Year and all-around top bloke Khoa Do. Just got off the phone with him an hour or so ago, he's a talented guy with loads of enthusiasm; just an absolute inspiration.

Off to revel in the Brisbane Festival and see the Boat People tonight... then Kate Miller-Heidke on Annabel's birthday on Wednesday! Yay for birthdays!

'My Super Ex-Girlfriend' Review

2006-07-20T02:54:00.000-07:00

This is fun.

That may seem like a no-brainer. Movies are supposed to be fun, aren’t they? It should be a given that a movie will entertain you, but it really isn’t. Occasionally, a movie like ‘My Super Ex-Girlfriend’ should be praised for being exactly what it sets out to be: fun.

There is a simple premise here: boy (Luke Wilson) meets girl (Uma Thurman), girl turns out to be a slightly insane super-heroine, and all hell breaks loose as said insane girl proceeds to make ‘The Break-Up’ look like ‘An Affair to Remember.’ The necessary wallpaper is thrown in too, of course- Anna Farris plays the girl of Wilson’s dreams, Rainn Wilson plays his sleazy best friend and Eddie Izzard is criminally underused as Uma’s arch-nemesis- but basically, this film takes one fun concept and runs with it, making the most of comedic set pieces that lesser directors would kill for.

‘My Super Ex-Girlfriend’ isn’t trying to set you up for a sequel, it’s not trying to cast its lead character as the messiah, it’s not mining any obscure subtext and it’s damn sure not going to win any Oscars. This isn’t ‘that kind’ of movie. This is the director of ‘Stripes’, ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘Kindergarten Cop’ having fun with Luke Wilson, Uma Thurman and a projectile shark, and as far as throwaway entertainment goes, it goes a long way.

'My Super Ex-Girlfriend' is now showing.

'Half Light' Review

2006-07-20T02:45:00.000-07:00

This film reviews itself. Literally.

Early on in this ‘film’, and I use that word tentatively, a failed novelist receives a rejection letter informing him that his book is “insufficiently mysterious for a mystery, and insufficiently thrilling for a thriller.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I won’t. In a nutshell: Demi Moore’s career continues its sad decline, she sees dead people, good guys win, audiences lose.
And we’re done here.

'Half Light' is now showing.

'16 Blocks' Review

2006-07-20T02:33:00.000-07:00

Yippee-ki-yay, motherfuckers, Bruce Willis is back to something approaching his badass best in Richard Donner’s ‘16 Blocks’.

Willis is Detective Jack Mosley, a boozing, balding member of New York’s Finest. Not exactly a glamorous role, but certainly a perfect platform for badassery, as he escorts semi-retarded prisoner Eddie Bunker (Mos Def) from jail to court. It’s only 16 blocks away, but some bad folks don’t want them to make it, and… oh, you can tell for yourself what’s going to happen here.

The inevitable urban warzone our heroes find themselves in gives director Richard Donner (‘Lethal Weapon’) a chance to shine, as he squeezes every possible drop of tension from the proceedings. This comeback to the director’s chair adds to a big year for the Donner family- his ‘70s flicks ‘The Omen’ and ‘Superman’ were given the remake/sequel treatment, his wife produced ‘X3’, and Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx wish they were as cool as Riggs and Murtaugh. Or something.

Funnily enough, this film is at its best when it sticks to what it does best: Bruce Willis shooting and getting shot at. Attempts to tackle heavier topics- police corruption, alcoholism, the question of humanity’s potential for redemption- are admirable, but ill-advised. Nobody is going to see this to gain a better understanding of the human condition, after all. Donner also can’t help but work in a bit of his trademark schmaltz, but not enough to ruin the film, luckily.

If you enjoy the collective works of Mr. Willis, then you’ll enjoy this latest addition to his oeuvre. If you’re not a fan… well, this is awkward.

'16 Blocks' is now showing.

'Solo' Act

2006-07-20T02:31:00.000-07:00

Actor. Musician. Writer. Director. Raconteur. There’s a number of strings in the bow of Morgan O’Neill, Australia’s first winner of Foxtel’s ‘Project Greenlight’, but it was going to take more than archery to make a good flick with his $1 million prize money. For starters, he’d need actors willing to work for award wages…

“Colin Friels invited me round to his place, and the script was sitting on his desk. And it was so well-thumbed, the notes were highlighted in red pen and black pen, and I thought, ‘this is going very well.’ And he said, ‘mate, I love the script, but I can’t do it.’ And I said, ‘mate, to be perfectly honest, I never really thought that you would. Its award wages, and I’m a complete unknown…’, and he said ‘oh, it’s nothing to do with that. I just don’t want to play a crooked cop, I’ve played a crooked cop too many times.’ And I said, ‘oh, oh, we might have our wires crossed, that’s Vince Colosimo, I wanted you to play (main character) Barrett!’ So he said, ‘well, fuck, I’ll do it!’”

With Friels and Colosimo onboard, talented NIDA graduate O’Neill- who has an enthusiastic zeal both for his film and the medium in general, and lists his influences as Scorsese, Tarantino, Ritchie and Eastwood- had only 21 days to shoot his ocker noir, and came across his fair share of obstacles along the way.

“We were constantly coming up against the fact that we didn’t have enough money to do what we needed to do. But I think that actually translated positively to the screen… we had to take a step back and say, ‘is it crucial to the story that we blow up a house? Yes, I think it is.’ So how do we go about doing that without blowing up a house, which would cost a quarter of a million dollars, which is a quarter of our budget? We used something called a Non-Invasive Organic Dust Fireball. When the special effects guy told me about that, I said, I don’t care what that is, let’s use it, it sounds cool!”

Project Greenlight’s investors have nothing to worry about. Rarely have one million cinematic dollars been so well spent.

'Solo' is now showing.

'Solo' Review

2006-07-20T02:29:00.000-07:00

Occasionally a movie comes along that you know, as a ‘critic’, is not a great film, and yet you can’t help but recommend it. ‘Solo’, from first-time director Morgan O’Neill, is one of those films.

The winner of Project Greenlight, a Foxtel show which gives $1 million to a budding filmmaker to make a movie from their winning script (the show originated in the US as an invention of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck), ‘Solo’ is the definition of a crowd pleaser. It’s got everything you’d want from a cops-and-gangsters flick: guns, broads, bullets and booze, a generous dash of jazz and as an added bonus, a decent helping of Colin Friels. Friels plays Barrett, a standover man, who- of course- wants out, and- you guessed it- has to finish off that elusive one last job.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty decent way to spend two hours to me. Surprisingly, Friels isn’t totally convincing as the hard mob enforcer: his attempts to seem menacing occasionally produce an unintentional laugh, especially during seemingly solemn flashbacks to his long haired days as a rookie enforcer, but his performance does suggest the depth essential to his character. Vince Colosimo has a swaggering brilliance as a corrupt cop, and Bojana Novakovic straddles the required line between annoyance and believability as a meddling uni student. Perhaps most importantly, the film looks great, and you’d swear it had cost more than $1 million to produce.

So, yes. A thoroughly decent way to spend two hours. It also feels like a way that you’ve spent two hours many, many times before. But hell, it’s all about that one last time, isn’t it?

'Solo' is now showing.

'Beyond the Sea' Review

2006-07-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

Who knew? Who knew Kevin Spacey had it in him to write, direct and perform in a neo-classic Hollywood musical? Well, anyone who followed his theatre career, I guess, but I didn’t, so allow me this moment of surprise.

This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s a lovably bizarre mess of a movie that revels in the sheer magic of movies and entertainment in general. It’s the sort of movie where you can burst into technicolour song in the middle of a busy street on a crowded day and have everyone sing along. If that sounds too cheesy to you, exit stage right. But if you’re a lover of pop-corn, you’ll find this confection impossible to resist.

Spacey plays pop/rock/jazz singer and Oscar-nominated actor Bobby Darrin with a gusto that reeks of his love for the classic entertainer. The fact that Spacey has such a devotion to Darrin- essentially a large blip on the cultural radar- as opposed to a traditional icon like Sinatra or Presley is a big part of the movie’s charm.

The film only hits one bad note, for mine: for all his talent, Spacey is simply a little too old to play the part. Sure, “memories are like moonbeams”, but that doesn’t make the sight of Kevin Spacey kissing Kate Bosworth any less creepy.

Regardless, this film is a worthy tribute to a time that probably never existed; the inevitable human flaws that got in the way; and the inherent beauty in those flaws.

Rohan Williams

‘Beyond the Sea’ is now showing.

Super-Subcultures

2006-07-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

Since this blog was originally created to study subcultures (yeah, I know... I don't know what happened with that either), I figured I should link to this great post over at Random Panels. What subcultures do fictional characters fall into? If we were to drop by Fictional Character High School, who would be sitting with whom? The groupings seem fairly accurate... Conan is a metalhead, for example. The theory runs into problems because of the whole secret identity motif: is Superboy a nerd or a jock?

It's a fun post, and the subcultural confusion caused by Superboy's secret identity reminded me of the brouhaha over The Advocate's (woefully incorrect, but interesting) interpretation of the subtext of Superman, which in turn reminded me of a Slate article about the apparent homosexual overtones in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Which in turn reminded me of this...

... which is pretty much the best thing ever.

Incidentally, the Slate article's observations regarding Prince Adam's "fabulous secret powers" are neither here nor there, but it's dead-on about how important those sorts of cartoons were to kids in the '80s. Even now that we can recognise them as the crass marketing exercises that they were, it's hard not to hold a soft spot for them.

Snakes On An Aussie

2006-07-11T03:33:00.000-07:00

We've been promoting the near-legendary 'Snakes On A Plane' for awhile at Scene Magazine, and today I interviewed Australian actor Nathan Phillips ('Wolf Creek'), who plays one of two FBI agents in the film. Sam Motherfuckin' Jackson plays the other, of course. I'm not going to post it here for fear of breaking some sort of media embargo, but pick up Scene closer to the film's release date for the full SOAP story. Hooray for shameless promotion!

I found it interesting that Nathan had pretty much missed the whole SOAP phenomenon, since he's been travelling around the world and hasn't been on the internet much since filming wrapped. That makes one of the film's leading actors one of the only people in the world to be blissfully (relatively) unaware of the SOAP legend, which is kinda amusing.

Anyhoo, if you're keen to see the film (come on... you know you are)
drop a line in the comments section and I'll hook you up with tickets to the Scene Presents SOAP screening next month.

Pornstache

2006-07-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

First off, apologies to anyone who was attracted to this entry by the promise of hardcore porn. There won't be any here, unless you count the link at the end. But we'll get to that.

Those who know me know that I am well known for my beard. Over the last year and a bit, this impenatrable fortress of facial hair and my generously flowing locks have become veritable trademarks of mine.

Well, no more! In what can only be described as an act of 'extreme hairdressing', I am now rocking a new and equally amusing style, bestowed upon me by two drunkards with scissors and a razor.

Oh yes, my friends. Traditional hair removal techniques are for women. Real men accept drunken offers/challenges from their friends to let them give you a pornstache at 4 o'clock in the morning. Fortunately, Jared and Josh were up to the mighty task that stood before them. Jared, in particular, may have a professional hairdressing future ahead of him. Sure, upon viewing the many videos and photos that Josh took of the event, it became apparent that I may be lucky to still have two ears and an unslit throat, but by God, who knows what he could have done if he was sober. And just look how excited he was!

Who was I to deny him the fun of holding a razor to my throat while intoxicated? I mean, it's not like he looks crazy or anything. Believe it or not, Jared took to his task with delicate skill, using the electric razor to come up with the shape he wanted without leaving a scratch. Josh then convinced Jared that a close shave was in order...

"You are familiar with the meaning of the word foreboding? As in badness is about to happen, right now?"
And yet, with all the odds and a lot of rum stacked up against us, Jared came through again, removing most of the unsightly stubble, again without a scratch. I mean, damn, I could never even avoid a (more than) occasional nick when I was sober. Well done, J-Rad. From here, they decided something had to be done about my hair. At this point, I looked to the heavens for guidance...

... And the heavens told me that the worst that could happen was a funny story. Which, at first, is exactly what happened. Behold, their early attempts at styling the hair, in photos aptly and succinctly described by Jared as 'gay hair' and 'fag hair':

Fortunately, the boys weren't done yet. As amusing as it was that these new styles made me look kinda like some sort of anime character, it was decided they simply took too much attention away from the focus of the exercise: the pornstache. Here, then, is the highly sensual finished product.

For the record, the inspiration for the pornstache challenge was the 'Miami Vice' teaser trailer. The end result moved a fair way away from that, into a unique pool-cleaning vision all it's own. Of course, once you have been blessed with the facial hair of a '70s porn star, there's only one thing to do with it. Myspace users are advised to have a look at this.

See? I promised you hardcore porn, and I delivered. "I vas not expecting anyvun!"

You may ask yourself at this point, "but how does the pornstache make you feel? What words could possibly convey the majesty of the feeling of the fantastic follicles that lay before my eyes?"
Tell 'em, He-Man.

The Forgotten

2006-07-07T03:15:00.000-07:00

It's no secret round these parts that I loved me some 'Superman Returns'. It had it all: top-notch plot, acting, direction and score; subtle themes perfectly realised. And yet, many critics of the film, particularly amongst the snarky blogosphere, have been left underwhelmed. Some outright hated it. To comics fans who didn't embrace the movie, I have this to say: it could have been a lot worse. Here, then, is the first in a possible series of terrible superhero adaptations from the past.

This, found (of course) on Youtube, is a clip from a pilot for a Justice League TV show that, funnily enough, never aired. I'm only going to show you 36 seconds worth, because it has been scientifically proven that any more than that would make your head explode. And, you know, I couldn't find the rest.

Briefly...
-Apparently, Fire is down with the Prodigy.
-I'm fairly certain they forgot to paint David Ogden Stiers' neck green. Or he's just wearing a mask. Or something. Either way, I think we can agree... it's just wrong.
-Yes, Ice, the unaired Justice League pilot would be a fairly unlikely place to find heroes.

Don't Smoke, Kids

2006-07-06T04:45:00.000-07:00

The following is a public service announcement from slacker Justice League members the Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. If you don't know who they are, then I can't really explain it for you quickly, aside from this: they're awesome.

Ahhh, the wonders of youtube...

'Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story' Review

2006-06-30T23:56:00.000-07:00

Why film an unfilmable novel? Why not just dip into the Dickens back catalogue or something instead? Why? Because you’re Michael Winterbottom, and of course it’s filmable. It just hasn’t been approached from the right direction yet.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. This review has not yet been born. Based on Laurence Sterne’s classic novel, “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman”- described in the film as a ‘post-modern novel before there was any modern to be post about’- Winterbottom and his brilliant cast tackle it with an appropriately post-modern point of view.

Steve Coogan (‘24 Hour Party People’) takes on the triple role of narrator Tristram Shandy, his father Walter Shandy- and himself, in a ‘behind-the-scenes’ framing story that actually takes up more screen time than the adaptation itself. The self-consciously insanely brilliant thing about the whole metafictional exercise is that there’s a distinct order and cohesiveness to the chaos, a connectivity that ensures every element of the film is servicing the themes of Sterne’s novel, even when it appears to be doing no such thing.

This is very much a take it or leave it affair, I guess. It’s clever, but it knows it- much like ‘Adaptation’- and will amaze some people as it bores others to tears, but I’d have to count myself among the amazed.

‘Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story’ is now showing.

'Superman Returns' Review

2006-06-29T21:59:00.000-07:00

How do you describe perfection? How do you critique the realisation of a practically life-long dream while remaining an impartial reviewer?

It might be useful to start with a bit of background. Since the release of 'Superman IV' in 1987, our screens have been devoid of the Man of Steel. After countless scripts (from the likes of Kevin Smith and JJ Abrams), directors (Tim Burton, Brett Ratner, McG) and actors (Nicolas Cage, Ashton freaking Kutcher) had been attached to ill-advised proposals for a new installment in the franchise, it was Bryan Singer ('X2', 'The Usual Suspects') who finally got the ball rolling.

From there, you could move on to talk about the performances. Brandon Routh IS Superman and Clark Kent, despite many people's reservations about casting an unknown actor in such a large part. Because, you know, Christopher Reeve, Dean Cain and George Reeves were so well known before they played Superman. Kate Bosworth is exactly what I want Lois Lane to be- tough, savvy, courageous and caring. James Marsden makes up for his non-showing in 'X3' with a stellar turn as Lois' love interest, and Kevin Spacey is... interesting. His delivery is flatter than Gene Hackman's, but he makes up for that with a startling undertorrent of menace.

You could also attempt to establish your critical credentials by examing the story, rich as it is with subtext and pathos, even if Luthor's plan doesn't really make literal sense. Singer gives us a SuperMAN, one who yearns for the same things as the rest of us, even as all his power keeps him away from them. Never has a superhero film been so achingly poetic and beautiful, not that we don't get our fair share of iconic action as well. The effects are breath-taking, and it's easy to see where the film's record-breaking budget went.

But ultimately, you don't describe perfection, and you don't critique it. You just grin like a little kid and enjoy the movie you've been waiting for as long as you can remember. This is cinema, this is entertainment, at it's finest. It's been said that those who hate Donner's original 'Superman' film will hate this as well. That may be true... but I love Donner's film, I love the comics, I love the cartoons, I love the TV shows, and I can't imagine how anyone couldn't. Naturally, the same goes for the 'Return' of this beloved character.

Rohan's considered, analytical, scholarly review of 'Superman Returns'

2006-06-28T05:52:00.000-07:00

ROCKSOME.

Seriously, this thing is neck-and-neck with 'Spider-Man 2' as my favourite movie ever. David Stratton and any other critics who didn't like it will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

Couldn't have said it any better myself, King Superman.

'All-Star Superman' #4 Review

2006-06-26T22:20:00.000-07:00

The internet well and truly has this one covered. Go here for a pretty great review.

Here, instead, is a quick summary of why you must buy this comic, which is both a stand-alone story and a crucial chapter in the title's overall arc:

-The colours. Kind of an odd place to start doling out praise, but really, the colours jump off the page in this book in a way I've never seen before. Major kudos to colorist Jamie Grant.

-Grant Morrison has a unique form of creative ADD. It's not that he doesn't give his ideas the attention they deserve- he seems to have thoroughly thought everything through- it's that once he starts putting them into the comic, he throws them out there at such a blinding pace that none of them have time to get stale. Incredible. For example, this issue, we're briefly introduced to the Electrokind, alien life forms who communicate optically ("some sentences in this greeting may cause instant blindness") and the Underverse, a "basement level" of "superheavy gravity"- "the dense foundations of reality, where time itself cools to a solid."
Believe it or not, this comic wasn't even the trippiest released last week (that would be Casanova #1) but it has to be right up there. Non-comics readers are missing out on one of the best writers of our time here, I swear to God.

-Frank Quitely's pencils. I admit, I hadn't seen a lot of Quitely's stuff before 'All-Star', but his work on the title so far has blown me away. His slightly off-beat style encapsulates a tremendous range of subtleties, while still finding time for superhero action writ large. Between Morrison's ideas and Quitely's execution, this is a comic worth many, many repeat readings.

Oh, and did I mention that this issue is all about Jimmy Olsen (in pretty much his most likable portrayal ever) tackling an evil Superman? Because it is, and that's awesome right there. To top it all off, we get a heartfelt nod to a Super-friendship that proves that whatever this comic is- kitsch, parody, satire, homage, reinvention or acid trip- it is definitely a masterpiece.

Here's a gorgeous preview of issue 6:

'The Death of Journalism' Take 3,465,078.

2006-06-26T00:22:00.000-07:00

I noticed something in a newsagency the other day that I thought I should share, after my recent 'Smallville' bashing. Believe it or not, there is an official 'Smallville' magazine. And not just a one-off thing, but an honest-to-God, regularly published magazine (this was issue 10). Apparently they fill a magazine every two months with info about 'Smallville'.

How is that possible?

Don't get me wrong. As a journalism student, it's nice to know that the publishing industry is going well enough to support such a magazine. But seriously... how is that possible? A magazine devoted to Superman in general, sure, I could see that working for a little while. And hell, I'd be surprised if there weren't a bunch of regularly published 'Smallville' fanzines around. But for an official 'Smallville' publication to run into double digits is surely unusual.

Incidentally, I've decided my take-it-or-leave-it attitude to 'Smallville' is very much my own fault, not the shows. It means I've become one of those terrible fans who hopes and wishes and dreams that someone will make a television show or something about their favourite character, and then when someone does, greets it with a resounding 'meh'.

But seriously... An official 'Smallville' magazine?

'Superman III': Why?

2006-06-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

'Superman III' is not a good movie. I think I can safely say that without fear of disagreement. However, it's been said that the best sort of criticism is constructive, and while it may be a little too late to offer constructive criticism of a movie that was released 23 years ago, I'm going to give it a shot.
Here, then, in the spirit of the upcoming 'Superman II Director's Cut', are five ways that Richard Lester's 'Superman III' could have been improved:

1. Bring back the classic opening credits
A major problem with this movie is that it gets off on such a bad foot with that abysmal, 'cheeky', 'comedic' montage set in the streets of Metropolis and only vaguely involving Superman. I say this is one instance where less is definitely more. Scrap that sequence altogether and go with the opening credits from the first two 'Superman' flicks- names appearing against a backdrop of space, with John Williams' rousing score (or at least a decent fascimile) playing over the top. Not only would it eliminate one of Lester's unbearable stylistic touches, it would help to more closely connect the movie to the first two.

2. Clark is not a yuppie
In keeping with the 'less is more' theme, the removal of one simple line of dialogue would help a lot: under no circumstances should Clark refer to himself as a 'Metropolis sophisticate', unsure if he could still fit in in Smallville. Just get rid of that one phrase- probably the only bum note Reeve plays in all four films- and even if the movie doesn't get any better, at least it won't bring down Clark's character.

3. Richard Pryor is not a General
This is short and sweet- instead of giving Superman the synthesised Kryptonite via the cringeworthy army general impersonation, why not just pretend to be in trouble and expose Superman to the rock when he comes to help?

4. Red Kryptonite
'Superman III' is frustratingly close to the comics at times, but proceeds to make pointless changes. Rather than 'synthesised' Kryptonite, why not just call it Red Kryptonite? Red K appeared in the comics (and eventually 'Smallville') and has pretty much the same effects.

5. Braniac
Ok, so this movie has an evil Super-Computer. Why not just go all the way, make its sentience more pronounced and call it Braniac? You could really run with the Cronenberg-esque possibilities of this evil techno-tyrant.

See? Those changes wouldn't have been that major, but they're just small things that would probably make a big difference. 'Superman III' isn't that far away from being a good movie. I mean, here's five things that were good about it:

1. Lana Lang
Annette O'Toole was perfectly cast as Clark's childhood sweetheart, and made a fine replacement for Lois Lane (Margot Kidder appeared in only two scenes, because she didn't want to work with Lester). Unlike Lois, Lana was more interested in Clark than Superman, which in turn gave Reeve's portrayal of Clark another chance to shine. Incidentally, thank God 'Smallville' isn't a prequel to these movies, or there'd be some serious Oedipal conflict going on there.

2. Evil Superman
A good concept buried in a shitty movie. I love that Superman's idea of being 'Evil' involves blowing out the Olympic Flame. You Super-Prankster, you. And the junkyard confrontation between the two halves of Superman's Kryptonite-affected psyche is brilliant.

3. Robert Vaughn
I know I'm going against critical opinion here, but c'mon- Vaughn was a fun Lex Luthor stand-in, in an incredibly cheesy, absurdist sort of way. There's a very thin line between Ross Webster and Vaughn's character in 'Baseketball', and I see that as a good thing.

4. Jimmy Olsen
Jimmy finally got a chance to do something... Jimmy-ish in this movie, as opposed to the first two. When Jimmy makes the ill-advised decision to run into the inferno and prove his worth as a photographer, the fact that Mark McLure was probably too old to play the part ceased to matter.

5. Ummmm....
Maybe five was a little bit optimistic, but you get the idea.

Just Like The First Time

2006-06-24T01:58:00.000-07:00

'Superman Week' takes a lie-down for a minute to bring you this message...
With 'Over The Hedge' being released last week and featuring the voice talents of Steve Carell, this seemed like as good an excuse as any to drag this interview I did with Steve last year for 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin' out of mothballs.

‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ is Steve Carell’s first time. Yes, that’s right- it’s his first time headlining and co-writing a feature film. But the man known for short bursts of scene stealing brilliance in ‘Anchorman’ and the sublime ‘The Daily Show’ has proven he has the stamina to take on the challenge. He’s good… and I mean really good, although that hasn’t always been the case.

“My first time was not unlike, I would say, 99% of the world’s population’s first time. Which means it was terrible, and awkward, and unexciting”, says the poster boy for virginity. “It was probably the most unforgettable, and yet forgettable, experience I’ve ever had.”

Carell believes the story of ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ has universal appeal because “everyone was at one point a virgin.” But his film is not a straightforward sex comedy, as Steve’s character Andy Stitzer turns out to be one of the sweetest characters to grace the silver screen.

“I would call it the raunchiest romantic comedy, or the most romantic raunchy comedy, of the year. We were trying to split the difference. We wanted to make a comedy that was sort of bawdy and ribald, if you will, but one that also had a heart.”

The sheer amount of heart on display in the film has led to a surprising amount of support for the film, even from the morally uptight groups that typically oppose R-rated comedies. “We’ve actually been receiving support from, as you put it, ‘morally uptight groups’, that weren’t the sort of groups generally that tend to like or support movies like this… Ultimately, the theme of the movie and moral is that true love conquers all and that sex itself isn’t that important, and isn’t the overriding concern to this character.”

Some of the things that are an overriding concern to Andy are the action figures, comic books and other collectibles filling up his apartment; an impressive, expensive and time-consuming bit of set design. And although Steve doesn’t share this concern- “The only action figure I ever had was a G.I. Joe… and I blew him up with a firecracker”- he believes Andy is a character that people can relate to and sympathise with, something that he and co-writer and director Judd Apatow believed was absolutely essential.

“We discussed tone a lot when we first started concocting the idea. We decided we wanted it to exist in more of a reality than a completely broad farce. We wanted this character to be more real than anything else. Because we felt that, if you put a real character in sort of an absurd situation, that would inherently be funnier than if it’s a broader character. We wanted people to identify with the characters.”

All this talk of realism is odd coming from Carell and Apatow, the co-star and producer, respectively, of ‘Anchorman’, not exactly a film know for a neo-realist approach to the art of cinema. But ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ is an altogether different beast.

“We didn’t want this character to exist in some sort of fantasy world, we wanted him to be a relatable guy and a person that could conceivably exist in the world. So we read a bunch of case-studies on middle-aged virginity and we went into chat rooms online, and talked to people who were virgins, and we found that the people were all like this character, Andy Stitzer. They had, for one reason or another, just not had sex. They’d missed out on some opportunities, and they weren’t weird, or damaged, or odd in any way, they were just normal people who were going about their lives, who had this one aspect missing. And that’s how we wanted to portray the character Andy, as not some sort of creep, and not a stereotype, but just a real guy who sort of missed out.”

Andy’s secret is exposed during a poker game with his workmates, played by Seth Rogen, Romany Malco and fellow ‘Anchorman’ alum Paul Rudd. Considering these actor’s familiarity and improvisational backgrounds, it’s easy to assume that the atmosphere on the set was one of four friends, laughing, having a good time.

“Well, I think the danger is that if you put four friends in a room and improvise, that you end up with an absolute mess of a movie… That being said, we allowed for a lot of improvisation within the scripted pieces. It was all very well-structured, but we allowed the actors, and encouraged the actors, to put things in their own words, and make it more conversational. We didn’t want any part of it to sound like dialogue; we wanted it to sound real and organic.”

Though ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ was Steve’s original idea, he’s not averse to starring in the odd remake, as his roles in ‘The Office’, ‘Bewitched’, and the upcoming ‘Get Smart’ prove. When asked which sort of work he prefers- creating an original character or re-imagining an older one- he answers in his best ‘Daily Show’ deadpan tone: “I prefer working when I’m being paid. That’s really what it comes down to. I will clearly do anything for money. And I’m very good that way.”

That can only be seen as good news for Carell fans left wanting more, in the best possible way; who hope that ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ represents Steve’s first, but certainly not last, step into Hollywood superstardom.

Super-Monkey Business

2006-06-24T01:23:00.000-07:00

Firstly, I apologise for the title of this post. Secondly, this is the synopsis on the DVD box for the fifth episode of 'Adventures of Superman- The First Season', the 1950s George Reeves TV show:

"Searching for stolen defense secrets, Clark Kent encounters a brutalised woman, a slain organ-grinder- and a monkey dressed as Superman."

That, my friends, is the definition of 'awesome'. In fact, I don't think I could associate with anyone who didn't think so. From now on, when I meet people, rather than introduce myself by name, I will simply shake their hand and declare, apropos of nothing, "While searching for stolen defense secrets, Clark Kent encounters a brutalised woman, a slain organ-grinder- (dramatic pause) and a monkey dressed as Superman."

If their reaction is something akin to "DUDE, THAT IS AWESOME!", then we will be friends. If they stare blankly, then I will have to learn to coexist with them in this crazy mixed-up world of ours, but secretly... secretly, I will despise them.

The episode itself? Well, it delivers, of course. If anything, it's even more awesome than that description implies, because Jimmy 'semi-functional retard' Olsen throws down with a gangster while trying to rescue said monkey. Oh, and did I mention there were Eastern-European Communists involved? Because there are.

The series has been stellar so far, although I seem to be stuck on this episode- I've watched it a couple of times already, although episode six, 'A Night of Terror', does beckon loudly with it's promise of Jimmy Olsen being exectued by a sadistic criminal. Now, I know he won't be executed, but I can dream, can't I?

Just kidding, Jim. I could never stay mad at you.

Images taken from the awesome Superman Homepage.

Super Vision

2006-06-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

'Superman Week' continues!
I've been hearing vague whispers about a Superman DVD box set coming out at the end of this year. I've looked around the interwebs, but so far it still seems reasonably hush-hush.

For starters, Warner Bros. seems to be getting into the spirit of 'Superman Returns'. This site provides information about their plethora of Super-related releases for 2006, including a 'Superman Collection' and something called 'The Superman Ultimate Collector's Edition.'
Superman? Ultimate? Collector's? I'm in.

The Warner's site also speaks of a 'Superman II: TVYNS (The Richard Donner Cut)'. I think the 'TVYNS' stands for 'The Version You Never Saw'. This DVD will give us the long-awaited Director's Cut of Superman II, by its real director. Richard Lester replaced Richard Donner (the director of 'Superman: The Movie') as the director of 'Superman II' towards the end of filming, and ended up releasing a vastly different film than Donner intended. Basically, anything dodgy about 'Superman II' is generally put down to Lester's fault, whether it's true or not.

You didn't like the occasionally awkward attempts at humour? That was Lester. You didn't like the whole thing in the Fortress with the cellaphane 'S' Shield and the teleporting? That was Lester. You didn't like Lois' cringe-worthy poem or Luthor's bumbling goons in the first Superman movie? That was Lester.
"But Rohan, Lester wasn't involved in the firs..."
Shut up. It was Lester's fault.

Little known fact: Richard Donner was also the original director of 'A Hard Day's Night', a neo-realist biopic about a weary concert promoter. Lester replaced him and added in some lads from Liverpool with unusual hair, completely destroying Donner's vision.

So, basically, the Superman II director's cut is the Holy Grail for fans of the Superman films. Warner Bros' site also mentions a new DVD release of 'Supergirl', which I'll probably end up buying as well for the sake of completism, and 'Superboy Season One', which I'll get (if it ever comes out in Australia) because that show was awesome.

Still, none of this tells us what's actually in this 'Ultimate Collector's Dream Box'. But this looks interesting. According to Warner Bros. DVD Release Preview, the box will contain all four movies, as well as Donner's director's cut (made up of 20-40% new footage!) and 'Supergirl'. Hmmmm.....

But, ah-hah! According to Superman Cinema, and I have no idea what their qualifications are, it will be a 14-disc behemoth, including all-new commentaries, three discs each for the first two movies and two discs each for the last two (including deleted scenes for the last one), a two-disc Special Edition of 'Superman Returns', all 17 Fleischer Superman cartoons (remastered!), and a feature-length documentary about the history of Superman directed by Bryan Singer and Kevin (not Ken) Burns.

Sweeeeeeeeeet. Those Fleischer cartoons are pretty much the best version of the character outside the comics, so it'll be worth it for remasters of those alone, even though I've already got them all in a pretty decent package. Of course, they're not even mentioned in the Warner preview, which lists 'Supergirl' instead, so that may be inaccurate. There's a lot of stuff in the 14-disc set I've already got, actually, but also a lot that I haven't, so... Ultimate Collector's Edition it is!

Was there a point to this? No. Not really. But if they don't bring this out in Australia, I will not be happy.

Is 'Smallville' Not 'Super' Enough?

2006-06-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

The first few seasons of 'Smallville' are ridiculously cheap on DVD at the moment here, but I won't be getting them. Not because I don't like 'Smallville'... I do... but because it just doesn't feel like an essential part of any 'Superman' collection.

I realise Superman is a pop folk tale; a modern-day myth. It's one of the main reasons I love the character. But for me, 'Smallville' just strays way too far outside that myth to still be 'Superman', and I don't mean that as a negative. I like that it dares to be different, that it takes the basic building blocks of the Superman concept and comes up with a new construction. But I don't love it enough to want to re-watch any of the episodes, or for it to feel like a compulsory purchase.

Of course, here in Australia, we're a fair way behind in the 'Smallville' stakes, and to properly explain why I don't think 'Smallville' is an essential part of the Superman myth, I'm going to refer to events that haven't aired here yet. So consider this a...

SPOILER WARNING! BIG, FUCKING, MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING!!!!!
DO NOT READ DOWN IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW STUFF! SERIOUSLY!
YOU'LL BE ALL LIKE "WHY WOULD YOU TELL ME THAT???!!! I HATE YOU!!!!", AND I'LL BE ALL LIKE, "I WARNED YOU! HONESTLY!"
SPOILER WARNING!

Ooookay. Basically, 'Smallville' is Superboy without the tights, right? Well, that's my first issue with it right there. That's a concept that makes a lot of sense, although I do love the goofiness of Superboy.

I did get sick of the 'Kryptonite Freak' formula, but that kinda was the hook of the show... 'not only did Clark come to Smallville, but so did Kryptonite! Lots of it! And it turned everybody into SuperFreaks, bitch!'... so it made sense that they stuck with it, and they seem to have moved away from that towards Lexcorp experiments gone awry anyway, which helps to give the show a gimmicky, Silver-Agey feel.

So, in a lot of ways, I'm a big fan of the show. 'Smallville' also did what any good 'Superman' spinoof should: it introduced new elements to the mythology. Lionel Luther is a great new addition to the Superman Saga, and John Glover is generally the highlight of the show. Incidentally, if you're an actor, you pretty much want to play a Luthor if you're gonna be in 'Superman'. John Glover, Gene Hackman, John Shea and now Kevin Spacey consistently come away from these things with the best scenes and lines.

And the idea of Superman's dad being a Duke of Hazzard is pretty sweet, too. In fact, I'd say 'Smallville' gives us the best on-screen representation of Superman's parents yet.

You know, as a matter of fact, I may buy those DVDs eventually.

But my point is this... the show doesn't seem to know where it's going, or how it fits into the 'Superman' framework, which is crucial.

I mean, is he supposed to become Superman? Is he not? If he isn't, then why do they keep foreshadowing it? And if he is, then why have Clark Kent and Lois Lane shown such little interest in being reporters? Chloe seems a lot more like Lois than Lois does, which I'm sure is deliberate, I just don't get why.

And if he is supposed to become Superman, how the hell is Lex not going to recognise him? 'Smallville's Lex has been hanging out with an 'unmasked' Clark for years now, so won't he know who Superman is the second he meets him?

Then there's the whole 'Cave of Krypton' thing. What the fuck is that about? I've missed the episodes that explained it (at least I assume I missed them... maybe it just doesn't make any sense, even if you watch the episodes). I understand what the purpose seems to be: there's a pretty huge disconnect between what we know about the character's futures and what they know, so the idea of the cave, which hints at the coming of Superman and his rivalry with Lex, gives the writers a useful foreshadowing tool.

Which would be great, if any of it made any sense at all. Honestly, I pretty much tune out as soon as the great mystical cave is mentioned. And how the hell was Christopher Reeve's character an expert on Kryptonian culture? Have I missed something there? Every time he appeared, I'd be all like, "yes! Christopher Reeve! WOOO-HOOO!" and then proceed to have no idea what his character was talking about. Am I stupid? Did I miss some crucial explanatory episodes? Am I alone in wondering what mystical caves have to do with Superman? I always thought Superman was heroic because he chose to do good with his powers, I don't like to think he's heroic because an ill-defined source of Kyrptonian history says so.

Speaking of Krypton, there's evil Jor-El. I mean, I'm slowly gathering that he's not actually evil, but come on, he's played by Terrance Stamp ("kneel before Zod!") and he's done some pretty shadowy things. Again, I get this is just a different version of the Superman story, and Jor-El was pretty wierd in the comics after John Byrne's 1986 revamp, but I'm just not feeling this part of the show.

But Jor-El is not the father I'm worried about. Here's the big spoiler, if there's any fans of the show here in Australia who don't know this yet: Jonathon Kent dies. And this is huge for me, because if 'Smallville' is all about Superboy, then Jonathon Kent is a crucial part of that story. I mean, no Jonathon Kent = no Smallville. It's a well-established part of the Superman story that after Jonathon Kent dies, Clark goes out on his own into the world and becomes Superman.

Most of my gripes with the show are fairly minor, and there's obvious counterpoints to all of them, even this one. Again, the fact that it doesn't match up with what we know about the character is interesting, because for all we know, Lex might end up being the good guy and Clark might go mad with power, but at what point does that stop being 'Superman'?

Superboy is all about young Kal-El truly becoming Clark Kent, learning from his father to use his powers for good. If there is no Jonathon, then there's not much reason for Clark to hang around, and so 'Smallville' really shouldn't still be going, which is what makes me think the show's producers don't really have a finish line in sight.
And I think a coming-of-age show like 'Smallville' really needs a finish line.

Images taken from the ridiculously awesome Superman Homepage.

Reel Music

2006-06-21T05:36:00.000-07:00

Back to 'Superman Week' soon. In the meantime, here's a quick piece about the St. Kilda Film Festival tour.

Have you ever heard a song and thought, “man, that would make a great movie?”
I know I have. It was ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ by the Baha Men. There’s a rich tapestry of intrigue there just waiting to be unfurled. Who did let the dogs out? And why? Such questions can only be answered by the power of movie magic.

For Anthony Woodcock, it was the Pete Murray tune ‘Ten Feet Tall’. After being inspired by hearing Murray tell the story behind the music, Woodcock set about creating a short film, ‘Ten Feet Tall’, which was selected as one of the best films at the St. Kilda Film Festival. Murray himself provided the score for the film.

“The best thing about short film is that it gives people an opportunity to try something new, to be experimental and creative,” says producer Katrina Fleming. “Pete had never worked on a score before, and there was no better opportunity for him than to score a film based on one of his own songs. So he was really excited about doing it, because it was something new, within the safety of what he already knew.”

If you want to try something new, head to the Dendy to check out the best of the St. Kilda Film Festival. Unfortunately, ‘Baha: The Movie’ will not be screening, but ‘Ten Feet Tall’ will.

The Best of the St. Kilda Film Festival is showing at the Dendy Brisbane on June 23 & 24.

'Superman Week' Begins!

2006-06-21T03:47:00.000-07:00

With 'Superman Returns' just one week away, 'Superman Week' begins here at Everybody's A Critic! Yes, I am a geek. Not everything posted here over the next week or so will be Superman related, but most of it will, so 'Superman Week' it is.
To kick things off, here's my brief Superman retrospective that'll be running next week in Scene Magazine:

Look, up in the sky! It’s a movie! It’s a comic book! It’s a TV show! It’s… all of those things, actually. The name’s Superman, and you may remember him from such mediums as…

Comics
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster introduced Superman in 1938, creating an entire genre of fiction in the process. Springing forth from a volatile mix of social justice and wish fulfilment, Superman comics have gone through many changes over the years (including serious changes in the character’s personality and origins) but it was here that Superman and the core elements of his mythos- Lois Lane, The Daily Planet and Lex Luthor- were formed.

Radio
The Superman radio serial that first aired in 1940 was crucial- it was there that Jimmy Olsen, Perry White and Kryptonite were introduced. Providing the voice of the Man of Steel was a job for Bud Collyer, who reprised his role in a series of acclaimed 1940s cartoons.

Animation
Superman burst onto the big screen for the first time in 1941, in a series of Fleischer Studios animated shorts rumoured to have cost $100,000 each to produce. The acclaimed cartoons featured groundbreaking special effects worthy of a live-action blockbuster and are still highly regarded today. They also introduced an extremely important new power to Superman’s arsenal- flight- and are now in the public domain, so you can pick them up on DVD for about three bucks. The next Superman cartoon was produced by Filmation in 1966, and he also featured in Hanna-Barbera’s ‘Super-Friends’, before re-emerging in 1996 with a series that was heavily influenced by the Fleischer shorts.

Television
The 1951 debut of ‘The Adventures of Superman’ exposed the character to a wide audience of television viewers, and for many of them, George Reeves remains the definitive version of the character. The superhero soap opera of ‘Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman’ debuted in 1993, but the show ran out of steam after the wedding of Dean Cain’s Clark Kent to Teri Hatcher’s Lois Lane. Tom Welling took up the baton from 2001 onwards in ‘Smallville’, a show more about Superboy than Superman.

Film
Technically, Superman made his live-action big screen debut in a pair of movie serials starring Kirk Alyn in 1948 and 1950. These serials introduced the concept of the Phantom Zone, a plot device later employed in Richard Donner’s ‘Superman’ (1978) and ‘Superman II’ (1980), flawed masterpieces which are best remembered for Christopher Reeve’s note-perfect portrayal of a bumbling Clark Kent and a heroic Superman.
Bryan Singer’s ‘Superman Returns’ picks up where ‘Superman II’ left off, wisely ignoring the third and fourth films in the franchise. The latest man to don the tights, unknown actor Brandon Routh, will be channelling the spirit of Christopher Reeve while digital trickery will enable Marlon Brando to take one last bow. Rumoured to be the most expensive movie ever made, it’s sure to be… well… super.

Check out the latest trailer here.

'5x2' DVD Review

2006-06-17T21:46:00.000-07:00

An intimate look at five moments (‘5’…) in the life of a couple (…‘x2’, ya dig?) from French director Francois Ozon (‘Swimming Pool’), ‘5x2’ is both touchingly simple and interestingly complex. And very, very French.

The film is basically a series of cinematic snapshots shown in reverse order; like Tarantino without the pop-culture overload, ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ without the Charlie Kaufman head-trip, or your parent’s photo album on Bizarro World. Starting with Gilles (Stephane Freiss) and Marion’s (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) divorce and ending with their first close encounter, Ozon skilfully chooses which moments to show- and which moments not to show- the audience. The result is much like Lisa Simpson’s description of jazz: It’s the notes Ozon doesn’t play that build tension and intrigue.

Freiss and Tedeschi- whom Australian audiences may kinda sorta vaguely recognise from their minor roles in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Munich’- excel with the spotlight placed on them here. Both manage to de-age believably, and maintain our interest throughout their marital bliss and disorder and their unusual extra-marital (and post-marital) dalliances. In a classic dinner party conversation, for example, Freiss casually recalls a debauched incident that few actors could describe as convincingly.

Essentially, ‘5x2’ seems to see the world of sexual politics as a kind of imperfect Mobius strip with a revolving cast of characters, as key incidents and lines of dialogue subtly repeat themselves over the course of the film’s descending timeline. Rarely has one film so thoroughly mapped the peaks and chasms, and (particularly) everything in between, of love.

'Everybody's A Critic' is the new Beat

2006-06-17T05:37:00.000-07:00

Don't ask me how or why Annabel found this out, but she did... type in 'hotspot gay innuendo' into google, and see what you find. Yes, kids, that's how I'll be remembered. To celebrate this dubious occasion, I give you this (taken once again from superdickery.com).

Seriously, I don't want to know how Annabel found that out. She is officially the most bored person ever, apparently.

Tokyo Drifter

2006-06-16T05:54:00.000-07:00

Nathalie Kelly does a great Alabama accent. The 21 year old NIDA graduate, making her feature film debut opposite the all-American Lucas Black in ‘The Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift’, overcomes her natural Aussie lilt to deliver a pitch perfect impersonation of her co-star. “All mah life ah never fit in…”

Kelly had to break down more than a few international boundaries for the role, because “they were kind of going for an international feel, since the movie is set in an international school in Tokyo. And I kind of fit into that, looking ethnically ambiguous… I get so many things like ‘are you British? Indian? South African?’ American people don’t really look at the Atlas a lot. But it’s exciting to be put on the map with a movie like this.”

So, how the hell does a 21 year old girl from Sydney with no filmography to speak of land a lead role in a franchise like this?

“I’d actually only been in America for three months, it all happened very fast. I wasn’t expecting to book something until about a year… but yeah, really, I just kind of fell into it. I had the studio on my side, but the director (Justin Lin) had to be talked into liking me at first, he had to be convinced that I could play this racer/tough girl role, when I’m not really like that character at all… I failed my driving test two times before I passed in September 2005. There wasn’t a lot of time in between for me to get excited about cars! Before that I was doing the whole bus and rail thing in Sydney. So they really had to give me a crash course in driving in general, I mean, I had to learn how to drive manual in half an hour, and then I had to learn how to drift in two days. By the end I was actually doing pretty good… I was better than the boys at times, because I’d listened to all the instructions! But I didn’t do any of my own stunts… we’re living in the 21st century, they can do a lot of stuff on computers!”

Between doing the hard yards in preparation for the role and on the set, you might think Kelly had no time to enjoy Tokyo’s nightlife, but “I made time, I made time, don’t worry. But you know, I prefer the shopping over going out. Shopping was ridiculous. But I’ll tell you what we did do… we all went out one night and got silly and did karaoke. It was the craziest night of my life. We went out and just had a ball, and Japanese people know how to do karaoke. I have footage that I might have to sneak to the DVD people, for a ‘Behind The Scenes- What You Didn’t See’ thing.”

She also had a chance to experience Japan through the eyes of cinematic royalty: her co-star, the legendary Sonny Chiba (‘Street Fighter’, ‘Kill Bill’, ‘Karate Bear Fighter’) “invited me out on this date in Japan. He was like, ‘you have to try blowfish, I take you to Japan to eat blowfish’, and I was like, ‘okay, Sonny!’ He was just so much fun, man. He’s a great actor. I didn’t even realise what a legend he was, which is probably a good thing because I might have acted a bit different. But I was just me with him, you know.

“Actually, there were other Aussies on set as well. And we would have this ongoing joke, like, in the middle of really crazy serious scenes, one of us would try to sing Australian jingles. We did ‘Chicken Tonight’, ‘Cottees’, ‘Vegemite’… think how many jingles there are, just from Australia! We must be the jingle capital.”

So, what about the movie itself? According to Kelly, “it’s like one crazy long visually stimulating music video… there were a lot of cuts, you know, we cut out a whole bunch of stuff. The storyline just barely survived, but you know, we did what we needed to do for this kind of movie and I think we pulled it off.”

Now, about those accents...

“Lucas is just like, straight up Alabama, I’ve got my Aussie accent, and (co-star) Bow Wow’s got his Atlanta accent… it was a total accent battle! We laughed about it the whole way, like, ‘this movie’s gonna sound hilarious!’ I was in the car driving, and I heard an ad for it on the radio. It’s like a freakshow or something!”

‘The Fast & The Furious 3: Tokyo Drift’ is Now Showing.

The Closeted Crusader

2006-06-14T23:10:00.000-07:00

Now for something completely different... is Superman gay?

Those of you who aren't complete geeks like me may not realise this, but the topic of gay superheroes has been hot lately. That came out sounding really wrong, by the way. Oh god, now I've said 'came out'. This blog is just a hotspot of gay innuendo.

Basically, this all got started when DC Comics announced that they were re-introducing an old character, Batwoman, and that this time, she would come with new gay hotness, as a "lipstick lesbian". Yes, folks, DC is showing their socially conscious, sensitive side...

...hardcore DC fanboys are really going to have a tough time accepting an attractive lesbian male fantasy.

But the controversy over Batwoman is nothing compared to the storm brewing at the moment. As far as I know, The Advocate got the ball rolling with their cover story designed to tie in with 'Superman Returns': "Is Superman gay?"

This article has gradually snowballed into a bizarre PR nightmare/dream for Warner Bros, which has reportedly been left wondering how the gay appeal of Superman will help or hurt the film.

But those close to the film, and the character, have been quick to offer up denials. In the Reuters article I just linked to, DC President Paul Levitz insists that "he's not a gay character", while director Brian Singer notes that he is "probably the most heterosexual character in any movie I've ever made". Singer, who is gay himself, strongly relates to the character, but not because of a mutual sexuality- Singer was adopted, as was Superman.

I suppose the obvious metaphor that leads people to make these assumptions is the motif of the secret identity, which came up in the Advocate article. Superheroes hide their true selves in dull business suits, before coming out in garish tights and embracing their true calling. But there's a difference between people being able to relate to the character, and the character literally being gay. Superman is a fictional character, so if the writers say he's straight, then he's straight.

Just as comic book fans were shocked at accusations from Dr Frederic Wertham in the 1950s that Batman and Robin had a secret homosexual relationship...

...the fans are obviously fairly distraught by all this. I guess they'd never considered how their spandex-wearing male power fantasies could ever be seen as gay, and who can blame them?

Although incidents like this don't help.

(Cultural) Identity Crisis

2006-06-12T03:06:00.000-07:00

Edit: To my immense disappointment, it turns out the list was just meant to be the top 100 albums of all time, as voted by British people; not the 100 Best British Albums. Mark from the Rock and Roll Report was good enough to drop by and tell me he'd updated his post to reflect that, so I figured I should follow suit. But for posterity's sake, the original article (in which I make an idiot of myself) remains.

Earlier this year, NME's writers got together and compiled a list of the top 100 British albums of all time. In the most glaring example yet of the magazine's slavish devotion to the youth; the Arctic freaking Monkeys came in at number 5. Ahead of 'Revolver', for memory. Hilarity ensued.

Well, I only just found, via The Rock and Roll Report, that the mag has since followed up that list with their list of the top 100 British Albums, as voted by readers! Luckily, the mag's readers wised up to the whole 'The Arctic Monkeys are bigger than the Beatles' thing, but their list of the top 100 British albums is not without difficulties. Take a gander at the top ten...

1. "Definitely Maybe," Oasis.
2. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," The Beatles.
3. "Revolver," The Beatles.
4. "OK Computer," Radiohead.
5. "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" Oasis.
6. "Nevermind," Nirvana.
7. "The Stone Roses," The Stone Roses.
8. "Dark Side of the Moon," Pink Floyd.
9. "The Queen Is Dead," The Smiths.
10. "The Bends," Radiohead.

One of these albums is not like the others...

Shark Sandwich

2006-06-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

As we all know, it is said that when something great passes its prime, it jumps the shark. Television shows, actors, directors, writers, artists, politicians, countries... they all jump the shark eventually.
But in the wake of the brilliance that is 'Lookwell', and his regular role on 'Family Guy', one question must be asked: how has Adam West avoided jumping the shark? While other pop culture icons have come and gone like so much disposable filler, why does Adam West remain at the peak of his powers?
A deal with the devil, perhaps? How else could West have kept that inevitable shark-jumping moment at bay?
No, my friends. That is not the answer. Adam West avoided jumping the shark... by beating the crap out of it.

Wishin' and Hopin'

2006-06-09T22:07:00.000-07:00

“The inspiration came from a dream years ago. It was this story, this dream about a girl taking photographs. And that was really when the spark of an image came to mind, and that kind of evoked a story about identity, and what was she photographing, and you know… it started to steamroll after that”.

The dreamer was writer and director Sandra Sciberras, and the dream became ‘The Caterpillar Wish’- the latest in a recent string of high-quality Australian films. Sciberras’ high-class melodrama required uniformly excellent performances to make her dream a cinematic reality, and the woman sitting next to her- 27 year old Victoria Thaine- was up to the task in the lead role of 17 year old Emily.

“I think it was about trying to find parallels between Emily’s emotional life and experiences that I may have had. I mean, you know, you do a bit of homework, you know, drama school textbook stuff about thinking about your character’s history and all that, but really, for me, most of the preparation comes when we’re on location. I love shooting on location, because you’re away from all your day-to-day stuff, and you can just sink into the role and kind of stay there… I think, also, that all teenagers have really interesting private lives, and moments of meditation and solitude. Like, for me, when I was 17 and growing up in Coffs Harbour, it was listening to the Pixies or the Smashing Pumpkins on my Walkman and just trying really hard to be oblivious to all the surfers checking out the waves. And for Emily, it’s obviously taking photos and riding her bike and spending time alone”.

So, what next for these two talented women? Thaine flashes her movie star grin and says she’s “just happy to keep working”, whether it’s on film or television, here or overseas- before noting that she’d “love to be on ‘Love My Way’”. Sciberras looks forward to creating more of her beautifully lyrical visions here, but also harbours a wish to work overseas, like so many of our brightest talents before her. Whatever the future holds for these cinematic butterflies, their larval stage has produced a tremendous Australian film.

‘The Caterpillar Wish’ is released on June 15.

'Wah-Wah' Review

2006-06-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

Richard E. Grant has amassed a great deal of respect as an actor, but like so many thespians before him, what he really wants to do is direct. And direct he does with ‘Wah-Wah’, a brilliant coming-of-age tale.

A deeply personal film in the truest possible scene, it begins with a recreation of the moment young Richard witnessed his mother (Miranda Richardson) shagging a friend of his father (Gabriel Byrne). In the front seat of a car. While he was in the back. Personal enough for ya? The names have all been changed to protect the innocent, of course, but there is no doubt about whose story is being told.

At times, it can get too personal, like when a friend makes you look at their photo album, and all you can muster up is a disinterested yawn. Luckily, for the most part, Grant shows serious directorial chops in making the photo album come to life in a downright engrossing manner.

The performances are great across the board- Gabriel Byrne is scarily convincing as a violent alcoholic one second, and a loving father the next. Miranda Richardson plays an impeccably bitchy mother/ex-wife (god knows what Grant’s real mum will make of the film), and Emily Watson is as classy as ever as the American who wins Byrne’s heart.

But the star of the show is Nicholas Hoult- the kid from ‘About A Boy’- as Grant’s surrogate self. He shows here that he’s rapidly growing into a charismatic leading man, and captures his character so perfectly that Grant must have felt like he was looking into a Dorian Grey-esque mirror.

If you’re a Richard E. Grant fan, then this is must-see stuff. But even if you’re not, Grant manages to make his personal story universal enough to keep everyone entertained.

‘Wah-Wah’ is released on June 22.

'The Child' ('L'enfant') Review

2006-06-09T20:20:00.000-07:00

A good blockbuster is better than a bad art film. With the lamentably imminent closure of the Schonell, it seems that more and more indie snobs are realising this, and films like the Dardenne brothers’ Palme d’Or winning ‘The Child’ play a crucial role in that process.

The story of Bruno (Jeremie Renier) and Sonia (Deborah Francois) and their newborn child, the film meanders along before coming to an abrupt halt without accomplishing much of anything. Simply put, Bruno is one of the most unlikable characters in the history of cinema. Certainly, that is a deliberate stratagem on the Dardenne brothers part, but knowing that doesn’t make the film any more watchable.

At this point, the ‘intelligent’ cinephile is sitting back and thinking, “well, you just didn’t get it”. No. I got it. Bruno (not the newborn baby) is ‘The Child’, bereft of any morals or sense of responsibility, getting by purely with a child’s innate sense of self-preservation. Wow. How clever. But despite solid acting and fine direction, I am ultimately left wondering why I should care.

This is a morality play. At least it’s not a social problem film (cinema’s version of the party-killing wallflower), because Bruno has a chance to work. It is not society’s fault that Bruno believes “only fuckers work”, so there is no larger culture that is being wittily lampooned.

If the idea of watching the world’s worst parents on screen for two hours titillates you, then by all means, rush out and see this. It’s the sort of film that critics go crazy over, while audiences are left scratching their heads. Apparently, those audiences have realised scratching will only make the itch worse, and have given up altogether.

‘The Child’ is now showing.

Summers School

2006-06-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

I've had a request in the comments section to expand on my cryptic complaint about 'X3', now that the movie's well and truly out and everybody who wants to has seen it. I swear to God, it's true! Check the review! So if this discussion gets heated, you can blame Stacey McInnes, but I'll try to keep it short and civil.

As everyone on the interwebs has noted by now... CYCLOPS.
Cyclops is not going out like that. Cyclops is Jean Grey's true love, going all the way back to the early Stan and Jack issues of the X-Men. Over the years, Wolvie may have thrown his animal magnetism her way, and even Professor X had a thing for her at one point (oh yes, there are some things the movies chose very wisely to leave out) but Cyclops was always The Man.

Now, I'm not a sad fanboy who insists that the movies be just like the comics. I am a sad fanboy; just not on that particular issue. I don't care if most stuff is different, as long as it makes sense within the movie. But come on... you can't have a Phoenix Saga without Cyclops. It's one of the greatest love stories in comics, and that needs to come through at least a little bit in the movies.

But Wolverine is the star of the movies. Fine. Okay. Makes sense, I suppose. Still, even if Cyclops wasn't able to play exactly the same role in the movie as he did in the comics, he does need to be recognised as an important character. Cyclops was the team leader from practically the beginning, he is (or was, in the comics) the one X-Man who has suffered most for the good of the team. One of my all-time favourite issues of any comics series is Uncanny X-Men #138. It came straight after the Dark Phoenix Saga, and recapped the history of the team from Cyclops' point of view.

And you know what? From that point of view, the most aloof character in the series suddenly became a hell of a lot more likable. It turns out, Cyclops actually thought Xavier was kind of a dick. Because, seriously, Xavier was kind of a dick. And while the others were mucking around, Scott Summers (Cyclops, for the non-comics readers) never slacked a minute. He was isolated and aloof because he had to be, and he never openly questioned Xavier because he knew Xavier wanted what was best for them. And then, in a moment of clarity, he left the team and became his own man. And, honestly, that's how they should have left him.

But, nope. Cyke came back and continues to be a crucial character to this very day. Except for in the movies, where he kinda sorta gets killed by the love of his life. Not that we see it on-screen, not that anyone really goes to any effort to find him, and not that he's given a decent funeral. No, instead we get a big grand funeral for that dick Xavier, and an obligatory headstone for Scott at the end. See, if they actually killed him, and he wasn't going to come back for the grand finale battle royale on Alcatraz, they should have just made it clearer that he was definitely dead.
Instead, a valuable character is thrown away in an awkward scene with zero emotional impact.

Still, I loved the film. Just wanted to get that off my chest. You have fans, Cyclops!

Edit: I should mention, I brazenly stole all the pics in this article from uncannyxmen.net. I figure they stole them from Marvel anyway, meh.

"Maybe if you watched more television, you'd be better at your job..."

2006-06-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

I'm not a huge Richard E. Grant fan right now. I was supposed to interview him tomorrow about this movie that he directed called 'Wah Wah', but now he's decided he's not coming to Queensland.
But it's okay! I have another, equally good, assignment! Instead of talking to an internationally respected actor-turned-director, I'll be talking to...
The lead actress from 'Tokyo Drift'. I didn't even know '3 Fast 3 Furious' had a lead actress. Yikes. And yes, this will involve watching the film.
Maybe it'll surprise everyone and be good... ok, no, it won't.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is not to complain, but to contribute: if you have a lot of time on your hands (it goes for 22 minutes) and a fascination with Adam West, then you must see this video.
It's the one (and only) episode of 'Lookwell', a show starring West as an actor who used to play a detective, and mistakenly believes that his crime-solving skills are needed in the real world. It's sublime, but somehow didn't get picked up by a network.

"The working class mind is strange and unpredictable".

07-06-06

2006-06-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

So, it was the Day of the Beast yesterday... I know it still is in America, but we're one day ahead of you! So if anyone who reads this is American, I'm speaking to you... FROM THE FUTURE! WHOA!
We also write our days and months the other way around here. We're awesome.

Ahem. So. It was the Day of the Beast yesterday, and I don't think I did anything cool and Demonic. In fact, nothing cool or Demonic was done to me either, except for not being able to find a copy of 'The Five Fists of Science'.

I didn't bathe in anyone's blood, or even swear at an old person. Am I the only one who feels like they missed a tremendous opportunity?

I also didn't go and see the remake of 'The Omen', but I don't think I missed anything there.

I did, at least, get to make the most out of the historic date when I handed an assignment in that required me to write the date at least three times. So that was cool, I guess. It would have sucked if the whole day had gone past and I hadn't even written the damn thing.

Did anyone do anything cool on this historic day? Something a little bit demon-ish? Did anyone you know give birth to the Devil's Spawn? That kind of thing? No? Ok.

Anyway, to commemorate the Day of the Beast, I leave you with this image.

The Parable of the Dude Who Should Have Pre-Ordered Stuff

2006-06-06T02:06:00.000-07:00

So, there's this 'graphic novel' called 'The Five Fists of Science', right? It's about the heroic Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain as they fight with the evil Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan for control of a catostophic device Tesla has built that Twain thinks can bring about world peace. Sounds awesome, right? You know it does. Now, you may ask yourself, why is it called 'The Five Fists of Science'? Tesla, Twain, Edison, Morgan... that's only four. Well, writer Matt Fraction had the answer in this interview:

"No, no, you're thinking of it wrong. Each man has two fists, right and left. That's eight fists up there... Nobody would want to read about the Eight Fists of Science. That'd just be dumb.So: Every man has two fists. Except when they don't."

Upon reading that interview, I knew I must have this comic. So, since it came out last week, I figured I'd wait until after I handed in my goddamned Journalism assignment today. You know, as a present for myself for actually writing the stupid thing. So, I rock up in the city looking to buy this sure-to-be-a-masterpiece, and instead, I find that every store has sold out.

Damn.

The lesson? Had I simply asked my favourite store to put the title aside in my box, I could be reading it right now. Always think ahead, kids. Or something.

Links Ahoy!

2006-06-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

Quickly, because I should be doing an assignment...
A surprise finding in Entertainment Weekly's look at Hollywood's top franchise characters sees Wolverine take the top spot. Does anybody else remember, pre-X-Men, when Hugh Jackman was the host of one of the Christmas Carols shows here? When I heard he'd been cast as Wolverine, my brain nearly exploded with thoughts of an all-singing, all-dancing berserker, but it turns out they were right after all.

The new Chili Peppers album, against all odds, has attracted good reviews, but I'm still not buyin' it.

Courtesy of Internet Jesus (aka Warren Ellis- I'll have to post something later about why everyone capable of reading words or looking at pretty pictures should be buying Ellis' Nextwave) we have this little story about an Indian woman who married a snake. I wish they were kidding.

And finally, blogger supremo BeucoupKevin gives us the cover of Daedelus' new album, featuring the work of legendary cartoonist Winsor McKay.
Pretty sweet, no?

"...And if you don't, you'll get arrested!"

2006-06-02T21:20:00.000-07:00

There are no words.

Cultural Capital Punishment

2006-05-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, so by my count, unless there's been some sort of extension to the time period that I'm not aware of, we've come to the end of the MSTU2000 blogging exercise. I'm not complaining... I am so incredibly over uni right now it's not funny. I'm this close to dropping out for, like, the third time. But at least this blog exercise was fun, even if I haven't updated it in a while.

So what have we learned? Well, I've learnt more about Westlife and popslash than I ever possibly needed to. I know it'll be useful someday. We've seen two fairly lame subcultures circle each other threateningly without landing any blows, and we've been reminded that prog truly is the most god-awful musical genre on earth. Honestly, I'd rather hang out with polka fans, because at least they wouldn't be conceited. We've read all about indie-pop and corporate-pop, hip-hop and photoshop... from jazz to John Waters, the Posies to posers, there's been something for everyone this semester.

And we've heard one phrase with subtle regularity: cultural capital. Do we all feel that our cultural capital has been raised by this course? Do we care? Of course it has, and of course we do. Maybe.

Here at Everybody's A Critic, we've learnt a little (and I mean, a little) about the subculture of rock critics, and a lot about random pop cultural things (ie. the X-Men) that I felt like posting about. The random posting will continue, focussing exclusively on topics I'm interested in, for the benefit of zero readers, after this task is completed. I just didn't want to add any more off-topic stuff this past week for Cory to wade through when he goes to mark it. (Incidentally, I'm pretty sure there are more relevant posts in the Archives than there are on the front page of this blog).

So, good luck to everyone with their blogs, especially the ones that have still got a few entries to go. Hopefully some other people will keep their blogs alive after the end of the course as well!

Oh, and to settle a running theme of the blog... X3 made $107 million in it's opening weekend. That's $30 million more than the Da Vinci Code, meaning more people enjoy the characters of Stan Lee and Chris Claremont than a movie based on the most popular book of our time. Sweet. Take that, literati! Not that any of them would endorse Dan Brown's book, anyway.

Incidentally, after seeing it a third time (that's right... X3 X 3) the other day, I noticed a lot of good stuff I missed the second time around. So I'm leaning back towards being totally in love with it now, for those keeping score.

And finally, because there's been no 'kewl' photos or videos in this post and to bid farewell to mstu2000, I leave you with this. The interwebs assures me it's a pic of our favourite indie scenester/lecturer circa '96:

Dancing Machine

2006-05-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

First of all, a shameless gratuitous plug: Scene's going all out this week for 'X3', with a feature about the business of comic shops written by myself (the longest article ever printed in Scene, designed to kick off our new features section) and a retrospective on the best superhero movies of all time, also written by myself. It's filled with useless trivia, and aims to grade the superhero movies on a sliding scale of 'good', 'bad' and 'cheesy'. The mag's due to hit random shops and street corners and all the normal places you pick up street press magazines from on Wednesday.

And finally, with the official release of 'X3' just days away, here's a video I found to tide you over. Let's Dance, with Xavier's School for Gifted Dancers!

Critical Mass

2006-05-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

Today, kids, I'll be talking about a site called metacritic. You probably already know about it, basically what it does is this: it combines the critics' scores for a whole bunch of stuff: music, movies, TV shows, video games etc... and figures out an average. It also offers links to and snippets from the reviews themselves. I love it. To demonstrate how it works, but also as an example of the music criticism available on teh interwebs, we'll be looking at metacritic's coverage of the Raconteurs' (that's the Saboteurs for us Aussies) debut album.

Ok, so, for starters, we can see that it's recieved an average score of 72 so far. Not bad, not bad... I rate it a little higher than that, but you're always gonna have some reviewers who'll bash it because it involves Jack White, and he's all popular and stuff now. Do you rate it higher than 72? Then rate the album yourself and contribute towards the average user's vote... currently standing at 8.2 out of 10, with just 34 votes registered.

So, who are these esteemed critics whose opinions have been canvassed? Well, we've got our traditional print mononliths... the arthritic collosuses straddling the world of music criticism: Rolling Stone, Mojo, The Guardian, the New York Times, you know the drill. (For magazines that don't do ratings out of 100 or ratings that can be converted into 100, metacritic's score goes off the general 'feel' of the review. Or something.)

But ranked alongside their newsstand brethren are a pack of upstart web-sites... not blogs, as far as I can tell, because then they'd have roughly 1,000,000 reviews to compile. And most of them would just say something like, "I brushed my teeth today. Oh, and yeah, the Raconteurs are cool. I dunno. I wonder if I've got any pizza left over?"
I kid, I kid.

So, among the more interesting reads on the new media front, we've got DotMusic, Playlouder, Drowned In Sound, musicOMH, The Onion's A.V. Club, Pitchfork, PopMatters, Cokemachineglow and Tiny Mix Tapes. And, because there's one in every crowd, Tiny Mix Tapes are the ones to assert that if Jack White wasn't in The Raconteurs, "the press/blogosphere would slam it."

I've gotta side with the positive reviews on this one... it just sounds like some fairly talented "indie" pop musicians getting together and having fun, and keeping it catchy enough for the listener to have fun too.

So, there's a blog entry relevant to the "rock criticism" topic. The next entry promises to be random.

X-Vinci: The Last Code

2006-05-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

All right, so this is another entry Cory can safely skip over. No music to be found here, just a cold, hard deathmatch... bigger than doof/emo, more lethal than whatever that dancing one was that I was on about a few days ago. This time, it's for money...

Da Vinci Code VS X3: The Last Stand.

Now, I guess it's a given that Da Vinci is going to make more money. But which one are people more psyched to see? Which one's going to make you weep at the awesomeness of it all, damn it!

Personally, I refuse to get sucked into the Da Vinci Code phenomenon, so I don't know if its any good. I'm just refusing to see it on some sort of principle. But X3 ruled, so I basically just want people to say, 'OMG! X3's so kewl and awesum!' or something like that.

'Da Vinci Code' VS 'X3'

No matter who wins/loses, Ian McKellan wins/loses. Damn his omnipresent acting power.

Edit: 'The Da Vinci Code' has drawn first blood in the battle with a $77million opening weekend. Hardly record-breaking, but it's the biggest opening of the year. Can 'X3' top it? We shall see...

X3: Get Up, Last Stand Up

2006-05-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

This has nothing to do with the topic of this blog (the rock critic community), but c'mon, I've just seen X3 nine days early- how can I not post a review here?

For super-hero movies, good things very rarely come in threes. (Superman III, Batman Forever and Blade: Trinity, anyone?) Brett Ratner's X3: The Last Stand- the latest celluloid outing for Marvel's merry mutants- bucks the trend, but hardcore X-fans may disagree.

As a film in its own right, X3 makes for stellar, if flawed, entertainment. Ratner takes to the director's chair left vacant by Bryan Singer's departure with incredible enthusiasm, filling the screen with exciting action sequences made up of equal parts clever (the authorities finally taking precautions against Magneto) and stupid (any scenes spotlighting Vinnie 'I'm the Juggernaut, bitch' Jones.) Kelsey Grammar is naturally perfect as the Beast, and Faamke Jansen's casting as Jean Grey finally makes sense when the Phoenix emerges.

The flaws aren't all that major. But considering the story is trying to sell us a world-engulfing conflict, the locations are somewhat underwhelming. (Having said that, the Golden Gate Bridge has never been used to such spectacular effect before.) And between forming in some sort of a mutant Goth club, and hiding out in Victorian-era style forests, Magneto's Brotherhood of Emo Mutants have probably seen better days. The sheer amount of new mutants on display could aslo be seen as a logistical problem, but as a fan of the comics, I figure the more the merrier.

What will get fanboy blood boiling are the fairly major departures from the source material. Fans of one particular character (myself included) will rightfully feel disrespected.

But ultimately, that's the thrill of X3: it dares to take genuinely shocking risks. Mutation is synonomous with change, after all. There's plenty of state-of-the-art special effects to gawk at, you never know what's going to happen next, and it all builds towards a killer finale. Excelsior!

"They're Breakdance Fighting!"

2006-05-15T03:51:00.000-07:00

I flicked over to that "20 to 1"... thing on TV earlier, and saw some old Midnight Oil footage. Generally not a good thing. I hereby propose the following danceoff:
Peter Garrett vs Michael Stipe. Maybe ressurect Ian Curtis for the occasion, too.
Who've ya got?

(Note: All spectators must stand at least 50 metres clear of the competitors. I will not be liable for any injury caused by their wildly flailing limbs.)

Interview With The Critic

2006-05-14T05:27:00.000-07:00

A brief e-mail "interview" I did with American rock critic (Village Voice, Stylus) Phil Dellio.

Rohan --

I'm really sorry for the delay. For what it's worth, I have a very good excuse: I'm incredibly lazy at times.
1. When did you first start really taking notice of rock criticism? How old were you? Was there ever a point where the criticism and the magazines became more important to you than the actual music?

The middle to late '70s--there was Lillian Roxon's book, which I used to look at in my high school library, and then I bought a British rock encyclopedia (by Bob Woffinden and Nick Logan) that had a big influence on me, where I first found out about Gram Parsons and Little Feat and Family and lots of other (what my friends and I call) "older-brother" music I'd never heard of. Woffinden and Logan's book also had lots of great album photos: just seeing the covers for things like Jackson Browne's Late for the Sky and the Blue Ridge Rangers LP left a lasting impression. By the mid-to-late '80s, I was totally immersed in the Voice and the yearly Pazz & Jop; I wouldn't say rock criticism was ever more important to me than the music itself, but it was a close call for a while.

2. Where were you living when you first got into rock criticism?

At home with my parents, like most 17-year-olds. It wasn't a big topic of discussion around the dinner table.

3. Do you personally know many people who share your interests? Or is it more of an internet-driven subculture? (I'm using the word subculture here very loosely, I don't mean it in an obsessive or underground way or anything:p)

I have a couple of rock-critic friends here in Toronto, and when I put out a fanzine called Radio On through the '90s, I corresponded reguarly with most of the contributors--letters initially, e-mail towards the end. I interviewed a couple of well-known critics when I first started writing about music in the mid-80s; I later met three critics who came up to Toronto for a visit. Generally, though, I don't know all that many people who write about music.

4. Who are your favourite writers? What are/were your favourite magazines? Which era of rock criticism interests you most?

This question doesn't mean as much to me now as it would have 15 years ago; I'm more and more out of touch all the time. Greil Marcus was a big influence early on; almost anything he writes still commands my attention, although his interests have parted ways from my own over the years. Chuck Eddy was a big influence at one point, but that dissapated within a few years' time; ditto Robert Christgau, ditto Frank Kogan, ditto just about anyone I could name. So the criterion for being one of my favourite writers now is whether or not you're a friend of mine. That leaves Scott Woods and Tim Powis, and Tim hardly ever writes about music anymore. What a stupid answer, right?
My favourite publications were Radio On in the mid-'90s, Jeff Pike's Tapeworm from the same time, the Voice in the mid-late '80s, and Creem in the early '80s (I came late to Creem, so I missed its more celebrated '70s period). Right now, the only thing I read regularly is Scott's rockcritics.com site; I was looking at the ILM board regularly for a time, but I do so more sporadically as of late. My loss of interest has more to do with me than what's out there, which I'm sure is the usual mix of whatever's worthwhile and what's not.

5. This is a stupid question, but it's kind of a crucial part of the assignment: in your opinion, is there a particular style of dress observed by rock journalists and rock journalism readers, or a socio-economic group that most of them belong to?

Hmmm....the cliche is a cliche because there's a lot of truth to it: many males who write about music look and dress a lot more like Elvis Costello circa 1978 than David Lee Roth circa 1984. Female critics, I don't know--maybe the great majority look like Lisa Loeb. I look most like Paul Splittorff, who pitched for the Kansas City Royals in the early '70s, and if you had taken away Paul's wire-frame glasses and given him horn rims, and if you had gotten rid of his curls and shortened his hair, he probably would have looked a little bit like Elvis Costello circa 1978.

Take care,
Phil

Check out Phil's 'High Fidelity'-style Top Five lists compilation here.

Sub-Culcha Club

2006-05-14T01:55:00.000-07:00

So, I'm writing an article about people who own comic book stores for a journalism assignment (hence all the comic-y references lately... well, that, and my natural geekiness), and I'm talking to Paul Russell, the "counter-monkey" at Ace Comics in Brisbane.
(Incidentally, the guy is Comic Book Guy. By his own admission, the resemblance is uncanny). And he's talking about Supanova, a big pop-culture convention that was held in Brisbane lately.

And what he said was quite possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever heard from someone who resembles Comic Book Guy. Admittedly, he's the only person I can think of that resembles Comic Book Guy. But do not let that detract from the point here, which is that it was a beautiful thing to say. And yes, I'll be using this quote in the Journalism assignment, so this can't count as one of the three entries for this mstu2000 blog assignment. I just wanted to put it here for the 1 or 2 people who will see it, because to me, this is the definition of a sub-culture.

“Supanova went spectacularly well. Basically, I love Supanova, I love working cons. The whole thing with nerds, or geeks, or dorks, or whatever term you wanna use, is that for awhile, you think that you’re the only person out there who kind of isn’t into football. You think you’re the only person out there who doesn’t obsess about their hair, or what kind of car they’re going to drive. You know, going out, or whatever. And so you’re sort of sitting there, going, ‘I’m the only person in the world who wonders whether the Thing could beat the Hulk’, and you think you’re alone.

“You think you’re by yourself, because nobody wants to say, ‘hey, by the way, I read Captain America. Because if you do that, you paint a target on yourself. I think the reason why the culture has grown is because of the internet. You can get on a computer and say, “hey, there’s hundreds of people out there who obsess over this stuff and talk about whether Thor could beat the Thing”, and whatever.

“And some of these people are successful! And they’re old, and they have jobs, and you know, they have wives and girlfriends, and children, and families and successful companies, and what the hell?! So, I think Supanova is a really great chance to just get out and go, you know, every single person here likes the same shit I do. Every single person here is like me. By god, there are a lot of us!”

Fuckin' yeah.

Edit: I'm not sure it really came through in print, but the reason I loved what Paul said was that it captured, with a perfect sense of innocence and discovery, that exact moment when a kid or a loner discovers that they belong to a subculture. Which I thought was pretty cool, even if its not remotely musical.

Fear Of A Black Printer

2006-05-13T03:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, so, sort of tying in with some of my earlier posts, I just found out Public Enemy have a comic. Wow.

Edit: Just in case anyone decides I'm a terrible racist, the title is a reference to a Public Enemy album. Also, I appear to have fallen in love with the Edit button.

Terminator X: Judgement Day

2006-05-11T23:51:00.000-07:00

"If the number of black artists in your iPod falls too far below 12.5 percent of the total, then you are violating someone's civil rights."

(Edit: Yes, I realise this is a ridiculously long article. But stick with it, because there's an audio-visual reward at the end. Or just skip straight to the video, whatever. I would.)

I found this Slate article via the ever-informative Rock Critics Daily blog. Basically, some complete and utter tool has decided that Stephin Merritt (Magnetic Fields) is a racist because he doesn't like hip-hop or contemporary R&B. Um, what?

Since when did the music you like determine the people you like? (Well, according to 'High Fidelity', it always does, and there's some truth in that, but hear me out.) Sure, if you know someone who has the exact same musical tastes as you, there's a decent chance you'll get on with them reasonably well. But the flipside of that is ludicrous.

I'm not really a huge hip-hop fan. I enjoy some of it a lot, while the rest passes me by. I could also say that about Celtic music, except without the "I enjoy some of it a lot" bit. Does that mean I hate Irish people? Of course not.

Is it because both me and the Irish person are white that it doesn't work that way? Does this just apply to black people? Isn't that racist?

We know nothing about Stephin Merritt, aside from the fact that he makes critically acclaimed indie-pop music, and he doesn't like hip-hop. We do not know him as a person.

Actually, I'm not even gonna continue down this path, because it's just so painfully stupid. It is entirely possible to like black people without liking hip-hop. Period.

Now, here's where it gets interesting/hypocritical: Elvis has, in the past, been accused of being racist. Chuck D, who famously made that assertion with Public Enemy in the '80s, no longer believes this, and apparently has come to admire Elvis, but the accusation lingers in parts of the public consciousness. So, why is Elvis a racist? There's no documented evidence of him discriminating against black people, as far as I know. No, the 'reason' for Elvis being a racist is much stupider than that.

He stole music from black people. He imitated the black sound, the style, the swagger. Why? Because he was a huge fan of black music. But, in the eyes of people who don't understand the segregation and distribution practices of the time (the reasons for black musicians not getting their due credit goes way above and beyond Elvis), this makes him an inauthentic racist. Now, take that, and rewind it back.

Stephin Merritt is a racist because he doesn't like black music. Elvis Presley was a racist because he did like black music. Don't Believe The Hypocrites.

Adding to the problem is that even those self-righteous critics who want to show how down they are with hip-hop don't seem to understand the art-form, or at least, want to change the majority of it into something that it isn't.

Critics tend to celebrate hip-hop musicians who don't adhere to the hip-hop genre, as if there is something inherently inferior about hip-hop. Think about it. The only rappers to recieve nearly universal praise from critics are people like Kanye West, The Roots and Outkast. There are others, of course, but we'll use these three as an example.

Kanye West, the master of the sped-up soul sample, makes a point of not submitting to the traditional gangsta-rap worldview. Instead, he cleverly mixes gangsta rap with a more socially conscious style, making him "the first (I'm white, so I can't say it) with a Benz and a backpack."
On his second album, Kanye moved even further away from traditional hip-hop, by hiring indie pop tunesmith and 'It' man Jon Brion as co-producer. Brion's melodic talents ushered in a sound that is many things, but most importantly to the critics, it is not what hip-hop has become known for.

Same with the Roots, an exceptional band... yes, band. With their use of guitars, drums and assorted live instrumentation, the Roots won over the critics by, basically, sounding more like the white bands that critics are so fond of. Certainly, the Roots are fantastic exponents of hip-hop, but they became critically acclaimed because of that gimmick. I'm not saying that's a bad thing on the part of the Roots. They've got the talent (and the training... Black Thought and ?uestlove went to a performing-arts school in Philadelphia) to pull it off, and it sounds great. The question is, why do critics gravitate towards them while simultaneuously dismissing other hip-hop acts?

Finally, Outkast, who broke through to worldwide superstardom with the critically beloved 'Speakerboxx/Love Below' album. Go listen to 'Love Below'. Pick any song from it at random. Chances are, it's not a hip-hop song. 'Hey Ya'? Brilliant song, but it could have been written by a gifted employee of the Brill Building. It bears virtually nothing in common with hip-hop, and everything in common with classic pop.

Even the legendary Public Enemy became known for their policitical consciousness, more so than their music. And even those critics who do acknoweldge their music talk in terms of progressive soundscapes... Again, that's not a bad thing. Terminator X and the rest of Public Enemy made some great music.

But what the critics are doing to hip-hop, is essentially analogous with a rock critic appreciating only prog rock and art-rock, and no other, more popular styles.

Because gangsta hip-hop is popular. And I can't understand why it is acceptable to call someone a racist for not liking hip-hop, when you are part of a critical establishment that writes off the most prevelant form of black music as being 'misogynist, violent' etc.

Now, a perfectly fine counter-argument would be, "but critics don't like generic music, regardless of genre or colour." And in many cases, that is true. But if critics are really so opposed to generic music that breaks no new ground, how in the hell did so many garage bands become critical darlings over the last five years?

To paraphrase 'Almost Famous', should we be praising the hip-hop groups made up of gangstas trying to be poetic, or the hip-hoppers who have the courage to be blinged-out gangstas, which makes them poetic?

I don't think there's any need for a segregated critical community, where only 'black' magazines like XXL and The Source routinely praise gangsta rap, and more artful groups are praised by mainstream magazines.

Undeniably, such a divide now exists, and surely, if music preferences can indicate racism, then today's music journalist should either move gangsta rap to the front of the bus, even if they dislike it, or leave poor old Stephin Merritt's musical preferences alone.

Finally, as a reward for reading this far, and to demonstrate the relationship between white people and hip-hop, I present this ethnographic research.

Yet Another Edit: I just realised, that rant makes it sound like I like gangsta rap. I don't. I was just trying to point out, in a rushed, dodgy manner, that it isn't fair for a critic to attack Stephin Merritt for disliking hip-hop, considering most critics seem to dislike most hip-hop. I'm not saying critics should start giving gangsta rap good reviews, by any means.

Doof/Emo Deathmatch 2006 Continued

2006-05-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

One wants to die anyway. The other can administer 200 Beatings Per Minute.
No Contest.
Or... IS IT?!?!?!
Doof/Emo Deathmatch 2006.
One of these subcultures is going underground...
Six feet underground.

Doof/Emo Deathmatch 2006

2006-05-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

This Time, It's Cultural.
Oh, and personal. Very, very personal. But mostly cultural.
Can Doof defeat Emo before Emo cuts himself to death? Can Emo escape Doof's 300 bpm attack? Or will the transitory nature of temporary trends defeat them both?
I mean... FIGHT TO THE DEATH! WOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOO!

Mash My Bitch Up

2006-05-10T23:45:00.000-07:00

Anyone else doing this MSTU2000 blogging task will be very familiar with mash-ups by now. We've had a chance to hear a lot of them, and most of them are pretty cool.
The critical potential of mash-ups interests me... Rather than writing down "I think 'Are You Gonna Be My Girl' sounds a lot like 'Lust For Life'", you can just mix the two together and show the world how derivative we Aussies can be, for example. (I'm still waiting for a 'More Than A Feeling'/'Smells Like Teen Spirit' mash-up.)
Mash-ups can also help to break down the fences that are built up by critics... By mashing 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' (grunge) up with other songs that are highly representative flagships of their genre- NWA's 'Straight Outta Compton' (gangsta rap) or Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' (80's pop/R&B)- a sonic creation is formed that disregards the traditional segregated apartheid of popular music genres, in the same way that sampling does.
Which is all to say that, finally, someone has created the mash-up that all the kewl kids have been waiting for, a mash-up that will surely hold it down in the ghetto, son.
Andrew Lloyd Webber Vs. Richard Donner...
Jesus Christ Superman.

Edit: I can't take any credit for finding that video, since Annabel showed it to me first. Chalk up another one for the "Annabel is secretly doing your blog for you, with a totally different written voice, and totally different interests" conspiracy theorists. But yeah, she did find this video.
She's a big Jesus Christ Superstar fan, I'm a Superman fan/geek... Two worlds colliding...

Everyday He Writes The Books

2006-05-10T23:31:00.000-07:00

There's an interview up at rockcritics.com with Griel Marcus. Griel was a popular rock critic/journalist in the initial boom in New Journalism-infused rock writing in the 70s, and he went on to make a bigger name for himself with books like Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music and Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century.

He's one of those writers that can take pretty much any topic and provide it with an incredibly deep and far-reaching meaning and implication. In his case, he does this through music... from a starting point of music, he ends up writing great political and historical pieces and somehow connecting it all. In his own words, he just writes. He "doesn't consider" himself to be any particular sort of writer.

Marcus has some interesting things to say in the interview about the state of rock journalism now. He cites Jason Gross, of Perfect Sound Forever, as a contemporary talent, and makes mention of the wonderful links page that Gross put together for rockcritics.com, a page that helps to join the disparate world of internet rock journalism together.

So, for those of you that have any interest in the rock critic subculture, and aren't just here for the videos and off-topic rambles (but honestly, I think I'm just here for the videos and off-topic rambles, so I don't know why anyone else wouldn't be), check the interview out to hear from a true leading light of the subculture.

Captain America... $%*# Yeah!

2006-05-08T01:49:00.000-07:00

Yay! With Annabel's guidance, I can post videos! We are go! Incidentally, that video has nothing to do with rock critics and their subculture.

Although it sure has something to do with subcultures. Sure, comic book movies may be mega-blockbusters now, but back in the day, if you were a kid who insisted on repeatedly hiring out 'Captain America: The Movie', you were part of a pretty freaking geeky subculture. Yay for me!

Ok, rock critics: relevance, relevance... This clip subverts the traditional nature of music and film, by inserting music into a clip it was never meant for, thereby altering critical perceptions...

No? Ok. Um, by putting a well-loved song with a universally reviled (by those who even know about it) movie, this clip presents a critical conundrum... Do we like the clip? It is 'Team America', after all. But do we not? I mean, it is 'Captain America' after all.

No? Ok... This clip presents critics with a new, anarchic system of review, in which they can voice their opinion of a film as a cheesy cult classic by putting together a clip that makes it look particularly chessy, and highlighting it's ironic stance through the use of music...

No? Fine then. It's not relevant. I just didn't know how to follow up 'Colossus the Fictional Metallic Emo Kid.'

Colossal Emo

2006-05-02T02:43:00.000-07:00

In my geeky travels through the interwebs, I recently came across this stunning quote: "Colossus is totally emo."
I can't remember where; perhaps some forum, it sure ain't coming up in search engines.

For the blessedly uninformed, let me be the first to taint you: Colossus is a Marvel comic book character. He is a member of the Uncanny X-Men (the mutant superheroes, not the band.) Not a charter member of the gang, the Russian powerhouse was brought into the team as part of a ragtag international crew designed to revive interest in the stagnant title.

So anyway, the experiment worked, the All-New, All-Different X-Men was a hit and roughly thirty years later we'll be seeing the third in the X-Men blockbuster feature film franchise later this month. (And I'll be seeing it nine days early, because I'm a lucky geek/movie reviewer).

So, what has this got to do with emo kids? And what do emo kids have to do with rock criticism? Stick with me, my non-existent readership, and it'll all make sense soon.

So, Colossus is actually Peter Rasputin, a Russian farmboy recruited to the American super-team because of his somewhat unusual ability to transform his skin into organic metal. I'm not down with the exact physics and biology of the procedure, someone even geekier than me would have to be consulted for that, but here's the Complete Idiot's Guide to Colossus, written by me, a Complete Idiot. Let's resort to pretty pictures. When Colossus transforms, it looks like this:

Bigger pictures later, I promise. So anyway, Colossus is an X-Man, and he loves it. Or does he? Does it secretly make him... emotional? Perhaps even... perish the thought... emotional hardcore?

Apparently, emo music as we know it today (which allegedly stands for "emotional hardcore" or "emotive hardcore") started in Washington in the '80s, led by Rites of Spring and other bands that would become known as their "emocore" brethren.

The noteable thing here is the word "hardcore". These early emo bands, for all the raw emotions they were on their sleeves, could rock out when they wanted to. Fugazi were an emo band, after all. Emocore bands were just more... in touch with their emotions than the rest of the punk and hardcore family.

Gradually, emo bands and their fans, known as emo kids, earnt a reputation as depressed little dudes who liked to talk about cutting themselves, and tended to mope around a lot. The moping is key, here.

OK, so is Colossus emo? First of all, there's the clothes. Emos, at least of the perpetually depressed, for-gods-sake-what-is-it-about-hungry-jacks-that-attracts-these-people variety, are known for wearing dark get-up, with a heavy spot of make-up here, and a Chuck Taylor there. Does Colossus meet these criteria? Let's see.

It's touch and go, but I don't think Piotr qualifies here. But of course, emo is more than fashion, it's a way of life. So can Colossus be an emo kid, even as he wears bright spandex? Can he kick it? Yes, he can.

You see, as much as he loved his newfound brothers and sisters in the X-Men, Colossus yearned for his family back home in Russia. Risking his life for the benefit of a world that hates and fears him wasn't enough for Petey, he had to have his precious family too. Don't cry, emo kid.

So what did he do? Why, he continually moped about, and explored his skills as a painter. God, an artist! How emotional is that! Not helping Colossus' doldrums was the fact that his particular mutant ability, the ability to turn himself into metal, was not particularly useful against the team's archnemesis, Magneto. In fact, Magneto couldn't believe his luck, as he tossed around Colossus like a rag doll.

So now, we've got a big super-powered Russian, wandering around Professer Xavier's mansion- yeah, typical pampered emo kid, must have reaaaaaaal problems, in that mansion of his- bemoaning his far-away family, and how useless he is to his friends.

On top of that, Professor X is a total douche for a while there, and doesn't appreciate the new X-Men. God, frickin' idiot! Authority figures never understand! And they never will, you poor, poor emo kid!

Now, in case he's not emo enough already, Colossus has some family issues. His brother, Mikhail, a cosmonaut, ends up becoming an evil mutant. So, you know, here's this big emo mutant, fighting with his brother. So frickin' immature. Just like an emo mid.

And then, his sister Illyana gets infected with the Legacy virus, this thing designed to infect mutants (the world hates and fears them, remember... just like every adolescent ever). Now, and this is actually pretty sad, so grab the tissues, Illyana dies as a result of this infection. Yeah, I know, now you feel bad for making fun of him.

But what does Colossus do? Does he turn to his friends for support? Does he get out there and mix it up and see that life goes on? No. Of course he doesn't. Remember that Magneto guy, the bad dude who threw him around and made Colossus his bitch earlier in the tale? Well, Magneto's pretty much the king of the angry mutants. And, of course, being the loyal team-mate that he is, Colossus pays the X-Men back for their support throughout this difficult time in his life by teaming up with Magneto.

Upon joining the Magster, Colossus takes on a new uniform. Behold:

Dear Lord. Notice the black cape? And is that a hint of eye-liner I detect? Underneath those sweet boots, you just know he's rocking the blacked-out Con All-Stars.

Of course, Colossus doesn't commit himself to this new-found bad-assery. Honestly, if he stayed down that path, he would've ended up ditching the Death Cab and Jimmy Eat World records and asking his hairdresser for a Robert Smith.

Rather, he heads back to the X-fold, chills in England for a bit with an overseas X-franchise known as Excalibur, and then eventually goes "home" to the X-Mansion. Once there, Colossus delves deep into the history of emo, and pulls out a Fugazi classic that finally inspires him to do That Which All Emo Kids Say They Are Going To Do.

Remember that nasty Legacy virus? The one that killed lil' Illyana? Well, it turns out that, thanks to the magical world of comic book physics, this virus can be cured worldwide if one mutant injects himself with the antidote, killing himself and releasing the antidote into the atmosphere in the process. Or something.

I'm sure you all caught the key words there; they were just after "antidote."

No, not "into the atmosphere." The first time I said "antidote." Yeah, there you go, you've got it. So, to the tune of legendary emo band Fugazi's 'Give Me The Cure', Colossus does the heroic/lets-be-realistic-here-he-was-probably-gonna-do-it-anyway deed.

"Give Me The Cure"

I never thought too hard on dying before

I never sucked on the dying

I never licked the side of dying before

And now I'm feeling the dying

You've got your hands over your ears

You've got your mouth running on

You've got your eyes looking for something

That will never be found - like a reason

Good god I don't need a reason

I never thought too hard on dying before

I never sucked on the dying

I never licked the side of dying before

And now I'm feeling the dying

But you've got to....

Give me the shot

Give me the pill

Give me the cure

Now what you've done to my world

Awwwww. Of course, Colossus doesn't stay dead. Why? Because he's a comic book character? No, because he's a god-damned emo kid, and you just know they won't follow through on their threats. So Colossus rose from the dead. Pussy.

So, that's Colossus, the emotional mutant. But is he emotional hardcore? Well, the guy can turn himself into indestructible metal. That's, like, the hardest of the core, right there.

But here's the thing... Colossus isn't even the most obvious X-Man to go the emo route. I mean, for starters, he's practically invincible. Kinda hard for him to cut himself.

Wolverine, on the other hand, comes with six built-in foot-long blades in his hands, and has a healing factor that ensures any wounds will quickly be fixed! Prime emo candidate! And come on, the WHOLE TEAM, and all their mutant enemies, are quite hung up on this world that "hates and fears them."

The thing is, the whole diatribe above could be reworded and made to fit just about any subculture. Maybe not as well, but, y'know. This whole idea of "emo" as being "emotional", because really, there's nothing too hardcore about Dashboard Confessional, seems like lazy genre-labeling.

Virtually every adolescent thinks the world "hates and fears them", and most pop music reflects that in one way or another. What sort of song doesn't touch our emotions somehow? Surely not every song is an emo song.

So, critics... let's see some tighter definitions for terms like 'emo'. Because right now, Colossus (and probably any other person I randomly picked out of the sky) really could be described as "totally emo." And that's just not right.

Oh, and I'm not even gonna get into Colossus' relationship with the under-age Kitty Pryde, because the world just isn't ready for that.

In conclusion, I leave you with this image from a classic X-Men issue, in which Riptide has just told Colossus that Dashboard Confessional are not a very good band:

DO NOT mess with Dashboard arond Piotr Rasputin. I'm not even kidding.

Rock Critics Daily Operation

2006-04-28T04:33:00.000-07:00

If we're talking about rock critics and their fans as a subculture (and since that's the topic of this blog, I like to think we are), a great place to start is rockcritics.com. It's a really useful website run by a guy called Scott Woods, who's clearly a dedicated and informed member of the subculture, and I'll be talking about it in greater detail later on, and probably linking to it a lot, since it's all about "rock critics talking to, about, and with each other."

Anyway, rockcritics.com has a sister blog, Rockcritics Daily, which offers up updates, articles and comments about all the same stuff the website is concerned with. And it's great too. So, I sent Scott some questions about the rock critic subculture last week, and he posted his answers on the blog recently, check it out here.

It pretty much speaks for itself, but to sum it up briefly and inadequately, he makes some interesting observations on the way that rock criticism and the critical mindset filters his perceptions of the music, and about the role that the internet has played in the subculture.
He points out that while the rock criticism subculture was not originally an internet-driven subculture, it has gradually become one, as the internet helps more people to discover how often they engage in criticism themselves, among other things.

Rockin' All Over the World Movies

2006-04-27T02:52:00.000-07:00

While we're on the topic of rockumentaries, here's an interview I did a while back with Chit Chat (formerly of MGF, if that was ever your bag) about the 'Off the Record' program of rockumentaries he's hosting on 'World Movies'.

“And then I got a phone call about two hours later, from the press… Somebody saying, “look, I’ve got a report there’s a live turkey in your band room, and that you’ve requested it…”

For eight years, the man known as Chit Chat- musician, television personality, porn director- lived the rock’n’roll dream with Machine Gun Fellatio. Now World Movies subscribers can ride the roller coaster with him as he co-hosts the ‘Off the Record’ season- featuring nine classic rockumentaries in nine weeks.

The fun kicked off on April 4 with ‘Festival Express’, the tale of the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and The Band taking a private train on one of the wildest tours ever recorded, and, of course, “jamming on acid.”

“At one point, they just ran out of beer. Out of alcohol, all together. So they pass around the hat, and they pull the train over at a liquor store, and just load up with shit. Like, they get 800 bucks worth. And in 1971, that’s like 4 billion dollars on alcohol. And then the Grateful Dead just put all this jello-acid in it… I’ve never been a really big fan, but you kind of get into them.”

So, the Grateful Dead liked acid. But what can upcoming docos tell us that we don’t know, Chit Chat? Well, amongst other things, ‘Depeche Mode 101’ teaches us that Depeche Mode are “possibly heterosexual”, and were somehow one of the biggest bands in the world, able to make $82,000 in t-shirt sales from one gig in 1989.

In ‘The Filth and the Fury’, ‘24 Hour Party People’ and ‘Live Forever’, viewers will experience the highs and lows of the punk, Madchester and Britpop movements. As well as the great music, these films manage to “chuck together like 20 years of English politics”.

‘Some Kind of Monster’, the tale of Metallica in therapy, shows us that where we once “wanted to see our heroes superhuman, now we wanna see them human. Post-Osbournes and all that sort of stuff, now we demand that we see counselling and therapy sessions…”

Despite being a big fan of their music, Chit Chat insists that the Radiohead documentary ‘Meeting People is Easy’ will make you want to “whack them in the fucking heads”, although in fairness, that may not be anything new.

‘Off the Record’ will also include the ultimate rock/mock/umentary- ‘This Is Spinal Tap.’ For those that have seen the film; here’s a bit of trivia: Chit Chat claims that Nigel Tufnel - the ultimate embodiment of rock clichés and the film’s most popular character - was based on legendary guitarist Jeff Beck, a friend of actor Christopher Guest.

“Jeff Beck had Buddy Holly’s guitar in his house, which you weren’t allowed to touch. And then he had an amp that went to 11. So that whole rave is a complete rip-off of Jeff Beck. You look at him, and he actually is Jeff Beck in that role.”

Not only has Chit Chat seen this fictional tale of the world’s most dysfunctional hair-metal band “100 times”, but he’s had more than a few Spinal Tap moments himself.

Keep in mind that we’re talking about Machine Gun Fellatio here. No strangers to making bizarre requests of venues and promoters; cocaine in Wizz-Fizz packets; oven mitts, lubricant, turkey basters and finally a live turkey itself were all part of the ride(r).

At the peak of their popularity, they were denied (bizarrely) only ten sheets of A4 paper to write their set list on, and (less bizarrely) cocaine at government functions. As these rockumentaries prove, the life of a rock star takes place in a different world to the one most of us live in.

“People say you change when you get into a band. Fuckin’ oath, you do! One day, you’re working a straight job, and the next minute, you’ve got 10,000 people singing the words that you’ve written, and wanting to fuck you, and giving you lots of free coke and turkey basters, and you’ve got sneaker companies giving you free sneakers and Playstations…

“You turn up, and your hotel’s booked, and there’s a new car waiting for you, and you never have to clean up, because you’re in hotels… and you wake up, and you go, “well, what should I do with this bag of coke?””

True Grunge Ways

2006-04-26T19:41:00.000-07:00

Greetings and Salutations. My blog is about the subculture of rock critics, and I'm gonna get right into it with a semi-quasi-relevant post! Yay!

Those of us at the lecture on Wednesday will remember 'Hype!', Doug Pray's Seattle-Grunge-era rockumentary. Something that interested me about it was that, probably for dramatic effect, you get the impression for a long stretch of the flick that Nirvana weren't really part of the burgeoning Seattle scene, and then came out of nowhere, stole the riff from Boston's 'More Than A Feeling' and blew the world away.

So what I thought would be interesting, being the geek that I am, was to go back and take a look at a few of the NME and Melody Maker articles from the time (handily collected into one magazine by Uncut a couple of years ago) by Everret True and his contemporaries, the writers the film credits for kick-starting the grunge phenomenon in the UK.

True's first grunge article, and the one we saw mentioned in the lecture, was 'SUB POP- Seattle: Rock City', from the March 18 1989 edition of Melody Maker. Crediting Sonic Youth's championing of Green River and John Peel's love affair with Sub Pop for kickstarting Britain's interest in grunge, a couple of things stick out about the article:

1. True loves Tad. Seriously, in a man-crush, oh-my-god-how-much-does-True-want-to-get-it-on-with-Tad sort of way. In True's own words....
"A mountain of sound. The heaviest man in all creation. The rockiest gnarliest dude you'd ever want to wake up next to. An enormous talent. From the backwoods of Idaho and trained as a butcher. If you're talking about conviction and immediacy, then you're looking at Tad."
True :3 Tad 4eva. The funny thing is, he wasn't alone. The general media vibe (meaning the "media" that cared enough to notice) in those days seemed to be that Tad were going to be grunge group that conquered the world. Speaking of which...

2. True, in 1989, in the article that broke Grunge worldwide, on Nirvana:
"Basically, this is the real thing. No rock star contrivance, no intellectual perspective, no master plan for world domination. You're talking about four guys in their early twenties from rural Washington who wanna rock, who, if they weren't doing this, would be working in a supermarket or lumber yard, fixing cars. Kurtd Kobain is a great tunesmith, although still a relatively young songwriter. He wields a riff with passion."
Of course, it goes without saying that Nirvana became rock stars, at which point their songs became intellectually (over?) analysed and they dominated the world. Nice one.
But the point is, Nirvana were right there when True embarked on his international voyage for the New Sound, so much so that he rated them ahead of Soundgarden and Mark Lanegan's Screaming Trees.
I mean, sure, they were no Tad, they weren't about to cross over to a mainstream audience or anything, but at least True acknowledged that "Kurdt Kobain" and his crew were a vital part of the scene; he'd even positively reviewed their single 'Love Buzz' in Melody Maker a month earlier.

In July 1989, Melody Maker's Edwin Pouncey raved about 'Bleach', the group's debut album...
"This is the biggest, baddest sound that Sub Pop have so far managed to unearth. So primitive that they manage to make labelmates Mudhoney sound like Genesis."
Yep, Nirvana made Mudhoney look like a band whose drummer would go on to worldwide pop stardom in his own right. Oh well, hindsight is 20-20.
Anyway, the article was fairly prescient when it noted that Nirvana were going to obliterate G'n'R, so that's cool.

Pouncey is even more on the money in his September interview with Kurtd, when he declares at the outset that the band's "grungy pop" ensured their "future as the next BIG thing."

In October (still '89), True interviewed Kurtd for Melody Maker, and noted that those in the know saw him as the "cream of the crop" among the new wave of Seattle talent. But True was also beginning to become weary of the new sound, predicting that "Soon it will be time to sweep the whole sorry mess under the carpet and wish that Jimi Hendrix had never set his guitar on fire," although I think he's making fun of the nature of trends more than anything there.

In November, they released the single 'Blew', which recieved a great notice from the NME, but got a royal ass-kicking from Simon Reynolds at the Melody Maker, who described it as "dismal, muddy, thuggish trad-rock that adds further weight to the notion that Sub Pop is the hype of '89."
I feel kinda bad for Reynolds, because amidst the Madchester scene, Nirvana circa '89 probably did sound like "muddy, thuggis trad-rock" at first, but it's still the sort of review that would have made him look bad in a few year's time. Not Rolling-Stone-giving-Britney-more-stars-than-Nevermind-bad, but still...

Rounding out the "hype of '89", in the 16 December edition of the NME, Edwin Pouncey, reviewing Nirvana's support slot for Tad at the Astoria, had this to say:
"Nirvana are Sub Pop's answer to The Beatles, pop masters with a sense of hard rock and songs that penetrate the memory of their audience. 'Blew' (their latest 45) is a classic example of this, a hit for sure if the rest of the world wasn't so stupid and half asleep."

Not to worry, Edwin, those alarm clocks would start ringing in a year or two's time. 'Hype!', indeed.

(BTW, if you liked 'Hype!', check out 'Scratch', director Doug Pray's equally great hip-hop-umentary.)