Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Ginger Beer Review 1: Bundaberg


First up is Bundaberg Ginger Beer from Australia (you know it’s Australian because it has a kangaroo on the label). I was first attracted to it because of the squat bottle, much like Red Stripe, which is a regular, alcoholic beer. It also has a neat pull tab contraption to open it, but you can’t see that here because I already opened and drank the contents. The label says, “Invert bottle before opening.” I appreciate this instruction for two reasons: 1) I like my ginger beer chunky; 2) I like beverages that give me a project to do. The label also claims, “Craft brewed over 3 days.” I have no idea what this means. It sounds fancy, but I have no idea if three days is a long time to make ginger beer or a short time. Like, “We’re taking our time to make the best ginger beer possible” or “we’re making it fast so that it gets out to you as soon as possible.” Either would be good.

Whatever the case, I really liked this ginger beer. It’s sweet, making the ginger flavor less spicy or sharp. It has hints of pineapple, even though that isn’t one of the ingredients. It does, however, list ginger root as one of the ingredients, which is surprisingly not as common as you would think. Ginger ales (as opposed to ginger beers) don’t always have ginger in them, I was surprised and alarmed to find out. Like that Vernors bullshit, which calls itself “ginger soda” (and that should be indication enough that it’s crap and doesn’t even belong in the same conversation as real ginger beers and ales). Vernors has zero ginger in it. Hard pass.

By the way, if you didn’t already know, ginger beer is fermented; ginger ale is a carbonated beverage with ginger flavoring. That’s the difference. Ginger soda is bullshit.

Anyway, I wanted to start out with a positive review. Bundaberg Ginger Beer is good. It has a sweet, pineapple taste and nice chunks. It’s not lemony like Rachel’s, which would push it over the top. It also has a fun bottle with instructions. I would definitely drink this again. 9/10

Andy's Ginger Beers and Ales Reviews Start Now!

Last year, I went to Seattle for a conference. While there, I became obsessed with Rachel's Ginger Beer, to the tune of 3-4 bottles a day. Since then, I've been on a quest to find a ginger beer or ginger ale on the east coast that comes close to Rachel's. I haven't found it yet. However, when I went to the grocery store the other day, I realized that I had tried most of the ones they had there, but I don't remember which I liked and which I didn't because I haven't been keeping track. So, I feel like it's important to document my quest by posting reviews here on my blog which has been defunct for seven years.

 I want to specify that I am only interested in ginger beers and ales as soft drinks. I don't give a shit what makes the best Moscow Mules or Dark and Stormies. Most internet lists only treat ginger beers as mixers and not as independent beverages in their own right. And some that get recommended on those lists taste like alcohol is missing from them. I don't have time for that mess.

Here are the rules: I'm going to use a 10-point scale, 10 being Rachel's. Also, I would be glad to hear recommendations. However, don't recommend Vernors; I've tried it, it's crap, and I will not take you seriously. If Rachel's is 10, Vernors is 0. That's the spectrum.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Today Is the Day



After more than a year and a half since the Twitter feed started, the day has finally arrived for The Bureau Chiefs at @FakeAPStylebook: our book, Write More Good, is officially available.

Some retailers, like Barnes & Noble, jumped the jumped the gun and had the book for sale yesterday, as I found out when I went to my local store:

It was amazingly cool to see the book as a real thing that someone could buy.

Also, in case you missed it, we also wrote a piece on the Wall Street Journal's "Ideas Market" blog. I'm particularly proud of a couple jokes in there.

This thing started out as a way to have fun with a group of good friends, and at its core, it still remains that way. I've gone through the book several times, and there are still many pieces that make me laugh hysterically.

All in all, today is a pretty exciting day, and I hope those of you who get the book enjoy it.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Ask Dr. K: Superman vs. Hercules

I am, admittedly, way behind on answering questions from the young man who sends me questions about superheroes, and for that I'm embarrassed. However, I'm going to try to rectify that situation by answering a somewhat recent question that he sent me.

Before I start, though, I want to mention that the young questioner has taken on the superhero identity of "Icemaker," though I'm not quite sure what his powers are supposed to be. Anyway, to protect his secret identity, as well as the safety of his loved ones, I will be referring to him from now on as "Icemaker."

Dear Dr. K,

If Superman and Batman were fighting all the other superheroes (all of them, including those alien ones that nobody likes), who would win? I think Hercules might win. I mean THE Hercules.

Icemaker


Dear Icemaker,

First, I want to apologize for not answering your questions in a more timely fashion, and I appreciate your persistence in continuing to ask them even in my silence.

Second, I would like to remind you that Superman is, in fact, an alien superhero, so you really shouldn't descriminate against the aliens. They have feelings too, you know.

Unless you're talking about the Martian Manhunter. I think we both can agree that that guy sucks.

Third, your question, on the surface, has an easy answer: Superman and Batman would beat all of the other superheroes. This has already happened many times, so I'm not going to get into specific instances. However, it is important to point out that Batman has already figured out a plan to beat every single superhero, with or without Superman. And as we've established many times, Batman can also beat Superman, if it comes down to that.

So, while this does seem to be an easy question, your inclusion of Hercules adds an interesting wrinkle. I'm glad you clarified "THE Hercules," instead of some random dude that called himself Hercules. But I'd be curious to know why you think Hercules might win this fight.

You see, Superman and Hercules have a pretty longstanding rivalry, and there was a time, years ago, that they used to get into it frequently. And you can probably guess the reason for their fights: Lois Lane.




One time Lex Luthor was in prison, and he built a solar-powered time machine out of a clock, some paper clips, some copper wire, and two aspirin. I am not kidding about that. He then used this "time ray" to pull the demigod Hercules out of time to help the villain bust out of jail and commit some crimes.

Hercules, though, figures out that Lex Luthor is a crook, even though Luthor keeps the classic hero supplied with turkeys and cigars (this is also not made up). Then, Superman and Hercules become friends. Superman, as Clark Kent, even helps Hercules find a civilian identity and a job as a reporter, even though the demigod is horribly unqualified for the job and has no social security number or credit history. In fact, everything that Hercules could put down on a job application would have to be a lie. But covering up fraud is just one thing friends do for one another.

The friendship doesn't last long, however, as Hercules soon falls in love with Lois Lane and hatches a plan to win her love by defeating Superman with all of the powers of the gods.

Now, here comes the part that's relevant to your question: Hercules ends up beating Superman with Apollo's magic flute, which puts the Kryptonian hero to sleep for 100 years. Herc then blackmails Lois: if she marries him, he will release Superman from the sleeping spell.

I think there's a valuable lesson here that I should pass on, even though it takes us a bit past the other valuable lesson about who would win in a fight. You should never do what Hercules does here. Blackmail will never be a sound foundation for a long-lasting relationship. If you like someone, and it turns out that the object of your affection actually likes someone else, just move on.

But back to the main question, Superman is only released from the spell by the intervention of Venus, the goddess of love, who is appalled that Hercules would pervert love in such a way. Superman then tricks Hercules into following him through time, and Hercules gets stuck in the classical era without any memory of his time in the 20th century.

So, although Superman ends up winning this fight, he is only able to because he got help from Venus. Otherwise, Hercules would have won. Therefore, I would have to say that you were right when you thought that Hercules might be able to beat Superman.

I would also like to add that this was not the only time that Superman had a run-in with Hercules, as we can see here:



In this story, the two rivals for Superman's affection--Lois Lane and Lana Lang--do what they do all the time: complain that they cannot trick Superman into marrying them. They are making this complaint inside Metropolis's hall of heroes, in front of the Hercules and Samson statues. They decide that they are no longer going to pursue Superman, but they wish some great heroes like Hercules and Samson would propose to them instead. This makes sense: if they can't get Superman, then their second choices should be even more unrealistic and involve time travel.

Superman, being the ultimate manifestation of Foucault's conception of the panoptic society (if you don't know who Foucault is yet, ask your mom), eavesdrops on this conversation. Because he has nothing better to do, he decides to deliver a valuable lesson to Lois and Lana: he goes back in time and picks up Hercules and Samson so that they can court the two ladies. He even teaches the two heroes English so that they have no communication barriers.

Lois and Lana are so taken with Hercules and Samson, respectively, that the ladies immediately agree to marry the strongmen. Everyone is blissfully happy, even though Lana probably has to give up her membership in the Metropolis Country Club. Superman, being the downer that he is, tells the ancient heroes that marriage isn't all its cracked up to be.

The two couples go to city hall to get marriage licenses, but they find out that they will have to wait a week. That's okay for them, though, because they can start getting their suburban lives set up, and Hercules and Samson can go find jobs.

After just a few days, Hercules and Samson learn that their lives with Lois and Lana are domestic hells straight out of a John Cheever story, and the two heroes beg Superman to take them back to their home eras.

The important lesson here? Lois defeated Hercules with her super-nagging powers. So, if we complete the following syllogism--Hercules beats Superman, and Lois Lane beats Hercules--we can logically conclude that Lois Lane beats Superman. We can also add nagging to the list of Superman's other weaknesses--kryptonite and magic.

Important lesson #2: Hercules loves turkeys and cigars.

Important lesson #3: If you are Lex Luthor, you can build a time machine out of common household items, like a clock and aspirin.

Important lesson #4: Superman does not marry Lois Lane because he knows that he would end up spending all of his time trying to meet her needs, and meanwhile the whole world would go to hell in a handbasket because the bad guys would have free reign.

Icemaker, I hope that answers your question and then some. Please keep them coming.

Your friend,

Dr. K

Cover images from The Grand Comics Database.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

An Open Letter to Pottery Barn Kids

Dear Pottery Barn Kids:



Although it is impressive that you have developed the technology and skills seen in the movie Inception and applied them to marketing your products, I would respectfully request that you stay out of my dreams. I am not going to buy everything featured in this room no matter how much you personalize it.

Except maybe the sconce.

And the decal.

But definitely not the sheets because they don't come in king.

Anyway, cut it out.

Respectfully,

Dr. K

Friday, March 25, 2011

Spider-Man: Turn On the Dr. K!



On a recent spring break trip to New York, The Other Dr. K and I saw the Spider-Man musical, on the same night that producers announced they were delaying the opening again, and the next day we learned that director Julie Taymor was leaving the show. The postponement was announced just before the curtain went up, so we didn't hear about it until after the show.

I'm glad I saw it, especially since it may never actually open now, or at least the version that will open will be dramatically different from the one we saw. But, overall, I enjoyed the experience, and I think the show's strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. That being said, I also understand much of the harsh criticism it's received, though I do think that a lot of the negative press has involved a combination of schadenfreude, snark, and pile-on in order to create a story about the "biggest flop ever."

Anyway, for what it's worth, here are my thoughts on the musical. Just to warn you, this is going to get pretty long and spoiler-filled, though that may not matter much.



First, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark definitely sounds like a musical that was written by U2. Since I tend to like U2, that wasn't a problem for me.

Second, the technical stuff is amazing, especially the stunts, and that does a lot to overcome the weaknesses, which are mainly in the second act's plot.

Third, the audience really got into it, and they showed an enormous amount of good will, even when a technical problem stopped the play for a bit with the Green Goblin suspended above the audience. The production had worked out a system for the likely event of a technical stoppage like this: after a short announcement about the priority of safety, the suspended Green Goblin did some mugging and clawing for the crowd, and the Spider-Man who was waiting on him from the top balcony waved him off in disgust. The people underneath the Goblin seemed a little concerned, but otherwise the crowd seemed to dig it.

The first act is actually pretty great, and this surprised me considering how overwhelmingly negative the reviews have been. It tells a complete story on its own. One problem is that it's a familiar story--pretty much the plot of the first Spider-Man movie. However, there is some amazing stuff in there. The number where Peter discovers his powers in his room is really cool: stagehands carry out four padded walls, and Peter bounces off of all of them, sticks to the ceiling, and runs 360 degrees from floor to ceiling and down again. Also, the wrestling scene where Peter first earns money from his powers is pretty hilarious, with Peter fighting a giant, inflatable opponent. Many of the early fight scenes also use some neat slow motion effects, where Peter dodges a baseball that's been hit at him and then takes down two bullies with their bat.

Also, the play makes one particularly big change to the Spider-Man origin: Uncle Ben is run over when a thief steals Flash Thompson's hot rod. This, however, makes some sense, because we can understand there why Peter would let such a thing happen.

The most amazing stunts in the entire play also take place in the first act, during the final battle between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin. Spidey actually jumps off the third level balcony onto the flying Green Goblin's back, which is incredible. The act ends with the Green Goblin falling off the Chrysler Buidling, and the way the scene is staged, in which we are meant to be looking down from the top of the building, is impressive.

But herein lies what I think is the biggest problem: act one ends with the play's emotional high point, and the rest of the play doesn't even come close to this. They could just add a few more scenes to act one and make it the entire play, and then it would be great. Also, Patrick Page, who plays Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin, is fantastic, and none of the villains in the rest of the play come close to being as straight-up fun as he is.

There is also the thing with the "Geek Chorus," which wasn't as annoying to me as I thought it would be when I first heard about it. The first act is framed by four comic fans trying to compose their own Spider-Man story, which is the play we see. However, this conceit is pretty much dropped somewhere early in the second act, so it doesn't really pay off like it should.

When act one ended, the Other Dr. K and I looked at each other and said, "That was pretty good. I wonder what all the complaining was about?" I was even a little exhausted from the final fight scene.

In terms of story, though, act two is a mess. Early in act one, the geek chorus introduces the myth of Arachne, and she is supposed to serve as some kind of mythical/storytelling force that connects Spider-Man to classical mythology. That makes sense, and it works on that level. In fact, Arachne could serve as the play's narrator, dropping the geek chorus entirely, and that would further reinforce an interesting comic/classic mythology connection. This would especially work because Arachne is not a very mobile character--she's got a woman's torso and a spider's body--and she spends most of her time on stage suspended in the air.

However, the geeks turn her into the main villain in the second act, and this is presents another significant problem. Arachne's motivation is jealousy over Peter's relationship with Mary Jane--she wants Peter to embrace his spider side and reject his humanity. After defeating a bunch of villains, Peter decides to quit being Spider-Man, as it has ruined his personal life. In order to get Spider-Man back, Arachne creates a global threat that only he can defeat: she shuts down the world's power supply and takes over the internet and all other broadcast media. Then, she brings back the villains Spider-Man has already defeated in order to sow chaos and destruction.

We find out, during the climactic battle between Spider-Man and Arachne, that she has created all this chaos and destruction virtually: she's been controlling the information on the internet and television to make it look like the villains have returned and were destroying the major cities of the world. This doesn't make sense, because we see Spider-Man fighting these villains again, though he is punching them as they appear on giant screens. Also, Arachne traps Mary Jane in a web at the end, in a final effort to get Peter to give up his humanity and embrace his spider-ness. When he agrees to do this if she only releases Mary Jane, Arachne realizes that she can never get him to stop being human, so she abruptly gives up, which doesn't make any sense. Then Peter kisses her and sends her away. At least, that's what I think happens--the Other Dr. K and I had some disagreements about they play's conclusion.

Still, the final song, "Boy Falling from the Sky," is really good, and the number is very physically demanding on Reeve Carney. He has to sprint on a treadmill for a big part of the song, and then swing around the theater several times before landing on the third balcony. Then, he returns for the encore by being lowered onto the stage upside down for the final kiss with Mary Jane.

It's clear that the second act is where most of the money is, and it contains the stuff in which Julie Taymor was probably the most invested. The infamous shoe-shopping number with Arachne and her female spider minions is as ridiculous as everyone has said it is, but it's also one of the more technically ambitious numbers:the female spider costumes alone are really complicated and obviously expensive.

So, it seems pretty clear where the problems are, but they are in the areas where one can really see Julie Taymor's signature: elaborate costumes, complex musical numbers, innovative technology. Still, whenever the flying and web-swinging happened, I was blown away, and that made it easier for me to overlook the plays bigger problems. Also, I don't have a lot invested in Spider-Man's origin or overall story, so it was easy for me to forgive some of the liberties taken there. I'm glad I saw it, and I had a good time with the experience. I'd also be curious to see it again when changes are made and if it actually returns in the summer.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Will Eisner and the "Graphic Novel"

I recently returned from a trip to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library at the Ohio State University, where I went to examine the library's Will Eisner Collection, which contains, among other things, letters, original art, and most of Eisner's publications over his long career. While there, I found what is, as far as I can tell, a previously undocumented source that sheds some light on how Will Eisner arrived at the term "graphic novel" to describe his 1978 work, A Contract with God.

First, some background: Bob Andelman, in the biography Will Eisner: A Spirited Life, describes the scene where, in 1978, Will Eisner tried to pitch his book, A Contract with God, to Bantam Books.

Eisner called up Oscar Dystel, then president of Bantam Books, and pitched the concept. Dystel not only knew Eisner but was said to be a fan of his work on The Spirit. Dystel remembered him, but he was a busy man, as publishers usually are, and he was impatient. He wanted to know what it was that Eisner had, exactly. Eisner looked down at the dummy, and an instinct told him, Don’t tell Dystel it’s a comic book or he will hang up on you.

So Eisner thought for a moment, and said, “It’s a graphic novel.”

”Oh,” Dystel said, “that sounds interesting; I’ve never heard of that before.” (290)


As the story goes, Dystel ended up rejecting the work once he saw it and determined that it was a comic book. But this story, repeated frequently by Eisner and his biographers (Michael Schumacher repeats it on pages 200-01 of his recent biography, Will Eisner: A Dreamer’s Life in Comics), is cited as the point, in a fit of sudden and desperate inspiration, where Eisner first came up with the term “graphic novel” to describe A Contract with God.



It is now fairly common knowledge that Eisner neither invented the term itself nor the form that we call a “graphic novel,” but it is fair to say that he popularized the term when he later used it to promote the book upon publication from Baronet Books in 1978, and, for better or worse, the term has stuck.

However, for some time after, Eisner was credited as the “inventor” of the graphic novel and the first to use the term. Even as late as 2003, Stephen Weiner wrote in Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel,

“The first modern ‘graphic novel’ was written and illustrated by veteran cartoonist Will Eisner, who coined the term while trying to persuade the editors at Bantam Books to publish the book-length comic book” (17).


There are, of course, a few contentious points in this statement, leaving aside the point that A Contract with God is a series of short stories, rather than a novel per se. First, it is well known that Eisner did not “coin” the term. In North America, the term “graphic novel” has been traced back to fanzine writer Richard Kyle, who first used it in November 1964, and the term later appears on the dust jacket of George Metzger’s 1976 work, Beyond Time and Again, as well as Richard Corben’s Bloodstar and Jim Steranko’s Chandler that same year.

Also, several earlier works that could now be described as “graphic novels” precede the publication of A Contract with God in North America, in addition to the ones mentioned above, and, therefore, make it difficult for one to call that work “the first modern ‘graphic novel.’” This is by no means an inclusive list, but Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin’s His Name Is … Savage (1968) and Blackmark (1971) and Arnold Drake, Leslie Waller, Ray Orsin, and Matt Baker’s It Rhymes with Lust (1950) all fit most formal definitions of “graphic novel,” and those alone are enough to call into question the statement that Eisner’s was the first modern one. However, such claims persisted even beyond the point that comics historians had proved them wrong.

Later in life, Eisner did admit that he was not the first to come up with the term, as Schumacher quotes:

”I thought I had invented the term,” Eisner admitted, “but I discovered later that some guy [probably Kyle] thought about it a few years before I used the term. He had never used it successfully and had never intended it in the way I did, which was to develop what I believe was viable literature in this medium” (201).


And this has become the accepted story of how Eisner arrived at the term independently, and how he managed to begin popularizing it around 1978, with the publication of A Contract with God. Yet no one has found a connection between these earlier uses of the term "graphic novel" and Eisner's own use of the term.

At the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, I read through Eisner’s surviving letters, including business correspondences and fan mail from around 1963 to the late 70s and early 80s, mainly doing research on my larger project on race and comics. About 90% of the fan mail consists of requests for sketches and original art, accompanied by Eisner’s polite refusal (most of the time-he did provide sketches and prints on some special occasions). Therefore, while there was a high volume of fan mail during this period, much of it was very easy to move through quickly.

One of the qualities that struck me in Eisner’s correspondences, though, was how generous, encouraging, and detailed he was in the critiques he provided to up-and-coming comics pros who sent their early work to him.



One such pro was Jack Katz (often cited as the creator of one of the precursors to the graphic novel) who began a correspondence with Eisner in August 1974, with the inclusion the first book of Katz’s epic fantasy series The First Kingdom. In his introductory letter, dated Aug. 7, 1974, Katz writes,

Here is the first book of a series of 24 books which it will take to complete the epic. … What I am starting is a graphic novel in which every incident is illustrated.


Katz goes on to explain the plot and themes of the entire epic at length, and he thanks Eisner for his continuing inspiration.

On August 26, 1974, Eisner responds in his typical polite and encouraging fashion:

My compliments to you on an imaginative piece of work. There is strength, drama and great picture value.

I’m particularly impressed with the enormity of your undertaking. It is efforts like this that move the standards of our art form upward. (The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, The Will Eisner Collection, Box WEE1, Folder 22)


The correspondence between Eisner and Katz went on for many years, at least to the end of the Eisner letters that OSU has collected, which is about 1978. In all, exchanges survive through January of 1978, in which Katz sends Eisner book 7 of The First Kingdom. Throughout these exchanges, Eisner is detailed in his praise and critiques of Katz’s work, citing in particular the improvement of Katz’s inking skills from the first book on, and continued recommendations for Katz to work on integrating images and text better (anyone who has ever read The First Kingdom will know that this is sound advice). Eisner, in fact, frequently refers back to earlier letters to note this progress, and he often cites how Katz’s project renews his faith in the progress of the comics form. Notably, it is during the latter part of these correspondences that Eisner is generating the idea for and composing his first graphic novel, A Contract with God.

Now, I want to resist speculating too hard on what all this really means, but it is safe to say, at least, that Eisner was introduced to the term “graphic novel” by Jack Katz in 1974, and Eisner exhibited a clear memory of their exchanges over the course of four years, up to the composition of A Contract with God. Some kind of cross-pollination between Eisner and Katz is likely here.

Beyond that, what can we say? Did Eisner recall that first letter from Katz while under pressure to come up with some descriptive term for Bantam? Or did the term just float through his transom at that point in 1974, only to emerge on its own again in 1978 with no connection to its past use? We probably won’t find answers to those questions, but the latter may be the most likely scenario. I would hesitate to conclude that Eisner’s use of the term and subsequent failure to credit Katz with introducing him to it constitute some kind of willful omission on Eisner’s part (though, as Ken Quattro's recent discovery reveals, Eisner was prone to a kind of historical revisionism that tended to place him in a better light than the historical evidence would otherwise prove).

But what remains is still useful: we now know Eisner’s earliest known exposure to the term “graphic novel,” which at least provides an addendum to the oft-repeated story of how he came to use the term to describe A Contract with God. And, therefore, the accepted wisdom of that story needs to be revised.

Works Cited

Andelman, Bob. Will Eisner: A Spirited Life. Milwaukie: M Press, 2005. Print.

Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, The. The Will Eisner Collection.

Schumacher, Michael. Will Eisner: A Dreamer’s Life in Comics. New York: Bloomsbury, 2010. Print.

Weiner, Stephen. Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel. New York: NBM, 2003. Print.

Dr. K's Research Blog

One of the reasons why I created this blog several years ago was because I wanted a venue for more fun, informal writing than the normal academic writing I was doing would allow (not to say that academic writing isn’t fun—it’s just a different kind of fun). That is, I would use this blog to exercise my excitement and enthusiasm as a comics fan, and, therefore, keep it separate from my academic writing.

For the past few months or more, however, I have let the blog slide as my opportunities to write and publish scholarship have increased, and these opportunities will see fruition in the coming year. At times, though, my academic interests have dovetailed with the blog writing. For example, the still-popular Chop-Chop posts and Blackhawk Wingsdays came at the beginning of my research on a larger project about race and comics, on which my efforts are now mostly focused. And the Gil Kane Punch of the Week, which I need to get back to, came about while I was researching the Gil Kane entry that I wrote for Greenwood Press’s Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels.

One of the things I would like to start doing here, in addition to reviving the more humorous fan writing, is use the blog as a kind of research log, where I document the progress on some of the work I’ve been doing. I hope this will be of interest to at least some readers.

Upcoming, then, will be some essays on that research, including one that I hope to complete today. Please stay tuned.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Superman vs. Muhammad Ali



To celebrate the republication of one of my favorite comics of all time--Superman vs. Muhammad Ali--which is out in comic stores today, here's the second fight between Ali, then Cassius Clay, and Sonny Liston, from 1965:



For the fight itself, you can skip ahead to about the 2:50 mark. From that point on, though, it's important to pay attention because things happen pretty fast. And for fans of Mad Men, this is the fight that factored in to episode 7, "Suitcase," this season.

Also, because it's a perfect example of why Ali was the Greatest, here's round 8 of the Rumble in the Jungle between Ali and George Foreman:



On a personal note, about 10 years ago or so, I was walking through the lobby of a hotel in Louisville, when I saw Ali standing with a group of people. He looked over at me, so I gave him a "Hey, Champ." He then lifted up his fists a few inches and gave me a nod. I just about lost it right there.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

This Makes Me Want the Flu

The other day, one of my nephews, who is somewhere between the ages of 3 and 12 (I really don't pay attention to the ages of my nieces and nephews, except when they turn 21 and can start buying their own alcohol) said to his mother during dinner, "This food makes me want the flu."

Now, his mother immediately took this to mean something like, "This food makes me nauseous," or "This makes me feel like throwing up," but I took it to mean something more than that. I think that, in an effort to see himself in relation to the world around him, he developed a rather sophisticated standard for evaluation. Rather than meaning, "I want to throw up," he was actually saying, I would argue, "If given a choice between eating this food and having the flu, I would rather have the flu."

I immediately saw the appeal of this system. "You know what?" I said, "Two and a Half Men makes me want the flu." And then I started to run through my head all the things I don't like, trying to determine if I would rather have the flu than be exposed to them again. FOX News, The Eagles, Katy Perry, Outsourced, most of CBS's Monday night comedy line-up with the exception of How I Met Your Mother, Michele Bachmann, Jim DeMint, brussel sprouts, Joe Buck calling the World Series--all of these things make me want the flu.

But then I realized there are things that I don't really care for, but if given a choice, they were all preferable to the flu. Billy Joel, the Confessional poets, Norah Jones, broccoli, Adam Sandler comedies (with the exception of Now I Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, which makes me want the flu and thensome), Tim McCarver calling the World Series--none of these things rose to the level where being sick was preferable to being exposed to them. And that made me feel a little more tolerant of those things that I don't like, but can live with.

So, I'm grateful to my young nephew for introducing me to this sophisticated and truly helpful system for evaluating the world around me, which helps me break the simple binary of "I like this/I don't like that" to provide a more nuanced judgment. I hope that everyone will pick this phrase up and use it when they feel it's appropriate. I know I'm going to start using it every day.

And this leads to my final question: what makes you want the flu?

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Halloween Countdown Day 31: Happy Halloween!


Batman, circa Halloween 1977.

I don't know if you're community did Trick-or-Treat last night, like mine did, or if you live in a place that values tradition over zealotry so you're having Trick-or-Treat on the correct night, but whatever the case, I hope you got/get all the candy you want. Me, I bought way too much candy for the turnout we had, so unless we get a second wave tonight, I'm gonna be throwing down Kit Kats, Almond Joys, and Starbursts for some time.

Happy Halloween!

Friday, October 29, 2010

Halloween Countdown Day 29: Paranoiac!

When I begin these Halloween Countdowns, I usually start with around 4 movies that I want to cover, and then I just go kind of stream-of-consciousness style from there, as one movie will remind me of another, and so on.

And it seems like, for me, all roads lead back to Hammer Studios. After covering Girly last week, I was reminded of some other Freddie Francis movies that I hadn't covered, and that led me to today's film, Paranoiac (1963), directed by Francis and written by the great Jimmy Sangster, who was responsible for writing some of the earliest Hammer horror classics.

Next year, I should really do Hammer all month.



Paranoiac is more of a modern gothic mystery with a horror undertone than it is a typical Hammer horror film. Beautifully shot in black and white by Francis, who had won an Oscar a few years previously for the cinematography to Sons and Lovers, this film looks amazing, with a strong, atmospheric contrast between light and dark that lends to the film's mood.

The Ashbys are a disfunctional, upper-class British family. Eleven years earlier, the two parents were killed in a plane crash, leaving three orphaned children in the care of their aunt Harriet. Soon after, the eldest son, Tony, commits suicide, leaving Simon (Oliver Reed) and Eleanor (Janette "Day of the Triffids" Scott) as the sole heirs to the Ashby estate.

When the movie opens, Simon is less than one month away from coming into the fortune, which he will need, as he has long expended his budget on booze, and the local liquor shops will no longer cover him. This role may not have been a stretch for Oliver Reed, but he is perfect as the spoiled, dangerously unstable, and unapologetically nasty young man. This is an early film for Reed, but everything that's great about his screen performances is here--the charisma and physical energy that are both just teetering on the edge of restraint.

Eleanor, meanwhile, appears to be going mad, and has herself been unstable since her beloved brother's suicide. At the beginning of the movie, however, she starts to see what she thinks are visions of Tony, first at church and later outside their home.

It turns out that these aren't visions, and a man claiming to be the long-lost Tony Ashby (Alexander Davion) shows up to claim his inheritance.

This feels like a fairly standard mystery plot, but Sangster takes it in some surprising directions. First, he reveals fairly quickly to the audience that Tony is indeed a fake--a grifter hired by the Ashby lawyer's son to try to scam the family out of their fortune. Also, a romance develops between fake Tony and Eleanor, yet the movie pretty much suspends the idea that this is a romance between a mentally unstable woman and a man who is identical to her dead brother.

And that raises one of the most fascinating elements of this movie. Sangster and Francis create a world for the Ashbys in which, by virtue of their wealth, they get to create their own moral system, though one that has been difficult to maintain. Simon has become more and more dissolute over the years, endangering himself and others in his decline; Eleanor has deteriorated mentally; and Aunt Harriet has tried desperately to maintain the status quo. Even fake Tony, whose real name is never revealed, should hardly get to function as the hero of the story, though his intrusion into the family tears down that status quo once and for all. And once it starts to go, the movie transitions from mystery to horror.

At 80 minutes, this is a tight movie, filled with solid performances across the board, a smart plot, and beautiful black-and-white cinematography. However, I would add that the film's sensational title is a bit inappropriate for such an intense but cerebral thriller.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Halloween Countdown Day 28: Sugar Hill

As I've mentioned before, I like to watch bad horror movies, but I do so in order to find that nugget of creativity or originality--those points when, despite a lack of talent or a series of bad choices that permeate the rest of the film, I'm genuinely surprised. That moment where I think to myself, "No matter how bad this movie is, I'm glad it exists for this reason alone."

That is definitely the case with Sugar Hill (1974, not to be mistaken for the Wesley Snipes movie of the same name), a blaxploitation zombie horror film that varies wildly from amateurish to inventive.



Sugar Hill deserves to exist just on the virtue of its premise alone: a fashion photographer whose name is actually "Sugar Hill" (Marki Bey, who looks a lot like a disco-era Vivica A. Fox) seeks revenge on the white gangsters who murdered her man, Langston. Instead of going the Pam Grier route and doing the job solo, she gets supernatural help from top voodoo figure Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley) and his army of zombies, all of whom are re-animated slaves.

So, there is considerable satisfaction in seeing a horde of zombie slaves killing a bunch of racist white gangsters, and that alone goes far to make up for the film's many faults. But each set piece, where Sugar picks off the gangsters one by one, is incredibly inventive and, most of all, fun. Sugar wears a sexy white jumpsuit for each killing that could almost qualify as a superhero costume, and Don Pedro Colley is clearly having a good time as Baron Samedi (he even steers away from the booming, otherworldy, Geoffrey Holder-style voice that one might expect for the character). These scenes appear with enough frequency--Sugar has a lot of revenge to get--that the weaker, in-between moments don't feel so bad.

For one gangster, Sugar has the zombies feed him to some hungry pigs. As he falls into the pen, Sugar says to the pigs, "I hope you like white trash." This is a great one-liner, and the movie does not hide its glee at the comeuppance these racists received. Another henchman is attacked by a disembodied chicken foot, which is also pretty awesome.

The police investigation that punctuates these murder scenes is otherwise terrible: the acting feels amateurish, and the investigating detective, Valentine (Richard Lawson), seems to come up with leads off-screen, as we don't quite know why he suspects Sugar in these murders. But this sub-plot is abruptly and unceremoniously dropped from the film.

The climactic scene, where Sugar and the Baron go after Morgan (Robert Quarry), the mob boss, is disappointing in light of the creativity shown elsewhere, and the film's abrupt ending, where the contract between Sugar and the Baron is fulfilled, was not what I expected to happen. Nonetheless, this movie has enough occasional fun moments that make it worthwhile.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Halloween Countdown Day 25: The Devil Within Her


The Devil Within Her (1975, a.k.a. Sharon's Baby, a.k.a. It Lives Within Her, a.k.a. I Don't Want to Be Born) looks on the surface to be a late Hammer production, including such Hammer alums as Ralph Bates, Caroline Munro, and Joan Collins, along with direction from Hammer stalwart Peter Sasdy. It also looks like a low-rent Rosemary's Baby or The Exorcist rip-off, which it is, for the most part (even the poster seems to acknowledge that). However, in the final half-hour, the movie becomes suddenly, surprisingly batshit crazy in a way that's barely hinted at in the first hour.

In fact, the film is downright terrible for the first hour, wasting the potential of a great cast, that also includes Donald Pleasance and Eileen Atkins. Joan Collins plays Lucy Carlesi, an ex-burlesque dancer who, when we first see her, is in the process of giving birth. Her OB/GYN, Dr. Finch (Donald Pleasance), seems to be having some trouble and blurts out, "It's like he doesn't want to be born."

I'm going to stop right here and explain exactly why this movie fails to live up to its potential. A movie that casts Donald Pleasance as Joan Collins's OB/GYN should be in the running for greatest movie of all time, and this opening certainly sets that up with the normally indefatigable Pleasance starting to lose his shit at this difficult birth. But, unfortunately, we have to wait an hour for the movie to really kick in.

The baby is finally born, much to the excitement of its dad, Gino, played by Ralph Bates. For no really good reason, Gino has an Italian accent, and Bates, who is otherwise great in his Hammer appearances, just can't pull it off. But he sounds like a native speaker next to Eileen Atkins, who plays his sister, the nun Albana. One can only assume that Atkins has never actually heard an Italian speak before, especially when she says stuff like, "Your child is a day-vill."

When Lucy first tries to feed the baby, he scratches up her face pretty badly, and this sets up an aversion to the child from which Lucy won't recover. Later, when the baby trashes his nursery like it was Led Zeppelin's hotel room, Lucy realizes something is truly wrong with the tyke. He also throws a total freakout when they try to have him baptised.

She then flashes back to her stripper days, when she had a bizarre act that involved a dwarf hunchbacked sidekick named Hercules. Hercules tries to feel her up backstage, and when she rebuffs him, he puts a curse on her and her future child. Soon after that, she meets Gino and begins what she hopes to be a normal domestic life.

The introduction of Hercules here sets up the rather awesome final act, where the baby does some crazy and unexpected shit. Still, it would be nice if the movie had been paced a little better, with the crazy shit escalating earlier. Also, much of the excellent cast is wasted, especially Pleasance, who would be so good a few years later doing a similar role in Halloween. Caroline Munro may be the movie's biggest victim, however, as Mandy, Lucy's stripper buddy. For some reason, Munro is dubbed, and dubbed poorly. But when the movie finally does step on the crazy throttle, it reveals what this movie could have been, which is one of the classic horror movies of period.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Halloween Countdown Day 21: Girly

During my past Halloween Countdowns, I've covered several films from British director Freddie Francis. Francis had a stellar career as a cinematographer, earning an Oscar for his work on Sons and Lovers, before becoming a director, where he did most of his best work on horror films for UK companies Hammer and Amicus.

Perhaps his best film, however, has been very hard to find until its release this year on DVD, with little fanfare. Girly (known in the UK as Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly) is a strange, wonderful black comedy that barely made it into theaters in 1970.



The poster above (still oddly used for the DVD) reveals one of the reasons for its failure upon initial release in the US. With the name change and the blood-dripping poster, the film was marketed as a straight-up horror movie, completely eliding the film's dark comic elements. In fact, the woman in the picture isn't even Vanessa Howard, the actress who plays the title character; instead, it's some model hired to attract a horror-movie audience.

But anybody coming to Girly for the first time is in for a treat. Many contemporary critics describe the film as unique and ahead of its time, but I rather see it as a perfect amalgamation of several significant elements circulating in UK pop culture at the time. It has a surreal quality that permeates many episodes of The Prisoner and The Avengers, plus the darkly parodic attack on the British class structure and values that one sees most prominently in something like A Clockwork Orange. In addition, Francis brings to the film a visual style that's in keeping with his work for Hammer and Amicus.

The four title characters represent a bizarrely happy, oddly functional upper-class family. The two children--Sonny (Howard Trevor) and Girly--exist in a state of blissful arrested development: they are clearly in their late-teens or early twenties, though they dress in sixth-form school uniforms and spend their time playing childish games. Their biggest game involes the recruiting of new friends to take home and serve as their playmates. The film opens with the recruitment of just such a friend: a bum asleep on a park bench, whom Girly lures home by plying him with alcohol. At home, Mumsy and Nanny prepare a room in preparation for the new guest. However, when the "new friend" refuses to play "Ring Around the Rosie," he quickly learns the importance of rules, the most significant being that one must always play the game. As Mumsy says, "If you don't have rules, where are you?" Unfortunately, the new friend didn't adhere to the rules quickly enough, and Girly decapitates him while reciting "Oranges and Lemons."

This opening sets up the structure of the family: Mumsy makes the rules, Nanny assists Mumsy with household tasks, and the two children remain in a constant state of play, where everything is a game with a capricious set of rules. Sonny even records most of the games on film, highlighting the fact that they exist in a continuous, never-ending performance.

But with the latest new friend so short lived, Sonny and Girly must find another, and they do so with a drunk swinger (Michael Bryant) and his equally drunk girlfriend. The girlfriend doesn't last long in the game, however, and the new friend is kept in line with threats of blackmail about the girlfriend's fate.

New Friend quickly learns the rules of the house, and after a failed attempt at escape, he starts to play the game with a surprising level of enjoyment. He also, however, works to maneuver things in his favor by playing off the sexual jealousy among the three women in the house.

Girly is a truly exceptional black comedy: creepy, funny, and unsettling all at once. Howard Trevor--who, according to IMDB, never made another movie--makes Sonny a terrifying figure whose idea of fun involves a high level of sadism. And Vanessa Howard as Girly alternates from childish charm and coquettish flirting to psychotic evil effectively. Of all the family members, she allows herself to slip out of the performance occasionally to let New Friend know the seriousness of his situation. Also, Michael Bryant makes New Friend a kind of amoral survivor who doesn't quite realize what a dangerous game he's playing when he starts to toy with the three women sexually.

Amazingly, this movie is available through Netflix Watch Instantly, and I can't recommend it enough. Since seeing it the first time, I've moved it high up my list of cult movies I watch in regular rotation.

The preview below gives a good sense of what this movie is like, though it does give away a couple of key spoilers. However, it does include one of my favorite bits, where Girly introduces Sonny to "Tony Chestnut."

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Halloween Countdown Day 20: Astro-Zombies

As is probably clear from my Halloween Countdown selections, I sometimes enjoy watching really bad movies. The best bad movies, for me, are those that are unintentionally bad, where ambition or passion outstrips talent. Such movies have a certain level of authenticity and humanity about them that contributes to their appeal.


The Astro-Zombies (1968), however, is not one of those bad movies. While it's occasionally entertaining in its badness, and it's clear that some of the actors are trying to elevate the material, the whole project feels very cynically bad, like classic bad-movie director Ted V. Mikels either set out to make a bad movie or at least didn't give a shit (with a script by Wayne Rogers, of M*A*S*H fame, which is mind-boggling).

The plot doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense, though there is a good schlocky sci-fi idea at its heart. A disgraced scientist, Dr. DeMarco (John Carradine, hired to do the thing that John Carradine did in dozens of films), has made major breakthroughs in the areas of organ transplantation and thought-wave transmission in an effort to create a "Quasi-Man" (or "Astro-Man," or "Astro-Zombie," as it is alternately named) that could be used for space travel. This artificial lifeform would pilot spaceships and receive brain transmissions from various specialists on Earth in order to complete space missions. DeMarco, however, has used the brain of a dangerous criminal for his Astro-Zombie prototype, and this creature is going about killing people.

Meanwhile, foreign agents led by the sexy and evil Satana (played, of course, by Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill!'s Tura Satana, one of the few reasons to watch this movie) want to steal the Astro-Zombie technology, and their efforts are challenged by government agents led by Wendell Corey.

Wendell Corey's presence in the movie is, perhaps, the movie's saddest element. Corey is clearly drunk in his scenes (he would die from complications related to alcoholism soon after this movie was finished, and he didn't live to see its release). One can almost hear his brain screaming "I worked with Hitchcock!" as he has to deliver some really shitty lines.

I feel less bad for John Carradine, who did this kind of thing more than enough during the later years of his career. As Dr. DeMarco, he doesn't have to interact much with any other characters, with the exception of his mute assistant, Franchot. Carradine's dialogue is basically nonsense as he explains to Franchot the technological steps behind his experiment.

His lab, also, looks like it was cobbled together from hardware that Mikels had lying around his garage. A brain sensor seems to be made out of the metal casing from a small floodlight, and special fluids for the procedure are held in plastic distilled water containers.

The fancy, professional lab that the competing "good" scientists run does not look much better. A living brain is contained in a plastic cake holder, for one. As can be seen in the preview below, a "Visible Man" features prominently in the lab, which did give me a frisson of nostalgic pleasure.

The movie's finale reveals the real failure to give a shit on the part of the filmmakers. As authorities and foreign agents close in on DeMarco's lab, located in what appears to be a suburban home supposedly in the evening, police cars drive up a dirt road in the daytime while Satana and her lackies take an alley at night.

Many of the actors, though, give it a shot. Tura Satana gets to wear some wild outfits, and her character is the kind of evil that she does so well. And Rafael Campos, as her knife-wielding assistant, Juan, does try to camp things up and have a bit of fun. But meanwhile, they're thrown into an incomprehensible script and some incongruous scenes that seem not so much the product of ineptitude, but rather a cynical attempt to pad the movie out to a reasonable running time and throw in some T&A for the drive-in market.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Halloween Countdown Day 18: The Alligator People

I kind of biffed things last week by missing two posts, but a crappy internet connection and some other stuff managed to get in the way. But that doesn't mean I stopped watching horror movies, so let's get back on track!



The 1959 Cinemascope horror movie The Alligator People, directed by Roy Del Ruth, is almost a great horror movie. It's potential stems from a cool film noir premise and an intriguing framing sequence, but it's quality is undermined by some dicey special effects and costumes and a plot that seems to drag despite the film's brief, 74 minute running time.

The framing sequence sets things up: a doctor has a nurse, Jane, who reveals a secret past only when in a narco-hypnotic state. Otherwise, she seems to exhibit no memory of this past trauma in her waking life. The doctor consults another doctor, and they both put Jane under to reveal her story.

"Jane" is actually Joyce Webster (Beverly Garland), an Army nurse, and at the beginning of her story, she has recently married a soldier, Paul Webster (Richard Crane), who had been badly injured in a plane crash but fully, and mysteriously, recovered. While on a train heading toward their honeymoon, Paul gets a telegram that agitates him, and he gets off at the next stop without returning to the train. Joyce then begins a months-long search for her missing husband.

Like I said, this is a nice, film noir set-up for this movie, and it retains this feel for the first half or so. Joyce's search leads her to Louisiana swamp country and a small town called Bayou Landing. While at the town's apparently abandoned train station, she meets Manon (Lon Chaney, Jr.), who turns out to be the handyman at the plantation where her search has led, and he offers to give her a ride.

Manon is the type of character Lon Chaney, Jr. played in dozens of movies like this, and he's just the right mix of bizarre, creepy, and dangerous. He has a hook for a hand, which he lost to an alligator, and, Captain Hook-style, he is obsessed with gators because of it. He spends his evenings getting drunk on his own moonshine and then walking out into the swamp to shoot gators. "I'm gonna spend the rest of my life killing gators," he shouts. He also tries to roadkill one while driving Joyce to the plantation.

At the plantation house, Joyce meets Mrs. Hawthorne, who denies knowing anyone named Paul Webster. While the lady of the house does not want this intruding visitor, out of politeness she asks her to stay the night, anyway, as there are no more trains out of town until the next day.

Joyce gets nosy, and she eventually finds out the fate of her husband, who has begun transforming into an alligator man due to an experiment with alligator pituitary extract that saved his life after the plane crash. The experiment was performed by Dr. Sinclair (George Macready), whose research is funded by Paul's mother, Mrs. Hawthorne. Also, Dr. Sinclair drives around in a duck boat, which is awesome. The movie then spends way too much time trying to explain its phony science, and not enough time with alligator wrestling and duck boats.

There is a nugget of a cool story here, with a woman investigating the disappearance of her husband and then finding a completely fucked up family conducting bizarre experiments in the swamps. But it never quite reaches that potential. One big obstacle is Paul's ridiculous alligator make-up and costume. I normally give such movies a lot of leeway when it comes to cheap effects and costumes, but here it's pretty distracting. The filmmakers would have done better to keep Paul's appearance hidden so that the viewer could imagine the transformation.

At the end, the framing sequence closes with a nicely disturbing and insidious moment where the doctors discuss whether or not to tell Jane about her secret life, while the nurse goes about her work, happily oblivious to her past.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Even More Ask Doctor K!

Once again, I've been asked some very important questions about comics from a young reader. So, let's just jump right in to one of them:

"Has Batman or Superman ever driven a rocketship before?"

The short answer is "Hell, yes!" to both. But the long answer is even better than that.

But before we get started with the answer, I would point out that the correct verb is "flown." You "fly" a rocketship, but you "drive" a car.

First, Batman. Batman has everything you can think of, as well as everything you can't think of. So, of course he has a rocketship:



This is Batman with his son, Damian, who has taken on the mantle of Robin. You are a bit too young, however, for me to explain how Batman got a son, or why Batman and his son's mommy aren't married to each other. Someday, when you're older, we'll have this talk.

Meanwhile, though, Batman definitely flies a rocketship.



Now, Superman is a different story. As an infant, Superman came to Earth in a rocketship, but he didn't technically "fly" it: his father programmed it to fly to Earth just as the planet Krypton was destroyed.

Also, because Superman can fly in space on his own power, he doesn't really seem to need a rocketship. However, that doesn't mean he has never flown one. For example, sometimes he loses his powers or has to fly through a cloud of kryptonite meteors, and then he really needs a rocketship. Other times, he just thinks rocketships are cool, which is why he has the SuperMobile!



The SuperMobile is a rocketship that also punches. That makes it the greatest rocketship ever made.

Hope that answers your question!

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Halloween Countdown Day 13: Let Me In

After watching Let the Right One In on Monday, I decided to check out the English-language remake, Let Me In. I had a free ticket to the local theater that was about to expire, and I figured that if I went to the early matinee on a Wednesday, I would have a good chance of a private screening.

Alas, that didn't happen. In fact, in a huge, virtually empty theater, some dude with a huge bucket of popcorn and a giant soda decided to sit in the seat directly behind me for some reason. I'm guessing this guy is a 12:00 Wednesday regular, and he was passionately tied to that one perfect seat in the theater.



As most reviews of Let Me In have noted, the film is surprisingly faithful to the original, and if I were to have seen it on its own terms, I would have considered it an innovative, challenging horror movie. Director Matt Reeves, who also adapted the screenplay, pretty much hits the major notes of the original, with only subtle differences and rare improvement.

In the Swedish original, we get subplots involving the lives of various neighbors in the apartment complex where Eli and Oskar live. This ramps up the emotional impact when Eli kills one of the neighbors and later turns another into a vampire. The audience feels the impact of Eli's presence on the larger community, and that creates a complex ambivalence for the vampire: we understand that she needs to feed, but we also feel something for her victims. This is especially effective when Ginia, the woman Eli accidentally turns into a vampire, chooses to end her life when she discovers what she's become.

In the remake, we only see these neighbors as subjects of Owen's (the film's version of Oskar) voyeurism. The characters are not even named, and the impact is reduced when Abby (Eli) accidentally transforms the woman. Then, the woman's death comes by accident rather than choice. We get a different sense of the impact of Abby on the community, but it also resonates less. Ginia's death is tragic, but it also reminds us that the life of a vampire is itself horrible.

The new version has the great Richard Jenkins as Abby's "father"--the man who goes out and obtains blood for Abby's survival. In Jenkins's performance, this man is at the end of his road, making sloppy mistakes because he has finally reached his limit in a job that we assume he has been doing for decades. One of the few improvements Reeves makes on the original occurs in Jenkins's bungled attempt to kill one of the bullies that besets Owen. Reeves places the camera inside the car that Jenkins tries to escape in when he's caught, and the long take used traps us in this confined space as things go horribly wrong.

As I mentioned in Monday's post, the original film uses a more subdued style that heightens the film's tension in surprising ways. Reeves takes a more conventional route in terms of style, and the impact is again reduced. In one scene, a police detective (Elias Koteas, in a role added for this movie) searches through Abby's apartment. As the tension increases, a wind-up toy drops on the floor, providing a sudden, cheap shock through a red herring that has become a cliche in horror movies. Then, as Koteas approaches the bathroom door, behind which Abby sleeps, the music ratchets up to prepare the audience for another shock to come. In fact, the musical score is pervasive throughout the movie, and I wish Reeves had trusted in silence more. But this particular scene highlights the film's major problem: while it's focus on the relationship between Abby and Owen feels different from other horror movies, it gets its shocks in a highly conventional, and occasionally cliched, way.

The remake also deals less with Abby's gender-ambiguity, though the idea is definitely raised. However, it does explore more overtly something that is only subtly touched on in the original. We get the sense that Owen is not Abby's first "friend" of this sort, and that Richard Jenkins's character had been in Owen's shoes decades earlier. That lends a more intensely tragic air to the film, as we see in Jenkins the end of the inevitable path that Owen is just beginning.

Let Me In is a better than average horror movie, mainly because Matt Reeves smartly adheres to the original's plot. However, I wish Reeves had been bolder in his stylistic choices, matching the plot with a style that relied less on convention and cliche.

Also, I'd like to add that Let Me In is the first big release from the revived Hammer brand, and I got a kick out of seeing the Hammer logo at the beginning of the film. I'm curious to see what the future holds for this brand.