2008
Expanding the Boundaries
12/15/08 12:35 AM
As time went on I've found myself wanting to talk about things here that didn't fall into the category of Writing or Art. On some of those instances I went ahead and wrote about them anyway, usually adding a prefixed explanation, but most of the time I wrote about them at other sites such as Oddlots or in some unfortunate cases let the idea go altogether.
The whole notion began to feel silly to me and I found that more and more I was simply posting pieces to both sites regardless of how well certain pieces fit in with the Raven's Tales esthetic.
To make a long story short, I know - too late, I've decided to lift the restrictions on the RT blog and make it all-encompassing. Thus I have rechristened the section from it's old moniker of "Thoughts on Writing & Art" to "Thoughts on Writing & Life".
I figure the new title pretty much covers all the bases and has the added bonus of being only one letter longer than former header, which is fortunate seeing as how I was nearly out of room in the menu bar.
Well that's all for now. A new Twenty-One update should arrive sometime next week.
T.T.F.N.
-Quoth the Raven
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Twenty-One Update
12/08/08 10:43 PM
I apologize for the delay. I've actually been keeping up with my recently-elongated writing schedule, but I never got a chance to do the Photoshop work for 29 until a few days ago and decided to just wait and post the pages together rather than putting up one right after the other.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy these entries as we continue on towards the home stretch.
-Quoth the Raven
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Black Friday
11/29/08 07:27 PM
The day after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day of the year in the US and is considered the unofficial start of the Christmas buying season. Many stores offer special discounts and sales and it is not uncommon for people to line up hours before businesses open to try and take advantage of the various deals.
Dubbed "Black Friday", the name has come to have a financial association, "in the black" is a term used to indicate that a company is currently profitable, but the original meaning was actually coined in the 60's by Philadelphia police who used it to describe the traffic jams and chaos they had to deal with trying to keep things in order.
Tragically the term reverted back to its origins yesterday when a Walmart employee was trampled to death by zealous shoppers who broke down the doors of the store and rushed in moments before it was set to open at 5:00 a.m.
I really don't know what to say about this. That people were so anxious to get in that they destroyed the entrance and plowed over the employees is simply shocking. I'm not sure what mania possesses people in large groups that causes them to behave in ways they never would on their own, but the results are truly frightening.
I remember the fervor over Cabbage Patch Kids when I was little and the nasty results it led to. It seemed scary to me at the time, but somewhere in the back of my head I thought "these people are adults, they wouldn't really go crazy over a doll".
Unfortunately my naiveté back then was that I was giving people too much credit rather than too little. I realize that the current economic conditions are pretty dire, but disregarding people's safety to save a few bucks on some gifts is deplorable and in this case should be criminal, though I doubt any charges will be brought.
This was a senseless and needless death. I'd like to think that appealing to people's empathy and rationality would solve future occurrences like these, but since I know that's not likely to happen, a better alternative would be to eliminate these Black Friday sales or at least spread them out over the entire shopping season.
It isn't the civilized solution we should be employing, but at least it might be an effective one.
-Quoth the Raven
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Film Review: Fear[s] of the Dark – Part II
11/12/08 06:23 PM
In Mattotti’s tale the entire community is in a panic over this unseen creature which has been snatching kids and vanishing without a trace. All the adults have their own theories about what the creature is and where it might be hiding, but no one seems to have any real handle on the situation, which makes it difficult to try and track the beast down.
The first of the boys, who serves as our narrator and main protagonist, meets his new friend while out for a walk and the two quickly develop their own ideas about the mysterious monster. For them the quest is all about the excitement of the hunt and they possess a sense of invulnerability that all young boys of that age seem to radiate.
The days press on and the creature keeps killing with neither the adults nor our young heroes making any progress in capturing the elusive beast. And then one morning the first boy wakes up and finds that his friend is gone. All the adults assume he is the monster’s latest victim, but the boy has his doubts.
In the end the townspeople corner and kill a large alligator in the swamp and rejoice at capturing their nemesis. The alligator even takes on a reverent almost spiritual connotation and is hung from the ceiling of the church and is prayed over and offered blessings by the old women of the town.
The last scene finds the boy in bed staring out his window and thinking of his friend. There’s a question nagging at him. He ponders whether the monster really got him or if his friend may have been the creature the townsfolk were seeking all along.
Mattotti’s visuals are reminiscent of charcoals on paper and give his work a very hazy look, which adds to the aura of obfuscation.
This story took a while to grow on me, but in the end I really enjoyed it. The prominent phobia of the piece is fear of the unknown and it manifests itself in two ways. The first and most obvious is the town’s fear of this monster, which seems impossible to catch, but more specifically they fear losing their children to this unseen force that they feel powerless to stop.
From the boy’s point of view, he fears that he didn’t really know his friend and that he may have been tricked along with the others. Overall the piece really works as rumination on how well you can truly know another person since you can’t ever know what’s going on inside their head. In some ways it’s classic paranoia cinema, but I think Mattotti’s piece works on a philosophical level as well.
I will now follow that very long critique with a very short one. Our next piece, created by a man who simply goes by the name Blutch, centers on a twisted old man and the quartet of vicious dogs he walks around with. At the outset of the animation the old man let’s loose the first of the dogs after a small boy; the two chase each other for a while and then vanish off screen never to be seen again.
The man continues to walk and proceeds to sick his next dog on a street worker who is first menaced then torn apart by the canine. Victim three is a woman who is knocked down by one of the dogs and then raped/mutilated by it and the fourth and final “victim” is the old man himself when the last dog turns on its master.
Art wise the visuals consist of pencil work and give the piece a very sketchy, frenetic feel. It makes everything seem shaky and uncertain, which helps capture the mood of the piece.
As far as the story goes, I think the main phobia being expressed is that trying to control something powerful runs the risk of that power turning against you. Honestly, I didn’t really see the point to this one. The beginning held some promise, but the rest of it really didn’t go anywhere. The violence served no purpose, the rape of the women was excessive and vile and the ending was predictable. Blutch’s piece really had no redeeming value for me.
Fortunately we end on a high note with one of my favorite pieces of the series, the entry by creator Richard McGuire.
McGuire’s piece is about a man who has lost power to his house and is trying to make his way around in the dark. Initially our hero remedy’s his lack of light by building a fire, but a batch of snow falling from the top of his chimney quickly squelches that plan.
We follow the man as he goes from room to room, the light from his ever-dimming lantern casting shadows on the walls that turns a rocking chair into the Loch Ness Monster, a vase into a vampire and a bureau into the boogieman.
Eventually he finds a hole in the wall and is finally able to glean some daylight from outside. Unfortunately his face poking through the side of his house frightens some children playing outside who subsequently pelt the man with snowballs and force him back into the dark.
I won’t ruin how the piece ends, but needless to say it’s a surprise and the whole series is worth watching for the conclusion alone.
The artwork is similar in some ways to Burns’ entry in the series with its high contrast use of white and black. What it really reminds of though, are the scratch boards from art classes where you work with negative space and only use the outline of your subject to define its shape and structure.
This story was also one of my favorites. On the surface it deals with one of man’s oldest phobias, fear of the dark. But like any fear the actual focus of our fright is less the thing itself and more what our imagination makes of it. The rear terror for our hero was the fact that the darkness made his once familiar home into an alien place filled with things he couldn’t quite see or understand.
All the entries in Fear[s] of the Dark dealt with individual sources of dread, but the real horror didn’t come from the nightmares themselves, but from the people affected by them.
In the end it’s our fear of things that makes them truly scary.
-Quoth the Raven
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Film Review: Fear[s] of the Dark – Part I
11/10/08 05:47 PM
Each of the six animations that comprise Fear[s] embodies specific phobias and the directors of the pieces all have unique approaches to their subjects. Two unifying factors that belie this individuality is the nearly ubiquitous use of black and white and the language of the dialogue, which is French throughout augmented with regional subtitles.
Another element that ties the animations together is the way they’re presented. Rather than being shown in sequence, some of the shorts were chopped up and interspersed throughout the film, adding some extra suspense to the proceedings. For my examination I’ll be looking at the pieces separately as trying to convey the movie in its original state would simply be too confusing.
Warning: Spoilers Ahead
The first short film was created by director Charles Burns and centers on a boy who is curious about the workings of nature and has a particular fascination with insects. One day while walking in the woods the boy finds a bug he’s never seen before and adds it to his collection of jarred critters, but come nightfall the creature escapes and burrows into his captor as he sleeps. When the boy discovers the bite mark he is initially distraught, but soon acquiesces to the situation once it becomes clear that the insect doesn’t seem to be harming him.
Fast forward several years, our protagonist’s intellectual pursuits don’t leave much time for socializing with others and even as a college student his bookish proclivities keep him at a distance from his peers, particularly women. His luck finally changes one night when he meets an attractive fellow student at a bar. The two have a whirlwind night of drinking, dinner and dancing which ends the way our hero had only dreamed about, but in the morning he is horrified to find his insect stowaway has left him for the confines of his new lover.
Needless to say the girl of his dreams goes through quite a change and things end with our hero as the one behind the glass.
One of my favorite things about this one was the stark lines and high contrast of the art style. It really lent itself well to the story and gave it an almost Pop Art feel that reminded me a bit of Roy Lichtenstein. I also really enjoyed the tale being told. It worked as a kind of allegory focusing on the danger of the natural world, evoking the work of classic science fiction writers like Asimov and Bradbury. More importantly it tapped into the fear we humans have of intimacy, which for many people is more frightening than anything mother nature may care to throw at us.
Our next piece was helmed by artist Marie Caillou who presented us with the trials of tribulations of a young Japanese girl caught in a struggle between this world and another. Our heroine starts off her first day at a new school by being teased and accosted by her fellow classmates. At the height of their abuse the scene suddenly changes and we find the girl not in a classroom, but in a hospital bed with a sinister doctor perched overhead.
The doctor administers a shot and the girl falls asleep, returning to her tormentors who proceed to tell her a tale about the ghost of a bloodthirsty samurai and then force her on a dark path leading into an ominous looking forest. Various supernatural denizens of the woods find the girl, each creature stranger than the last, with her final visitor being the spirit of the warrior who starts to speak to the girl at which point she abruptly awakens in the hospital and is once again sedated by the physician who insists she must “finish the dream”.
Art wise, the visuals are very geometrical and have an appealing simplicity to them, utilizing a mix of the Manga and Chibi styles of Japanese illustration and combining them with Caillou’s own personal aesthetic. This animation is also the only one to stray from the black and white motif by introducing touches of red in a handful of scenes.
Caillou’s piece addresses a few classic phobias including the fear of doctors/hospitals, fear of being a stranger in an unfamiliar place (like a new school or a new job) and the fear of being lost and isolated. I thought the structure of the story and the shifts in reality between the school/forest and the hospital were an interesting approach and lent the piece a kind of schizophrenic vibe, which it utilized well. I would’ve liked to see where it led, but regrettably they leave off on one of the cliffhanger sections and then never return to the story.
This was my biggest issue with this entry. I’m fine with endings that don’t spell everything out for you, but this particular one felt incomplete not just unresolved. None of the conflicts with the schools kids, samurai or doctor came to any kind of climax. Things simply stopped happening, which is a shame, as I wanted to know how things turned out for our heroine.
The last of our animations for the first half of this review comes from Pierre Di Sciullo and is easily the most conceptual of all the pieces. It has no conventional story and instead consists entirely of various shapes floating on a plane with a narrator playing over them. These narrations are voiced by a woman who espouses a litany of worries ranging from the fear of death and disease to the fear of being perceived as dimwitted or dull by those around us.
Visually this piece didn’t do much for me, but I thought the dialogue was actually quite cool. Maybe it’s just the anxiety-ridden, OCD side of me, but I found it quite comforting to hear someone lay out all the niggling little thoughts that go through your head when you can’t get to sleep.
I realize for many this may not be something they deal with very often, but for me it really resonated in a very personal way and I suspect that I’m not alone.
Well that’s it for part one of this exhaustive film review.
Be sure to tune in on Wednesday for part two.
-Quoth the Raven
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Happy Halloween!
10/31/08 07:45 AM
Horror movies are a stalwart part of Halloween and to assist you in your watching spree you can consult this comprehensive collection of classic fright flicks. Alternately, those looking for some fresh blood should check out this list of new scary cinema.
No Halloween would be complete without pumpkin carving. And to help guide you on your gourd gouging adventure, I present you with a plethora of free Jack-O-Lantern pattern sites.
Looking to don a disguise this Hallows Eve? The right costume can show your love of videogames, your desire to be groped and fondled by drunk guys (this applies to both women and men wearing the outfits -beer goggles are a powerful thing-), your need to humiliate your pet, your wish to get the shit kicked out of you or perhaps just the fact that you’re completely insane.
Last but not least we have the driving motivation behind the holiday itself, the distribution and consumption of Candy! If you’re a provider of said sweets, you certainly don’t want to give away the same old boring stuff that every other house passes out.
What you need is a batch of products so unique that no one will ever forget your address, though in truth they may only remember it so they can avoid you next year.
No matter what plans you have tonight, I hope everyone has a terrifically terrifying holiday.
Make this a Halloween to remember, boys and ghouls. But don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.
Actually, scratch that. Don’t do anything I would do, especially when I was younger.
The police may not have the same sense of humor they once did.
-Quoth the Raven
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The Great Pumpkin
10/30/08 10:17 PM
The Things That Really Scare Us
10/28/08 05:30 PM
For myself and my horror-movie-enthusiast brethren, these films might satisfy our need for thrills and frightening spectacle, but they likely won’t bring much originality or insight to the table while we’re wriggling in our seats.
Regrettably the current wave of scary cinema tends to be long on visual flair and short on storytelling or substance. This is actually quite a shift from the horror films of the 50’s and 60’s, which often used their non-mainstream status to talk about controversial or even subversive subjects.
Fortunately those of us looking for some substance with our scares can turn to a new film opening this Friday that may just fit the bill.
Fear(s) of the Dark is a collection of six short animated tales focusing on the things that truly frighten us. The stories cover everything from the scary dog next door to one man’s anxiety over his own mortality. Those looking for a sample of the film can check out a pair of clips from two of the pieces.
The release appears to be fairly limited, but those of you with Art House theaters in your area should be able to locate a screening. The run probably won’t last terribly long so if you’re interested I suggest going to see it sooner rather than later.
If I’m able to make it to a showing I’ll write up a full review of the film and tell you my impressions.
Hopefully it’ll harken back to those films of yesteryear or at least give us something to think about as we sit there in the dark staring up at the screen.
-Quoth the Raven
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Pumpkin Creation of an Excessive Nature
10/23/08 05:39 PM
Why someone would want to experience such a sensation, much less pay for the privilege, is beyond me, which is why I tend to shun the advances of said extreme products.
When it comes to pumpkin carving however, I am more than willing to make an exception and thusly encourage you to check out Extreme Pumpkins.
The site has several tutorials on the art of extreme pumpkin carving including the use of power tools and pyrotechnics in your gourd gouging endeavors.
There’s also a large collection of impressive photos taken from the winners of their annual carving contests. Some of my personal favorites include this stylish skull, an ode to pumpkin Godzilla, a creepy Hannibal Lecter lantern and this poor little guy, who looks like the unfortunate victim of one of the Saw films.
Alas my own lantern-creation skills have never been up to such impressive feats, but I’m willing to bet that you fine readers are more capable than I.
I encourage all of you with pumpkin-carving prowess to send photos of your completed masterpieces to:
ravenpen@gmail.com
All those that submit will have their achievements displayed on this very site.
I wait with baited breath to be thrilled and amazed by your carved creations.
-Quoth the Raven
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State of Affairs
10/09/08 04:13 PM
Before I dive into why this story makes me physically ill, I want to get something out of the way. I greatly admire Johnny Depp and think he is one of the most talented actors living today. He has in fact been my favorite actor ever since I saw him in Benny and Joon back in ‘93. Depp spent the first half of his career taking diverse, non-traditional roles that practically shunned Hollywood stardom and I give the guy a lot of credit for having some integrity and not just chasing the money early on.
Honestly I don’t even fault Depp for taking the cash, if someone offered it to me I’d do the same thing. I also understand that the entertainment industry is a gargantuan money-making entity and that actors are just taking a percentage of that wealth.
My real issue is that no one needs 56 million dollars and being paid that sum of money, especially for a single film, is completely obscene. I don’t care if they “earned it”, the figure is ludicrous and emblematic of a real problem we have as a society. It seems more and more these days that the mundane jobs held by the vast majority of the population are being increasingly devalued. I know this probably isn’t news to most people who have had to deal with rising costs and ever-dwindling raises and cost-of-living increases.
Obviously this issue is a large theme in the upcoming presidential race with both Obama and McCain promising to give tax breaks to the shrinking middle class and increase taxes for those lucky few who don’t ever need to wonder how they’ll pay their bills and make ends meet.
I certainly wouldn’t mind getting back more in taxes, but considering that I’ve worked under both Democrats and Republicans over the years and that each has always taken almost a third of my annual wages in taxes and given me less than a tenth back, I’m not holding my breath.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand and agree with the need for taxes and I comprehend the whole notion of inflation, painful as it is on me financially. My problem is that the salaries for most folks have not kept up with the cost of living in recent years and I can’t really figure out why. Clearly there’s millions floating around to pay actors, but not for the men and women who work everyday jobs.
Again I understand that the movie industry makes boatloads of cash from ticket sales and that’s where the dough comes from, but that surplus came from a steep increase in ticket prices. And before anyone says it, I reject the notion that the entertainment industry should just charge whatever it wants and that individuals can decide whether it’s worth their money. Taking a source of much-needed pleasure and distraction and making it a financial burden on the recipients is not “free-market thinking”, it’s just fucking cruel.
I know the thought of redistribution of wealth or anything even hinting at socialism is a taboo subject in capitalist countries and I personally don’t want to limit anyone’s possibilities or tell them what they can and cannot earn. What I do want is some genuine justification for why most people continue to make less and less while CEOs of companies get 40-million-dollar severance packages for running a business into the ground. I want industries that make billions off the backs of their workers to tell me why they haven’t given out any raises year after year.
I want to understand why we as a society are willing to make kings out of a few at the expense of everyone else and why we seem so willing to devalue the vast majority of the mundane jobs that keep the world running. I’m not placing the blame at anyone’s feet, I’m as culpable as anyone else, but I just wish I could understand how we got to this place, because the current explanation of our financial situation just doesn’t add up to me.
I wish it did, then I’d sleep better at night.
-Quoth the Raven
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Monster October TV Guide ‘08
10/03/08 05:27 PM
Rather than linking to the various poorly-organized web pages that seem to be a hallmark of virtually all TV channels, this year I’ve decided to utilize a resource I discovered last October. The wonderful Monsters-A-Go-Go blog lists all the major station's schedules in an easy to access format.
First off we have AMC’s Fear Fest, formerly Monster Fest, which runs from the 24th through the 31st. Some of my personal favorites from this marathon are the Steven King classics Pet Sematary and Christine, as well as some of my childhood favorites like the original Nightmare on Elm Street and An American Werewolf in London.
Next up we get a touch of creepy class from Turner Classic Movies, whose scary marathon airs on the 30th and 31st. I’m not all that familiar with most of the films in the Turner lineup, but a few titles have definitely peaked my interest. I’m pleased to see The Tingler, starring the late great Vincent Price, in the lineup as it’s a film I’ve always wanted to see, but had never gotten around to viewing. Other promising entries include White Zombie, which inspired the band name, Two Thousand Maniacs!, which inspired another band name, and the cult classic Freaks, which I finally saw for the first time last year and enjoyed immensely.
ABC Family returns with their 13 Nights of Halloween, beginning on the 19th and running through the end of the month. Though this marathon does cater to a younger audience, don’t let that stop you from checking it out. There’s some good stuff to be had here including the Michael Keaton masterpiece Beetle Juice as well as one of the first films to scare the bejeezus out of me, the original Gremlins.
SciFi channel has transformed its previous 13-day marathon into a full-blown, month-long extravaganza. Because of its sprawling nature the Monster blog doesn’t have a schedule for this one. Fortunately I learned a trick to manipulating the SciFi channel schedule page back when I first starting posting this annual piece. Behold the complete listing for October, starting with today and continuing on through the 31st.
Those looking for some education in their eerie entertainment should check out the History Channel’s Halloween site as well as the Discovery Channel’s explorations on haunting.
I’m sure there are other monstrous marathons I missed, so please feel free to leave your own listings in the comments.
And be sure to stay tuned for all the frightening festivities coming up during the scariest time of the year.
-Quoth the Raven
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Good Night Infinite Jester
09/14/08 01:50 AM
A few years back my brother bought me A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again for my birthday. It was my first exposure to Wallace's writing and I was instantly struck by his prose style, which was simultaneously conversational and academic. Wallace's ability to turn personal musings about mundane subjects, such as the geography of his home state of Illinois and its effect on tennis, and transform them into intellectual discourses was both unique and surprisingly captivating.
His mastery of language was staggering and I found myself both inspired by his writing and jealous of it. He seemed to exist within his own world where almost anything might be worthy of thoughtful investigation. A lot of Wallace's philosophizing took on an introspective bent and in many ways I suspect his examination of the world and its machinations was also an examination of himself. If there was one common theme to Wallace's varied and often-disparate works, I would say that it was a constant search for meaning.
There's no way to know or understand what caused Wallace to end his life, but I hope wherever he is that he has found some peace.
I have no doubt that his writing will continue to fascinate and inspire those who read it and hopefully convey some of the intricacies of a mind that was continuously trying to unearth and expose the connective strands in a world that can often feel detached from those that inhabit it.
-Quoth the Raven
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Trudging Along
09/12/08 06:04 PM
It's been taking me two weeks rather than the usual one to complete the last couple entries and I suspect this trend will continue.
My professional duties have once again attempted to metamorphosize into something completely different, a trick they've tried on several occasions in the past, but this time the transformation seems to have stuck leaving my lunches and breaks wrought with unavoidable sources of distraction.
On the one hand I find the change of pace rather refreshing and am glad to have some variety from the routine I've been performing for the better part of a decade. As for the other hand, well it's currently trying to bludgeon its kin for taking on our current gargantuan heap of hectic responsibilities.
Though technically I suppose neither me nor my appendages are to blame for the increased load being that this new assignment wasn't so much presented as a request, something that would imply choice and possible compensation, but rather as a memo with a list of responsibilities.
Ah well, at least I'm managing to keep producing even if it is at a slower rate. In addition to the ever-growing veinti-uno, I've got another short story I'm currently working on for publication. I'm a little stuck on it at the moment, but that's why I like having a couple projects to bounce between as starting to write the shorter piece kicked me in gear again for the novella.
Which brings us to our magic word of the day: Motion
Whether expediently or glacially, you have to keep moving forward. If your creative shark stops swimming, it dies.
Keep that shark alive kids, so it can bite the unsuspecting-swimmers of procrastination firmly in the ass.
-Quoth the Raven
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Black Widows
08/26/08 10:13 PM
I present to you a new poem that combines spousal skullduggery and the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.
This deliciously debauched piece is entitled "Three of a Kind".
Enjoy.
-Quoth the Raven
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Hot Off the Presses
08/15/08 02:45 PM
The piece is titled "The Negotiation" and appears in issue no. 6 of the literary magazine The Delinquent.
I've added a new section to the site called Published Works that lists all the particulars of where this story, and hopefully future stories, can be found.
My heartfelt thanks and appreciation goes out to everyone visiting this site for all your support and encouragement.
I couldn't have reached this milestone without you guys.
-Quoth the Raven
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Two More Refugees
08/13/08 06:20 PM
So please welcome our two new arrivals "Low Wage Blues" and "Lost Soles". The first is a companion piece to a poem I wrote a while back called "Workplace Blues" that further details my employment woes and the second is a fun little guy that reminds you to be grateful for what you've got.
Enjoy.
-Quoth the Raven
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Curse of Cthulhu
08/08/08 04:00 PM
Why the work of certain writers sparkles on the printed page, but falls flat on the silver screen can be a bit of a mystery. Generally though there’s something in the story that is difficult to translate, a crucial aspect that simply cannot be replicated with a visual facsimile.
One such author is H.P. Lovecraft whose words have seen many film adaptations, most of them ranging from bad to awful. There has been the occasional notable exception, but even in those cases the flicks were usually amusingly kitschy or clever rather than truly frightening or disturbing like its source material.
But hope springs eternal and we Lovecraft fans have another chance to have our wildest cinematic dreams met with a new indie movie titled after HP’s most well-known creation, the elder-god Cthulhu.
Having viewed the trailer, I must say that the prospects appear characteristically grim. The acting and visual look of the film both came off as rather amateurish in the preview and the presence of Tori Spelling in what appears to be a leading role does not bode well for this or any other movie she’s cast in.
Still, there’s always the possibility that this film will defy expectations and be a really great representation of Lovecraft’s work.
And if it doesn’t then at least it can rest assured that in won’t be lonely in that great bin of failed celluloid that has made up most of the adaptations thus far.
Mediocrity loves company.
-Quoth the Raven
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Harry Potter Half-Blood Prince Trailer
07/29/08 10:47 PM
Why it's the brand-spanking new trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
The three available sizes are all in HD so they might take a bit to download and you need Quicktime to view them so grab a copy if you haven't got it already.
I promise the effort and wait are well worth it.
This one looks like it's going to be nice and dark.
Joy!
-Quoth the Raven
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Film Review: X-Files - I Want To Believe
07/28/08 05:33 PM
I have only myself to blame for this. When the movie was first announced I was admittedly giddy and dug up everything I could about the upcoming production. Having been a fan of the show for a long time, it was exciting to know that series creator Chris Carter and agents Mulder and Scully, played by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, were coming back to bring we loyal X-Philes some more of their paranormal adventures.
As the release day grew nearer there were some rumblings about the plot, that the new movie plumbed some pretty dark and controversial subjects that had more to do with politics and social policy than it did with creatures that go bump in the night. Though this certainly wasn't new territory for a show steeped in government conspiracy, it did somewhat contradict the prediction that the new movie was going to be based off the standalone "monster-of-the-week" style episodes rather than the ongoing myth-arc variety that had made up the first film. After viewing it I can confirm that the story is in fact a self-contained narrative, but more on this later.
A few days before the film debuted reviews started to trickle in and they were, to put it mildly, not good. Actually I should qualify that statement. Most of the critiques I skimmed didn't think the movie was altogether terrible, but they didn't seem to find much good in it either. The consensus seemed to be that the film lacked direction and that it just wasn't very exciting, especially for a suspense picture.
Initially I found myself very defensive of the film, especially after reading several reviews that knocked both it and the intelligence of movie viewers by saying that IWTB was inaccessible because it didn't conform to the modern-day style of catchphrase-driven dialogue and Michael-Bay-CGI-explosion aesthetics. Take the following excerpt from Richard Corliss of Time Magazine:
"A subtler anachronism is the seriousness with which Mulder and Scully take their work and themselves. On TV, Duchovny settled quickly into his role as an obsessive plodder; Anderson's gravity served as a rebuke to all the actresses her age who spoke in baby talk and aspired to nothing higher than Baywatch. The movie continues that dark, quiet tone, which means that today's moviegoers will have to forgo expectations of wisecracking heroes and snarling psychopaths, and to take seriously a couple of anguished folks who look and behave with the tired tenseness of anchors on C-SPAN."
Though the above quote seems like a compliment more than anything, it was taken from a negative review of the film. The idea that thoughtful, realistic characters would be seen as a liability rather than a strength was irritating and troubling to say the least. Still, as critics continued to cast their votes and the overall tide remained negative I began to have serious doubts.
And so I entered the screening room with my insides already playing tug-of-war, a fervent fan pulling on one side and a doubting Thomas yanking on the other.
Who won?
Well that question, like everything else surrounding the film, is a complicated one.
Spoilers Ahead
From my point of view there were two main goals set out by Carter and crew for this film. The first was to tell a spooky, supernatural tale that evoked some of the series' classic episodes and the second was to delve deeper into the internal beliefs of its two central characters. On the latter of these two objectives I think the film succeeded, but on the former there were some definite stumbling blocks. I'm going to start off focusing on the second issue and then work my way back to the central story.
The question of belief is at the heart of this movie in the same way that morality was at the core of Dark Knight. In our first glimpse of Mulder we find him in a small home office still hard at work trying to uncover the truth even after being fired and hunted by the FBI and spending the intervening years in secluded exile.
He's contacted by Scully on behalf of the Bureau to ask his help in the disappearance of an agent, but is understandably reluctant to accept. This hesitance is not just because he doesn't trust the FBI and thinks they may be trying to trick him, but also because they fought against him to obscure the truth. The agency is an affront to his whole belief system and helping them even to aid an innocent agent is troubling to him.
Struggling with her own set of beliefs, we have Scully who is now working as a doctor in a church-run hospital. In many ways IWTB is really a story about the two halves of Scully's personality. One of the intriguing things about her character has always been the dichotomy between her rigorous scientific ideology and her devout Catholic spirituality. This duality is brought to the forefront in both the main storyline and in a subplot of the film in which Scully fights to save the life of a young boy using stem-cell research, which is at odds with the hospital administration's values.
Another central character to the film is Father Joe; a man with a psychic connection to the missing agent who also happens to be a disgraced Catholic priest that's been excommunicated and is currently living in a home for sex offenders. Naturally this character greatly offends Scully both morally and spiritually. She doubts his abilities, though whether this is due to her trademark skepticism or her intense repulsion for the priest is unclear.
Mulder's search for the truth and Scully's search to understand her faith and its place in her day-to-day life is really the soul of this story making the subtitle "I Want To Believe" all the more resonant.
As for the narrative itself, that unfortunately comes off less successfully.
The X-Files series generally specialized in two kinds of villains for its monster-of-the-week episodes, the extraordinary creature thrust into our ordinary world and the man or woman endowed with unusual abilities. IWTB eschews both these ideas and give us boogiemen that are merely human. On the surface there's nothing specifically wrong with this approach, except that it takes away one of the things that made the X-Files unique and interesting.
Given the greater spiritual identity of the story, I can see why having a more relatable antagonist makes sense. The problem is that we never spend enough time with the baddies to get their point of view. Not that I think the film needed to explicitly spell out all their motivations, but getting to know their characters more would've helped to flesh them out rather than keeping them generic shadow figures. At the very end we do learn more about them when we discover what they're up to, but at that point the shock feels forced and hard to reconcile given the lack of forewarning.
The kidnapped agent we see in the beginning and the subsequent victims that follow also feel somewhat perfunctory. We never get a family member or work colleague talking about these people or worrying about them and they wind up feeling like a means to an end rather than the driving force they should have represented.
I think that's probably the Achilles heel of the movie. That it took the theme and symbolism of the piece, elements normally reserved for the background touches of a story, and placed them ahead of everything else leaving the actual events of the film as mere fixtures to hang the philosophical discussion from.
So where does that leave the film as a whole?
Honestly, I'm torn. I thought Duchovny and Anderson both did a fine job in their roles and I give Carter a lot of credit for taking what was essentially a film for the fans and making it a think piece on spirituality, redemption and belief.
I completely disagree with the assertion by some critics that the movie was a "cash-in". If Carter had wanted to do that he could've just whipped up a cool mutant for Mulder and Scully to chase rather than addressing the nature of faith. Anyone who puts that many hot-button issues in their film, all but guaranteeing to alienate a wide swath of viewers, is probably not looking to simply make a quick buck.
That said, I don't think you can sacrifice story for message and IWTB certainly did that, to its detriment.
Overall I left the theater both intrigued and unsatisfied. As a standalone piece I don't think this film really holds up to scrutiny, but as a continuation of what came before it I think it was a bold and brave film to make.
If Carter had kept in mind more of what made the show great while he was working to stretch it to new levels, I think he would've had a real winner on his hands.
It seems unlikely, but I hope that Carter gets the chance to redeem himself. I think the X-Files really has a shot of coming back strong if presented in the right way.
I Want To Believe.
-Quoth the Raven
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Woo to the Hoo!
07/23/08 05:29 PM
I’ll post all the details of when and where it will appear as soon as I have them.
Happy, happy, joy, joy.....
-Quoth the Raven
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Film Review: Hellboy – The Golden Army
07/22/08 08:08 PM
My string of summer movie-viewing bliss, which started its joyful ascent with Iron Man and came to a frenzied peak recently with Dark Knight, has finally taken a nose dive.
This occurrence was inevitable and therefore to be expected, but what I didn't anticipate was the agent of my fall. Not from some promising but ultimately ill-conceived comedy or an explosion-filled action spectacle, but rather from a picture whose writer and director I truly admire.
Guillermo Del Toro created one of my favorite films of the last several years, the visually magical and socially evocative Pan's Labyrinth. Before that I had seen his work in the first Hellboy, which I also thought was beautifully rendered with a refreshingly playful plot.
While Del Toro has certainly retained his eye for wondrous creatures and creations in The Golden Army, the film's story suffers greatly from an overindulgence on smarmy dialogue and clichéd romantic tropes.
Spoilers Ahead
The film begins with a flashback of Hellboy as a child with Professor Broom on a military base. It's Christmas Eve and HB is excited and wants to stay up to see Santa. Broom denies this request, explaining that Santa won't come if they don't go to sleep, but acquiesces to his adopted son's insistence that his father read him a bedtime story. The fable Broom reads him is the legend of the Golden Army. The tale is rendered rather interestingly using wooden marionettes to represent the waring factions and is actually one of my favorite parts of the film.
The combatants in this war are the elves, goblins and other fantasy folk versus the humans which have suddenly sprung up and threatened to overrun them. The goblin king offers to make the elven leader a mechanical army to defeat their foes, controlled by a golden crown. The elven king agrees, but after seeing the devastation the golden arms creates he regrets his decision and breaks the crown into three pieces, two kept by the elves and one kept by the humans.
Flash forward to the present day and we have the son of the elf king, who disagreed with his father's decision, at an auction house where a piece of the crown is being sold. He nabs the piece and leaves the assembled guests with a nasty surprise to remember him by.
This finally brings us to the BPRD where we see Abe escorting the meddling Agent Manning around and explaining what he, Hellboy and Liz have been up to in their superior's absence. The scene serves as a way to bring the viewer up to speed and bridge the gap from the first film and mostly works in this regard, at least until we actually get to HB and Liz where we find the two squabbling over their domestic troubles.
This is where things start to unravel for me.
We've got Liz yelling at HB over his slovenly ways and HB complaining that Liz is overreacting and that she just doesn't understand him. The scene, which is supposed to be humorous and cute as well as an indicator that there's trouble in paradise, feels incredibly forced.
It's tempting to think that this might be the fault of the two leads. Admittedly Selma Blair, who plays Liz, has always been a bit hit-or-miss for me and I thought she was one of the weaker links in the original film. Ron Perlman on the other hand is a fantastic actor, those who don't believe me need only watch City of Lost Children to confirm this fact, but even he wasn't able to carry off the stilted, sappy dialogue.
Honestly, it's not that I didn't understand or even agree with what Del Toro was going for, it's just that it didn't work. I felt like I was watching an episode of The Honeymooners with Liz as the henpecking wife and HB as the emotionally-clueless hubby. Not to disparage classic television, but stereotypical views of men and women as myopic gender caricatures don't fly in this day and age. Not because there isn't some truth to them, but because they're just too simplistic.
Maybe this throwback style was intentional on Del Toro's part, but it came off to me as lazy writing and unfortunately it only got worse as the film progressed.
The scene ends with Liz and HB called away before they can completely tear down the BPRD with their fight, as the team is assigned to investigate the incident at the auction house and thus the main storyline begins.
I won't go into detail on the rest of the film, as I've already expounded more than I had intended to, but here's a summary of the events that follow:
A supernatural smoke creature with a German accent dressed in an old-timey, deep-sea, diver suit is appointed to lead the team. Liz and HB continue to bicker until a shocking revelation about their relationship turns it all around. The elven princess takes the final piece of the crown and flees from her brother until she eventually finds our heroes at which point she and Abe fall instantly in love. Abe and HB listen to a sad song and cry in their beers over their troubles with women. HB gets wounded, which makes everyone forget their arguments and go after the prince. There's a big battle that ends in love, loss and new beginnings. The End.
Oh, also, in the middle of the movie there's a big tree monster that's remorselessly crushing everything in sight, but apparently we're supposed to feel bad when it dies.
Most of the fight scenes were at least entertaining if not always terribly logical; the real problem with this film comes down to the two love stories. Hellboy's unrequited love in the first film felt fairly realistic and substantive. The relationship that replaces it tries too hard to paint the ups and downs of romantic coupling without ever ringing true. In Abe's case this failing is even more egregious and reduces one of the most interesting characters in the Hellboy world to a hormonal adolescent on a bad 50's sitcom.
I really wanted to like this movie, but it just couldn't function under the weight of its poorly rendered story. Maybe Del Toro was going for something classic when he wrote this script, but regrettably it comes off as clichéd camp.
Here's hoping his next film is a winner. Until then I guess I'll just re-watch Pan's Labyrinth.
-Quoth the Raven
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Film Review: The Dark Knight
07/19/08 03:39 PM
With the heap of positive reviews already out for this film it may be a bit redundant to add my praise to the pile, but I'd like to give my take on why I think this film worked so well without giving anything specific away.
Spoiler-Free Review Ahead
Before I start I should state that while I enjoyed Batman Begins, I wasn't enamored with it the way many have been. Don't get me wrong, I think Nolan's initial effort was a solid film, but I felt the third act had some definite structure and execution problems and that the villains in general came off as somewhat cardboard and cliché.
I mention this because I think a lot of people walked into Dark Knight riding high on the wave of Batman Begins, but personally I wasn't one of them. In truth I was a bit worried for the new film, since sequels often suffer from a lack of vision when compared to their progenitors and the original, as I said, already had issues.
Aside from my feelings about the first film, the only other preconceptions I had for Dark Knight came from the decision to cast Heath Ledger as The Joker. At first this seemed like a strange choice given Ledger's previous roles, which while good were far removed from superhero movies or action films. Also I must admit that his stature as one of Hollywood's pretty faces did make me think he might be wrong to play the disfigured, clowned-prince of crime.
After seeing some of the early clips and photos of Ledger in the role my opinion began to change and after viewing the movie I'd say that for me Ledger's Joker is the definitive screen representation. I still truly enjoy Nicholson's performance in the Tim Burton adaptation, but Ledger takes the character to a level that hasn't been seen before on film.
While Ledger's bravura performance is certainly one of the major highlights of the film, the real genius behind The Dark Knight is its take on the philosophy of morality. The dissection of good vs. evil and right vs. wrong is the central tenet of the film and it is woven throughout the movie in the arcs of the film's three central characters: Batman, The Joker and Harvey Dent.
It comes as no surprise that The Joker is an "agent of chaos", but the movie does an excellent job of expounding upon this idea and making it an actual viewpoint rather than just a tagline. At the same time there's no phony grandstanding with The Joker. The character doesn't come off as a holier-than-thou parental figure the way that Liam Neeson's Ra's Al Ghul did in the first film. Ledger's Joker simply does what he does; there is no reason why.
Batman and Harvey Dent have a more clouded perspective with both men trying to rid Gotham City of crime in their own way and each finding it increasingly difficult to do so while still staying true to their ideals. This is further complicated by their own personal feelings and ambitions, which is personified by their mutual affection for Rachel Dawes.
This struggle of how each man chooses to define morality is what makes Dark Knight such a compelling film. Add to this the exciting pacing, the stunning cinematography, the clever writing and the inspiring acting and you're left with something that makes you consider the essence of human nature all while providing an incredibly entertaining viewing experience.
In short, see this film. It's definitely worth your money, your time and your respect.
-Quoth the Raven
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New Poem
07/16/08 06:18 PM
Rather than trying to shoehorn it in, I decided to compose a new piece for Twitter and have placed my original composition up in the poetry section of this site.
The piece is called "Underhanded" and details the rivalry that beings of like minds sometimes fall victim to.
I hope you enjoy.
-Quoth the Raven
P.S. The new Twitter piece is also up.
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Teeny Weeny Poetry
07/09/08 08:23 AM
What's Twitter? You may ask.
Twitter is a micro blog service that's used to quickly convey small bursts of information. Each post, called a "tweet", can be no longer than 140 characters, which is about a line and a half of text in a standard word processor.
So what do you do with such a limited format?
Some use it as a replacement for group emails or text messages, while others employ it as a business tool for maintaining status updates on a project.
The biggest utilization however seems to be casual updates about a user's current status: "I'm eating a taco", "I'm watching The Venture Brothers on TV", "I got heartburn from the taco", "I'm taking some Tums", etc.
Personally I find this practice kind of ludicrous since the only thing more egotistical than writing about the mundane minutiae of your existence is expecting other people to read it. Then again I suppose that's what all blogging is essentially about and being that I'm currently composing an entry in one I guess I've just painted myself as a hypocrite (yet again).
So maybe I've misjudged this whole Twitter thing and should really give it a chance.
Still, I just can't see myself typing miniscule missives about my activities without at least having some kind of festive gimmick to make it more palatable and entertaining. That being the case, I've decided to utilize Twitter for the forces of creative good by wrapping my daily observations in a warm, fuzzy poetry blanket.
Since turning all my spare resources to fiction, I've come to miss writing poetry and I think this abbreviated format will give me a way back into the form without diverting too much of my time.
I'm not sure what the poems will look like as the character limitations will certainly shape and change my writing style. For now I'll just have to wing it (horrible double pun intended).
Those wishing to keep updated on the feed can sign up for a free Twitter account and then click the "follow" button under my name "ravenpen" or alternatively you can also just link to it from this site.
I hope this little experiment proves entertaining for all of us. Look for my first post sometime later today.
Update: First poetry tweet is up. Second tweet up.
-Quoth the Raven
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We Finally Got a Good One
07/04/08 10:01 AM
You may have noticed that I haven’t had much to say about it since then. That’s because the episodes…oh how can I put this…the episodes haven’t been very good, in fact most of them have been cliché, badly written, predictable and not particularly scary.
After the first installment, which I commented on in my initial post, I was a little worried, but the director of that episode was not someone whose work I particularly knew or cared about. The second show was directed by Brad Anderson, which I was definitely looking forward to. Unfortunately that one, while starting off strong, developed into a cheesy mess with an ending that was painfully silly and overacted.
Fast forward to the forth episode and we come to John Landis. This ep more than any of the others is the one I was psyched about. The premise about a bride-to-be whose slipped a note that she’s about to marry a serial killer is wonderfully ripe for the type of tongue-in-cheek humor that Landis excels at. For whatever reason Landis or the writers decided not to go in that direction and instead we get a weird, tension-laden piece that just didn’t work with the setup, especially the ending which I predicted in the first few minutes, but assumed they wouldn’t actually use given what happens in the rest of the episode.
So after four entires that ranged from lackluster to bad, I’d pretty much given up hope, but continued to watch the series because what the hell else do you do on a Thursday night. I had completely forgotten that this week’s show, titled Eater, was the Stuart Gordon directed one and from the very beginning I knew I was in for something different.
The setup is a trio of cops in their small-town police station charged with guarding a serial killer overnight before he’s transferred the next morning. I won’t got into anymore detail, but those curious can check out a full review.
Before you do that however, you should actually watch the episode.
Just make sure you haven’t had a big meal right before you do.
-Quoth the Raven
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Real Life Daredevil
07/01/08 10:27 AM
I know this story isn't technically writing or art related, and at least a couple years old, but it was the first time I’d seen it and it was just too remarkable to pass up.
It’s just unbelievable to me how this kid has been able to adapt to his lack of sight. Talk about talent and innovation, not to mention persistence and perseverance. I think the most incredible bit is his ability to play videogames. I know that sounds kind of silly given his other more practical abilities, but when you think about the fact that he’s fully interacting with something that complex based solely on minor nuances in sound it just blows me away.
At any rate, just wanted to share this incredible story with those who hadn’t seen it yet.
-Quoth the Raven
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Dark Knight Goes Back to Basics
06/27/08 06:33 PM
Everything from the daring aerial stunts to the gritty bank-robbery explosions were executed on location. The new Batmobile-inspired motorcycle is an actual vehicle that was created and driven around the streets of Chicago. Even the scene of Batman hanging off the top of the Sears Tower is real and if that weren’t impressive enough it turns out that the man behind the cape and cowl is actually Bale himself who decided he just couldn’t miss out on the opportunity.
“I said to Buster [Bale’s stunt double], ‘No you’re not. You get to do a lot of fantastic stunts. You’re not taking that one away from me.’”
Though he may have gone old-school for the effects, Nolan went high-tech with the shooting when he decided to film several of the movie’s more spectacular scenes using 70-millimeter IMAX film stock rather than the 35-millimeter used in standard motion picture cameras. This not only gives the film the ability to be shown on the enormous multi-story screens, but also gives the images a depth and richness that carries over to your plain vanilla multiplex as well.
Another interesting tidbit to come out of the article is the fact that Nolan dislikes doing overdubs and prefers to rerecord any garbled audio from a scene on set while the cast and crew and are still present. This sheds some light on how Heath Ledger had already finished all his work on this picture despite having tragically died while the film was still in the editing room.
I have to say that everything I’ve read about Dark Knight so far looks like they took incredible craft and care with this movie. While I certainly enjoyed Nolan’s first Batman film, I think this one is going to top it by a startling degree.
I’m waiting with popcorn in hand on opening night for this one, which considering where it was shot will be a bit surreal. It’s good to live in the new Gotham City.
-Quoth the Raven
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Thanks For All The Little Things
06/23/08 05:50 PM
Carlin in many ways was as much a sociologist as he was a comedian and his material was mostly constructed from his astute observations on society and its evolution. He was one of the first comics to satirize consumerism and our need as a species to accumulate things.
Later in his career he took on everything from politics to religion, performing a savage, satirical dissection of some of society’s most sacred subjects. Whether you agreed with Carlin or not it was hard to ignore him. He had a knack for calling things as he saw them and for removing some of the pomposity from everyday life.
Still, I think what I’ll remember Carlin most for is his humanity. More than anything I think he sought to break down society’s barriers in order to bring people together. So much of how we choose to define ourselves as people can end up blocking out others who see things differently.
To Carlin I think we were all just silly little creatures trying to stumble our way through life. Maybe that view makes us a bit less unique as individuals, but at least it puts us all in the same boat.
Rest in Peace George. I hope you’re having a good time wherever you are and that they’re letting you say whatever you want, even those seven little words you could never say on television.
-Quoth the Raven
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Grosser Than A Note From My Mother
06/21/08 01:14 AM
Just so no one thinks I'm making up excuses, here's a nice shot of the stitches from my mole removal:
I think my dermatologist did a top-notch sewing job, so much so in fact that with the clear thread it's almost hard to see the incision. For those curious about the procedure, the mole in question was about half the diameter of a pencil eraser. The incision was originally about half an inch wide and as the photo illustrates is about two inches long. This is obviously a lot larger than the mole itself, but the extra skin removal is necessary to get all of the potentially effected area.
Personally I got the little bugger removed for medical reasons, but some people also do it for cosmetic ones. This puzzles me a bit since the procedure leaves you with a nice little scar and I can't imagine how it would be favorable to just keeping the mole as far as appearance goes, but hey that's just me.
Anyway just wanted to prove I wasn't fibbing and show off my boss Frankenstein threads.
When it heals, this little beauty will go nicely with my modest collection of fun stitch jobs.
-Quoth the Raven
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Twenty-One Up
06/20/08 12:18 AM
Thanks again for your patience with the fluctuating schedule. I'll do my best to keep it as consistent as I can.
I'm going to try and get a bit ahead in the writing so that any schedule conflicts in the future won't derail the progress.
With any luck it should be smooth sailing from here on out.
-Quoth the Raven
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Twenty-One Delayed Again
06/11/08 07:17 PM
I’m currently in the midst of our busiest time at work, a series of days I lovingly refer to as hell week. My lunches and breaks have once again vanished and that being the case I don’t think I’m going to be able to post this week’s 21 installment. I have actually started writing it, but I don’t think I’ll have the time to finish and properly revise it the way I need to.
Next week I’m having a minor surgical procedure done on my arm, which may also slow me down a bit, but I think between this week and early next I should be able to finish and post page 18 to appear this coming Thursday, the 19th, so that the gap is only just this week.
Sorry again about this delay and thanks for your patience.
-Quoth the Raven
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NBC Brings Some Spooky to Summer
06/06/08 05:00 PM
Another trait of this scorching season is usually a dearth of horror entertainment on television. Though the cinemas pump out fright flicks pretty much year round, TV only seems to view October as worthy of such scary spectacles and does not deign to acknowledge such fare during the other eleven months.
At least not until this year.
NBC has decided to buck the trend and has come out with a summer series of scary stories appearing on Thursday nights under the moniker Fear Itself.
The series seems to be formatted similar to classics like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits as well as the current Showtime program Masters of Horror, a little research revealed Mick Garris listed as the creator of both Masters and Fear. As in the above examples, the various tales and characters in Fear will change from week-to-week and are being helmed by some pretty notable names in the industry including: Brad Anderson the writer/director of Session 9, one of my favorite little indie horror films, Stuart Gordon director of cult classic Re-Animator and the incomparable John Landis who I feel personally indebted to for giving the world one of the great werewolf films of all time.
Those looking to pick and choose can consult the schedule to see what day their favorite auteur’s episode is airing. The premiere of the series actually launched last night and a review of that episode can be found at the venerable AV Club, who will be following the show and providing their thoughts each week.
As a remedy for my being a little slow on the draw, and to entice those who prefer to watch such things on their own time rather than the network’s, you can view yesterday’s episode and all future episodes for free at the following location.
Time will tell whether the series is a success, but considering the general lack of entertaining programming during June, July and August, I think even a mediocre horror series will be better than the standard spate of reruns and dodgy summer-replacement sitcoms.
Put simply, I tend to view horror shows in the same light I regard pizza. Even when it’s bad, it’s still satisfying on some level.
I think there’s another activity that adage applies to, but I can’t seem to recall what it is.
-Quoth the Raven
P.S. What’s with the Classic Mac OS borders on all the windows at the Fear site? Even a Mac Addict like myself found that rather strange and dated looking.
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Film Review: Indiana Jones
05/27/08 07:02 PM
The arrival of a new Indie film is likely to bring up fuzzy feelings of nostalgia for many of us who grew up in the 80’s. For younger viewers however, there’s bound to be a question of relevance, particularly what an action hero from the "decade of excess" has to offer their modern movie-viewing experience.
Given the enormous amount of tickets these two groups represent, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is in the unenviable position of having to simultaneously satisfy both old-school fans and today’s generation of kids looking for a good time at the cinema.
Warning: minor spoliers ahead.
Everything you need to understand about Indie’s world and the film in general is established in the opening scene of the movie. Ford’s trademark wry dialogue, Blanchett’s severe and scolding villainess, bullwhips, bullets, car chases, comic mishaps and one gigantic explosion all appear within the first ten minutes.
In addition to being an exciting way to kick things off, this sequence provides the audience with valuable information. Important tidbits such as the knowledge that evil henchmen are always incompetent, guns have no effect on our protagonist and refrigerators are valuable aids when caught in the midst of an atomic blast.
At their core the Indie films are essentially big-budget recreations of campy 50’s adventure flicks. The goofs, gaffs and winks are all intentional and part of the fun. Knowing all this before I went to see the show, I still have to admit that the intervening years watching films with gritty portrayals of violence took a little while to undo. I was initially flabbergasted that a hail of machine-gun fire leveled at Jones somehow missed him from only a few feet away. The whole thing just came off as ludicrous.
Fortunately after a few minutes it all clicked and I finally understood what I’d been missing. There is joy to be had in spectacle and in Indie films it’s all about the spectacle.
Crystal Skull follows in the footsteps of its predecessors with our fedora-clad hero off on another archaeological quest. This time a colleague of Indie’s has gone missing and the adopted son of the man, played by Shia LaBeuof, has enlisted Jones to help track him down.
I don’t want to go into too much detail, but suffice to say the two set off for some ancient ruins and encounter traps, angry natives and fascinating relics once they arrive. Eventually the badies from the opening sequence reappear and the rest of the film is filled with over-the-top action, crafty historical puzzles and general rollicking adventure as Jones and crew race their pursuers to the film’s mounting climax.
The sense of fun and of trying to entertain on every level is really endearing in this movie. It’s something I think a lot of serious filmmakers are afraid to do, which is a shame as I think there’s a lot of potential for directors of Spielberg’s caliber to try something different than the heavy, dramatic fare that so many of them seem to cling to.
If I have one complaint it’s with the pacing of the film. Things start off at full throttle and pretty much don’t let up until the end. Being that it’s an action-adventure film, this is mostly a good thing. That said, there were times when I wish the movie had been given a little more room to breathe, particularly the scenes with Indie and his young protégé and also later on when he encounters Marion, who we haven’t seen since Raiders of the Lost Ark.
In the first instance I thought the mentor/pupil dynamic with Ford and LaBeouf could’ve been played up a little more. I really enjoyed the few scenes that touched on this and would like to have seen more. With Marion and Indie this flaw seemed even more egregious. After exchanging a few scathing remarks with each other, as things apparently ended badly between them, the two fall back into their old roles as if nothing ever happened.
Having no real interaction to sort out the awkwardness that was revealed only moments earlier left me feeling a little hollow and I also wish they kept Marion a little more acerbic and a little less loving as she came off kind of cloying, which is not something I remember being present in the original incarnation of her character.
All-in-all, I had a really good time with this film and I think audiences of all ages will as well. The movie incorporates the massive action set-pieces and modern effects that younger moviegoers have grown up with while still retaining all the old-school camp that made it a classic for kids who first saw Raiders in the theater back in ’81.
Most importantly the movie is incredibly entertaining and fun, which is really what Indiana Jones was always about. I suppose you could knock certain aspects of the film as being too corny or caricatured, but I think that’s missing the point.
If you like your Spielberg serious then go rent Schindler’s List.
If you’re looking for a good, old-fashioned popcorn flick to keep you amused while avoiding the summer heat then I think Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will suit you just fine.
-Quoth the Raven
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Game Review: Penny Arcade Adventures
05/25/08 02:12 AM
A critic who decides to create something in the realm that they formerly judged is sort of like being a cop who gets sent to prison. Everyone you’ve ever wronged is just waiting to take as swipe at you. For Penny Arcade this is doubly true since the comic not only lambasted games they disliked, but also other reviewers and pretty much anyone else in the industry they felt was lacking
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, is the first of a four-part episodic tale set in the 1920’s. In it Gabe and Tycho have taken on the mantle of paranormal investigators tasked at solving the mysteries of their dark and dangerous surroundings. The setting is partly inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and on the RPG Call of Cthulhu, which is based on Lovecraft’s macabre world.
Though the time and place may have changed, Gabe and Tycho still retain many of their modern-day traits including the former’s loveable naivety, the latter’s urbane wit and a healthy dose of profanity from both. The game also contains many other slightly modified P.A. favorites like Anne, Tycho’s niece, and the Fruit Fucker, a sentient juicer that likes to, well you know.
Alongside its PA and Lovecraft inspired roots, the game also borrows from some prominent geek touchstones such as Dungeons and Dragons, Final Fantasy and Munchkin. These elements are highlighted during the battle sequences, which occupy a good portion of the game.
Other game-play elements include interactive conversations with the various characters that inhabit the world. Dialogues all have multiple options for asking questions and giving responses similar to the text adventure computer games popular in the 80’s. These exchanges often reveal clues to your current mystery and also provide new cases for you to solve. Much of the rest of your time is divided between gathering items to help aid you in combat and looking around for clues to your various mysteries.
Despite this somewhat narrow focus, the game never felt boring or monotonous. The compelling story and overall humor and wit kept me intrigued and excited to see what would happen next. Additionally the combat system with its myriad of D&D byway of Munchkin inspired modifiers and its varied special moves for each character, which were pulled off via a series of mini-games, kept things fast-paced and exciting. One thing I'd never experienced before was the "live" click-and-point combat environment where instead of being turn-based, each character simply acts whenever they're ready rather than alternating between sides.
For 20 bucks the game did feel a bit brief, but since my options for games on my “legacy” computer and PS2 have dwindled down to almost nothing, I didn't really have to worry about deciding between this and other titles. Those of you with modern entertainment devices may have to weigh the decision more carefully, but I still think the game is a good bargain.
In summation, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness was funny, clever and stayed true to the spirit of its source. I'm sure they'll be some detractors who take issue with one aspect or another, but I don't think anyone can accuse PA of putting out a half-baked product. It's clear a lot of time and love went into the making of this game.
Personally I was highly entertained and I look forward to the future installments. Those not entirely swayed by my words of praise can check out the free demo before they buy.
-Quoth the Raven
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No fun, my babe, no fun
05/16/08 06:43 AM
The older I get the more difficult I find it to factor in fun as part of my daily activities. Sure, there's entertainment to be had after work and on the weekends, but that still leaves a great deal of time where there's a distinct absence of joy from the proceedings.
Now maybe this is just "the way of the world" and I'm supposed to: "grow up", "take my lumps", "swallow my medicine", "grin and bear it", etc. I'm willing to accept that perhaps it's me and not the world that's at fault here.
Still, I think the reason that creative jobs are coveted by so many people, myself included, is because it gives us a way to not only express ourselves artistically, but also to have some fun in how we interpret our work.
A prime example of such unabashed whimsy popped up in Oak Lawn, Illinois where the city officials tried to curb the frequent flouting of stop signs by adding a little something extra to the standard message. Unfortunately the Illinois Department of Transportation didn't see the initiative as beneficial and so this clever and creative idea seems destined to be shut down.
Are we really this humorless as a society that something as innocuous as a sassy stop sign needs to be quashed? Heaven forbid someone actually try and have a little fun in their mundane job. Way to motivate people.
I wish I had a witty or insightful way to end this, but honestly the whole thing just makes me sad.
-Quoth the Raven
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Twenty-One Update
05/15/08 11:52 PM
Barring further complications the story should be back on schedule, appearing in its normal Thursday night slot.
I hope you enjoy this installment and sorry again about the delay.
-Quoth the Raven
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Official XF-2 Trailer Released
05/12/08 10:57 PM
I would recommend downloading the video from the site rather than viewing it online since the streaming version is only slightly larger than a postage stamp and kind of hard to interpret.
Though it doesn't give much away, I like the general feel the trailer sets for the film. I'm still nervous that this new flick could sully my love for the series if it turns out badly, but I'm fairly hopeful that Carter and crew got it right.
With the new film purportedly having a very modest budget, it wouldn't take much for it to make a profit or at least break even. If it does then we'll likely see future installments as Carter, Duchovny and Anderson have all expressed interest in reviving the show as a series of films.
Having the show carry on in film form would be a really interesting way to continue Mulder and Scully's journey. I'm not sure if something like that has ever been done before with the exception of Firefly and Serenity, though in that case there will likely only be the one movie.
Only time will tell what happens, but for now the future of The X-Files looks bright.
I guess you really can't keep a good agent down.
-Quoth the Raven
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Twenty-One Delay
05/09/08 06:51 AM
Unfortunately a couple people at work have been out this week, which means I've been doing the jobs of three people and thus my lunch and break times, when I usually write, have become temporarily non-existent.
Sorry about the delay, but things should be back on schedule by next week.
-Quoth the Raven
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Free NIN Coming at Ya!
05/05/08 07:00 AM
You can download the tracks, which come in a variety of different audio formats and include both individual art for each track as well as a PDF booklet, here.
This is a pretty cool gesture and not the sort of thing you see very often. As far as the music itself is concerned, I've only had the opportunity to listen to a couple songs, but I'm liking what I've heard. It reminds me a bit of his earlier work during the Pretty Hate Machine and Broken years.
Thanks for the record Trent! Hope everyone goes out and grabs a copy.
-Quoth the Raven
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Twenty-One Schedule
05/01/08 11:06 PM
Now that there's a set release time I won't update the blog with reminders unless something is going to be delayed.
Thanks for the continued readership. I'm really glad I was able to revive this one after being away from it for so long. Hopefully you continue to enjoy it as much as I do.
-Quoth the Raven
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The Bitter Wine of Rejection
04/23/08 05:44 PM
I spent a long time crafting a carefully worded cover letter in which I tried to convey my expertise, my sense of humor and more than anything my enthusiasm for both the position and the company.
After a week went by with no response I sent a follow-up email to confirm that they'd received my information and to reiterate how eager I was to speak with them.
Last night I finally heard back from the company and much to my dismay I was told that they could not grant me an interview at this time. The letter was kind and encouraging, though fairly boilerplate and nonspecific as to why I was rejected. More than anything it just left me wondering what I'd done wrong.
The job posting didn't ask for any specific qualifications and seemed more interested in your ability to get the work done than with credentials. In my cover letter I talked about my professional and personal writing experience and really tried to project a sense of character. I even added in a list of humorous reasons to hire me that I thought would help display my writing style.
It may be that this was going too far, but the posting really emphasized humor and naturalistic sounding dialogue as an important aspect of the position so it seemed to me that having elements of that in my letter would be appropriate and welcome.
One thing I didn't do was provide formal writing samples since the notice only requested a cover letter and resume. I had intended to bring samples along to the interview, assuming that was when they would want to see such things, but in retrospect I think I should have included them in my initial email as it would have given them a better feel for what I'd been creating.
More than anything I just feel disappointed that I never got the chance to show them what I was capable of. In the back of my mind I really didn't think I was likely to get the job, but I was excited to talk with the company about my writing. I really wanted some feedback from professionals in the industry to see if they thought I had any potential and to perhaps give me some guidance on where I could improve.
Having even a small amount of validation that indicated I wasn't talentless and wasting my time would've been worth almost as much as a job in the industry. The fact that I didn't even warrant an interview was dispiriting and affected me more deeply than I thought it would.
Despite the pain of rejection, this event did bring me to a realization. That I want this as more than just a hobby or a distraction. It's clear to me now that I won't be happy simply writing in my spare time while I toil away at a subsistence-level job that I have absolutely no passion for. I won't spend a third of my life doing something that leaves me hollow.
I used to think that getting by was good enough, but being denied something I really wanted has proven to me that it isn't.
One way or another I have to make this happen.
-Quoth the Raven
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Areas of Interest
04/22/08 07:55 PM
The AV Club has an interview with series creator Chris Carter that goes into some detail about the history of the show as well as Carter's aspirations for the new film. Additionally EW has a nice overview of the movie that discusses how it came to be and even talks a bit about the storyline, which hasn't been discussed in previous interviews and remains a closely guarded secret.
If government conspiracies and aliens don't turn your crank then how about a little lycanthrope action?
Over at Comic Monsters there's a multi-part series on the Art of the Werewolf. In this first installment, written by artist Josh Medors, the article goes through the various visual incarnations of the lupine and discusses how to choose which iteration is right for you.
Medor's explanations for why he would use a wolf-man ala Lon Chaney Jr. in an urban situation and a more animalistic creature in a rural environment are insightful and broach the subject from an interesting angle. The style that he eventually settles on for his project is quite effective and appealing. Admittedly my opinion is swayed greatly by my own personal belief of how a werewolf should look, but I think any fan of the creature can appreciate Medor's take on it.
I hope these digressions of mine aren't viewed as too off-topic or self-serving. I know that they aren't the general artistic discussions I usually post here, but I feel they still fall within the parameters and frankly I find it hard to contain my enthusiasm for items of such great personal interest.
In other words, I just can't help myself.
-Quoth the Raven
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The Vanishing Art of the Auteur
04/19/08 09:00 AM
Among them was a storyboard for an exterior scene from The Shinning.
Apparently Kubrick wasn't able to be present for that particular shot and the notes were for whoever was assisting him. It’s remarkable to witness the amount of minute and specific detail Kubrick put into his description for the filming of that one scene. That kind of care and attention make it easy to see why he is considered one of the great cinematic masters of the last fifty years.
It saddens me that there seem to be few men and women with this level of artistic vision and commitment making films today. Granted Kubrick was the sort of unique talent that doesn't come along very often, but the fact that he put more thought and effort into a single shot setup than most current directors put into an entire film makes me worry about the future of the medium.
Perhaps the golden age of cinema has simply passed us by? If the current trend continues it seems inevitable that movies as a whole will eventually be relegated solely to the realm of entertainment rather than art.
It used to be that filmmakers were allowed and even encouraged to combine these elements and render the banal and sublime as a single image, but with an ever-increasing emphasis on demographics and target markets, making the mundane beautiful seems to be a dying form of expression.
I can only hope that we audience members begin to demand more from our movies and decide that cinema can and should be both a form of amusement and an artistic experience. If we don't then visionaries like Kubrick, Coppola and Scorsese may simply become examples of a lost art rather than inspirations for future generations of filmmakers.
-Quoth the Raven
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Twenty-One Back in Business
04/15/08 10:50 PM
You can find the latest entry here and should hopefully being seeing a new one every Wednesday or Thursday from here on out, assuming of course that I don't get derailed.
I thank my readers for their continued interest and apologize for the extended delay.
Hopefully it won't happen again.
-Quoth the Raven
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An Ode to Grave Robbing
04/01/08 08:05 PM
Though today you can find it almost anywhere in the world, most of Lovecraft's writing originally appeared in local pulp-fiction magazines that were often considered lowbrow and crass by much of the populace.
Because of this bias H.P. never really got his due while he was alive despite publishing dozens of stories. It was only over time that his fame and recognition grew eventually making Lovecraft one of the greatest influences on modern horror and its creators.
I guess it just goes to show that even great writers sometimes have it rough and that not being appreciated is no reason to stop creating.
-Quoth the Raven
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Film Review: Skinwalkers
03/26/08 08:50 PM
That said, there have been some real gems in the category such as the classic An American Werewolf in London and more recent entries like Ginger Snaps and Dog Soldiers. These examples may be rare, but finding them makes the search all the more worthwhile.
Now on to our feature film. Warning: Spoliers Ahead.
The plot in Skinwalkers centers on a very interesting question.
Is lycanthropy a gift or a curse?
The film pits two groups of werewolves against each another who have opposing opinions about the answer to this question. There is a legend in the lycanthrope world that revolves around a young boy imbued with both werewolf and human blood. This child is believed to hold the key to a potential cure for all lycanthropes, provided he reaches his thirteenth birthday.
This legacy is unknown to either the boy or his mother, but the town that they have lived in for most of their lives is populated with werewolves who wish to be cured and have devoted themselves to protecting the boy.
Then there are the others; lycanthropes who enjoy what they are. These wolves revel in the hunting and killing of humans and see no reason to go back to the former weakness of their mortal selves. Once they discover that they legend is real they seek out the boy, prepared to stop at nothing to preserve their way of life.
Sounds like a great premise right?
Honestly the idea behind this film is one of the most original treatments in the entire werewolf film cannon. Not only does it deal exclusively with werewolves, rather than delving into the world of vampires and other supernatural adversaries, but it also eschews mindless monster rampages and instead discusses the fundamental essence of lycanthropy and what it means to those possessed by it.
Regrettably this intriguing idea is wasted on a film that is sub-par in almost every other respect. When I’d first heard of this movie it was being marketed as an indie flick. This lack of budget seems to have prevented them from hiring a decent writer, a fact that is immediately apparent the moment the actors start speaking. Between the cliché dialogue and the universally mediocre acting, with the exception of Elias Koteas who really tried to pull things together, the movie felt pretty thoughtless.
Though the film avoided the common mistake of modern monster films, whose soullessly, slick productions champion style over substance ultimately leaving the audience feeling cheated, Skinwalkers falls into another trap by being apathetic. The whole production seemed to be simply going through the motions. Everything felt perfunctory like they were making a dog food commercial.
This lethargy is something I’ve come to expect from the horror film industry, but the promise of Skinwalker’s premise made it particularly disappointing this time around.
I can only hope that in the future ideas such as this one are handled with a bit more care. If you really, really want to see a werewolf movie then I’d give this one a shot. Otherwise I’d skip it and hold out hope for Dog Soldiers 2.
-Quoth the Raven
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Drifting Out Among the Stars
03/19/08 05:36 PM
For over 50 years Clarke wrote about space exploration, extraterrestrial and artificial life and perhaps most importantly, the nature of man.
Best known for his film collaboration with Stanley Kubrick that produced 2001: A Space Odyssey, based on Clarke's short story The Sentinel, Clarke's work influenced not only future science-fiction writers, but also future scientists. Holding advanced degrees in both mathematics and physics, his early ideas about artificial intelligence and the potential applications of satellites are evident in the computers and space stations we see today.
As a writer Clarke's creations gave us a glimpse not only into the glorious potential of advanced technology, but into the pitfalls and perils that such creations might cause if left unchecked. More than anything Clarke told us that advancement, no matter how altruistic, always held a price.
His contributions to the creative and scientific communities will be greatly missed.
-Quoth the Raven
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Printer Creates Coffee Canvases
03/18/08 05:59 PM
We've all seen baristas carve cute designs into the foam of our cup of coffee. Many of these dairy sculptors are quite skilled, but inventor Oleskiy Pikalo has created a device that makes even their best work look like a finger painting by comparison.
Made from an old Philips 8155 plotter printer, Piakalo's machine dispenses edible inks that recreate images in remarkable detail. As seen in the linked video, these recreations simply would not be possible with human hands, which brings up the age old debate of whether art created by an emotionless device should be compared with something created by a living being whose flaws an imperfections often give a piece much of its character.
I'm not sure that they'll be much demand for these devices, but it certainly is an impressive feat both mechanically and artistically.
So which would you prefer, a simple piece of latte art done by soulful human hands or a mini coffee masterpiece created by an inanimate object?
I'll leave the debate up to you.
-Quoth the Raven
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Legend's Original Ending
03/15/08 02:05 AM
Had the film ended this way it would’ve made a lot more sense and gone a long way in explaining some of the earlier events.
This resolution certainly left me with a better impression of the film than I had originally.
-Quoth the Raven
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The Assault Continues
03/10/08 06:12 PM
I wrote about Bay back in January and discussed his recent spate of leaden and largely pointless remakes of classic horror movies.
Unfortunately it seems as though Bay is bound and determined to put his garish stamp on all my favorite fright films. I'm sure that his redo of The Shinning is already in the works and that a "re-envisioned" version of Evil Dead complete with blinged-out chainsaw is likely being scripted as I type this.
My only hope is that this recycled cavalcade of mediocrity may inspire younger viewers who see these remakes to seek out the originals and discover what they've been missing. If Hollywood moguls like Bay can make millions by simply pillaging the corpses of great films and creating pale imitations, then maybe experiencing the vastly superior source material will inspire the next generation of film lovers to open their eyes to true talent and send these dime-store hucksters packing.
To quote the great animated film critic Jay Sherman, "If it's a remake of a classic, rent the classic" and even more importantly "If the movie stinks, just don't go."
-Quoth the Raven
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More X-Files Insight
02/26/08 06:28 PM
For those of us unable to attend, some enterprising audience members captured the discussion on video, which can be viewed in its entirety in Quicktime here or broken up on YouTube as part one, part two and part three respectively.
Much of the Q&A session was standard fan adoration and appreciation, but both Carter and Duchovny did go on to discuss the nature of the show and why they believe it was such a success. It’s a pretty interesting discussion both for fans of the show and those interested at a glimpse of the inside world of television production.
Though I’m certainly bias, I think that the merits of what made The X-Files work holds true for most character-driven pieces and it gives me hope that the upcoming movie will provide more of the things I’ve come to know and love from the series.
Now I just have to find someone to go with.
-Quoth the Raven
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TV Scribes Score a Victory?
02/13/08 06:37 PM
Details of the agreement are unknown at this time, but it is almost certain that the writers got at least some slice of the digital distribution residuals that they fought for. How well the strike succeeded and to what degree the WGA's goals were met may never be fully known outside of those directly involved. Regardless it appears that the deal was satisfactory enough for the television scriveners to put down their picket signs and pick up their pens.
This news will no doubt send shivers of delight to TV fans everywhere who have desperately been waiting for the resurrection of their favorite shows. As to when we viewers will start seeing these programs return to the air, it will probably be at least three to four weeks before the first wave of episodes start to reappear and many series will likely take additional weeks to get back up and running. Here's an itemized breakdown by show of the timeline; just be aware that this list is mere speculation and as such is subject to change.
Though I'm certainly happy to see the strike ended and the writers back to work, I can't help but wonder where all their sacrifice landed them in the end. As I said earlier, the contract details are unknown and the writers obviously agreed to the terms, but that may have been as much out of desperation as it was satisfaction with the deal. Having seen many members of my family suffer through teacher's strikes, that were generally waged not for additional earnings or incentives, but simply to hold on to what they had, it makes me wary of the supposed generosity of those in power.
Hopefully everything worked out in the end and the writers got at least part of what they were after. It's never easy to stand up for yourself and what you believe in; it's even harder to maintain that stance when that which you depend on is taken away.
-Quoth the Raven
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The Exploitation Flick Revival
02/12/08 06:15 PM
Secret Heart, What Are You Made Of….
A little while back Rude made me aware of an upcoming movie that had already become an internet sensation without a single scene being viewed. All of the buzz about this film came from its title which was so irresistible that it made both Samuel Jackson and a well-respected screen writer clamor to be a part of it.
What precious sentence, what string of syllables, what titular triumph could be so compelling that it made two Hollywood heavyweights hop on board without a second thought?
Snakes on a Plane!
Everything you need to understand about this film is revealed in those four simple words.
That the central plot involves an assassin trying to kill his target by filling an aircraft with deadly vipers doesn’t make any difference. There’s SNAKES ON A PLANE let the hilarity and death ensue.
On its surface this film seems like a terrible idea. A hackneyed device that eliminates the need for any real plot or story. After all what kind of narrative could you really develop when all the characters in the film are trying to deal with multiple pairs of fangs thrust into various body-parts?
But what this movie really represents is a genre of film that has been absent from mainstream cinema for many years and is just now starting to make a comeback, the exploitation flick.
A recent example of this is Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects. You can boil the whole premise down to “whacky killers on a rampage”. There’s little explainable motivation behind the character’s actions and that lack of explanation really doesn’t impact the film because it’s beside the point.
That doesn’t inherently forgive the film its shortcomings, which it definitely had, but it does allow it to exist in a space apart from most conventional cinema. My original criticism of Rejects was that it “had no story”, which is true, but again is something that exploitation films aren’t directly concerned with.
My understanding of the exploitation genre has always been that its main focus was that of situation; to begin with a simple scenario and let the rest develop from there. ie: killers on a rampage, let’s see what terrors they’ll inflict next and poisonous snakes on plane, how will the passengers survive?
Just as Slither harkens back to an earlier genre of horror films Snakes on a Plane is trying to recapture an era of “dirty cinema” that puts people in shocking situations, often sexual or violent in nature, that are meant to appeal to the voyeur in its viewers. The watcher feels guilty on some level over enjoying the unabashed exploitation of the characters in the film, but excited by the prospect all the same. It’s meant to be a visceral thrill that forgoes all notion of context or narrative.
Basically exploitation cinema does what it does because it can and because people have an innate curiosity over things we’re not supposed to be interested in, but secretly are.
-Quoth the Raven
Can Bad Become Good or Is It Just Plain Ugly?
I’d like to begin this discussion by posing a question.
At what point does intentional self-mockery simply become bad cinema?
A recent example of this form can be found in parody serials such as the Scary Movie series. These flicks specialize in spoofing other mainstream movies, but in the process of doing so end up ragging on themselves as well. Granted, the audience is aware of the intent of these films, but it still makes one wonder whether bad jokes intended to illustrate how lame a pack of films are don’t ultimately end up making the roaster part of the group it’s criticizing.
In truth I didn’t raise this question to analyze such an obvious target as the above, but rather to investigate another film that employs a similar technique.
Grindhouse, a new joint film created by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, is an homage to the “exploitation flicks” made popular during the 60’s and 70’s. As discussed in my previous article, the creators of these movies knew that there was only so much they could do with the limited funds they had so they put in elements that were guaranteed to gather a crowd. These typically consisted of sex, violence and other taboo scenarios designed to tap into the hedonistic desires of the audience.
The difference between the original pictures and Tarantino and Rodriguez’s tribute is that the latter isn’t constrained by a budget essentially making the humorous and shocking moments often spawned by such financial restraints a fabrication rather than the product of restricted creation. The problem then becomes trying to craft something that mimics the outrageous and often goofy traits of a source that, despite its lowbrow ethos, probably wasn’t made to be intentionally bad. Contrast this to a film like Snakes, which served as a modern-day equivalent of the genre rather than a throwback trying to recapture the era.
Thus far the critics seem to have taken the bait with the vast majority praising the film including some previously wary sources. That being said, there’s still a part of me that can’t help, but feel that to recreate something without any of the external factors that caused the piece to turn out that way it did will inevitably end up being hollow and out of place. Granted all of this is just conjecture on my part and I must admit that the unexpected adulation over the film has piqued my interest.
So I turn the question over to you.
Is this return of gory kills and cheap thrills just what the silver screen needs or is it simply a case of nostalgia run amok?
-Quoth the Raven
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The Bay of My Existence
01/30/08 05:55 PM
An examination of the cinematic plague that is
Michael Bay.
Whenever I hear about a
filmmaker ruining a beloved geek treasure, two names
are generally at the center of the discussion.
The first is Uwe Boll who specializes in taking
compelling videogames like Alone in the
Dark and Dungeon
Siege and creating film
treatments that discard all the intelligence and
character from the source material and replace them
with generic, clichéd plots that only an
ADD-addled-adolescent could watch with any kind of
enjoyment or satisfaction.
The second is Paul W.S. Anderson who turned the venerated Resident Evil franchise into a cheesy made-for-TV special and is single-handedly attempting to destroy both the Alien and Predator film legacies by taking the scary, extraterrestrial creatures and transforming them into WWF Wrestlemania contestants.
Both Boll and Anderson have been the subject of much ridicule, and deservedly so, but one name that seems to have largely escaped attention is Michael Bay. Looking at his previous films there's plenty to be annoyed with given that this is the man who subjected audiences to both Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. More recently however he has started to try his hand at remaking iconic films, specifically horror movies.
Being the horror movie geek that I am, I was intrigued when he decided to do a "reimagining" of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It had been almost thirty years since the original Tobe Hooper masterpiece first graced screens and I thought a different take that incorporated some modern day social and political changes might make an interesting version of the film.
Then I saw it.
I don't know how you can make a grimy, rundown farmhouse look slick and glossy, but Bay managed it. All the gritty charm of the original had been scrubbed clean and what remained was a trite, gutless shell that could've easily been substituted as one of the myriad sequels to soulless clunkers like Urban Legend or I Know What You Did Last Summer.
After Massacre Bay remade Amityville Horror with similarly disastrous results and then went on to make a Texas Chainsaw prequel, which ratcheted up the viscera to try and appease gore hounds but ended up being nothing more than a pointless splatterfest ala Eli Roth's hilariously, stupid Hostel. The latest and perhaps most egregious entry in the Bay remake saga came in 2007 when he released The Hitcher, a redo of the ’86 road film that starred Rutger Hauer as a deranged hiker who preys on the good samaritans who stop to offer him a ride.
Bay’s version of the film wasn't merely mediocre, but downright abominable. The acting, plotting, and dialogue were so brain-dead that it made you want to reach through the screen and throttle the characters. There was absolutely nothing from the brilliantly tense original that wasn't turned into a ridiculous farce making the new film play more like a parody than a tribute.
Honestly I don't know why Bay hasn't been called out more by horror fans. Maybe it's because he's usually the producer rather than the writer or director of these projects, but make no mistake Bay is the one getting these films made.
For me the straw that broke the camel's back came when I read this article in Variety. Now I know that Nightmare on Elm Street is pretty tame by today's standards, but it was the first horror movie to really scare the crap out of me as a kid. The whole fear of falling asleep gave me wicked insomnia and I tended to see Freddy in the shadows at night. Though the series fell off considerably in the latter films, the initial sequels, barring the second, were equally effective and gave me nightmares for quite some time.
Getting over the terror I felt at the Elm Street films and learning to enjoy being scared by movies really fostered my affection for horror flicks. I grew to love the bad puns and gallows humor that Freddy employed and looked for similarly clever elements in other fright films. It was the beginning of a passion that is with me to this day and in many ways I have Nightmare to thank for it.
Thus the discovery that Bay had gotten his inept little paws on the franchise left me with a sickly feeling that I equate to eating a jar of rancid mayo that was left to bake in the hot, hot sun. This sensation was further exacerbated when in the same article I learned that he had also been busy rebooting the Friday the 13th series.
There's no point in wondering why these movies are entrusted to someone like Bay, who has no tenure in the horror genre. Ineptitude is clearly not a barometer that Hollywood is at all concerned with as evidenced by the continued careers of Boll and Anderson. Bay knows the industry and can pump out films at a rapid pace, which seems to be good enough for the majority of studios these days.
My only hope is that auteurs like Tim Burton and Guillermo del Toro and actors like Nathan Fillion and Johnny Depp can help elevate the industry since those in charge of green-lighting these pictures clearly don't seem to care one way or the other.
And while it may seem strange to hold up the often-disregarded horror genre as a measure of quality, I think that the so-called “lowbrow" corners of cinema have the opportunity to provide a greater insight into sensitive and controversial topics that most higher-profile pictures are unable to touch on. In the 50’s and 60’s horror films were the subversive flicks that mirrored the times and I think they have the ability to be that again.
If we ignore the crap the studios try and feed us then it may force them to reevaluate what people want from a horror film and more importantly what they expect.
-Quoth the Raven
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The second is Paul W.S. Anderson who turned the venerated Resident Evil franchise into a cheesy made-for-TV special and is single-handedly attempting to destroy both the Alien and Predator film legacies by taking the scary, extraterrestrial creatures and transforming them into WWF Wrestlemania contestants.
Both Boll and Anderson have been the subject of much ridicule, and deservedly so, but one name that seems to have largely escaped attention is Michael Bay. Looking at his previous films there's plenty to be annoyed with given that this is the man who subjected audiences to both Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. More recently however he has started to try his hand at remaking iconic films, specifically horror movies.
Being the horror movie geek that I am, I was intrigued when he decided to do a "reimagining" of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It had been almost thirty years since the original Tobe Hooper masterpiece first graced screens and I thought a different take that incorporated some modern day social and political changes might make an interesting version of the film.
Then I saw it.
I don't know how you can make a grimy, rundown farmhouse look slick and glossy, but Bay managed it. All the gritty charm of the original had been scrubbed clean and what remained was a trite, gutless shell that could've easily been substituted as one of the myriad sequels to soulless clunkers like Urban Legend or I Know What You Did Last Summer.
After Massacre Bay remade Amityville Horror with similarly disastrous results and then went on to make a Texas Chainsaw prequel, which ratcheted up the viscera to try and appease gore hounds but ended up being nothing more than a pointless splatterfest ala Eli Roth's hilariously, stupid Hostel. The latest and perhaps most egregious entry in the Bay remake saga came in 2007 when he released The Hitcher, a redo of the ’86 road film that starred Rutger Hauer as a deranged hiker who preys on the good samaritans who stop to offer him a ride.
Bay’s version of the film wasn't merely mediocre, but downright abominable. The acting, plotting, and dialogue were so brain-dead that it made you want to reach through the screen and throttle the characters. There was absolutely nothing from the brilliantly tense original that wasn't turned into a ridiculous farce making the new film play more like a parody than a tribute.
Honestly I don't know why Bay hasn't been called out more by horror fans. Maybe it's because he's usually the producer rather than the writer or director of these projects, but make no mistake Bay is the one getting these films made.
For me the straw that broke the camel's back came when I read this article in Variety. Now I know that Nightmare on Elm Street is pretty tame by today's standards, but it was the first horror movie to really scare the crap out of me as a kid. The whole fear of falling asleep gave me wicked insomnia and I tended to see Freddy in the shadows at night. Though the series fell off considerably in the latter films, the initial sequels, barring the second, were equally effective and gave me nightmares for quite some time.
Getting over the terror I felt at the Elm Street films and learning to enjoy being scared by movies really fostered my affection for horror flicks. I grew to love the bad puns and gallows humor that Freddy employed and looked for similarly clever elements in other fright films. It was the beginning of a passion that is with me to this day and in many ways I have Nightmare to thank for it.
Thus the discovery that Bay had gotten his inept little paws on the franchise left me with a sickly feeling that I equate to eating a jar of rancid mayo that was left to bake in the hot, hot sun. This sensation was further exacerbated when in the same article I learned that he had also been busy rebooting the Friday the 13th series.
There's no point in wondering why these movies are entrusted to someone like Bay, who has no tenure in the horror genre. Ineptitude is clearly not a barometer that Hollywood is at all concerned with as evidenced by the continued careers of Boll and Anderson. Bay knows the industry and can pump out films at a rapid pace, which seems to be good enough for the majority of studios these days.
My only hope is that auteurs like Tim Burton and Guillermo del Toro and actors like Nathan Fillion and Johnny Depp can help elevate the industry since those in charge of green-lighting these pictures clearly don't seem to care one way or the other.
And while it may seem strange to hold up the often-disregarded horror genre as a measure of quality, I think that the so-called “lowbrow" corners of cinema have the opportunity to provide a greater insight into sensitive and controversial topics that most higher-profile pictures are unable to touch on. In the 50’s and 60’s horror films were the subversive flicks that mirrored the times and I think they have the ability to be that again.
If we ignore the crap the studios try and feed us then it may force them to reevaluate what people want from a horror film and more importantly what they expect.
-Quoth the Raven
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Suffering for my Art
01/24/08 05:45 PM
That love was further influenced when I came across Adam Jones and the videos he created for the band Tool. Seeing the visuals he crafted for Sober, Stinkfist and Aenema left me in awe, but also made me feel that I’d never have the time needed to try my own hand at it given my other responsibilities and artistic interests.
As fate would have it, this little program came as part of a discounted software bundle I’d purchased through a charity event and in just a few short hours it enabled me to create my first little stop-motion test piece. Now don’t get me wrong, the process is still quite time consuming, but having a program that allows you to snap frames directly into your computer and has live overlay tools to show you where your last position was is incredibly helpful and makes the process manageable even for a novice like myself.
After creating my little 12-fps opus, I thought I’d put it online, but it seemed kind of silly having a whole section of the site for one lone video. This in turn inspired me to try and find some of my other first attempts and before I knew it I was digging around my drive for the final projects from the seven-week video editing and Flash animation courses I took during my brief stint as a student-at-large at Columbia College.
Locating the video project was easy, but the Flash project required scouring through old zip disks and unlabelled CD’s from years gone by and searching for the correct files so that I could export it in some sort of useable format. Unfortunately in my haste and clumsiness I banged the ever-living-crap out of my pinky toe, the results of which can be seen here:
Despite this painful setback, I forged ahead and several hours later eventually managed to uncover and convert the files using a Flash CS3 demo. The end product is the new Videos section of the site which contains all three of my initial forays into video, flash and stop-motion. Hopefully I'll have a lot more video and stop-motion added to it in the future, though I think for flash once was probably enough.
I hope you enjoy them and please don’t dwell on that photo of my foot. My toes have been known to cause blindness and nausea if stared at for too long.
You’ve been warned.
-Quoth the Raven
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Film Review: I Am Legend
01/10/08 06:11 PM
Note: I usually try to keep my reviews relatively spoiler-free, but I don't think I can really discuss this film properly without delving into the plot a fair amount. So this is your official warning: spoilers ahead.
Based on the popular cult novel by Richard Matheson, the film centers on the last surviving man in New York, a scientist named Robert Neville played by Will Smith. Neville it turns out is immune to a viral plague that killed 95% of the world's population and turned the remaining residents into mindless nocturnal monsters that in the film seem to be a cross between vampires and the newer variety of hyper-zombie made popular by "28 Days Later".
Though Neville is the last homosapien dwelling in the big apple, he is not entirely alone thanks to Sam, a german shepard who serves Smith as both hunting buddy and best friend. The first half of the film revolves around the day-to-day drudgery of survival and shows Neville and Sam foraging for food and supplies, searching out entertainment at the abandoned video store, passing the time by launching golf balls off a moored aircraft carrier and sitting at a desk on the pier where Neville cranks out a daily radio broadcast declaring his presence to any and all humans that might be in the area.
Story wise these sequences are the strongest part of the film. The stunning expanses of skyscrapers overgrown with vegetation and the wild animals prowling the city really give you a sense of the desecration that has occurred. In addition to the visuals, the writing and pacing also do a good job of providing a window into the isolation and despair that Neville is forced to deal with.
Unfortunately this is also where my first problem with the film occurs. I think Will Smith is a fine actor and his charisma onscreen generally makes even his lesser films worth seeing. That said, I felt that he didn't quite manage some of the moments of dramatic tension that sought to highlight Neville's psychological and emotional breakdown. There were times early on when I just didn't buy his performance as a man suffering from the compulsions and delusions brought on by his extreme situation. As the film progressed he seemed to grow into the role and towards the end I think he really nailed it, though regrettably that's when the rest of the film began to fall apart.
Aside from the serious business of survival, Neville's other main pursuit is trying to find a cure for the infected Zompires. A series of flashbacks laced throughout the film reveal that Neville was part of the team of scientists and doctors, led by an unnamed character played by Emma Thompson, that helped develop a cure for cancer based on the measles virus that ends up mutating and wiping out the population leading to the shit state Smith currently finds himself in.
During his search for a cure, Neville needs to acquire guinea pigs to test his medications and thus is forced to rope and wrangle a new Zompire whenever his current one inevitably expires from the "help" he's been giving it. These missions lead to some close interaction with the ghoulies and the discovery that they seem to be adapting, illustrated when one follows Smith out a second-story window and burns up in the sunlight.
How jumping out a window and immolating yourself is supposed to be seen as "adapting" I'll never know, but it plays an important role later on.
From this point the film really starts to pick up steam. Neville is injured by one of his own Zompire booby traps and Sam ends up getting infected trying to save him and has to be put down. This causes Neville to go off the deep end and stage a nighttime vehicular rampage on the Zompires which goes terribly awry and looks to be the end of our wayward protagonist until he is saved at the last minute by a mysterious stranger.
By this point Smith had me convinced. The scene where he tries to unsuccessfully cure Sam and then has to kill her before she turns into a monster is heartbreaking. I really felt for Neville's loss and Smith did a great job of showing the many subtle and varying levels of his grief and the realization that he was now truly alone. The rampage also seemed justified and believable, though the subsequent rescue came off a bit strangely.
So surprise, Neville isn't the only human in New York anymore as his saviors turn out to be a young woman and a little boy who heard Smith's transmission and decided to drop by for a visit. Unfortunately those wily, ever-adapting Zompires follow them back and learn the location of Neville's place thus inspiring them to stage a little siege as soon as the sun goes down.
What follows is a big, silly action set-piece where our three homosapien heroes defend themselves against wave after wave of Zompires who are apparently being directed by their new leader, a critter shown earlier for about five seconds who we were apparently suppose to surmise was the smart one (maybe he figured out where the sun block was).
During this massive melee, Smith and his companions discover that he has found the cure for the virus just in time to shove his friends and the vaccine in the all-protective, rickety coal chute before dying heroically and of course saving civilization.
The whole end of this flick starting with the final battle felt tacked on as if they didn't know quite how to resolve things. Having one of the Zompires suddenly emerge as a leader came out of left field. The earlier evidence of their "adaptation" was completely underdeveloped as far as I'm concerned and didn't really support this sudden turn of events.
In the book the idea of the “monster society” is actually present and thus would’ve made such an event more feasible, but here it simply doesn't make any sense. I won't spoil the book ending except to say that it's completely different and a good deal more interesting and clever. The film is pretty much the standard "hero/martyr resolution" with all the usual affects and trappings associated with such tropes.
Despite the above statements, I really did enjoy parts of this movie. With a slightly stronger performance from Smith it would've been solid up until the very end. Taken as it is, I think it was a decent, but not great movie with a regrettably clichéd and predictable ending.
Next up for review: Skinwalkers.
See ya soon movie lovers.
-Quoth the Raven
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Mulder and Scully Return
01/07/08 05:56 PM
Though it's only been a little over five years since the series ended, for many fans, myself included, it feels like a lifetime ago that we last saw our two beloved FBI agents trying valiantly to thwart an extraterrestrial occupation of earth and keep the monsters and unexplained phenomena at bay.
The X-Files was the first time I can remember being emotionally invested in a TV show. There had been plenty of programs that I enjoyed before that time, but none of them struck a chord in me the way that films did. At the time I actually thought it was some strange incompatibility between the medium and myself that I didn't get choked up or moved by episodes of M*A*S*H or Taxi. They were well-written and well-acted, but for whatever reason I just didn't connect with them the way that people around me did.
That all changed when I first saw Mulder and Scully or to be more precise when I first started paying attention to them. I had actually been catching the show on and off for its first few seasons, but because it aired on Friday nights when I typically wasn't home I hadn't really followed it with any regularity. It wasn't until season four when the show switched slots to Sundays following The Simpsons that I became a regular viewer and fell in love with the show.
Being a fan of both science fiction and horror, I was predisposed to liking the subject matter that made up the meat of X-Files episodes. That said, it was the connection between the two leads that drew me in and made me want to find out what happened next. Though I don't consider myself a "shipper", the term used for people who focus more on the relationships in a TV series than the overall plot, I do think that the chemistry between Mulder and Scully was the strongest element of the show and the thing that differentiated it.
The fact that the characters had such a deep respect and affection for one another and that the those feelings were based, for most of the series, on a profound friendship rather than a sexual relationship was not typical of most TV programming at the time and was all but unheard of in the horror and scifi genres that the show occupied. When some unfortunate circumstance, of which there were many, befell Mulder or Scully I genuinely felt bad, not just for the afflicted character but for the other that was made to suffer and grieve. It affected me in a way that I found startling and more than a little embarrassing.
It's this attachment that makes me both excited and a little worried to see the characters return after such a prolonged absence. Granted, the last two seasons of the show with its jarring introduction of new agents and frequent no-shows by Duchovny probably did more to hurt the series than any movie could. The fact that Doggett and Reyes, played admirably by Robert Patrick and annoyingly by Annabeth Gish, aren't in this new film is likely reason enough for many fans to see it if only out of spite for the characters.
Still, I have very fond memories of the program even with its lackluster ending and the last thing I want is to sully those memories. Thanks to the ongoing writer's strike (see post below for details) I've been delving into my DVD collection more than ever and have just recently started watching the whole series again in order. The fact that I got through all 24 episodes of season one and into season two during the course of only four days speaks a lot to how well the show has held up over the years.
So many things could go happen with this film. It could be a glorious revival or a colossal embarrassment, the latter of which would likely stop any future returns to the big screen. There's a lot riding on this for Carter, Duchovny, Anderson and the fans and it makes me nervous but hopeful that I'll get to see the triumphant return of some sorely missed familiar faces this summer at the box office.
I want to believe.
-Quoth the Raven
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