Category: 2008

The Punisher: Valley Forge, Valley Forge (2008)

Punisher MAX: Valley Forge, Valley Forge cover

According to Internet lore, Marvel once tried to get George Clooney interested in doing a Nick Fury movie with Garth Ennis’s original Fury MAX miniseries. Clooney pushed it away disgusted.

Makes you wonder if anyone tried giving Morgan Freeman a copy of Valley Forge, Valley Forge, or if maybe Ennis and artist Goran Parlov were just going full homage this time. The Freeman character is Colonel Howe, a regular Army officer who gets mixed up with the cabal of retiring Army brass—basically Dick Cheney guys—who are out to kill the Punisher before they retire from service into the private sector.

None of the cabal actually served in or during Vietnam, which ends up being important, and not just because Ennis structures the whole thing with inserts of a non-fiction book by the little brother of the protagonist from the Punisher: Born series. That series kicked off the whole Punisher MAX thing and Valley Forge is the finish. I thought there was one more story arc and I entirely misremembered Valley Forge. I have this seemingly unintentional thing where I forget a lot about Born because it’s not good and it extends to something peripheral to Born as well, it turns out.

Because Valley Forge isn’t a full story. Sort of. I mean, Morgan Freeman—Colonel Howe—has a full-ish arc, but he’s more present in the story than active in it. There are full issues without him doing much if he even appears. He just happens to get the fullest arc. Ennis is a little more intentional with the Nick Fury bookends, which serve to draw exceptionally clear parallels between Vietnam and the then current Iraq invasion. But mostly it’s about the potential literature of the non-fiction book, which is a bunch of interviews and then some editorializing from the “author.” Quotation marks because the author of the book is as much a character as any of the characters interviewed in the book. It’s not really mixed media—though the series of “snapshots” from Vietnam, courtesy Parlov, are staggeringly effective—and it’s not at all comprehensive. The pages in the book directly referring to the events in Born are missing, which is simultaneously frustrating and reasonable. It’s not even clear Ennis would want to ret-con it (though this story more directly refers to Born’s big problem flex than Ennis has done in Punisher MAX before; he hasn’t even mentioned it since the first story arc I don’t think), but it seems highly unlikely Marvel would go for it. Given when Born came out and who was running Marvel… I’m not even sure I’ve ever heard if the aforementioned flex was Ennis’s idea or from the company.

Regardless, Valley Forge isn’t a do-over of Born grafted to an epilogue for the last outstanding Punisher MAX plot threads. It’s something else.

It’s not entirely successful; there’s a long sequence where we get to see this much talked about confession tape from dozens of issues ago and, while Parlov does an amazing talking head sequence, Ennis “directs” the scene wrong because he’s got to avoid giving away a twist or two. The accompanying but detached book text, which Ennis was wrapped tight with the narrative in terms of narrative and dramatic echoes, also hides the relative simplicity of the comic story. The lengthy talking head sequences with the cabal guys being white imperialists—including the main one who looks like J. Jonah Jameson’s twin brother—is filler. Especially after Ennis reveals, rather late in the story, their flunky is the one to watch. Only we can’t, because Morgan Freeman’s in the room and you pay attention to him.

So, without the accompanying book text, Valley Forge is an incomplete, rushed finish to the series. With the accompanying book text, Ennis gets to realize Punisher MAX in a context closer to what seems to be his ideal—a place where you can take the character seriously. Only this time Ennis raises the stakes even higher, given where he gives the time in the book text. There’s a whole lot about racism. There’s so much about it—particularly because the book author is a white guy from Ohio or somewhere—it bleeds over to the main story and is the most significant tie between the two narratives. The presentation of the text isn’t great (seriously, no one at Marvel knew how to get a book typeset, really?), but it’s exceptionally effective. Ennis takes some wide swings and gets some good hits.

There’s also some good procedural writing when Ennis is filling pages with Parlov.

Parlov doesn’t get a lot of heavy art chores. There are some complex, elaborate fights but they’re not long fights. They’re functional. No Bond villain carping during them, dragging them out. Just point A to point B fights. Those snapshots of Vietnam, however, are haunting, stunning work. Especially when you consider only one of the characters actually appears in the comic portion and the rest are from the reader’s imagination.

Valley Forge, Valley Forge is a big win for Ennis and his war comics. It’s a solid finish for Punisher MAX, but it’s kind of an epilogue so who cares. But Ennis proves his point about taking Frank Castle seriously here. Sure, he’s been proving it for most of Punisher MAX’s fifty-some other issues, but here he hammers it in solid here.

Though it does always either feel too short or too long.

The Punisher: Long Cold Dark (2007-08)

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I’m going to go out on a limb and say having Howie Chaykin do an issue of art—the fiftieth Punisher MAX, so for the collectors’ who got anniversary issues–having Howie fill-in was a mistake.

Maybe if the rest of it weren’t regular artist Goran Parlov, like if it’d been all guest artists. But Howie ends up being a distraction. Sure, he’s doing the least connected material; his issue’s all first act stuff, with Barracuda back to attack Frank through his friends. Except it turns out Frank really does only have the one friend but Garth Ennis’s script has a surprise twist on that front. Meanwhile, Frank’s having a bad few weeks as he tries to shake off a dream about being a mundane white guy in his sixties, which is where the Howie art really comes through. Parlov’s going to visualize Frank and Barracuda as giant monsters in the real world, the monstrosities of toxic masculinity and patriarchy (whether Ennis wants to acknowledge it or not—he just uses bad dads, PTSD, and good dads for his terminology), but Howie makes them real. As real as anything else in Howie art anyway. And it lacks the energy Parlov’s going to bring later. Ennis actually coins it—“dark enthusiasm.” There’s a dark enthusiasm to the horrible violence and terror in Parlov’s rendering of Barracuda and Frank’s constant showdowns, as Barracuda (and Ennis) figure out a way to make Frank hurt. Howie doesn’t have it. His fight scenes are just fight scenes. He does much better with horny old man Frank getting it on with dream old lady Angie.

Because, you know, it’s Howie.

And despite a return guest star in Howie’s issue, it’s all new cast later on, with Frank having to pretend to be human again. Ennis has a very lyrical take on Frank’s first person, with the occasional poetic flex too far, but for the most part he makes it. Especially after Parlov shows up. The first chapter, while Barracuda’s terrorizing and Frank’s moping as much as he’s allowed to mope, has this exquisitely executed history of Vietnam-era rifles, with acerbic commentary from Frank as he fires off rounds to clear his head. The sequence does a lot of work later on, not exactly softening Frank but widening the potential for his first person narration let’s say, which has been Ennis’s whole trip on Punisher MAX.

I don’t think I’ve read Long Cold Dark since the floppies a decade plus ago. Maybe I read a trade. But I don’t think so. So I don’t know if, at the time, it was the first time Ennis had ever gotten me to tear up on a Punisher comic. Now it’s old hat. He got me sobbing with the last Vietnam flashback limited. Long Cold Dark only got me verklempt and teary-eyed and not even about the tragedy of Frank Castle. It’s over someone else, one of Ennis’s MAX originals, who Ennis has layered throughout the series to amazing effect before and even more amazing effect post-Long Cold Dark. It was during that sequence I realized just how unfair giving Howie the first chapter turns out to be, given how good Parlov has to be to execute the finale. Like, they got a guest artist, gave him the easiest stuff, then gave Parlov a whole big thing with no fanfare. Ennis asks a whole lot more of Parlov in Long Cold Dark than he asks of Howie, which is just one of the facts of the comics trade, but still.

The story itself is mostly split between action and Frank’s self-reflection; there are occasional talking heads sequences, sometimes exposition dumps, sometimes just there to get Frank’s first-person narration to the right place. Ennis isn’t using Barracuda for broad comic relief here either. Barracuda becomes a—conditional—tragedy. There are frequent flashbacks for both Frank and Barracuda and Ennis has a nice way of tying the characters and their shared history of Vietnam without worrying about an alter ego thing. It’s one of those “Frank is Barracuda’s nemesis but Barracuda isn’t Frank’s nemesis” things. Frank doesn’t have a nemesis, something Ennis has tried to drive home from the start of MAX.

And Long Cold Dark does feel like a leveling up for the series, not just because it got me teary, but where Ennis has moved the character and how to think about him. Having Barracuda—arguably Ennis’s most glaring misstep in the entire run of the series so far—be so successful doesn’t exactly make up for the previous slogs, but it does show Ennis is able to fix something he was wrong about, which is a fairly singular quality for a comic book writer. I misremembered the content of the story, thinking some of it was later on in the series, and wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

Shows what I know. Howie’s guest art spot being completely out of sync aside (and terribly misprinted in the Punisher MAX Volume 2 Omnibus, beware), Long Cold Dark is outstanding.

Justice League: The New Frontier Special (2008) #1

Justice League The New Frontier Special 2008 1 1

It would be wrong to describe Justice League: The New Frontier Special as hack work. Darywn Cooke’s art on the feature, even his plotting of it, is not hacky. Neither is the Robin and Kid Flash story’s art, courtesy Dave Bullock and Michael Cho. Even the Wonder Woman and Black Canary go to a Playboy Club art by J. Bone isn’t… hack work. Bone’s cartoonish style does what it’s supposed to do.

Now, the writing on that last story might be hack work. Cooke opens with a gentle jab at political correctness, confirms Bruce Wayne is a pig in his off time, and then has Wonder Woman slut shame. It’s not quite cringe because it’s six pages, but it’s definitely eye-roll.

And the Robin and Kid Flash story is more just annoying. Between Robin’s hep cat narration and the proto-groovy dialogue (and the “commie” villains?), it’s tiresome. But gorgeous art. Arguably better looking than Cooke’s feature, which is… something.

The feature tells the untold tale from the original New Frontier (this not at all special Special tied into the release of the lousy New Frontier animated movie)—Batman v Superman: Dawn of the Greater Good. Besides getting some insight into how Cooke would write Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman if he’d written them more in the original comic (good thing he didn’t), it also has more of dickhead Dwight D. Eisenhower, who sends Supes after Bats. I remember reading something about (Canadian) Cooke thinking we needed Eisenhower back—when asked about his politics during Iraq War II, where there was only one right answer—which adds a layer to the comic.

If Cooke liked Ike… it’s hard to imagine how he’d have written him if he didn’t like him. Killing a puppy maybe?

The feature’s twenty-four interminable pages, with Cooke clearly not spending a lot of time on the art. The Batman and Superman fight itself is pretty good, rather drawn out, but with a goony resolution. It’s also one hell of a retcon of the original series.

Overall the most successful thing in the comic is the one page prologue with Rip Hunter telling everyone not to take it seriously.

All of a sudden, I’m real glad I don’t have one of the New Frontier collected editions with the Special included. If I’d read it on publication, I forgot about it. I hope I can forget about it again.

The League (2008, Kyle Higgins)

A lot about The League is impressive. The filmmakers do a good job creating a stylized 1960s Chicago on a very low budget–director Higgins has some great overhead shots where they change the light saturation to hide it being modern cars on the streets below–and there's a definite attention to detail for most of the scenes.

The short concerns teenage superhero sidekick grown up and investigating a series of murders. Higgins and co-writer Alec Siegel do a decent job plotting out the first half of the short, with Paul Papadakis's masked protagonist playing gumshoe, but everything falls apart once the mystery's solved.

Higgins has problems directing actors (and fight scenes). Papadakis and Reginald James are all right, but Rick Cramer has some really weak moments and lots of screen time.

The League's often impressively produced, but those production values can't overcome Higgins's inability to create tension and the narrative deficiencies.

The Boys (2007) #19

The Boys 19

Ennis opens with a war story–well, at least a few pages of one–and it’s nice to see he and Robertson doing it. Ennis’s zeal for the genre (along with his cynicism) play well in The Boys‘s flashback, as the Legend tells Hughie all about the history of superheroes. This issue covers until the Vietnam War and a little beyond, but I was mostly just wondering about the cover date and when Irredeemable started.

You can only do so much with Superman analogues, sure, but….

There’s also some stuff with Butcher facing off with said Superman analogue, which might end up with Ennis going over some of Butcher’s history too. For comic relief, he’s got the big team superheroes who aren’t cool enough to go on the secret meeting to the Boys.

It’s basically an “all exposition” issue, but Ennis and Robertson are gleeful enough they keep it moving.

The Business of Being Born (2008, Abby Epstein)

Watching The Business of Being Born, one has to wonder about the structure. It starts as an investigation into the way hospitals deliver babies in the United States (the responsibility is not entirely with the hospital, of course; the film opens discussing Manhattan mothers scheduling their cesarean sections). But the narrative changes course once director Epstein discovers she’s pregnant.

This development comes about halfway through the film, which ends soon after Epstein delivers. Given she’s not the subject of the documentary, it’s surprising how much of her private moments she includes. One’s never seen Michael Moore with his shirt off (I hope). But in the final few scenes, Epstein talks about working on the film and it suggests it may have gone somewhere quite different if she weren’t, you know, taking care of a baby.

So there are two films here. One is an inspiring, enthusiastic look at the connection between mother and child. It’s beautiful. Great music from Jason Moss and Andre Pluess–just a lovely experience.

But the film Epstein doesn’t finish is a lot more… useful. The startling rate of cesarean sections in the United States is something even the OB/GYNs interviewed for the film are mortified over. These same OB/GYNs dismiss the idea of midwifery and home births, which are statistically (taking the cesarean into account) safer.

The film is definitely worth seeing (even with an awkward, disconnected epilogue).

One has to wonder, however, if executive producer Ricki Lake affected her quirky hat obsession.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Abby Epstein; director of photography, Paulo Netto; edited by Madeleine Gavin; music by Jason Moss and Andre Pluess; produced by Epstein, Netto and Amy Slotnick; released by Red Envelope Entertainment.

Featuring Abby Epstein (Filmmaker), Paulo Netto (Abby’s Boyfriend and Filmmaker), Tina Cassidy (Journalist and Author of Birth), Robbie Davis-Floyd (Medical Anthropologist), Ina May Gaskin (Midwife), Nadine Goodman (Public Health Specialist), La Juana Huebner (Parent), Gregor Huebner (Parent), Cara Muhlhahn (Certified Nurse Midwife), Michel Odent (OB/GYN and Researcher), Mayra Vazquez (Parent), David Radzinski (Parent), Catherine Tanksley (Midwife), Julia Barnett Tracy (Parent), Van Tracy (Parent) and Ricki Lake (Actress and Producer).

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Role Models (2008, David Wain), the unrated version

Role Models is shockingly good. It fuses the inappropriately blunt comedy genre with a listless thirties white men growing up genre. The result is a constantly funny film–I mean, it’s Seann William Scott swearing at kids… from the two minute mark–with a solid emotional core. And it’s never artificial.

Scott isn’t the lead (though he gets top billing), rather Paul Rudd. Rudd plays a miserable thirty-something, depressed over the lack of substance in his life (of course, he’s ignoring having a grown-up relationship with lawyer girlfriend Elizabeth Banks), who lands he and Scott in trouble.

Their punishment? A Big Brother program.

The film overcomes its occasional contrivances–besides Banks being a lawyer to represent Rudd and Scott, the midsection has a painful juxtaposition of both men realizing they aren’t being the best Big Brothers they could be. But Wain, whose strength as a director is making the absurdities wholly believable, keeps the sequence going until it works.

Scott is hilarious–he’s playing his American Pie role aged–but Rudd makes the film. He doesn’t worry about being appealing, since Scott fills that function, instead selling the character’s developing self-awareness.

As their charges, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Bobb’e J. Thompson are both good. Mintz-Plasse probably gives a better performance, but Thompson is funnier.

Banks is solid too, grounding the film.

The supporting cast is excellent, Jane Lynch and Ken Marino in particular. Especially Lynch.

Role Models is earnest and thoughtful. It’s a fantastic grown-up comedy.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Directed by David Wain; screenplay by Paul Rudd, Wain, Ken Marino and Timothy Dowling, based on a story by Dowling and W. Blake Herron; director of photography, Russ T. Alsobrook; edited by Eric Kissack; music by Craig Wedren; production designer, Stephen J. Lineweaver; produced by Luke Greenfield, Mary Parent and Scott Stuber; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Paul Rudd (Danny), Seann William Scott (Wheeler), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Augie), Bobb’e J. Thompson (Ronnie), Jane Lynch (Sweeny), Elizabeth Banks (Beth), Ken Jeong (King Argotron), Joe Lo Truglio (Kuzzik), Ken Marino (Jim Stansel), Kerri Kenney (Lynette), A.D. Miles (Martin), Matt Walsh (Davith of Glencracken), Nicole Randall Johnson (Karen), Alexandra Stamler (Esplen), Carly Craig (Connie), Jessica Morris (Linda the Teacher) and Vincent Martella (Artonius).

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Blindness (2008, Fernando Meirelles)

Maybe there’s a longer version of Blindness where they explain what happens to all the cast members who fall away from the film. Or what happens to them while the film’s busy on other stuff—like Danny Glover, who disappears for a large portion of the film, only to return in an integral part at the end.

Poor Mpho Koaho ingloriously disappears after being in the film from the first few minutes. I guess it’s all right—Glover’s good, Koaho isn’t. The film, which is in an unnamed city (which looks suspiciously Canadian—it filmed in Toronto), has some vague bureaucracy at the beginning (again, it seems very Canadian) but it soon descends into a weak Lord of the Flies with the blind instead of stranded kids. Leader of the bad guys are Gael García Bernal and Maury Chaykin. All the other bad guys, we later learn, as Hispanic males. All the good guys (the men, at least)… white or black. I’m not sure if the filmmakers realized it.

Bernal is laughably bad. Chaykin is at least mildly competent.

The lead is ostensibly Julianne Moore, the only seeing person in the world of the blind. Screenwriter Don McKellar (seemingly intentionally) writes in caricatures and makes Moore’s character ludicrously passive.

Due to McKellar’s weak writing, second-billed Mark Ruffalo gives a mediocre performance. Alice Braga is okay; the best performance is easily Kimura Yoshino.

Meirelles’s direction is unimpressive and obvious, like the film itself….

It’s not terrible, just pointless and boring.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Fernando Meirelles; screenplay by Don McKellar, based on a novel by José Saramago; director of photography, César Charlone; edited by Daniel Rezende; music by Marco Antônio Guimarães; production designers, Matthew Davies and Tulé Peak; produced by Andrea Barata Ribeiro, Niv Fichman and Sonoko Sakai; released by Miramax Films.

Starring Julianne Moore (Doctor’s Wife), Mark Ruffalo (Doctor), Danny Glover (Man with Black Eye Patch), Gael García Bernal (King of Ward 3), Maury Chaykin (Accountant), Alice Braga (Woman with Dark Glasses), Mpho Koaho (Pharmacist’s Assistant), Iseya Yûsuke (First Blind Man), Kimura Yoshino (First Blind Man’s Wife), Mitchell Nye (Boy) and Don McKellar (Thief).

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Factory Farmed (2008, Gareth Edwards)

Factory Farmed is a great example of how digital video has made it possible for anyone to put together something great looking without actually having the previously requisite levels of talent. It’s a harsh statement—and I actually would rather have made some comment about auteur Edwards assuming everyone cares about his silly sci-fi premise (it reminds a little of Screamers in more ways than one, with no credit). Edwards does fine composition. His editing and camerawork, however, are weak.

The short looks fine—pointless, but fine—whenever Edwards is shooting a static shot. His lone actor roams around the countryside, searching for someone or something, walking across and through frames. Daniel Pemberton’s score is excellent. The whole thing gives the impression of being weighty and profound.

Then Edwards tracks the camera and it’s amateurish.

It’s a shockingly long five minutes. I got bored after a minute twenty.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Written, directed, edited and photographed by Gareth Edwards; music by Daniel Pemberton; produced by Zoe Eilliot.

Starring Jacob Court and Allen Leech.

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Homeland: The Illustrated History of the State of Israel, 2nd ed. (2008)

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My history B.A. informs my first observation about Homeland—writer Marv Wolfman identifies a disputed point in the history of the formation of Israel as a state—and I appreciated it. Wolfman takes the rockier road.

A lot of Homeland does take the rockier road, working very hard to be not to be jingoistic. The knocks one can think of against Israeli personalities are here—Sharon, for instance, and the Phalangist Massacre. In fact, if the book is biased, it’s not against Israelis or Muslims—it’s against American Christians. Wolfman gets in a hilarious bit where a self-identified American Christian thinks torture is totally un-Christian. It’s an inappropriate laugh, but a fine observation. There’s another point about the regular annual taxes Israelis pay. It’s hard not to roll one’s eyes at the American complaints.

The book is separated into three parts, tied with a narrative about a university class studying Israel, its history and its culture. The first part is through the formation of the state itself in 1948; the second generally covers culture, and the history from 1948 on; the third is a summary of other relevant topics. As a history text, Homeland’s very strong. It’s actually dense enough it could use a study guide, especially during the pre-1900 material.

Mario Ruiz’s combination of art and graphic design is effective. The overall transfer of information is important and Ruiz facilitates it.

Homeland is educational reading… but the package is so compelling, it also serves recreational purposes.