Mel Gibson is "Jew Hating Schmuck"

Too many reviews this week. I'm tired. It was this or that video where the couple bring in the black guy that can't perform. Lots of cursing and the occasional full-frontal nudity (tastefully rendered) aside, I'm not sure Blogspot or myself are quite ready to display full-blown porn (even when more concerned with humiliation than masterbation.) This is one of those intances where flogging the joke makes it funnier. JEWWWS!!!

A Frank Review of "Revolver"

Based on Guy Ritchie's career trajectory, I'm trying to figure out which film adaptation of a Marvel Comics super-hero would be best suited to redeem his talents. You know, Jason Statham has done a few films with "Incredible Hulk" director Louis Leterrier, so some introductions later, he's starring in "Union Jack." Since Ritchie already owes Quentin Tarantino royalties for his entire career, he could even crib "From Dusk Til Dawn" once the vampires show up. More immediately, while I feel he's a bit too flashy for "The First Avenger: Captain America," I imagine he'd conceive a bitchin' Vita-Ray sequence.

I don't want to slag on Guy Ritchie. I dug the shit out of my introduction to him, "Snatch," still one of the best guys' nights at the movies I've had. "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" was lower-rent, but solid for putting him on the map. Unfortunately, these films led me to "Swept Away," evidence that Madonna is no mere sorry actress, but the living embodiment of a curse made upon films bearing her taint. Hence, the aforementioned career trajectory of her husband. I understand "Revolver" invokes Kabbalistic mysticism and numerology. I'm a believer in many of the teachings of the Zohar, even though I'm aware it's as big of a scam as any of Ritchie's heist movies. The existence of "Revolver" further shatters vessels of light and inhibits the coming of the Messianic Age. Guy Ritchie is not a worthy opponent, but the victim of "Revolver." It's fucktop.

This is a top-down travesty. It's a painfully pretentious "art" film with gunfights and titties and raptors and Big Pussy. The whole premise is swimming in psycho-babble
that Ritchie seems to not fully understand and is unable to articulate in his work or commentary, but feels compelled to inflict upon his audience like an attention-starved grade-schooler. Ritchie is a lightweight storyteller best served by a large cast of character actors commanding easy affection while going through the motions of entertaining plot complications. Here, he spends nearly two hours ill-served by Statham in a good toupee giving a terrible performance consisting of looking hurt and confused for no readily apparent reason for most of the running time. Then, the reason is given, and you wish you could go back to not knowing. There's cryptic dialogue where there should be piss-taking. There's ominous but well-trod quotes masquerading as insight. There's Ray Liotta bare-assed naked and in a speedo, nowhere near as painful as the quotes and dialogue. I cannot express to you the many ways in which this film goes wrong without spoiling the Shyamalan twists, complete with Shyamalan execution, which should give you some idea of the nonsense to come.

The film is not a complete waste, so long as you remember to invest absolutely nothing in it. Rather than falling back on his usual obnoxious, overly-stylized directing gimmicks, Ritchie employs new obnoxious, overly-stylized directing gimmicks, completely at random without concern for tone or consistency. There are scenes in the film that seem to exist solely to exploit them. For instance, late in the flick, attentions shift away from Statham, right when it's least appropriate, for an extended sequence involving several background characters you've just learned matter in no way to the story. Further, one goes through an unexplained, and again, ultimately irrelevant personality turnabout for no other reason than to engage in flashy ultraviolence. Similarly, Ritchie steals the O-Ren Ishii animated sequence from "Kill Bill" for some really cool images that were created for no discernible purpose beyond tarting up a hoary cliche. If you've ever enjoyed a Guy Ritchie film, there's perhaps something salvageable here if you're willing to join Fonzie in jumping the shark. If not, wow, get the hell out from under this ridiculous fucker with all due haste.

All I know is it makes me giddy to hear Statham use the word "efficacy" onscreen, which Heather Chandler would have missed on next week's vocab test were it not for that taste of Big Blue (and perhaps last night's Corn Nuts.) In tribute, I will use the word "efficacy" as much as possible in the near future to honor this watershed moment in film history. I expect everyone to scream at each usage.

"Efficacy" is to Guy Ritchie's "Revolver" as "talent" is to Paris Hilton's singing career.

A Frank Review of "BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER*"

I was thinking the other day about one of my favorite super-heroes, Captain America, and the conflict between his "steroid abuse" and my Theory of Seminal Integrity in Super-Heroic Fiction. Haters like to point out that Cap got all his abilities out of a test tube, making him no better than all those athletes who shame sports by "juicing up." Mark Gruenwald was very conscious of this, and being a part of the "Just Say No" 80's, repeatedly addressed drugs over his long tenure writing the Sentinel of Liberty. For instance, there was the time Cap accidentally overdosed on a variation of cocaine, went nuts, and beat up Daredevil. In a bid to negate the issue, Gruenwald had the Super Soldier Serum removed from Cap's system, so he could build himself back to fighting form with nothing but heart. Didn't take, because everyone knows Cap's career started in a secret laboratory where he was the only recipient of a glorified steroid that he only needed to take once, with none of the negative effects and a wealth of additional benefits. You either have to accept that, or reject the character at his core.

Bodybuilder turned documentarian Chris Bell appropriately brought up Cap in his new film "Bigger, Stronger, Faster* (*The Side Effects of Being American,) and even chatted with Stan Lee while wearing a signed shirt. Bell had always believed in the dream of training hard and eating right to become like his idols, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hulk Hogan, and Sylvester Stallone. One-by-one, along with an increasingly large number of professional athletes, these heroes were revealed to have been created and sustained through doping. Bell knew this, and though disillusioned, remained clean. Both his brothers did not, out bulking him and deluding themselves with visions of grandeur. One of his co-workers at Gold's Gym was 50, living in his van in the parking lot, and still expecting his second shot at greatness after his small role in 1987's "Over The Top." Bell seemed intent on waking them all up with a film that would explore the dangers of steroids. What he found, or at least ended up with, was persuasive propaganda in favor of decriminalizing the stuff.

Sold as coming from the producers of a couple of Michael Moore's movies, you can definitely see the influence of his philosophy all over "Bigger*." It's very much like "Bowling For Columbine," which seemed like it was going for your guns, but really was after opportunistic politicos and the media. Bell always gives the impression of being a deer caught in headlights, but between revealing editing and the occasional ambush, the guy's obviously playing up the vulnerability. Even still, Bell is effective at exposing the hypocrisies and outright lies of American society as a whole, especially the macho end of the spectrum. It's also highly accessible, with enough sports and action film coverage to hook the guys, but an emphasis on the human interest and personal drama for women and girly men like me. The odds don't favor catching a showing outside a major city, as the film's only grossed a quarter-mill, with only one theater showing it here in Houston. If you don't have access where you live, I highly recommend feeding the title into your NetFlix queue for later viewing.

As for the Captain America question, well, Bell put the lie to one muscle-head's claim that he could knock a baseball into orbit. So many athletes are using these days, it isn't so much an advantage as a practicality. Regardless, you can't stick a needle in and a jersey on expecting to equal Barry Bonds. It's only a Super Soldier Serum if the right man is on the receiving end, at least if you expect proof in advertising...

The Comic Book Heroes: The First History of Modern Comic Books from the Silver Age to the Present

Sorry for a post title whose length reminds people of that Fiona Apple album, but it's what appears on the cover to both editions of the book I'll be discussing off and on for the next several months. Also, it helps differentiate from "The Great Comic Book Heroes" by Jules Feiffer, which I'll also be returning to soon.

Will Jacobs' and Gerard Jones' non-Great "Comic Book Heroes" was first published in 1985 by Crown Publishers Inc. Don't take the lack of greatness as a criticism, as I've never read the book. I bought my copy at the San Diego Comic Con in 2000, and sat on it for eight years. I did this because I'd already purchased the 1997 Prima Publishing edition when it came out, and it had turned out to be the best book on comics I've read before or since. The latter edition was greatly expanded and updated by Jones alone, with enough of the original cannibalised to warrant a secondary credit to Jacobs. I decided it was about time to compare the two, so I'm reading both editions simultaneously. That's why this isn't a review, as I expect I'd rather just chart my progress with commentary.

To begin with, Heroes '85 is clearly the creation of two major DC Silver Age fanboys, while the latter is by a jaded industry veteran still better over his recent departure from the industry. The beauty of '97 is the candor and clarity of the work, as Jones rightly expects to be done with scripting comics. With his experiences still fresh in his memory, Jones balanced careful research with hip-shooting and a bit of backroom tales. '85 feels more like a lengthy article for "Amazing Heroes," as it lacks the bite, color, and depth to rate "The Comics Journal." It's still fine historical reference, but focuses more on the now oft-tread recollections of the comics themselves, rather than the efforts and inspirations behind their creation. For that, go directly to '97.

In Chapter One of both editions, the scene is set regarding the mediocrity of the DC Trinity and post-Code comics in general. Superman stories were modeled after the TV show, pitting "the first and greatest of heroes against an unending stream of petty crooks full of tiresome schemes and armed with kryptonite." Batman was disappointing with "lackluster stories and coarse drawings." Two variations of a line regarding the Amazing Amazon are brutal:
"The third survivor, Wonder Woman, also a DC property, had lost both the original writer and the original artist who had made her so idiosyncratic and so interesting in her first ten years; their successors were unable to make her either."
"And there was Wonder Woman, whose adventures weren't just dull, but usually didn't make sense.

'97 then flashed back to the early days of comics, where DC began with "pulp writer and master liar" Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, too cash poor to buy newspaper reprints, so he conned hungry youths to draw new strips and "vanished into the night when they came for their pay." Not likely to catch that kind of straight talk in one of the many official DC histories, and Jones continued to hint at the blood shed by mafia ties that would be later explored in detail with his "Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book." Jones then moved to the Wertham crusade's impact: "There had been nearly 650 comic book titles in 1952; by 1956 there were barely 400, and a few years later there would be scarcely 250." Of the eventual Marvel Comics publisher, Jones noted, "Martin Goodman's tower of schlock was collapsing faster than Babel." Those types of sordid details were missing in '85, which was more interested in tall tales from Mort Weisinger and how great Carmine Infantino was on the Flash relaunch.

Speaking of which, Jacobs and Jones detailed friends Weisinger and Julie Schwartz path through the pulps into comics, where they ended up working together. Of Flash writer John Broome, Jones and Jacobs opined that he "took the stuff of superheroes, the crude violence... and made it something consciously modern, self-amused, and expertly fun... Broome had a wry sensitivity to the little strokes of humanity that gave substance to even his most absurd creations." The difference was in '97, Jones could confide that he was also "a gentle young writer woth an intellectual bent, drawn to Asian art and travel... avoided the DC offices, preferring his house upstate where... he grew copious quantities of the forbidden vegetation that made so many jazzbos hear a little deeper and play a little lighter." Likewise, the matured Jones could link the sucess of the Flash revival with the "unprecedented political calm and social satisfaction" of the 1950's. "If you were young enough, it was almost possible to believe in a world where order and neatness were fundamental, where villainy was the work of amusing goofballs..."

'85's second chapter, "Strange Adventures in Space," was largely unaltered in '97, aside from switching places with its follow-up, "The Superman Mythos." Both were interesting and informative regarding the influence of science fiction on new features and in reinvigorating the Man of Steel. Taking advantage of C.C. Beck to essentially recreate the Marvel Family in Kryptonian garn didn't hurt. In '85, the authorial pair considered, "Weisinger had discovered that Superman grew more heroic as he grew less powerful." However, it took Jones twelve years to insightfully expound on the arrival of Kandor and Kal-El's many returns to doomed Krypton. "This introduction of pathos to Superman, the realization that not even all his powers could give him back what he loved most in life, elevated him from mere costumed crime fighter to something close to a tragic figure. This was a dark element alien to Julius Schwartz's aesthetic, an almost Greek sense of fatalism... fate presented almost as a physical law... there is also a profoundly Jewish sense to Superman's tragedy, planted there since Siegel's origin story with its references to Moses, amplified in the hero's obsessive returns to the holocaust of his home world now that Weisinger was giving his heart to the hero."

The 1985 edition measures 6"x9" at 292 pages, while 1997 offered 8 1/2" x 11" and 400 pages, the former's appearing at roughly actual size above (at least on my 14" monitor.) If anything, the text size and spacing shrank over the years, so you do the math. I'll return to this comparison soon...

You can buy the 1997 edition of The Comic Book Heroes: The First History of Modern Comic Books - From the Silver Age to the Present from Amazon.com.

A Frank Review of "The Short Films of David Lynch"

WARNING: MOST VIDEO CLIPS
NOT SAFE FOR WORK, including brief full-frontal nudity on "Lumiere"

When I was in my early teens, "Twin Peaks" drew me into the world of David Lynch. It was an odd place with a quirky vibe, but most importantly, I was the type of shit who got off on figuring out things most people don't "get." Well, I got Twin Peaks, and I think I fared well enough with other Lynch oddities like "Eraserhead" and "Wild at Heart." The problem was, with age and increased exposure, I came to realize the emperor had no clothes, and was doing something really weird with that Pez dispenser. Really, all Lynch does is take fairly basic stories, and makes them abstract to near incomprehensibility. Sometimes, the result is intriguing; usually at least a bit frustrating; and it's not uncommon to find wrenching catastrophy. There's some of each present in this collection of works spanning decades.

"Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times,)" Lynch's first film, is like a parody of avant garde cinema from a sketch comedy show. Four minutes of an air raid siren and crude animation, seemingly intended to involve C.I.A. brainwashing or demands to touch Dieter's monkey.



"The Alphabet" is a vast improvement. Nightmarish, yet still with a left-of-center innocence, hallmarks of Lynch's best efforts.



"The Grandmother" starts strong, with Pythonesque animation and German Impressionist creepiness. Also like many a silent era film, it overstays its welcome by miles of tedium.



"The Amputee" is Lynch at his most willfully obtuse, and a waste of time.



"The Cowboy and the Frenchman" is really very silly, as intended, but I do love to see Harry Dean Stanton and Jack Nance again. The goodwill runs out, though. Oh, yeah.



"Lumiere" is like the essence of Lynch's most sucessful productions distilled into 55 seconds.

A Frank Review of "Birth" and "The Invasion"

I really enjoyed Jonathan Glazer's directorial debut, "Sexy Beast," and had high hopes for his follow-up "Birth." Once again, the focus is on an exceptional romantic relationship outside the age range typically found in films. This time though, there was quite a difference, as Nicole Kidman's character is middle-aged, and the potential reincarnation of her first husband is now ten years old. The premise is handled intelligently and tactfully, though Kidman is kind enough to get naked for us once more, mostly outside the boy's presence. The film will keep you guessing, if it manages to hold your interest, which it very well may not. It's all terribly sophisticated in that Adrian Lynne way, but lacks the tawdry bits that keeps audience members from squirming impatiently in their seats. I respect "Birth," but I'll never watch it again, as I spent the running time wishing I was watching "Chances Are" instead. Cameron Bright is a personality void, after all, where Robert Downey Jr. is so damned appealing.

Meanwhile, "The Invasion" stands head and shoulders beneath the three other cinematic depictions of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." It's essentially a love story between a mother and her child, and I mean that in a prurient sense. The only thrill the film contains is a scene where momma Kidman consoles her child after a nightmare in pajamas so sheer her nipples and ass are visible right through the material. The whole movie, Kidman demonizes her ex-husband, who attempts to seperate her from the boy-love of her life, whom she constantly text and video messages. She also fends off the advances of Daniel Craig, which is somewhat understandable, but still. I'm not calling Kidman a Pedobear but perhaps "PedoLemur" wouldn't be too far off the mark? The woman did spend the best years of her life pretending to have sex with a handsome midget man-boy who believes in space aliens that inhabit human bodies, so in that context all this ick makes a sick sort of sense.

It's a good thing I had my WAMBLA Cougar speculation to keep me going, as "The Invasion" plays like a mash-up between Lifetime Network and Sci-Fi Channel original productions. It's estro-riffic, but epically fails to understand what makes a good "Body Snatchers" flick. The first two (a.k.a. "the good ones) were Right Wing paranoid fantasy writ large, and God bless them for their effectiveness. The original warned of Reds under the beds, while the second tried to ward off the rampant Liberalism of the Carter years. My politics are way left of Don Siegel's, but his film works magnificently, as did Philip Kaufman's New Age-skewering remake. The third tried to play to my people with fear of the military-industrial complex, a non-issue in the Clinton years. Today, you could definately equate "Pod People" with Post-9/11 nationalistic jackassery, but this movie tries to run with with SARS. The pussyfooting attempts to straddle the polemic of our times, but like 1993's "Body Snatchers," proves too late to the party to bring the fear.

Kidman tried to affect a Scarlett O'Hara "ah do declare" Georgian accent, but it fades in and out with such regularity, you'd be forgiven for forgetting it entirely. This may be the result of extensive reshoots, which tried to beef up original director Oliver Hirschbiegel's Eurotrash blase with the post-Matric Trilogy bombast of the Wachowski Brothers. There's another "Burley Brawl" of a sort here, and the silliness is so profound as to almosy turn the corner from "so bad" to "good." Not quite, but there be embarrassed amusement here.

Super Runs

A survey of 707 participants in the 13th Annual Trail's End Marathon in Seaside, Oregon, showed a high incidence of gastrointestinal disturbances, predominantly of the lower tract, associated with long-distance running. The urge to defecate, both during and immediately after running, occurred in over a third of runners. Bowel movements (35%) and diarrhea (19%) were relatively common after running, and runners occasionally interrupted hard runs or races for bowel movements (18%) or diarrhea (10%). Lower gastrointestinal disturbances were more frequent in women than in men and in younger than in older runners.

It's sometimes difficult to find that particular image on the web you're looking for, like the demotivational poster of the marathon runner shitting himself. This should help.

Some key moments. Viewer discretion is advised.