Nine to Five (1980, Colin Higgins)

Besides being extremely funny and rather well-acted, Nine to Five has a lot of narrative problems. The story isn’t a mess exactly, because there’s not enough story for there to be a mess. Higgins and co-writer Patricia Resnick have an idea (Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin are suffering secretaries) and not much else.

Fonda’s technically the star as her subplot has some drama and gets resolution with the son of a bitch ex-husband. Parton and Tomlin have lives outside the film’s main plot, but they aren’t part of the film. Parton gets two scenes, Tomlin only one. Higgins and Resnick get a lot of mileage out of those scenes–both for Chekhov’s gun or just texture for the characters.

Parton’s surprisingly appealing, Fonda’s good and Tomlin’s just great. But none of them are anywhere near as good as Dabney Coleman as their heinous boss. He manages to be equal parts familiar, odious and hilarious. Sadly, although the film’s thirty years old, workplace gender equalities haven’t really improved by leaps and bounds.

The narrative problems throw the film’s pacing off quite a bit. Getting through Fonda’s first day at the office takes twenty minutes, which sets the pace for a while, but the second half is summarized (if not abbreviated).

Under Higgins’s assured direction, Nine to Five shows a sitcom concept can work as a movie. More, it can be funny, insightful and rather well-acted.

About the only thing off is Charles Fox’s goofy score.

Captain America (1968) #252

Oh, is Stern’s exposition bad. I mean, it’s real bad. What I can’t figure out is why he bothers with it. It seems the only reason for the endlessly wordy narration is he has to fill space… but he doesn’t. This narration goes in boxes at the tops of panels. Byrne’s art is more than enough to hold the reader’s attention.

The best part of this issue is when Cap and Batroc team up against Mister Hyde. Byrne’s action is fantastic, but the team up also makes sense.

Unfortunately, the issue reads like a proto-“decompressed” narrative. Stern takes forever to get through what’s basically an all-action issue. Again, Byrne saves it.

At the end, there’s a little recap of Cap’s origin and his friends and so on. His apartment gets a page too. They just did an origin recap last issue, so the repeat’s pointless, but competently done.

Captain America (1968) #251

Besides Stern inexplicably wasting four or five pages recapping Cap’s origin, it’s a good issue. The origin recap made me wonder if Byrne wanted to get to redo the iconic panels, but they’re really small.

Byrne does a great job this issue, especially once the fight scene gets started at the end between Cap and Batroc and Mister Hyde. The bad guys have teamed up to blackmail the city. The fight takes place on a ship. It just works out great.

Most of the issue is probably dedicated to the bad guys, actually. There’s a prison break sequence and then there’s them bickering about teaming up. Cap has his open, then pulls an all-nighter drawing for his day job. Bernie shows up (but not for long enough).

It seems like all Stern needs to do is write through his wordy exposition; once it’s out of his system, he’s fine.

Captain America (1968) #250

After some hiccups, Stern finally gets the whole “Captain America for President” idea working. The problem scenes are the establishing ones. It’s Cap talking to the third party guys who want him to run on their ticket. The issue gets good once it’s Steve Rogers trying to figure out if he should run or not.

That opening is so bad, in fact, I thought the whole issue would be a disaster, but Cap’s speech explaining why he will not run is some iconic writing from Stern on the character.

Maybe the awful expository narration for the opening action scene (Cap versus a domestic terrorist) soured me to the issue prematurely.

Rubinstein’s art—Byrne’s credited with breakdowns—definitely has its moments. Unfortunately, the art’s the best while Steve Rogers is helping Bernie Rosenthal move into her apartment. That scene’s a good one anyway though.

It’s a fine issue, brief but effective.

Captain America (1968) #249

The Dragon Man cliffhanger really does not resolve well. All Stern can think of to get it over with promptly is for Cap to throw his glove in Dragon Man’s eye.

Then Dragon Man heads off to confront Machinesmith and Cap tags along. This sequence, from the cliffhanger resolution to Machinesmith’s hide-out, is visually fantastic. Stern doesn’t even cloud it over with narration or exposition, we just get to see the Byrne and Rubinstein art.

Unfortunately, the Machinesmith stuff is far less satisfying. Three quarters of the issue is Cap fighting a robot (or a piece of a robot) only to discover another robot waiting to attack him.

The final resolution, coming after two flashbacks revealing Machinesmith’s tortured past (Daredevil beat him up amongst other things), has a very sci-fi feel to it. Stern inexplicably closes this sequence with some awkwardly patriotic thought balloons.

But the art’s great.

Captain America (1968) #248

Steve Rogers as mild-mannered commercial artist is a little off at first, but once he settles in with his friends—and a girl, I sort of remember him dating Bernie Rosenthal when I was a kid—it gets a lot more comfortable.

Stern starts with more about him being wowed by the era, but it quickly dissipates and the issue’s a lot stronger than the previous one had suggested it could be. Dragon Man shows up and a big rooftop fight scene ensues. Machinesmith is still an annoying villain, but he eventually goes away.

I mean, Dragon Man tries to eat Steve’s shield. It’s hilarious.

But Byrne is what makes the fight scene work. They’re destroying building after building and Byrne makes it all seem real, down to the gigantic Dragon Man who can hold Steve in one hand.

Though, really, Captain America having money problems seems wrong too….

Captain America (1968) #247

Byrne does a great job with everything this issue except Cap. He draws him a little like a big dope. There’s just something bland and dully affable about him. And he’s always in costume, so clearly Byrne is doing a good job of drawing him that way since he never gets to fully illustrate an expression.

The issue is about Cap recovering his memory, which might also lead to the dull part. He thinks he’s got false memories and he discovers the truth in a few pages, leaving him ready to fight Baron Strucker.

There’s a really cool bit about Nick Fury sending Strucker to Israel for war crimes, a nice mix of reality into it.

But most of Roger Stern’s script is too expository and obvious. The issue only has a pulse when Fury’s around. When it’s just Cap, it’s all too tepid.

Bryne partially makes up for it.

Superman II (1980, Richard Lester)

There are, now, three versions of Superman II. The theatrical, an extended television version (not officially released) and original director Richard Donner’s take on it. Unfortunately, Superman II is–as a narrative and a sequel–rife with problems. Drawing attention to these problems is a bad idea. And the version with the least emphasis on them? Richard Lester’s original.

Whatever Lester’s problem with the Superman character, it’s not really apparent here. Superman II feels like a good Superman movie should feel–some of the campy humor works, some of it doesn’t. I’d say about fifty percent of Terence Stamp’s lines fail. The successful ones, however, are great. And Sarah Douglas is fantastic.

Most importantly, Lester gets some wonderful acting out of Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve. The somewhat nonsensical romance doesn’t fit in the picture–and never will, no matter how many revisions people make–but it makes the film singular. Superman wasn’t a particularly long film series and the familiarity Lester gets out of Kidder and Reeve in this one, the first sequel, is something television shows usually have to go three or four seasons to achieve.

The special effects–particularly the flying sequences–are occasionally weak. There are a lot more complicated rear projection sequences than in the first film and they don’t work out very often.

Like I said before, Superman II‘s basically a bad idea for a movie. But it works out in the end, thanks to the actors and, yes, Lester.

That Paris opening’s great.

Detective Comics (1937) #497

The main story is dedicated to Will Eisner, but besides some rather obvious Spirit references, I don’t get it. I mean, it’s not like Batman spends the issue getting beat up.

That one thing aside–it’s not even a problem, it’s just a strange dedication–the issue’s pretty good. It’s Batman the adventurer, with some nice moments between Bruce and Alfred and confusing ending. Conway forgets a bunch of stuff–Batman goes after the villain, the Squid, for some stolen documents… but we never find out what happens to them. And the upbeat finish is goofy.

The Newton artwork is just fantastic, with some really iconic panels. Conway might be forgetful, but his Batman’s fun to read.

The Batgirl backup, however, is a mess. The artwork is good, but the dialogue is way too expository and there are maybe eight principal characters, far too many for a feature story, much less a backup.

The Tomb of Dracula (1980, Okazaki Minoru), the English dubbed version

I read somewhere the Japanese started producing anime because there was no way to combat live action American imports. With its narration and lame plotting (it somehow isn’t epical–maybe because Tomb of Dracula was produced for television, complete with convenient commercial breaks), it’s an awful way spend ninety minutes. Unfortunately the entire cast isn’t credited, so I can’t properly ridicule the terrible voice acting.

The script’s a huge problem too–the film’s adapted from the comic book (maybe the first direct adaptation of a comic book in terms of its actual narrative and not just the concepts) and it picks the lame part of the series to adapt. I mean, there’s some idiotic writing, but still, the source material was competently told (at best) and beautifully illustrated. Not exactly the best thing to adapt.

But with all the shortcuts the film takes to make Dracula a likable character, it turns all the vampire hunters into moronic villains. It’s hard to say who’s a more suspicious character, the twenty-five-foot tall Satan monster or the primary vampire hunter, Hans Harker (the Hans thing can’t help but make one think German and the guy comes off as less human than the vampires).

It’s a completely nonsensical waste of time; if one wants to see a Dracula adaptation resemble a “Peanuts” cartoon, I guess it’s an all right way to go. But it kills brain cells one after the other. It’s so exceptionally bad. I wonder if all anime’s so lousy?