Month: February 2012

Free and Easy (1931, Roy Mack)

The most cinematic thing about Free and Easy might be its end credits card. The card at least makes Easy feel like a short film and not a radio show. Well, wait, I guess there are three sight gags in the short… otherwise, it’d definitely be better suited for radio.

It opens with a group of singing hobos. Then, in his most ambitious move as director, Mack actually pulls back to reveal Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. In this opening scene, Bergen’s skill as a ventriloquist isn’t quite as clear in the subsequent one (the overly ambitious plot has four whole scenes).

Bergen goes back and forth between him and McCarthy and the scene–the two are consulting a gypsy–works. Just not as cinema. Mack sits the camera down and forgets about it. The dialogue pacing is also better suited for radio.

Easy isn’t awful, it’s just not cinematic.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Roy Mack; director of photography, Edwin B. DuPar; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Edgar Bergen (Professor / Charlie McCarthy) and Christina Graver (Kamisha).

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Prophet 21 (January 2012)

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Prophet is crazy even before the titular protagonist has sex (consensual sex) with the hideous alien. She also confirms Prophet is eating a human drumstick, adding genial cannibalism to the list of the issue’s crazy.

Like most people who aren’t completely insane, I never read Rob Liefeld’s original Prophet series and have no idea how this new one fits into continuity. Writer Brandon Graham seems to be starting from scratch. Prophet wakes up; he’d been in a time capsule, buried in the Earth. He’s got the save the planet, of course, from the alien invaders who seem to have reduced the humanoids to cattle. Hence his drumstick.

Graham’s script and Simon Roy’s art turn Prophet into a true indie book, not just in the disgusting details, but also in the visual storytelling. Roy simply creates some lush landscapes.

Prophet is icky and amazing. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

B+ 

CREDITS

Prophet; writer, Brandon Graham; artist, Simon Roy; colorist, Richard Ballermann; letterer, Ed Brisson; publisher, Image Comics.

A Close Call (1929, Harry Bailey and John Foster)

A Close Call is a very strange little cartoon.

First, it’s an early talkie, so everyone’s very excited about synchronized sound. So much so, in fact, a church choir breaks out into “You’re In The Army Now.” It’s a very odd song choice.

But not as odd as the rest of Call.

The cartoon concerns two mice in love. The boy gets into some trouble when he pulls off his sweetie’s skirt to use it as an accordion. In nothing but her bloomers, she’s not happy with him and neither notice the big evil cat arrive and kidnap her.

Now, the cat’s not trying to eat her. Oh, no, not at all. He’s an amorous vicious psychopath. While making goo goo eyes at the girl mouse, he’s trying to torture the male one.

The drawing is often rough and the animation’s bad, but the strangeness makes the cartoon undeniably compelling.

2/3Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Harry Bailey and John Foster; produced by Paul Terry and Amadee J. Van Beuren; released by Pathé.

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Adventure Time 1 (February 2012)

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It’s impossible to explain Adventure Time‘s joyous insanity. The comic’s licensed–presumably the cartoon also owes a lot to “SpongeBob SquarePants” in terms of the lunacy–but the issue never feels derivative. It’s just nutty fun.

It opens with an introduction to the characters, which isn’t particularly important (yet), and moves quickly into the first bit of craziness. Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb’s art is full of little details, complimented with writer Ryan North’s occasional footnotes talking to the reader about the page’s events.

The two protagonists are purposefully infantile, but good natured and enthusiastic–it’s impossible not to enjoy their bantering. Some of North’s footnotes about them reveal Time‘s actual audience is not kids (though it’s from Boom!’s kid label, Kaboom!) because kids wouldn’t care about his jokes.

My only complaint is it’s too short.

Then Aaron Renier has a great, if completely gross, back-up story.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988, Dwight H. Little)

While still bad, Halloween 4 is better than I ever expected. It’s barely ninety minutes and forty or so minutes are of people in crisis, which passes the time fairly well.

It takes place in an interesting version of the original film’s town, where the moon (even when it isn’t full) is apparently so bright, it can light entire blocks and buildings. One of the plot points is the power being out, yet cinematographer Peter Lyons Collister always manages to locate a directional source.

Oh, wait, maybe Collister is just incompetent. That explanation makes more sense. Especially considering how almost every night shot is flooded with bright blue light.

The film’s a strange mix of character actors and ingenues, with the character actors the only reasonable actors. Donald Pleasence starts trashing his career legacy, but he’s not terrible. Beau Starr’s quite good.

As for the ingenues, they’re uniformly awful. Empirically speaking, director Little appears to have told Danielle Harris (the child in distress) to look like she’s holding in a fart. Her performance is terrible, though probably better than Ellie Cornell as her protector. Cornell lacks any affect whatsoever.

Little is an inept director, but not wholly incompetent. The real fault for Halloween 4 lies with writer Alan B. McElroy. McElroy can’t just not write dialogue, he can’t plot either. He also plagiarizes King Kong Lives‘s rednecks with shotguns subplot.

And then Little ruins McElroy’s one good scene.

It’s awful, but–again, shockingly–Halloween 4 could be much worse.

Locke & Key: Head Games 6 (June 2009)

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Hill’s fluidity of Zack’s gender is once again striking. The issue’s a flashback to before the first series and so Dodge (how many names does the character have, anyway?) is still the female. I wonder how it’ll all play out.

There are no Lockes in this issue (except a cameo from Duncan in the flashback) and instead it’s Ellie’s issue. Hill shows how lousy her life was before Dodge came back into the picture. Of course, having an evil ghost around murdering people should make it worse, but Ellie’s mom is exceptionally evil too so it’s a toss-up.

It’s mostly a talking heads issue, except one of Rodriguez’s amazing double-page spreads of inside Ellie’s head. He does well pacing the confrontations between mother and daughter; Hill strives, once again, to juxtapose mundane evil against the supernatural.

Though Locke-less, it’s Head Games‘s best issue. Hill and Rodriguez excel.

Locke & Key: Head Games 5 (May 2009)

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Interesting. Hill completely surprising this issue at every turn. The opening’s a little disjointed, however, as it presents a more genial “hang out” night at the Locke house than Hill’s ever suggested before.

He also starts making Zack a mildly sympathetic character. Maybe mildly is too strong a word. Hill makes sure to show Zack not doing entirely abhorrent things this issue. And the end is a complete surprise.

While it’s a good issue (it really does contain the most unexpected work Hill’s done on Locke & Key so far), the pacing is off. Not much happens. There’s a bunch of exposition at the front and then the ending, which is awesomely unexpected, requires Kinsey to be a moron.

And mom Nina has vanished for the last couple issues.

Rodriguez’s cover plays towards the homoerotic; Hill works directly against it with the soft cliffhanger.

Hill enjoys playing with the reader expectations.

His Prehistoric Past (1914, Charles Chaplin)

Chaplin opens His Prehistoric Past setting it up as a dream sequence, which lets the viewer know the outcome can’t be too dramatic. But the setup is immediate–Chaplin falls asleep on a park bench–so the more relatable elements in the dream don’t have much substance.

In the dream (the majority of Past), Chaplin is a macho man, who beats up all cavemen and wows all the cavewomen. But there’s no establishing the character as wanting to beat all the men and wow all the women… though I suppose the latter is implied.

The short drags quite a bit after the initial fight scene, as Chaplin pals around with the king (Mack Swain) and make goo goo eyes at the king’s favorite concubine (Gene Marsh). Marsh’s performance suggests Past has subtle depth–at times she’s frightened of Chaplin’s affections.

The production values are strong, but otherwise, it’s mostly undistinguished.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Written, edited and directed by Charles Chaplin; director of photography, Frank D. Williams; produced by Mack Sennett; released by Mutual Film.

Starring Charles Chaplin (Weakchin), Mack Swain (King Lowbrow), Gene Marsh (Sum-Babee), Fritz Schade (Ku-Ku), Cecile Arnold (Cavewoman) and Al St. John (Caveman).

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Fantastic Voyage (1966, Richard Fleischer)

Among Fantastic Voyage‘s many problems, the two salient ones are the general lack of tension and the utter lack of wonderment. Fleischer is responsible for both, though maybe not so much the first. The story can’t really be tense because there’s very little at stake. The film’s principal characters–reduced in size to perform brain surgery from inside the brain–have a time limit of sixty minutes before they automatically enlarge.

And the guy with the brain injury isn’t a character, he’s just some scientist who picked the U.S. over the Reds. It’s not like anyone really cares about him.

As for the lack of wonderment, Fleischer is hampered with old special effects, but plenty of old movies have lots of wonderment. He clearly just doesn’t get it.

There are two or three effective sequences in Fantastic Voyage, which can’t make up for the lame script or Raquel Welch’s insufferable performance. She doesn’t even talk her first ten minutes in the film and she’s clearly terrible. Fleischer and the screenwriters do manage to contrive a way to get her into a wetsuit, of course. Oddly, it’s for one of those effective sequences–Fleischer’s excellent with three dimensions.

When the film opens with Stephen Boyd and Edmond O’Brien, the two actors are so strong together, it seems like Voyage will be all right. Sadly, it’s not.

Boyd’s good, O’Brien’s good, so is Arthur O’Connell. Arthur Kennedy has good moments, Donald Pleasence has less.

It’s a tedious film. Great opening titles though.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Richard Fleischer; screenplay by Harry Kleiner, based on an adaptation by David Duncan and a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby; director of photography, Ernest Laszlo; edited by William B. Murphy; music by Leonard Rosenman; produced by Saul David; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Stephen Boyd (Grant), Raquel Welch (Cora), Edmond O’Brien (General Carter), Donald Pleasence (Dr. Michaels), Arthur O’Connell (Col. Donald Reid), William Redfield (Capt. Bill Owens), Arthur Kennedy (Dr. Duval) and Jean Del Val (Jan Benes).

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Locke & Key: Head Games 4 (April 2009)

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Small big happenings this issue. Hill opens it with Uncle Duncan, who’s starting to remember where he’s seen Zack before. Not to jump around too much, but the next issue’s preview cover suggests Hill’s bringing back the homoeroticism in Zack and Tyler’s friendship. That return should be interesting.

It’s juxtaposed against Duncan’s arc this issue, where he and his boyfriend get assaulted by some crazy redneck women. Props to Hill for confronting homophobia in such a direct manner. Sadly, it’s far more interesting than the main content.

Tyler shows his friends the head key. It freaks out the girl, who’s still just a caricature. Then Kinsey decides she wants her fear extracted. There’s the implication next issue will have some pay-off, but it’s not enough.

Hill’s overstuffing Head Games, especially with Luke/Zack content; Duncan’s story is a relief because it feels organic and not painfully outlined and planned.