I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
In this episode, I have a chat with Little Atoms host Neil Denny about weather, A/C, Hislop Parties, King waiting, roundabouts, Noah, and Post-Imperial Guilt.
The Silver Age of the 1960s brought an explosion of creativity in the superhero genre that has not been equaled in it since; now, a half-century later the Marvel characters created during that decade are now conquering movie screens. But the Marvel revolution was only one aspect of the change in American comics in the 1960s, which also launched the underground comix movement which evolved into today’s alternative comics and graphic novels. And what happened in comics is only one aspect of the major revolution across popular and political and sexual culture that took place during the 1960s. I don’t think there has been as seismic a generational shift since. Just look at all the middle-aged people using computers and smartphones and social networking; the Boomers have proved to be adept at adopting new cultural developments.
The rise of a new wave of superheroes in the 1960s paralleled a similar creative explosion in science fiction, fantasy, and adventure series on television during that decade. Think of all the memorable series that debuted in the 1960s and that live on in reruns, remakes and home video. When I think back on 1960s television series that dealt in the fantastic, I think of iconic character portrayals by various actors: among them, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and (my favorite of the three) DeForest Kelley on Star Trek, Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg in The Avengers (the UK spy series, not the Marvel superhero comic), Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner. And then there was Jonathan Frid, who passed away on April 13, 2012, as the vampire Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows.
Probably all of you reading this are aware of the new Dark Shadows movie, directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas, that opens in May. Younger readers may not be entirely aware that the Burton film is based on the original Dark Shadows, a daytime serial – a soap opera, in other words – that was created by the late producer Dan Curtis, ran on the ABC network from 1966 into 1971, dealt in reworkings of classic horror stories and tropes, and was an astonishingly huge success with the Baby Boomer generation. Dark Shadows is also “the show that would not die,” that spawned two successful movie spinoffs, House of Dark Shadows (1970) and Night of Dark Shadows (1971), and continued in reruns for decades, on PBS stations and later on the Sci-Fi Channel (now Syfy). The entire original series is available on DVD. There was a short-lived revival, with an entirely new cast, in 1991 on NBC, and you can still see this entire 12-episode series, legally and free, on YouTube. Hence, Dark Shadows is not just known by aging Boomers; it gains new fans with each generation.
And yes, this has something to do with comics. There was a Dark Shadows newspaper comic strip, in which artist Ken Bald superbly captured Jonathan Frid’s likeness as Barnabas Collins. There have also been various Dark Shadows comic books, from Gold Key’s version in 1969 to the Dynamite Entertainment version that debuted in 2011.
Arguably, more than anyone else, even Curtis himself, the late Jonathan Frid is responsible for Dark Shadows‘ success. On meeting Mr. Frid on the set of the new Dark Shadows movie, Johnny Depp reportedly said that none of them would be there without him, in other words, without Frid’s original portrayal of the character. If not for Jonathan Frid’s Barnabas, Curtis’s show would have been canceled, probably after only a year on the air.
Why did this performance have such impact? It was because Jonathan Frid and Barnabas Collins revolutionized the concept of the vampire. Frid’s Barnabas was the first vampire with a soul in popular culture, the first one with a multidimensional personality, and the first to become a truly heroic figure. Perhaps there had been sympathetic vampires in past, little-known stories of which I am unaware; Barnabas was the first to reach an audience of millions.
Hence, every subsequent major example of fiction about heroic or antiheroic vampires owes a debt to Dark Shadows, Barnabas, and Frid. That includes Anne Rice’s books such as Interview with the Vampire, Joss Whedon’s Angel, Forever Knight, the Twilight series, and HBO’s True Blood, among others. Ms. Rice has acknowledged knowing Dark Shadows. But even if some subsequent vampire fiction creators did not watch the show, that does not matter, Curtis, Frid, Barnabas and Dark Shadows laid the groundwork that made contemporary vampire fiction possible.
Keep in mind what the popular image of the vampire was before Dark Shadows. Look at F. W. Murnau’s classic silent film Nosferatu, his unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s landmark novel Dracula. Its vampire, played by Max Schreck, is a grotesque creature, and it is difficult to believe that anyone in the film could think he was human. Of course the dominant popular image of the vampire became that of Bela Lugosi in the title role of Tod Browning’s film Dracula, based on a stage adaptation of Stoker’s novel. Stoker, Browning and Lugosi presented Dracula as a being who not only looked outwardly human, but appeared to be a sophisticated European nobleman with refined manners, who travels from his homeland into English society; this, however, was merely a facade disguising a vicious predator on other humans.
Subsequently, most vampires in popular culture were based on the Stoker/Lugosi/Dracula template. So too is Barnabas Collins, another man with aristocratic manners and bearing, who arrives from abroad, and conceals his darker nature. But the difference is that Barnabas proved to be a vampire with a sense of guilt, an aura of tragedy, and a human heart.
In large part, the revolution was Frid’s creation. Producer Dan Curtis created Dark Shadows, which debuted on the ABC Network in 1966, as a modern daytime serial version of a classic Gothic romance. In the first episode heroine Victoria Winters follows in the footsteps of Jane Eyre by taking a job as governess in a gloomy and mysterious mansion. This was Collinwood, the ancestral home of the Collins family, headed by Elizabeth Collins Stoddard – played by Joan Bennett, a star of Hollywood’s Golden Age – on the rocky coast of Maine.
In its initial months Dark Shadows struggled to find an audience. The specter of cancellation gave Curtis the incentive to experiment with introducing supernatural elements into the series, including a ghost of an 18th century woman named Josette.
Then, nine months into the series, in April 1967, Curtis went “for broke” as he put it, and introduced a vampire into the show. A disreputable drifter named Willie Loomis, played by John Karlen, hunting for a legendary lost Collins treasure, discovered a secret room in the family’s 18th century mausoleum. Inside Loomis found a chained coffin; removing the chains, he opened the lid, and was horrified when a hand reached out and seized him by the throat.
Soon afterwards, a man with courtly, gentlemanly manners arrived at Collinwood, where he introduced himself as Barnabas Collins, a “cousin from England.” The family members were amazed by his resemblance to their 18th century ancestor, the original Barnabas, whose portrait hung in their foyer. The newcomer claimed to be the descendant of that Barnabas, who, according to family history, had left for England in the late 1790s. Pleased with their new relation, the Collins allowed him to live in another mansion on the property, the abandoned Old House. Of course the “descendant” was the original Barnabas, who had become a vampire and survived for nearly two centuries trapped in his coffin.
In the first months that Barnabas was on the show, Curtis and his writers dealt subtly with the fact that he was a vampire. Perhaps he or the network was worried about going too far; after all, there had never been a vampire on a daytime soap. The word “vampire” was never used in this early period. There were references to strange attacks and deaths in the village, which were attributed to bites by animals. For many months Barnabas was never shown with fangs or biting anyone. Instead, he seemed to have a sinister, Svengali-like hypnotic hold over his victims: first Willie Loomis, who became his submissive servant, and then local waitress Maggie Evans, played by Kathryn Leigh Scott. Dominating her will, Barnabas compelled her to dress as Josette, the woman he had loved in the 18th century, and made her his prisoner in the Old House.
Curtis’s original intention was that Barnabas was a villain who would menace other characters for thirteen weeks and then be destroyed. But Barnabas proved to be unexpectedly popular with the audience. It is an oversimplification to think that the early Barnabas was entirely a villain. In Barnabas’s early episodes, the writers did provide the character with some material that allowed the audience to feel some sympathy for him. Notably, for example, when Barnabas first arrives at the Old House, he is given a speech expressing his joy at returning to his original home after so long an exile. Jonathan Frid’s triumph was that he seized the opportunities that a speech like this gave him to make Barnabas much more than a one-dimensional villain.
A Canadian actor who had played major Shakespearean roles, Jonathan Frid thought that Barnabas was only a brief, 13-week assignment. He had no interest in playing Barnabas simply as a conventional horror movie monster. Instead, from his first appearance on the show, Frid was intent on playing Barnabas not as a as a credible, three-dimensional character. He played Barnabas’s charm and gentlemanly manners not as a deceptive facade, but as genuine; they also seem to have been part of Frid’s actual personality. Barnabas did not come across as an invader of Collinwood, but as someone who belonged there, who loved the Old House and cared about the family history. Frid always said that the key to his performance was in seeing Barnabas as a man with a secret. Barnabas may have been a menace, but Frid conveyed the character’s insecurity beneath his outer confidence, his gnawing worries that his dark secret, being a vampire, would be exposed. Frid said in interviews that his own insecurity about performing on television, and worries about remembering his lines, came across on television as Barnabas’s insecurity. Perhaps this is so, but Frid took advantage of it, and surely used his own nervousness to shape his performance. The audience responded to this vulnerability of Barnabas’s; they did not want him to be exposed, either. This early Barnabas was obsessed with his lost love Josette, so much so that he tried to mold Maggie Evans, her lookalike –both roles were plated by Ms. Scott – into a recreation of her. Even so, the audience could sense a genuine romantic longing when Barnabas spoke of his “ancestor’s” love for Josette. Through much of 1967 Barnabas was written and played as a villain, menacing poor Maggie, but there was something intriguing about Barnabas’s villainy as Frid played it. Frid had a charismatic presence that worked well on television. Frid’s Barnabas was just what this modern day Gothic romance needed: a dark, brooding, sinister antihero in the Gothic novel tradition. Audiences responded positively and grew in number. The ratings went up, and the plans to destroy Barnabas after thirteen weeks were set aside. Frid’s Barnabas had saved Dark Shadows from cancellation, and soon became the dominant character on the show.
Through this first part of his origin story, the audience could sympathize entirely with Barnabas. He was was capable of killing in anger, but who was also devoted to Josette and to his sister and mother, and willing to befriend and defend the time-traveling Vicki, whom Angelique had framed for witchcraft. He was not portrayed as an evil man, but as a good but flawed man who unjustly fell victim to a curse.
Here began the truly revolutionary change in depicting vampires. Dark Shadows now presented Barnabas’s vampiric list for blood as an addiction and compulsion that he despised but that he could not ultimately resist. As he descended into killing victims for their blood, Barnabas was wracked by guilt. Here Jonathan Frid found the emotional core of his role; he was superb at dramatizing Barnabas’s remorse over his attacks, and his anguish as he lost his loved ones: his sister Sarah, his mother Naomi, and his true love, Josette. At first he stayed away from Josette, not wishing her to learn what had happened to him. But ultimately he was unable to stay away from her, and began putting her under his power, believing that they could only be together if she became a vampire as well. Frightened by a vision Angelique sent of the fate that awaited her, Josette leapt to her death from Widow’s Hill, a cliff overlooking the sea.
The Barnabas-Josette-Angelique triangle became the heart of the show’s narrative; in subsequent storylines Barnabas would fall in love with other women, who took over Josette’s place in his heart (and who, in one case, turned out to be Josette reincarnated), as Angelique and fate continued to thwart his hopes for happiness.
Angelique’s curse not only gave Barnabas vampiric lusts that, in these early days, he could not control, but also unleashed the dark, violent side of his personality. He became ruthless and even sadistic with his adversaries, memorably walling up the witch hunter Reverend Trask in the basement of the Old House.
Yet Ben Stokes, Barnabas’s servant in the 1790s, seemed to be a point-of-view character for the audience. Appalled though he was by his master’s violent excesses, Ben remained loyal to him, recognizing that his master was not only the victim of a curse but was still basically the good man he had always been. For example, Barnabas still tried to rescue Trask’s victim, Victoria Winters, from being hanged as a witch. After his father Joshua discovered what had happened to his son, Barnabas decided to have his father destroy him by a stake through his heart. Unable to bring himself to do it, Joshua chained Barnabas’s coffin shut, the way that Willie Loomis would find him two centuries later.
By the time this 1790s origin sequence had ended, Frid and the series’ writers had radically transformed Barnabas from charismatic villain into the show’s genuinely tragic antihero. Again, this was appropriate to Curtis’s original intent of creating a modern Gothic romance: Frid’s Barnabas was a a romantic figure of grand passions, a good man struggling against the dark side of his own nature, a man suffering under a curse that he could not control, a victim of the fates. Significantly, Angelique’s curse was that anyone whom Barnabas loved would die.
In fact, when Vicki returned to the present (now 1968), the show was briefly in something of a quandary, since the ominously threatening Barnabas that the show had been depicting in the present no longer matched the tragic antihero who had emerged in the 1790s sequence. The problem was quickly solved when the show began its own version of the Frankenstein story. Barnabas’s confidant, Dr. Julia Hoffman, who had discovered his secret and had been trying to cure his vampirism, completed a colleague’s experiment to bring an artificially created man, Adam, to life. In transferring part of Barnabas’s life force into Adam, she somehow caused Barnabas to revert to a normal human. Over the subsequent months the writers scaled back Barnabas’s capacity for ruthlessness. Instead, they focused on his contention against the enraged monster he had helped to create, as well as Angelique, who had appeared in the present and was determined to restore her curse. Barnabas was now earning the audience’s sympathy in his struggle to prevent reverting to vampirism and to protect himself, Vicki, and the Collinses from the menace of Adam. By the summer of 1968, Barnabas and Julia, though middle-aged and unglamorous, had clearly become the unlikely heroes of this daytime serial that was attracting a large audience of the young.
Through much of the Adam sequence, Barnabas was motivated by self-interest: protecting himself. But the character’s heroic altruism began to emerge through the summer and fall. He risked his life to save Julia from a vampire, Tom Jennings, who had made her his victim. In the climax of the Adam storyline, the warlock Nicholas Blair had forced Barnabas and Julia to create Eve, a mate for Adam, using Maggie Evans to provide the life force. Realizing that the experiment would kill Maggie – the woman he himself had once victimized – Barnabas defied Blair by sabotaging the life energy transfer, destroying the body of Eve. When Adam retaliated by capturing Vicki to throw her off Widow’s Hill (thereby recreating the death of Josette), Barnabas shot Adam, despite learning that if Adam died, he would revert to vampirism. In other words, Barnabas had now grown so heroic that he was willing to sacrifice his life – or worse, take on his hated curse once more – in order to save the lives of two innocent women.
In the next story arc, Barnabas and Julia discovered that Tom Jennings’ brother, Chris, was a werewolf, This made Chris another victim of a curse that he could not resist, and that transformed him into a murdering monster. Barnabas befriended and sought to help Chris, who was grateful but puzzled by Barnabas’s benevolence. But the audience realized that Barnabas saw himself in Chris, a fellow victim of a curse. The series was moving Barnabas into a new role, that of a guardian figure.
To my mind the greatest story arc in the original Dark Shadows was the sequence set in 1897, which continued for nine exciting months, through most of 1969. The set-up was the haunting of Collinwood by the ghost of Quentin Collins, in a story arc inspired by Henry James’ novella The Turn of the Screw. In early 1969 Quentin’s ghost had driven the Collins family from their mansion, Collinwood, and taken full possession of the mind of the youngest Collins, the boy David; then Chris seemed permanently transformed into werewolf form. To try to communicate with Quentin’s ghost, Barnabas, continuing his new role as family guardian, went into a mystical trance. Instead, the trance sent his spirit back intro his body lying in the coffin in the mausoleum’s secret room back in 1897, the year of Quentin’s death. Escaping from the coffin, Barnabas was again a vampire, but though he still needed to find victims, he was also determined to find out all that he could in order to try to change history for the better, thus saving David in the present. Thus, during the 1897 sequence Barnabas was using his powers as a vampire, not as a menace but as the defender of the Collins family against a series of memorable adversaries, including the “phoenix” Laura Collins (years before X-Men‘s Phoenix), Reverend Trask’s equally fanatical descendant, and Count Petofi, whose supernatural powers exceeded even Angelique’s. Several months into the sequence, Barnabas’s mission was complicated by his exposure as a vampire, the very thing he had long dreaded in the present. As a result he became a hunted outlaw, an outcast from the Collins family, even as he continued to risk his undead life to protect them from the menaces surrounding them.
As riveting as Jonathan Frid had been as the series’ villain, he made an even stronger impression as this champion of his family, a true hero rather than an antihero. He vividly projected Barnabas’s determination to oppose evil, his persistence despite continual obstacles, his sense of vulnerability when trapped by foes, and his compassion for innocents. It was a pleasure to watch Frid’s Barnabas when he triumphed over his adversaries; the character still had an edge. But perhaps to the surprise of longtime viewers, Frid’s Barnabas now conveyed a powerful sense of saintliness: he was the man who would risk everything for his family and friends, past and present. (Moreover, Petofi, and later in the series the Leviathans, ultimately posed a threat to the world, as did Nicholas Blair’s plans for Adam and Eve, which Barnabas had earlier thwarted.) Barnabas had even seemed to gain a greater measure of control over his vampiric urges, had fewer victims, and sought not to kill them. His main victim in the 1897 sequence was the second Reverend Trask’s daughter Charity, yet Barnabas desperately sought to prevent her from dying from blood loss. Intriguingly, the show even presented the repressed Charity’s liaison with Barnabas as a sexual liberation that brought her happiness.
Why was Barnabas so popular with millions of viewers during the show’s original run? Looking back, it seems to me that even though Dark Shadows sought to evoke the Gothic romance tradition, and did variations of numerous classic horror stories and romances, it and Barnabas were also very much creations of the 1960s. The Sixties were famously the time of a cultural shift away from the conformist culture of America in the 1950s, which, at its worst, was exemplified by the witch hunting of the McCarthy period. It should be no wonder, then, that the various incarnations of Reverend Trask, a literal witch-hunter, were among the most memorable villains on Dark Shadows. 1960s popular culture has many examples of secret nonconformists hiding behind a conformist facade from the disapproval of society. Of course there are the Marvel super heroes who arose in that decade, with their secret identities, like Spider-Man, as well as the immense 1960s television success of another double-identity superhero, Batman. But there are also various popular television comedies of that decade which follow the theme of an outwardly normal person who secretly leads a private life with nonconformist elements, often represented by the metaphor of the supernatural or science fictional: Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, My Favorite Martian, even Mister Ed. Using the imagery of horror films, the comedies The Munsters and The Addams Family presented families who disdained the outer trappings of normality and were proudly, freely nonconformist.
In interviews Jonathan Frid repeatedly stated that from the start his key to playing Barnabas was not as a monster but as a man with a secret. The core members of the Collins family lived in the Great House of Collinwood, usually unaware of the supernatural events that were taking place (although this situation changed over the course of the series, as when Quentin’s ghost drove the family from the house). The townspeople of Collinsport were similarly unaware of the supernatural, blaming vampire attacks on animals, for example. In his own home, the Old House, Barnabas became the center of a small alternate community of allies, notably his confidant Dr. Julia Hoffman, his servant Willie Loomis, and later Quentin (both in 1897, and, after history was altered, in the present), who were aware of the supernatural and contended against it, thereby protecting the others.
Originally Barnabas guarded his secret, being a vampire, to prevent his exposure and destruction. Unlike current vampire fictions like Twilight and True Blood, Dark Shadows did not present vampirism as an acceptable alternative lifestyle; it was a destructive curse. But when Barnabas evolved into a hero, the show depicted his vampirism not as an expression if his inner evil but as a literal affliction, one that Dr. Hoffman sought to cure (and at times, temporarily succeeded in doing so). Vampirism was the source of Barnabas’s power, and in effect gave him super-powers (hypnosis, disappearing, near-invulnerability, etc.), anticipating Joss Whedon’s treatment of vampires as superhumans. But vampirism was also his weakness for which, when exposed in 1897, Barnabas was unjustly persecuted by people who could not recognize that he was on the side of the angels.
Barnabas was the hero as outsider and even sometimes as outcast, fighting for the safety of a society that would turn against him if they knew he was not a conventional human being like themselves.
The more I think about it, the more I see parallels to the Marvel super heroes of the 1960s. There is Doctor Strange, in his own mysterious house, from which he combats supernatural menaces of which the public is unaware. There are the mutant X-Men, another small community in their own mansion, who in the 1960s posed as ordinary human beings when out of costume, and fought to protect a public who famously feared and hated mutants. Other classic Marvel heroes, like Spider-Man and the Hulk, are outsiders and outcasts. Bruce Banner suffers from his own werewolf-like curse, transforming into a destructive monster (originally, like a werewolf, at night), yet he is shown to be less of a menace than the villains he combats.
Jonathan Frid made such a strong impression as a vampire hero that the viewers resisted the show’s subsequent attempts to change Barnabas. Following the 1897 sequence, Dark Shadows tried turning Barnabas back into a villain in the present (late 1969), when he fell under the influence of the cult of the Leviathans, an ancient race of monsters that were clearly inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft. Viewers rebelled, ratings fell, and the show hurriedly had Barnabas rebel against his new masters and return to the side of good. Moreover, in late 1969 Barnabas had once again been freed of his curse; presumably to bring back departing viewers, the show had the Leviathans turn Barnabas back into a vampire in early 1970. Once more Barnabas had his vampiric super-powers, and once more he was in the grip of his addiction to blood, which had heightened, enabling Frid once again to play Barnabas’s guilt, his self-hatred, his attempts to resist his urges and ultimate succumbing, all of which he portrayed so powerfully and well. Indeed, regular viewers of the show would become accustomed to one of its favorite tropes, in which Barnabas encounters a woman (usually a prostitute) on the Collinsport docks, attempts to resist his vampiric urges even as she flirts with him, as we witness his distress, and then we see him reach the point of no return, as his attitude shifts, turning grimmer, and he finally attacks.
Perhaps that is another aspect of Barnabas’s appeal to viewers. After his early months on the show, he was no longer a sinner without conscience, but he was a person, who like us all, but on an operatic scale, struggles with his weaknesses, temptations, and character flaws, and regrets them when he gives in to them. But at the same time he is the noble hero on his journey, struggling to survive, trying to safeguard his family and few friends, seeking redemption. That, indeed, is a familiar pattern on Dark Shadows: Quentin, too, started on the show as a menace, but, as played by David Selby in the 1897 sequence, evolved into a multifaceted character with whom the audience could sympathize, and turned from villain to antihero to the show’s second hero. Even Angelique became more sympathetic over the years, sometimes becoming Barnabas’s ally, and finding redemption in the show’s late 1970 episodes.
After the misstep with the Leviathans, Barnabas remained a hero for the rest of the series, and stayed a vampire for most of the rest of it. The show had been so astonishingly successful at its height that producer Dan Curtis made the 1970 MGM film House of Dark Shadows with the television series’ cast and writers. Directed by Curtis, the film was a big commercial success, but perhaps it showed that not even Curtis quite understood Barnabas’s appeal. In the film Curtis did what he had initially intended to do with Barnabas on the show: present him as a villain who is justly hunted down and destroyed. Hence, House of Dark Shadows is a reboot, once again starting with Willie releasing Barnabas from his coffin, but taking the familiar characters from the show, including Barnabas, in a very different direction. Fans of the TV show get glimpses of Barnabas’s sympathetic side, but ultimately he becomes a monster who murders various characters from the show. The television show was notoriously done “live on tape” and retakes were a rarity, since video editing back then was far more expensive. Able to do multiple takes thanks to the movie’s bigger budget, Frid consistently demonstrates in House just how powerful his portrayal of Barnabas was at its best. But even when I first saw the film, I realized that it captured only one side of the character. This was Barnabas as villain in House, with brief flashes of the antihero; the guilt-ridden, long-suffering but indomitable hero of the television series was missing.
Like the 1960s Batman show, Dark Shadows‘ popularity, though once immense, faded quickly. That may not be surprising: though always good, the later storylines could never match the greatness of the 1897 arc. Moreover, Dark Shadows had become much more fast-paced than normal daytime soap operas; if you missed a day, you missed important developments, and perhaps much of the young audience tired of making that five day a week commitment. But there was another movie, 1971’s Night of Dark Shadows, with Selby as the lead rather than Frid, who declined to do it.
And not only did Dark Shadows live on, in reruns, home video, and revivals, but so did its influence, even in comic books. Roy Thomas mentioned Barnabas in Daredevil, and in 1970 did a story in Daredevil #65 and 66 about a supernatural daytime serial named Strange Secrets with its villain Brother Brimstone, clearly inspired by Dark Shadows and the early Barnabas. Surely Barnabas Collins influenced Thomas’s co-creation of Marvel’s own guilt-ridden vampire, Michael Morbius. Later in the 1970s Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan created Hannibal King, a vampire detective, in Tomb of Dracula, following the new path of heroic vampires that Barnabas and Frid had begun. When Wolfman and Colan subsequently created Night Force at DC Comics, its lead character, Baron Winters, bore a strong visual resemblance to Frid’s Barnabas, including his distinctive hair style (and coincidentally or not shared a last name with Dark Shadows heroine Victoria Winters). And of course there were the many heroic and antiheroic vampires in novels, film and TV that followed Dark Shadows, many of which I mentioned earlier.
Surely it is the success of contemporary vampire fiction that laid the groundwork for the latest resurrection of Barnabas Collins, in the new Dark Shadows movie, directed by Tim Burton, which opens in May, starring Johnny Depp in the role of Barnabas. The trailer and commercials have proved to be controversial with admirers of the original Dark Shadows.
The marketers at Warner Bros. Are promoting the film as if it is a comedy, even a farce, as if it were like Burton’s classic Beetlejuice (1988). Some who have seen the film contend that it actually is a blend of serious Gothic horror and romance with comedy, closer in tone to Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999). Certainly Danny Elfman’s musical score for the film, which you can hear free and legally online here sounds not like a comedy but like the grand operatic version of Gothic horror that longtime Dark Shadows fans surely hope for.
We will learn in just a few weeks, when the film opens, whether Burton and Depp’s Dark Shadows realizes the potential of the original material. In this column I have attempted to show how complex and powerful a role Barnabas Collins became in the hands of Jonathan Frid and the original TV series writers. Burton and Depp claim to have been fans of the original Dark Shadows from their childhoods on. I hope that they do not trivialize the iconic character of Barnabas, but instead rise to the challenges it presents. I plan to write a column about the film after I see it, so we will return to this subject then.
Barnabas Collins was Jonathan Frid’s most famous role by far, but I was fortunate to see him in many other stage appearances over the decades. When Dark Shadows was still in its original run on television, I saw him perform St. Thomas Becket in T. S. Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral, staged in an actual church. He was excellent in the role, and I was pleasantly surprised to spot other Dark Shadows cast members in the audience. Years later he was in a production of the classic black comedy Arsenic and Old Lace on Broadway, playing the role originated by Boris Karloff. A few times, as a New York theatergoer, I even sighted him in the audience at a play or opera. I met him briefly at one of the first Dark Shadows Festivals in the New York City area; for many years the Festivals’ daytime programming concluded on Sundays with one of Mr. Frid’s one-man shows of “reader’s theater” shows in which he performed dramatic readings in his sonorous voice, captivating his loyal audience. Then he disappeared from the Festivals, remaining in semi-retirement in Canada. But in recent years he returned to the Festivals, looking much older and more frail, hosting programs of video clips of memorable scenes from Dark Shadows, on which he incisively commented. I saw him in his last Festival appearance, only last summer in Brooklyn.
And I also own a copy of his final performance as Barnabas Collins, which I highly recommend. Over the last decade the British company Big Finish Productions has produced numerous Dark Shadows audio dramas featuring members of the original series cast, and even some actors from the 1991 NBC-TV reboot/revival. Big Finish had to recast Barnabas for his appearances in the audio dramas. But finally Mr. Frid consented to do one of them, and recorded his role in Canada for the 2010 audio drama Dark Shadows-The Night Whispers. You can hear his advanced age in his changed voice, but you will also hear the authority he still projected in his performance, the acting skills undiluted by time.
Then last year Mr. Frid journeyed to England along with three of his former castmates, Mr. Selby, Ms. Parker and Ms. Scott, to make came appearances in Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows movie. At the time that I write this, it remains to be seen whether Tim Burton and Johnny Depp will be able to capture what Mr. Frid brought to the role of Barnabas. But Mr. Frid himself will lend a haunting presence to the film, reminding us of what Barnabas Collins can be.
“Comics in Context” #242
Copyright 2012 Peter Sanderson
DURHAM — The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival remained a four day event perfect for people that want to want to watch movies and not deal with hurdles, hassles and hype. The half dozen screens are all within a single complex so once you arrived in downtown Durham, you’re not having to base screening choices on bus schedules and traffic patterns. The parking deck across the street charged only $2 a day for festivalgoers. You know how much it’ll cost you to park your car across that street at the New York Film Festival? Your $2 won’t cover the time it takes to warn the audience to turn off their cellphones. People attending the festival aren’t hung up on parties and swag shacks for the stars. This is all about a weekend appreciating some of the best documentaries on big screens instead of a streaming service.
This year’s festival brought together over 70 world premieres, North American premieres and the cream of recent festivals. Even with a jump start of watching sneaks of a half a dozen titles, I still missed so many titles that people swore were great. But I didn’t feel like I’d chose wrongly in my selections so much as knowing that there too much goodness to absorb on the schedule. There was still more pork for one fork
My intake started with the short Kiss the Paper. Director and cameraperson Fiona Otway follows Alan Runfeldt around his letterpress workshop. He prints the old fashion way by putting letters together. It’s like the press shop at Williamsburg except with a Jerry Jeff Walker sticker on a cabinet. The movie about a traditionalist worked well with Eating Alabama. This film is the natural progression from King Corn and Food Inc. Can you really eat all farm fresh untouched by Frankenstein hormone science and pesticide genetic tinkering? Director Andrew Beck Grace and his wife proclaim that they will spend the next year only eating food that’s grown and raised in Alabama. This quickly proves to be a frustrating experience as there’s no much offered at local farmers markets that’s really that local. He gets involved with CSAs and growing veggies in his front yard. Is it really enough to give them a well balanced diet? What must they do to make their own bread? Ultimately the film dwells upon his own family since his great grandfather was a farmer. Why do people move away from the land? What does it take to survive as a farmer and someone not eager to have everything that goes in their mouth made from corn syrup? He also learns the joy of sharing the harvest with friends. After the screening, I cornered Grace for a quick chat about eating right.
Young Bird Season is a cinema verite account of a pigeon racing club in Braintree, Mass. Nellie Kluz hangs out with the guys at their club while the trailer filled with pigeons are taken off to Pennsylvania to be released. Thanks to computer technology, they can now properly register when a pigeon has returned to its coop after a flight across New England. I still want to know how much the pigeon release trailer cost. The view of it releasing the pigeons was a rush to the eyes. Nation is what would happen of Nike hired Jim Jaramusch to do their next ad campaign. It follows a mysterious young man for 40 minutes while he trains for an unexplained event. The long shots showed off the Catalonian countryside which was good on the big screen since it was hard to figure out what the hell was happening besides a guy doing a lot of roadwork and real leaps. Is he training for the Olympics or some extreme sport competition? There’s finally a payoff at the bullring which is interesting except we still have no insight into the guy. Director Homer Etmainan keeps his camera so far back that it feels like a stalkermentry. Did the guy know he’s in this movie?
Friday night originally seemed like it was going to be a painful choice between Marley, the documentary about musical legend Bob Marley and Samsara, the sequel to Baraka. Luckily I was able to catch Marley early. If you own a copy of Bob Marley’s Legend on CD, you need to watch the film. It breaks down his life, his religion, his impact and his iconic status. Marley had to deal with the fact that his father was a 61 year old white married Englishman and his mother a 16 year old island native. Turns out his mom wasn’t the only teenager in the area knocked up by Mr. Marley. Bob was raised in the intense Trenchtown neighborhood in Jamaica. The only thing going for him was his music. He brought his reggae sounds to the world along with his dreadlocks. He quickly proved to be a political force in his violent homeland as he did his best to make his fellow Jamaicans stop a bit of the violence. This also led to an assassination attempt. The performance footage show that he was a force of nature who was only stopped by cancer.
Samsara was the proper choice to catch on the big screen since Director Ron Fricke and Producer Mark Magidson sent a glorious 35mm print of the film that was shot on 70mm. I know the movie industry is all over going about turn all HD Video, but this is a movie that needs the dream state flicking that comes from watch a movie and not viewing big TV. There’s no plot to the film that is a visual tour of the world and people within it. Like Baraka, it’s a religious experience as the sounds and images flow over your eyes and ears. This is an E-Ticket ride through the motions around us. They tweak the footage of cities so that nightscapes look like videogame graphics. NASA should put this movie in space probes so that distant cultures can gets a glimpse of what we’re about. If Samsara comes to a real movie theater (one that has film projectors and not video projectors), go see it on the big screen. You should see it either way, but video doesn’t give you the persistence of memory brain buzz.
Mr. Cao Goes to Washington follows the end of a Congressman’s time under the Capitol Dome. Joseph Cao was elected to Congress from a district in New Orleans that was known for electing black democrats. Cao was a Republican born in Vietnam. He got lucky when the incumbent was busted hiding around $90,000 in his freezer. Cao became a marked man by his own party when he voted for the first draft of healthcare reform. He knew his district needed this kind of help. Even though he voted against the final healthcare reform bill, the damage was done. He was branded a RINO. Director S. Leo Chiang gets a tight view of Cao struggling to raise funds and support for his reelection. This is the price of daring to be bipartisan in a world where Republican pundits want to eat their own. I sat down during breakfast with Chiang to discuss the film with Chiang. Mr. Cao is already scheduled to air on PBS before the election.
This year’s festival had two films about Iceland yet neither featured Bjork. I Send You This Place sends Andrea Sisson and Peter Ohs to the island nation to work for 10 months. Even in a remote snow covered landscape, Sisson can’t escape her brother’s issues back in Ohio. It’s an odd travelogue mixed with an airy psychodrama. There was something oddly charming about Andrea in the icy environment. The stylish edge to the cinematography and the sound mix engages the eyes and ears. The big shock comes when she cuts her hair. At the end of the film, I felt like I knew her which made it a bit startling when we bumped into her while getting a drink. It was sort of hard to ask any questions cause she’d already said so much on the screen. I ended up asking about the big red headphones she wore on the island.
Chasing Ice returned me to the freezing Iceland. The camera locks on the glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate. James Balog is a National Geographic photographer who wants to capture the receding nature of the ice formations in a way that will make people understand that Climate Change is happening. He sets up the Extreme Ice Survey. They position time lapse cameras in Iceland, Greenland, Montana (Glacier National Park) and Alaska. The time lapse shots of the receding ice is remarkable. However the reason to haul yourself down to the theater to watch this huge is the big finale when they capture a massive glacier cracking off into the ocean. How massive? A chunk of ice the size of lower Manhattan is unleashed. Nothing you see in The Avengers will match the destructive beauty of this moment. If you’re a documentary filmmaker, there’s no greater piece of footage than Fox News‘ Sean Hannity blowing hard. He’s the perfect doughboy douchebag with his pompous attitude billowing from his cheeks. Watching him claim what you’ve just seen is a lie is priceless. He popped up in enough films at Full Frame to get him declared the Jessica Chastain of documentaries.
Big Boys Gone Bananas!* is a nightmare film for documentary filmmakers. Fredrik Gertten made a documentary about the lawsuit against Dole Food won by Nicaraguan banana pickers. It featured the head of the company explaining at the trial that he knew a pesticide could cause workers in the fields to go sterile, but he didn’t care. Dole went on a full out attack on the movie and Gertten even though they hadn’t seen it. They fought its screening at the Los Angeles Film Festival which was forced to read a statement to the audience that the film is a lie. It’s a sad moment in kowtowing. Dole digs into the national media to intimidate newspaper and tv reporters to debase the film. They want to sue Gertten into submission and poverty. Luckily Gertten isn’t going to cower and beg. He goes back to Sweden and plays offense against the billion dollar corporation. What’s fearful is how lazy today’s working journalist have become. They’ve been trained to not upset advertisers. They have no problem rewriting a company’s press release and declare it a news story. We live in scary times where corporations are not only people – they are Gods that don’t want to be questioned.
Girl Model is the dirty side of America’s Next Top Model. Teenage Nadya is plucked from a giant model competition in Siberia to get a contract and a plane ticket to Japan for stardom. Things don’t turn out so great as the Japanese fashion crowd aren’t too overwhelmed by her. She does have the good fortune to be represented by an agency run by a guy named Messiah. The story isn’t just about her. Ashley is the scout that found her. She’s an ex-model who recruits around Russia. She’s a complex person when she share home videos from a decade earlier when she hated modeling. Yet now she’s luring other girls into the career. She doesn’t seem to care too much that poor Nadya is lost in Japan. Her big magazine model moment is unintentionally funny.
Bones Brigade: An Autobiography is also a story of an former star recruiting young kids except with a much better result. As his career as a pro skateboarder came to an end, Stacey Peralta located a group of young kids to compete for his company Powell Peralta. He brought together teens that became legends including Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, Lance Mountain, Rodney Mullen and Tony Hawk. They became the Bones Brigade. Their early days marked the dark days for skateboarding when parks were torn up and competitions faded from the calendars. The group stuck together for nearly a decade until the sport revived in the early ’90s with the arrival of the X Games. The unexpected star of the documentary is Rodney Mullen, the freestyle skate superstar. He’s poignant when talking about his isolation in Florida where he perfected his techniques. He dominated competitions when with the Brigade winning 34 of 35. Things do get intense for him between his controlling father and the pressure to be at the top of the mountain for so long. What’s really interesting about this documentary is that nobody claims Peralta ruined their childhood by taking them on the road for competition. Nobody is being interviewed in jail. The kids are alright for once. There’s plenty of video of a young Tony Hawk tackling halfpipes. You’ll be amazed at what a scrawny kid could do on wheels. When Peralta puts together the DVD, he better have the complete Animal Chin as a bonus feature.
Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet makes the case that he was the last great heavy metal guitarist when the genre wasn’t nostalgia. He was about to become a star as David Lee Roth’s band when he was robbed of his muscle control by ALS. He does find ways to maintain his creative outlets. The most reassuring story is when his girlfriend points out that ALS has not robbed him of his ability to get laid. CatCam was a major crowd pleaser as a geek puts a camera on his cat’s collar to discover his feline’s secret life. Santa Land is a touching tale of senior citizens in Florida who have accepted the challenge to be Santa by growing real beards.
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to review The Invisible War since it was hinted that the film was embargoed. But it is an extremely important documentary as it deals rape in the military. There are numerous accounts of female not merely being sexually attacked, but being charged with adultery for daring to report it. What’s worse is that the military’s “defense” is telling female soldiers to never walk alone. Always walk with someone you trust, the official posters insist. A few of stories involve the women being raped by people they thought they could trust. So much for that piece of military intelligence. This is an issue that needs to be addressed with more than a “zero tolerance” press release. Remember that a judge ruled that being raped is an occupational hazard of being in the military.
Herman’s House examines the relationship between Herman Wallace and Jackie Sumell. He’s a Black Panther originally arrested for robbery, but now serving for the murder of a prison guard at Lousiana’s Angola Prison. Hermans spent most of his time in solitary confinement since the early ’70s.Jackie’s a New York based artist who has made her latest project creating a house for Herman. She wants him to see his life isn’t stuck inside a 6″‘x9’ cell. We get to listen and read their relationship since Angola isn’t allowing cameras inside the tight cell space. Jackie moves down to New Orleans to find the property that will work for Herman’s dream home. I had a chance to discuss the film with director Angad Singh Bhalla after we finished talking about the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Radio Unnameable makes the case that Bob Fass is not only a counterculture icon, but the father of the flash mob. Fass pioneered being the overnight DJ on New York’s WBAI-FM in the early ’60s. This was a time when radio stations shut down when they figured their listeners had gone to bed. Bob wisely pointed out that Manhattan was a city that doesn’t sleep. Why deny these people the airwaves? His program was freeform with a mixture of music, talk and news. He pioneered the career of Howard Stern including having naked people in his studio. He had an engineer devise a way to have 10 people on the phone at once to create mini-townhalls on the dial. Bob Dylan didn’t mind dropping by the studio. Musically Fass helped launch Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles” with repeated plays. Fass pondered the popularity of his show so he came up with the idea of having listeners all show up at JFK airport for a party. After talking about it on the air for a few days, JFK found itself the host to an unexpected giant shindig. You can’t pull that social stunt anymore without getting stuck on the Do Not Fly list. Fass’ attempt to bring the same fun to Grand Central Station a few months later wasn’t such a happy time since anarchists gave the NYPD a reason to knock heads when cleaning house. There’s amazing footage of the violence in progress. Fass became a major source of information during and after the ’68 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Things got nasty and the station was taken off the air for over two months. Fass would eventually return, but he wasn’t given the same shift slots. He’s still on the air at WBAI-FM, but only one night for three hours. Directors Jessica Wolfson and Paul Lovelace sat down to answer questions before their world premiere.
Beauty is Embarrassing proved to be a bizarre delight as it followed artist and puppeteer Wayne White through his creative life. White is best known by a generation for his work on Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Besides his production design, Wayne pulled the strings on Randy and Dirty Dog. He went on to direct music videos for Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time” and the Smashing Pumpkin’s “Tonight.” Currently he takes old landscape paintings and adds 3-D words. He’s also been making huge puppets. The movie also gives an insight to his marriage to fellow artist Mimi Pond. She’s best known for writing the Simpsons Christmas special. Beauty is a brighter version of Crumb. We had to lure director Neil Berkeley and Wayne White out of the theater showing the film for this talk.. We get to the root of the amount of dope smoked while working on Pee Wee’s Playhouse. He admits they were high unlike anyone connected to a Sid and Marty Krofft production. We hopefully expose a bitter feud between Mimi Pond and Jennifer Tilly. There’s good news for people in the Roanoke, Virginia area who want to see Wayne at work. Strangely enough a week later, the venue hosted Brian Henson’s improv adult puppet show Stuffed and Unstrung that featured Alison Mork, the hands and voice of Chairry. Maybe next April Paul Reubens will be in the Bull City for Full Frame? There’s also me hinting that someone ought to make a mini-series documentary dealing with the major cartoonists that contributed to Raw Magazine.
NOTE TO MICHAEL MOORE
This is just to remind Michael Moore of our conversation during your Skype session about changes to the Documentary Oscar voting that you’re supposed to look into revoking the Oscar win for the fictional Hellstrom Chronicles and gets a lifetime achievement Oscar to either D.A. Pennebaker or Albert Maysles. You’ve been given a challenge to further establish the documentary branch isn’t a kid’s table when it comes to Oscar night or at least the dinner for the lifetime award winners.
NOT ENOUGH TIME
There are quite a few films I couldn’t see, but were raved about to me by people. Here’s an incomplete list of films that had great buzz: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Ethel, The House I Live In,The Imposter, Putin’s Kiss, Trash Dance and The Waiting Room.
WHOOPS
I’d like to apologize to Full Frame honoree Stanley Nelson for asking him when ESPN was replaying his documentary. Turns out I was thinking Nelson George who made The Announcement. At least I didn’t ask him when he was reuniting with his twin brother to tour as Nelson once more. I’d also like to apologize to Nelson George for thinking The Announcement was about LeBron James taking his talents to South Beach instead of Magic Johnson’s news that he was HIV positive.
DVD SHELF
Car 54 Where Are You? The Complete Second Season wraps up the legendary New York City cop series. How can that be? How can a show so hilarious have only last two seasons when According to Jim dragged out for eight seasons? Car 54 didn’t pull in the audience like creator’s Sgt. Bilko. Guess this could be viewed as the original Arrested Development. Sadly enough since there wasn’t a Facebook in 1963, it was impossible for fans to save the show with coordinated campaign. The show focused on the 53rd Precinct in the Bronx where strange troubles roamed the neighborhood. The main protection was Car 54 manned by Joe E. Ross (Hong Kong Phooey) and Fred Gwynne (The Munsters). Ross is a screw up and Gwynne is smart, but insecure. Also causing trouble is Al Lewis (The Munsters). These are the final 30 episodes. “Hail to the Chief” has the duo assigned to escort the President of USA from Idlewild to the UN. Can they do this without an international incident? “One Sleepy Person” has Gwynne staying over with Ross and his wife (Bea Pons). Things are fine until circumstances make it seem like Gwynne is having an affair with Ross’ wife. “Here comes Charlie” stars Larry Storch as a troublesome drunk that the boys want to reform. They do their best to clean him up and get him a job, but nothing works out right since booze sneaks into the workplace. Storch proves he can get drunk just talking about taking shots at various bars in the neighborhood. “The Biggest Day of the Year” has things snowball when a rumor grows that the day is going to be a big event. It’s so sad knowing this is the last Car 54 boxset. The video transfers are clean enough to be used as evidence that people were foolish to have not watched Car 54. This was a show that made the Bronx known for more than just Yankee Stadium. Gwynne and Lewis would team up for The Munsters which also only lasted two seasons.
VEGA$: The Third Season, Volume One starts what tragically became the final season of Dan Tanna (SWAT‘s Robert Urich) on the TV. Why weren’t people loving the Middle School Vegas excitement? Tanna was Michael Mann’s greatest fictional creation outside of Michael Mann. They did their best to create a sensational 11 episodes to launch the season. “Aloha, You’re Dead” has Tanna kidnapped and hypnotised. What do his captors want him to do? It’s not squawk like a chicken when someone says egg. He’s being programmed to kill Philip Roth (Some Like It Hot‘s Tony Curtis). Who would be behind such an evil plot? How about Lorne Greene dressed up like Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island)? He’s reunited with his Bonanza son Pernell Roberts. There’s even more star power with John Saxon (Enter the Dragon) and Barbara Parkins (Valley of the Dolls). Trouble comes to the office when a killer wants Bea (Phyllis Davis) in “Black Cat Killer.” Among the guest stars is Victor Buono (Batman‘s King Tut). “Love Affair” makes Tanna get romantic with a woman (Priscilla Barnes) that’s working as a hooker. Her pimp isn’t happy that his employee is giving it away for free. Can Tanna hold off the fury of Dick Sargent (Bewitched). Bubba Smith (Police Academy) gets tangled in “A Deadly Victim.” “A Christmas Story” has Dan introduced to his daughter that’s Jill Whelan. But wait, she’s Captain Stubbing’s daughter on The Love Boat. This is so wrong. “Murder by Mirrors” lets Bea spot a homicide while flying over a neighborhood. However there doesn’t seem to be a body when Patrick Macnee (The Avengers) gives a tour of his house. Once more we get a collection of episodes that have as many great stars as headliners in the casinos on the strip. No news when the final installment will arrive.
Kojak: Season Four contains the penultimate beat of NYC’s greatest bald justice. Lt. Theo Kojak (Telly Savalas) is back with his badass unit that includes the nimble Crocker (Kevin Dobson), the frumpy Stavros (George Savalas) and the confident Capt. O’Neil (Dan Frazer). “The Birthday Party” busts a gang member after a robbery that turned into murder. While being processed in the office, the gang member overhears talk of Kojak’s niece’s birthday party. He figures the best way to get out of jail is to have his guys on the outside kidnap the girl. He communicates this plan during his one phone call to his guys on the outside. He speaks in Greek thinking nobody would know, but Stavros is in the room. Trouble is can he admit to hearing this information? Richard Gere (Pretty Woman) is an evil punk kid. Speaking of the hooker movie, Hector Elizondo is in “A Need to Know.” He plays a child molester with diplomatic immunity. Kojak won’t put up with this in his America. “A Hair-Trigger Away” is star packed with Lynn Redgrave, Morgan Fairchild, Irene Cara, Dan Hedaya and Dominic Chianese (The Sopranos). “Black Thorn” pricks us with NFL Hall of Famer Rosie Grier return as a private eye. Also filling your peepers is Danny Aiello and Swoosie Kurtz. Fringe fans will get to see a young Blair Brown in “Where Do You Go When You Have Nowhere to Go.” “When You Hear the Beep, Drop Dead” rings up Joe Turkel (The Shining and Bladerunner). Prepare to be amazed when Christopher Walken (Annie Hall) graces us in “Kiss It All Goodbye.” Only one Season Five is left to put all the Kojak action out on DVD.
Fantasy Island: The Complete Second Season is my fantasy since it’s been six years since season one was released. Fantasy Island dates back to a time when network TV cared about Saturday night viewers. For millions of people who weren’t out at Studio 54 or their nearest roller disco, they turned on their Sony Trinitron to watch Mr. Roarke (Ricardo Montalban) and Tattoo (Herve Villechaize) grant aging celebrities their ultimate fantasy. This is what people did before they had to dance or date a Kardashian to keep up an active TV career. The season starts right with “The Sheikh” that teams up Sid Haig and Cassandra Peterson (Elvira). They are background for Arte Johnson’s dream of having a harem although he ends up falling for Georgia Engel (The Mary Tyler Moore Show). “The War Games/Queen of the Boston Bruisers” makes Don DeFore (Hazel) the father of Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek: The Next Generation). “The Appointment / Mr. Tattoo” is a semi-crossover when Fred Gandy is part of a showgirls dream to meet and marry a millionaire. He’s not Gopher from The Love Boat, but a songwriter wanting to charm Barbi Benton and Connie Stevens with his talent. Tattoo is the one in charge of setting up this fantasy. “The Island of Lost Women/The Flight of the Yellow Bird” is a delight to Mad Men fans as Mr. Cooper steps off the plane. Robert Morse craves to visit an island only populated by women since he’d spent a year underwater as part of a submarine crew. Michelle Pfeiffer is one of the amazons that want the new man. Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible) tracks down Bigfoot. “Charlie’s Cherubs/Stalag 3” brings us Yvonne De Carlo (The Munsters). “The Stripper/The Boxer” trunks up Chuck McCann (Far Out Space Nuts), Ben Murphy (Gemini Man) Forrest Tucker (F Troop) and Mamie Van Doren. “Pentagram/ A Little Ball/ The Casting Director” brings fantasies to Phyllis Davis (Vega$), Ben Davidson (Behind the Green Door), Lisa Hartman (Mike’s College Dorm Fridge), Florence Henderson (The Brady Bunch), Don Knotts (Three’s Company), Cesar Romero (Batman), John Saxon and Abe Vigoda (Fish). “Birthday Party / Ghostbreaker” busts wide open with Annette Funicello (Beach Party), Ken Berry (F Troop) and Larry Storch (F Troop too). Fred Gandy returns in “The Comic/ Golden Hour” with Toni Tennille and Michael Parks (Kill Bill). What ’70s show isn’t complete from a visit with Regis Philbin, Billy Barty and Red Buttons as found in “Cornelius and Alphonse/ The Choice?” More Love Boat crossover hits with Ted Lange and Jill Whelan as part of “Amusement Park/ Rock Stars.” Scott Baio wants to be a singing star like Anson Williams. Fantasy Island is such addictive kitsch. You should save this boxset for your Saturday night viewing since the networks don’t care if you tune into them. The show lasted for seven seasons so only five more boxsets. Smiles everyone! Smiles!
Here’s a little Scott Baio love for you.
A Mother’s Love is from the director of Diary of a Tired Black Man. Tim Alexander focuses on Regina Reynolds (Rolanda Watts). She’s forgotten to also be a wife and mother to her family. Her husband (Julian Starks) doesn’t want to divorce her. He’s still in love with her. The daughter (Filth to Ashes, Flesh to Dust‘s Salina Duplessis) has a major drug issue, but mom doesn’t seem to want to clean up the kid. The only hope to save this family is Regina’s mom (Amentha Dymally) taking control of the house and getting her daughter and granddaughter back on the right track. The film won a Dove seal of approval including a 5 Dove rating so it’s perfect for any relatives that desire inspirational. movies on DVD night. Dymally is an inspiration since she’s been acting for a while including roles on The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Room 222 and Mayberry R.F.D.. Rolanda Watts is best known for her talkshow fittingly called Rolanda. The Vanessa Williams on the box is not the decrowned Miss America, but the actress that played Rhonda Blair on Melrose Place. Alexander keeps his message tight within the story while giving his actors space to explore their character’s issues.
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Highlights from the 2012 Phoenix Film Festival/Int’l Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival Part I By Ray Schillaci
Once again, far too many good films to see and so little time. That is including the documentaries, World Cinema and short films provided. I am hoping to follow up with some of them in the next couple of weeks. As for the festival itself; stars were in attendance starting with Academy Award winning actress, Marcia Gay Harden present for a tribute to her body of work. Michael Biehn (Terminator, Aliens and The Abyss) introduced his directorial debut with “The Victim”. Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down) popped in to greet everybody with his new film “Slumber Party Slaughter” and the festival had a host of filmmakers introducing their films as well.
“Robot and Frank,” starring Frank Langella and Susan Sarandon kicked off the festival to a glorious start with huge applause. Due to pending release dates I have been asked not to review this film as with a couple of other wonderful ones; Lawrence Kasdan returning to his true form with, “Darling Companion” and the French hit, “The Intouchables”. But that does not preclude me from reviewing some of the other great feature films in competition.
I have yet to see the much talked about “Hollywood to Dollywood” that was nearly sold out with every showing. I’ve heard HTD is a very funny road trip movie about twin brothers trying to get their dream script in the hands of the legendary Dolly Parton. The documentary, “Connected” also had good word of mouth, involving the exploration of “visible and invisible connections linking major issues of our time” while the documentarian searches for her place in the world during a “transformative” time in her life.
“How Do You Write a Joe Sherman Song” was an audience pleaser, winning Breakthrough Director and the Cox Audience Award. Director Gary King undauntedly tackled a non-studio musical with unknowns. A struggling lyricist/composer gets the opportunity to write for an Off-Broadway musical and is forced to aid in the casting of his long-time girlfriend or a “newly discovered muse”. Sounds like a certain TV show? Whatever similarities are present are merely coincidental and can be looked as a plus for this small independent film. Christina Rose turns in a sweet and memorable performance and nearly outshines the rest of the cast. King’s use of split-screen during choreographed scenes is tight and effective, proving that he does have the ability to bring a dramatic flair to the big screen.
Director, Kenny Riches demonstrates a wonderful sense of humor and pathos with “Must Come Down”. Two very quirky individuals briefly find each other while trying to get through their early twenties crisis. Riches has found the perfect cast to convey the off-beat people that are marching to their own drum while sometimes banging it a little too loud around normal people, bringing a smile and laugh to all of us. Everything about this film echoes independent and cult, and it is a refreshing journey after so many studio driven rom-coms that we have all been subjected to.
Annie Howell’s, “Small Beautifully Moving Parts” is also a classic independent that moves us in every way. A tech-geek discovers she is pregnant and goes head first into discovering who she is and the estranged mother that lives “off the grid”. Anne Margaret Holleyman opens our eyes and breaks our hearts with a personable and sensitive performance. Her journey proves to be both funny and poignant. Howell provides a unique look into this woman’s life and delivers pleasant little surprises with every turn.
“Searching for Sonny” had the audience howling in laughter. A group of high school friends reunite when their friend goes missing and discover the eerie coincidences between his disappearance and the high school play he had written. Andrew Disney (no relation to the House of Mouse) giddily delivers the kookiness of guys who refuse to grow up while providing a tongue-in-cheek Raymond Chandler style mystery that becomes sillier than expected. Disney gives us a winning cast with many recognizable faces from TV and the Web. Together they give us a delightful comedy that received Best Ensemble Cast and Best Screenwriting.
Best Documentary was whisked away by “We Run Sh*t”. Directors, Michael Rogers and Scott Storm (star of last year’s “Official Rejection”) bring us an insane tale of five veteran event producers who plan a five day rave party in Miami only to have everything and anything go very, very wrong. Sex, drugs and music pervades a lurid tale of corruption in the club scene while platinum selling artists and spoiled celebrities are the nasty spice that no one in their right mind needs when their life is being threatened. Michael Rogers was the videographer throughout the event and the man is to be commended. He practically gave his life for this document of decadence. Scott Storm managed to not only piece it together and make sense of it, but he also provided the witty animation where no cameras were allowed to go.
The event producers all have distinct personalities that have us captivated throughout the whole ordeal with James DiFiore as the stand out. We go through his pain, but also laugh at it as well with his highly animated gestures and expressions. He appears to be the leader or tries to be, but he is holding court with a group of man/boys who appear to have not reached his seasoned level. I could be wrong on that one and every viewer will have another take on it, but that’s what makes this film more than just a documentary. It captures the hook that reality TV uses to entice its audience, keeping us watching with bated breath as to what will happen next. Michael Rogers and Scott Storm deliver a documentary on the seedy side of club life and it has the capability of being a huge hit with its particular audience and anyone else who is open-minded for a tawdry tale of madness and mayhem.
The winner of Best Picture was a surprise to me, at first. I had seen the trailer of “Shuffle” several times and was not impressed, but upon my first viewing, like many others, I was wowed and reduced to tears. Director Kurt Kuenne gives us the best movie regarding time jumping since George Roy Hill’s interpretation of Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s, “Slaughterhouse-Five”. Kuenne, cast and crew give us a film that touches our heart and soul and makes us better for it while having us reflect on our own lives. Lovell Milo’s life is shuffling away. He keeps falling asleep and waking up at different ages; 28, 30, 8, 92 and so on. Lovell attempts to get a handle on what is going on and to what purpose. The mystery is suspenseful, funny and endearing with T.J. Thyne giving a very honest and empathetic performance, Paula Rhodes making us so very easily fall in love with her as Grace and the two children Dylan Sprayberry and Elle Labadie who play their young counter parts deliver the joys of youth in spades.
There is not one false note in this film. Some may compare it to an episode of “The Twilight Zone” or “It’s a Wonderful Life” and those are not bad comparisons, but it does a disservice to the original voice of all involved. From its beautiful black and white photography to its subtle special effects Kuenne’s film captures our imagination in the very first scene and never lets it go. “Shuffle” is a testament to the human heart and spirit, and can be enjoyed by all.
Hopefully, next week I can give you Part Deux of the PFF and Int’l Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival. A chilling southern gothic tale with Scooter Downey’s, “It’s in the Blood” starring Lance Henrikson will be reviewed. Also, I can give you some insight into some fantastic shorts from documentary, live action and horror. As a special mention, check out one of the past Phoenix Film Festival favorites on DVD next week. David Dilley’s complex crime drama, “Suspicion” (full review – http://asitecalledfred.com/2011/04/15/trailer-park-phoenix-2/) has an April 17th release date and now is the chance to pump that down and dirty soundtrack as loud as you want.
THE INNKEEPERS – Blu-ray Review
Watch this, buy this. Support horror comedy done right. There is something so fun about a movie that knows what it wants to be and embraces it fully.
Back when I talked to the movie’s director, Ti West, the movie was really gaining steam within a community of fans who appreciated Ti’s previous work, HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, and heard his call to see the movie in a theater and to make a genuine effort to support a well made genre movie. Watching it for the second time you can see how right West was when he urged people to see a movie that would be worth their time. No blowhard-y false modesty, this was a movie that was able to build suspense and deliver on the thrill that movies have somehow lost in an age when splatterfests are taking all the fun out of building up to something great.
There would be a danger in getting to that boiling point, as we are wrapped up in a mystery surrounding an old hotel and its haunted past, if it didn’t deliver, everything hinges on it, but it does. It pays off in a way that has easily landed this movie in my top 10 of the year for sheer craftsmanship. For those wanting a scream a minute thrill ride, you would be better served elsewhere because what this minimalist production does is upend your expectation of what a horror movie should be and rewards you with something that satisfies completely.
About the Blu-ray/DVD:
An New England inn about to close for good is the classically creepy setting for THE INNKEEPERS, the acclaimed new film from Ti West, the young filmmaker whose critically praised House of the Devil gave the genre a jolt. Starring Sara Paxton, Pat Healy and Kelly McGillis, THE INNKEEPERS comes to Blu-ray and DVD from Dark Sky Films and MPI Media Group on April 24, 2012.
After over one hundred years of service, The Yankee Pedlar Inn in Connecticut is shutting its doors for good. The last remaining employees Claire (Sara Paxton, Shark Night 3-D, The Last House on the Left) and Luke (Pat Healy, Dirty Girl) are determined to uncover proof of what many believe to be one of New England’s most haunted hotels. As the inn’s final days draw near, odd guests start to check in and the pair of minimum wage “ghost hunters” begin to experience strange and alarming events that may ultimately cause them to be mere footnotes in the hotel’s long mysterious history.
Writer-director Ti West has revealed a unique style that pays tribute to classic horror of the 1970s and 80s with the bold spirit of the new American independent cinema. THE INKEEPERS, which co-stars Kelly McGillis (Top Gun, Stake Land), was an award-winning hit on the film festival circuit and opened to rave critical reviews last week in theaters nationwide. The way he works his magic is through a technique that some fans have called the slow burn: long takes and deliberately paced scenes, in which the camera follows characters down hallways, through the woods or into empty rooms says The New York Times “Featuring great fun, scares and characters, it’s a film that has the wonderful ability to both make you laugh and scream without ever becoming a parody of itself.” says CinemaBlend. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, Ti West knows how to build suspense.
THE INNKEEPERS, which blends the classic ghost story style with a solid modern twist is an original Dark Sky Films in partnership with Glass Eye Pix. The extras on the Blu-ray and DVD will include:
The Innkeepers: Behind the Scenes
Commentary with Writer/Director/Editor Ti West, Producers Peter Phok & Larry Fessenden, and 2nd Unit Director/Sound Designer Graham Reznick
Commentary with Writer/Director/Editor Ti West and Stars Sara Paxton & Pat Healy
Trailer
SHAME – Blu-ray Review
This is a movie not for the timid.
After I watched it a second time, I began to feel more sympathetic towards Brandon (Michael Fassbender) and his grinding addiction that simply is eating at his life one empty conquest at a time. It’s not so much the trigger of his sister coming to stay with him and, thus, disrupting his voracious appetite for sexual activity that needs constant fuel but it’s the film’s examination of addiction that is really satisfying from a narrative standpoint.
The entire movie is meant to keep you uncomfortable and it succeeds in trying to emotionally telegraph what it would be like to be caught in an echo chamber of impulse and self-satisfaction. While his nameless job and nameless company would be somehow disconcerting if we thought that it had some reflection on the movie’s direction, it’s just emblematic in a film where names are not important. Fassbender does an exceptional job in depicting the life of a man who is too far gone to save, who operates on a compulsive schedule that, and while it certainly won’t be a movie you will be excited to re-watch again and again there is some satisfaction to be had in watching this man unravel and succumb to the demons that need release.
About the Blu-ray/DVD:
From visionary director Steve McQueen, one of the most talked about films of 2011 comes home to stunning Blu-ray from Fox Searchlight and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. A film festival powerhouse, SHAME has captivated viewers through its haunting depiction of the life of a sex addict and his emotionally troubled sister. Evocative performances from Golden Globe® nominee Michael Fassbender and Academy Award® nominee Carrie Mulligan make SHAME the must-have release of the year. Get your hands on SHAME on Blu-ray Combo Pack April 17 and see the movie everyone is talking about in the privacy of your own home. Available for pre-order now on Amazon.
Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a New Yorker who shuns intimacy with women but feeds his desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his wayward younger sister (Carey Mulligan) moves into his apartment and stirs up memories of their shared painful past, Brandon’s insular life spirals out of control.
The SHAME Blu-ray Combo Pack presentation features a premium high definition Blu-ray loaded with special features, a DVD version of the film and Digital Copy. Get a behind-the-scenes look at McQueen’s groundbreaking vision with exclusive extras and featurettes. Pre-book date is March 21.
SHAME Blu-ray Combo Pack Features:
â—Focus on Michael Fassbender
â—Director Steve McQueen
â—The Story of Shame
â—A Shared Vision
â—Fox Movie Channel Presents: In Character With Michael Fassbender
Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, May 16th.
Product Specifications
For Ages 3 to Small Adult
Inflatable Captain’s chair lets your wee geek take charge
Various buttons and lights printed on the arms for imagination play
Captain can set Red Alert, Yellow Alert, or choose to Jettison Pod
Officially licensed Star Trek collectible
Maximum weight: 120 pounds
Dimensions (inflated): approx. 27.75″ high x 29.25″ wide x 18″ deep
Official Rules
No member of FRED Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.
No Purchase necessary to win.
Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.
One entry per day, per person.
All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, May 16th.
The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.
This month I’ve spent most of my time watching YouTube channels. Exciting, I know. As a result, you’ll see a lot of YouTube videos in my list. It’s a simple system I work here at MFT but I feel it suits me. So lets get started.
1) Rear Window Timelapse
Rear Window is one of my favourite movies ever. I love a simple idea that is executed perfectly and that’s exactly what Rear Window is. It has been parodied a million times by every TV series from The Simpsons to That 70s Show.
What I like about this is that it has been put together to play all the parts of the scenery at once. I feel like I’m not explaining that correctly but luckily the video is self explanatory so watch and enjoy!
UPDATE 3rd of May 2012: Awwww, they took it down. That’s lame
2) Shia Labeouf
No, not the charisma free actor of robot movies. Instead it’s a rather strange song by Rob Cantor. It’s about the robot movie actor but it’s also about escaping the clutches of the canibal murderer robot movie actor.
Again I dont think I’m explaining this one well. Have a listen.
Another one that was brought to my attention by the lovely JJ Hawkins. I had somehow avoided this series until this month. The infectious MyHarto and her My Drunk Kitchen show.
Luckily, with all my problems describing shows, this one needs very little decription. She gets drunk and cooks in her kitchen. Easy! And funny as hell. Watch, and then notice how 8 hours have gone by from watching all of them.
4) Botchamania
Here is something that is far from new also. And I’ve been well aware of it from a long time too. But this month it has kind of been my comfort food viewing.
The brain child of Maffew who edits together all the mess ups in wrestling you never thought you needed to see. Botch is what wrestlers call messing up a move or a promo. And just like the bloopers real for a comedy, it’s more fun than the actual shows.
5) Play us out Riz…
British rap group playing an acoustic performance on the streets of Paris in the middle of the night? I’m in.
——————————————————————
And that’s it! My favourite things of the last month.
– Aaron Poole is the creator of the whales. He is also more accurately an internet whore and rarely leaves the house. If you like what you read here check out his blog http://aaronfever.blogspot.com
The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the FRED Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…
(Please support FRED by using the links below to make any impulse purchases – it helps to keep us going…)
It’s a true loss that Nat Hiken’s Car 54: Where Are You? (Shanachie, Not Rated, DVD-$ SRP) only made it to two seasons, as it’s truly one of the most grossly underappreciated television comedies ever made. Thankfully, we now have both of those seasons on DVD, thanks to the fine folks at Shanachie. Go. Get them both, and watch the merry misadventures of Officers Toody and Muldoon.
Even if you’re not steampunky, it’s hard to resist the charm of the positively beautiful Solar Powered Turbine Fob Watch ($129.99). Styled in pewter and copper with many a steampunk accent – right down to the turbine-like inset on the lid – it doesn’t quite go all the way, featuring instead of mechanics a reliable battery-powered quartz movement.
I would say that Patton Oswalt: Finest Hour (Comedy Central, Not Rated, DVD-$16.99 SRP) is a pretty accurate title when it comes to Patton’s latest stand-up special, which certainly finds him at the top of his game , even if sweatpants don’t make it out unscathed. Bonus materials include an encore and a pair of featurettes.
The best way to describe the brilliant new stand-up special from the brilliant Paul F. Tompkins is that it’s an oral history of the career of comedian Paul F. Tompkins. Suffice to say, you would regret it for the rest of your days if you do not purchase Paul F. Tompkins: Laboring Under Delusions (Comedy Central, Not Rated, DVD-$14.95 SRP). Bonus materials include an audio commentary with a director, an encore, and an episode of his Pod F. Tompkast.
The dandy scribe behind Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes, explores another slice of class warfare – this time historic – with the 4-part miniseries Titanic (E1, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$39.98 SRP), a much-better-than-James-Cameron look at the various societal and economic tiers at play on the doomed ocean liner.
Have a little Jackie Gleason-thon in high definition this weekend with the Blu-Ray arrival of the guilty pleasure comedy The Toy (Image, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$9.99 SRP) and the much better Tom Hanks tearjerker Nothing In Common (Image, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$17.97 SRP). Both lack any bonus features, but who needs ’em when you’ve got Ned Beatty?
Fox has released another of their star-specific DVD collections, this time bringing together 10 films for the Frank Sinatra Film Collection (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$49.98 SRP), featuring The Pride And The Passion. Kings Go Forth, A Hole In The Head, Can-Can, The Manchurian Candidate, Von Ryan’s Express, Cast A Giant Shadow, Tony Rome, The Detective, & Lady In Cement.
A movie lover who devoured old films, my grandmother would have loved if I had gifted her the dirt cheap, 12-disc genre sets Mill Creek has been releasing, mainly because each of those 12-disc sets – flicks of the 1950’s in The Nifty Fifties, Timeless Family Classics, & the crime/noir Dark Crimes (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$29.98 SRP each)- contains 50 films. That’s right – FIFTY films.
How incredible are the artisans at Hot Toys? So incredible, that their latest DX 12″ figure of Jack Nicholson’s Joker ($264.99) from Tim Burton’s Batman is remarkably, creepily accurate. Not only is the facial sculpt perfect, but the elaborate costuming, right down to the overcoat The Joker wore during the parade near the end, is completely in-scale accurate. And props! This thing comes with guns (BANG and ludicrously long), a megaphone, a remote control, chattering teeth, cash, and more. Get this incredible piece from the fine folks at Sideshow, or regret that you passed up the opportunity to do so.
So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
In this episode, I have a chat with writer/producer Jane Espenson about Husbands, oil painting, Whedon & Moore, linguistics, snorkeling, fairy tales, and Here’s The Thing.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
In this episode, I have a chat with writer Josh Cagan about Learning Town, Muppets, bubbles, Earth-Pastel, Faux Frank, Panto Clarkson, Team Feh, Artisinal Quirk, and Amalgamated Affectations.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
In this episode, I have another chat with the UK writing trio The Dawson Bros. – Andrew Dawson, Steve Dawson, & Tim Inman – about viral comedy, sports failures, wicker country, writing rooms, foreign cons, and Mike’s mustaches.
The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the FRED Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…
(Please support FRED by using the links below to make any impulse purchases – it helps to keep us going…)
If you only know him from Derrick Comedy or Community, you owe it to yourself to partake of Donald Glover’s first stand-up special Donald Glover: Weirdo (E1, Not Rated, DVD-$14.99 SRP), recorded live in New York. Bonus materials include an interview and a bonus featurette.
Who doesn’t love being able to launch things at friends, foes, and family alike with their very own desktop catapult? Particularly when that desktop catapult launches safety-friendly foam balls? Well, that’s just what the Air Strike Catapult ($14.99) lobs, with a range of up to 40 feet. Yes, you know you want one. So head over to Thinkgeek and get it. Just remember – the desktop arms race has begun.
Further closing the hole in fans’ complete collection of every episode, a pair of rather good Jon Pertwee 3rd Doctor stories – Doctor Who: The Daemons (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$34.98 SRP) and a new 2-disc special edition of Doctor Who: Carnival Of Monsters (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$34.98 SRP). Both are beautifully restored, considering that both suffered from the 1970’s-era BBC’s lack of care for the show’s master tapes. Both releases are jam-packed with the usual load of bonus materials, including commentaries, new documentaries, deleted scenes, interviews, ephemera, and more.
I’m delighted that my goof buddy Loren Bouchard’s brilliant Bob’s Burgers (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$19.99 SRP) caught on in its debut season, because like all of Loren’s previous work, right back to Home Movies, his naturalistic, character-based comedy shines through the giddy absurdity of Bob Belcher and his family-run burger restaurant. Just pick this up, and watch it. Bonus materials include audio commentary, outtakes, featurettes, the original demo, a music video, and more.
While Meryl Streep is certainly wonderful in the role, it’s a shame that The Iron Lady (Anchor Bay, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) isn’t a better film, because Margaret Thatcher was certainly an interesting, very controversial figure, and the movie doesn’t quite ever capture that. A shame, really. Bonus materials include a clutch of behind-the-scenes featurettes.
It’s one of those not-terribly-good releases that curious and completionist genre fans have been asking about for years, so they’ll be delighted to get Logan’s Run: The Complete Series (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP), containing all 14 episodes of the small screen spin-off.
Kudos to director Brad Bird for helming Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Paramount, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$44.99 SRP), the third film in the Mission Impossible series starring Tom Cruise as IMF superagent Ethan Hunt, which also happens to be the most enjoyable outing of the bunch. In fact, so much so that I wouldn’t mind seeing another outing from Bird. Bonus materials include deleted scenes, an audio commentary, making-of featurettes, and more.
Just when you thought it was safe to assume that David Attenborough and the BBC’s nature documentary team couldn’t possibly top themselves comes the incredible beauty of Frozen Planet (BBC, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$24.98 SRP), which – as you can probably guess – explores Earth’s Arctic and Antarctic regions. Bonus materials include bonus featurettes and video diaries.
Time for another soundtrack round up for all of you fans of cinematic scores – you know who you are. First up is David Arnold & Michael Price’s score from the BBC’s superb Sherlock (Silva Screen, $13.97 SRP), followed by another bit of Brit goodness with Marco Beltrami’s haunting score to The Woman In Black (Silva Screen, $14.12 SRP), and the new 2-disc special edition of James Horner’s score for Jim Cameron’s Titanic (Sony Classical, $22.19 SRP), which contains the traditional classical works performed by the Titanic band.
Kiddies and hipsters alike will rejoice at the release of Yo Gabba Gabba: Super Spies (Nickelodeon, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), which collects another 3 episodes of the trippy kinder show. But why no box sets?
While most of the talk has been about Michael Fassbender’s part in Steve McQueen’s Shame (Fox, Rated NC-17, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) – and his wonderful performance – I found Carey Mulligan’s presence to be just as riveting in a tale about a pair of damaged siblings and how the secret, destructive lives they’re both living come crashing down around them as they slam together. Bonus materials include a clutch of featurettes.
As if Frozen Planet weren’t enough, another visually stunning nature documentary hits home video this week with IMAX: Born To Be Wild (Warner Bros., Rated G, 3D Blu-Ray-$44.95 SRP), which looks at the people who rescue and raise orphaned orangutans and elephants. And as if IMAX wasn’t lovely enough, the 3D version is definitely the one to get, just for that aforementioned cinematography popping out at you. Bonus materials include webisodes and trailers.
Elmo gets supersized in Sesame Street: Big Elmo Fun (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), towering over the street in this collection of 3 full-length stories. Also included as a bonus is the video Monster Hits, featuring all your favorite Monster songs.
Fans can pick up the 7th volume of Seth MacFarlane’s often overlooked other series, American Dad (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$24.99 SRP), which contains 19 episodes, audio commentaries, featurettes, and deleted scenes.
The adventures of Ben 10 come to a close with Ben 10 Ultimate Alien: The Ultimate Ending (Cartoon Network, Not Rated, DVD-$19.97 SRP), as he faces down both Dagon and Vilgax and everything comes crashing down.
The second season of Treme (HBO, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$79.98 SRP) brings the residents of New Orleans over a year past the events of Katrina, as the pieces remain fractured and the ability for the city to hold onto its identity seems an almost insurmountable task as people continue to move away and crime is on the rise. Bonus materials include audio commentaries, music commentaries, and featurettes.
Dance your weekend away – or at least watch the master do it – with a pair of deep catalogue release from the Warner Archive Collection starring the great Fred Astaire – The Sky’s The Limit & Living In A Big Way (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$17.95 each). Both are worth a spin based on charm alone.
How about a clutch of new releases from the History Channel? On the good side, you have a pair of documentaries worth a look-see, with Planet Egypt (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$24.95 SRP) exploring the ancient kingdom and its legacy, and The Presidents (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$29.95 SRP) exploring the lives and legends of the US Chief Executives. On the not-so-good side is their mostly obnoxious reality programming – which, granted, still has its fans, en masse – including the second volume of Only In America With Larry The Cable Guy (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$19.95 SRP), the fourth season of Billy The Exterminator (A&E, Not Rated, DVD-$19.95 SRP), the fifth season of the still-trucking Ice Road Truckers (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$29.95 SRP), and the third season of Top Shot (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$29.95 SRP).
So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…
Here we are again, at long last. For those who came in late, as they say in The Phantom, I’m Peter Sanderson, and I’ve been writing about comics since I was a contributor to Silver Age DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz’s letter columns in the 1960s. After doing graduate studies at Columbia University, I planned to become a teacher, but got diverted into the comics business, where I researched and helped write the original DC Who’s Who and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Since then I became Marvel’s first archivist, taught about comics at New York University, helped curate exhibits at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York, worked on documentaries about comics, and write and co-wrote a lot of books about comics. There’s even a new one that is just coming out now. Years ago I reviewed the first edition of The Superhero Book, an encyclopedia of superheroes in comics, movies and television, edited by Gina Misiroglu. Years later, Gina invited me to help her revise and update the second edition, and I ended up writing lots of new entries and updating nearly all the rest. You can find the new edition on Amazon here: The Superhero Book.
In 2003 I started writing a weekly online column “Comics in Context” for my friend and editor Ken Plume, originally at IGN. I followed Ken to Kevin Smith’s Quick Stop Entertainment and then to Ken’s own A Site Called FRED and ended up writing two hundred and forty installments on comics, animation, movies based on comics, and anything else that I thought might relate to these subjects. Eventually, though, I suspended the column, due to various upheavals in my life, including my father’s final few years, the necessity of moving twice, and the Great Recession. I’m still dealing with the problems caused by the last, and, as you will see, looking for a job. But friends have persuaded me that I should start up the column again to increase my visibility and show people examples of my writing. So here I am, and writing the column again feels good. I already have a batch of subjects I want to write about, and I hope you stick around for the ride. And please spread the word!
WHAT THE OUTSIDE WORLD (STILL) THINKS
Those of you who read my first “Comics in Context” column a decade ago may recall that one of my motives for starting this column was anger. The current wave of movies based on comics, especially superhero comics, began in with the first X-Men movie, and I was appalled by the incomprehension and condescension with which some movie reviewers greeted them. Besides its alliterative catchiness, that was the reason I named the column “Comics in Context”: to criticize comics and related works in the media from an informed perspective, based on my years of studying the comics artform, the superhero genre, and other fields.
Lately, in need of paying work, I’ve joined two local support groups for job seekers. At the first meeting of the night group, each of us was asked to tell the group about his or her career. So I spoke about being a comics historian, writing books on the subject, teaching about comics at New York University, curating museum exhibitions on comics, writing reviews of graphic novels for Publishers Weekly, and so forth. The rest of the group was silent, and I got the impression that the founder of the group commented that comics had entertained him in the past. But I got the sense that no one really knew anything about my chosen field. After the meeting ended, my spirits were brightened a little when one of the other participants came up to me and said he had been a big Marvel fan when he was growing up. But he hasn’t come to any of the subsequent meetings.
At one of these later meetings, with only a small number of people present, we were all asked to do our “elevator pitch” about what we do and what kind of job we’re looking for. I again talked about being a writer about comics and graphic novels. Again most people said nothing, but one of them asked, “What’s a graphic novel? We know what comics are.” I explained, and talked about how over the last few decades comics and graphic novels had received serious attention in mainstream publications like The New York Times and in academia and in libraries (including the one where we were meeting). The man who didn’t know what a graphic novel was said, somewhat disbelievingly, that I was talking in “general” terms and wanted a specific example. So I talked about Art Spiegelman’s Maus, his graphic novel about the Holocaust, and how it had come out over a quarter century ago, had won the Pulitzer Prize, and was widely taught in schools. This came as news to everyone there. “How do you spell that?” the man asked about the title. (There was a copy in that same library!)
I was finding it hard to keep my temper, and apologized. It was dismaying. It seemed that nobody there had heard of the graphic novel revolution or really understood or appreciated what I did. I mentioned this on Facebook, and one of my Facebook friends asked, in effect, what did you expect?
I had naively expected more. For a dozen years there has been a wave of movies based on comic books and graphic novels, including blockbusters like Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. But there have also been successful films based on indie comics, like American Splendor. Newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and USA Today regularly cover news in the comics industry, so frequently that it has ceased to be surprising. San Diego’s annual Comic Con has become an event covered by mass media throughout the country. The Sunday before this meeting The New York Times had run an article on the front page of its Sunday Arts & Leisure section about a museum retrospective of alternative cartoonist Daniel Clowes’ work; the Times subsequently ran an article about a retrospective of Robert Crumb’s career in Paris. Just last Sunday, as I write this, the Times did a long article about office politics at Archie Comics in its business section, and two pages of graphic novel reviews by Douglas Wolk in its Sunday Book Review. Only a few weekends before I attended “Comic New York,” a two-day academic symposium on comics at my alma mater Columbia University, marking the donation of longtime X-Men writer Chris Claremont’s archives (including my old fan letters to X-Men!) to the Columbia University library. There are graphic novel sections in public libraries now, as well as major bookstores. And how can anyone in America or various other countries avoid seeing the trailers and commercials and magazine covers for this summer’s movies, Joss Whedon’s The Avengers and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises? When I was a student at Columbia, decades ago, that all of these things would happen seemed impossible and unimaginable. Indeed, even when I wrote my first “Comics in Context,” I would not have thought that comics would have this much impact on American culture only a decade hence.
And yet, in other ways, it seems as if nothing has changed at all, and as if I’m back at Columbia in my student days, trying unsuccessfully to persuade people (even some in the comics industry!) that, yes, comics is an artform and that superhero stories can be taken seriously. As astoundingly successful as various comics-based movies are commercially, and as enormous as the major comics conventions have grown, in other ways comics seem to be in a bad state. So many of my contemporaries have left the business. When comics were below the mainstream cultural radar, I got more paying work consistently than I do now.
Much of my dilemma is in trying to continue a career writing about comics history, and more importantly, doing comics criticism. Oh, yes, now there are academic conferences on comics, but my impression is that academics may get to include graphic novels in a course that is mainly about non-comics works, or may even be able to teach a course on comics, but that the latter are still rarities. Back when I was a graduate student, Columbia would never have let me do a dissertation on comics; I’d love to do one now, but have yet to find a way back into academia to do it.
I’ve proposed teaching courses on literary criticism of comics, or on the superhero genre, or on the bodies of work by major comics creators. But I’ve been told that people will not pay money to take such a course. There are plenty of courses about comics, but they’re mostly about how to write or draw comics. I keep seeking to write books about critically interpreting comics, but one editor has told me that no one wants to read books like this. Some academic presses may publish such books, but my former literary agents didn’t want me to deal with them. And, of course, it’s more likely to be alternative cartoonists who receive serious attention than comics writers and artists who work on genre material.
I am amazed by all of this. I earned three degrees in English literature at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, concentrating on the drama of Shakespeare’s time and the 20th century. None if my courses were about how to write plays or novels; if I wanted to do that, I would have gone to Columbia’s School of the Arts. No, these were courses in critically analyzing great works of literature, the sort of courses you will find in English departments at any college or university.
Similarly, I like to think that comics studies will pursue a route like film studies. In the early 1960s, I’m told, film courses at universities, when there were any, were only about how to make movies, more likely industrial training films that art films. This rapidly changed in the late 1960s. Now walk through the film section of a bookstore, and, yes, there will be some technical books about filmmaking, and certainly books on how to write screenplays. But the majority of the books will be studies of film genres, biographies of actors and directors, tomes on cinema history, guides to films on home video, and, of course, critical writings on the works of significant filmmakers.
Another important factor in the development of American film criticism is that it had to learn to take genre films seriously. It was the French critics who wrote for Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s, many of whom became filmmakers in France’s “New Wave,” who pioneered the serious analysis of Hollywood studio films. “Auteurist” critics like Andrew Sarris (one of my teachers at Columbia) and Peter Bogdanovich carried on this work in the United States in the 1960s. And now it is generally accepted that Hollywood entertainments like John Ford’s Westerns and Alfred Hitchcock’s thrillers can be art.
I would like to think that comics studies will someday reach a similar point. But they haven’t yet. I’ve been working my whole life, from my letters to Silver Age letter columns – my first attempts at comics criticism – to the present, preparing for a kind of career that doesn’t seem to exist yet.
Well, I can’t wait. I am returning to doing “Comics in Context,” whenever I can find time, because those of us who can do this sort of writing about comics should, to lay the foundation for the golden age of comics studies that I hope will someday come. I’ve done 240 “Comics in Context” columns in the past, all of which you can find on the Internet by Googling. I wish they had a wider audience, but someday perhaps they will. The age of social networking is much more advanced now than when I left off doing “Comics in Context”; maybe some of my new columns will go viral.
THE CABINET OF DR. WHEDON
As longtime “Comics in Context” readers know, I use my blog to cover not just comics but all forms of cartoon art, including animation, and also live action movies based on cartoon art. So you can expect over the coming weeks to see me do critiques of Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Returns, the reboot of the Spider-Man movies in The Amazing Spider-Man and Pixar’s first heroine-centric film Brave. I’ll also cover museum exhibitions of cartoon art, and stage versions of comics properties: I expect to write down my memories of seeing the infamous Spider-Man musical sooner or later. Sometimes I will delve into subjects that don’t belong in a column on comics, strictly speaking, if I can find some excuse. I’ve dealt with the classic television series Dark Shadows in the past, with the excuse that it has served as source material for comic books and comic strips over the decades, and plan to review Tim Burton’s controversial forthcoming film version. And I will sometimes critique non-comics works by writers who are also known for their work in comics or animation. So Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and overseer and sometime writer of Dark Horse’s Buffy comics, has been a recurring past topic in “Comics in Context,” notably in my critique of the start of his run writing Marvel’s Astonishing X-Men comic.
And that brings me to this week’s topic. As a prelude to writing about Whedon’s Avengers movie, I want to examine his other film that recently came out: the metafictional horror film The Cabin in the Woods, directed by Whedon’s longtime collaborator Drew Goddard, produced by Whedon, and co-written by both of them.
Publicity for the movie and many reviewers have cautioned that they dare not reveal any of the plot, apart from the basic premise of teenagers going to stay in a cabin in the woods where Bad Things happen, lest they give away the many plot twists and surprises. As a result I ended up somewhat disappointed, since there were fewer twists and surprises than this secrecy had led me to expect. There is one big casting surprise towards the end though, that I never saw coming and really liked.
But longtime “Comics in Context” readers know that I can’t do a thorough analysis of a story unless I deal with the whole plot. So consider this your spoiler warning, and let us proceed.
The first big revelation, which some reviewers have given away, is that the five hapless teenagers are being watched and manipulated by some mysterious high-tech organization, whose principal figures are played by actors Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins. There are echoes here of past Whedon projects, such as the Initiative in Buffy, the secret government operation – located beneath a university full of teens instead of a cabin hideaway for only five teens – that held monsters captive, who eventually escape and wreak bloody havoc. Then there’s the Dollhouse, in the TV series of the same name, a secret corporate organization that manipulates young people as if they were slaves. The high-tech organization in Cabin even includes actress Amy Acker in a lab coat, visually echoing her roles in Whedon’s Angel and Dollhouse.
Who is running this high-tech organization that seems to be experimenting on these victimized teens without their knowledge? If that question was answered in the film, I missed it. Was it the Big Bad Government or the Big Bad Corporation, both of which seem like cliches, albeit effective ones. As a Boomer who recalls the 1960s, I used to think of the Big Bad Government Agency as a bogeyman for the anti-establishment left wing. Chris Carter’s The X-Files did a great deal with the Big Bad Government Conspiracy, headed by the Cigarette-Smoking Man; heroes Mulder and Scully and their boss and ally Skinner seemed to be among the very few truly trustworthy people in the federal government in this series. The limitations of government intelligence and power became clearer in the post-9/11 period. I think it is now harder to imagine an X-Files-style all-powerful government conspiracy that succeeds in remaining secret from the public. The government isn’t that omnicompetent, and the bigger the supposed conspiracy, the more likely people are to talk. In watching 24 I began to think that the Big Bad Government might really nowadays be a bogeyman for the right wing, and maybe, in retrospect, The X-Files had played on such fears from the right. So nowadays we have a left wing that wants to expand the services of government, like through universal health care, and a right wing that insists on shrinking government and that government cannot operate as well as an less regulated free market. In the first X-Files movie we were told that FEMA was the means by which the Big Bad Government would take control of the country; this was before FEMA so famously blundered during Hurricane Katrina. Now in real life there are Republicans who claim that Obamacare is an attack on freedom.
What Whedon and Goddard have created in Cabin is a work of metafiction, in other words, a work of fiction about the creation of fiction. The five teen protagonists, isolated in a creepy house in the wilderness, beset by threats to their lives, are archetypal figures in an archetypal situation common to a large subgenre of contemporary horror films. Whedon and Goddard appear to be very much aware that they are bringing a different perspective to what have become contemporary horror film archetypes.
Hence, Whedon said in a recent interview for Salon: “‘Cabin in the Woods is, for me, a way of making the kind of movie that I love and at the same time making another kind of movie that I love. It’s a way of taking the cabin and – not blowing it up, but kind of exploding it. Not just enjoying it, but turning it over in your hand over and over and looking at it. I know that’s not a great sell, but that’s really what it is to me. If you take the premise, and then you take the idea that the premise is a premise – without losing the audience, without winking at them – how much can you do? How far can you take it?”
So the movie treats the “premise” as “a premise”: the scientists are creating a narrative, using their teen victims as their cast. The scientists put them into this horror movie scenario, watch how they react, and subject them to terrors that cause the teens to suffer and die. And it is indicated that the scientists do this over and over to different sets of young victims, thus staging this narrative, this drama, on a recurring basis.
The scientists, therefore, can be interpreted as stand-ins for the creators of horror films, who devise these fantasies in which young victims are subjected to suffering and death for the entertainment of the horror film audience. Take the analogy further, and the Whitford and Jenkins characters become stand-ins for Whedon and Goddard themselves, at least in part. In the Salon interview Whedon admits this: “Besides being lovely guys and great actors, Bradley and Richard represent a completely different kind of identification. We are them – and not just me and Drew, although specifically me and Drew – but they are the people who have chosen for what happens to happen.”
Moreover, the Whitford and Jenkins characters are not only the creators of the horrific story, but also its audience. They and the other members of their team watch what happens to the teens on large viewing screens, as if they were watching a horror movie in a theater or on television. One of the things that most struck me about the Whitford and Jenkins characters was how jaded and even bored they often look, watching these screens. They have apparently watched these horror scenarios they devise so many times that they are inured to the horror, and even the sexuality that they observe. Whitford’s character, for example, waits, seemingly bored, for one of the girls to perform that standard trope of such films, going topless, is disappointed when she doesn’t, and seems mildly relieved when she finally does but more as if he’s checking off a list than being actually aroused by the sight.
Portraying Whitford and Jenkins’ characters as audience implicates the film’s actual audience in their willingness to torment innocents for its supposed entertainment value. Whedon points this out to Salon as well: “And you, as the viewer, are the person who chooses that, if you have gone to see this movie. The act of walking into the movie makes you the one to see these people suffer. It does not happen if you do not watch.” The interviewer then compares the situation to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Agreeing, Whedon notes that “If you don’t go to the movie, maybe those kids have a really nice weekend.”
The real target of Cabin, it seems to me, is lack of empathy towards other people. Specifically, it is the lack of empathy by those in power towards those who are out of power, by establishment insiders towards outsiders, by the old towards the young. The scientists have no sympathy for their teenage victims, and no sense of identification with them; they make the kids suffer for the minimal entertainment it provides to their jaded psyches. They even take bets on the outcome. As far as they are concerned, the five teens are the Other, who exist merely to be destroyed in a demonstration of their power to manipulate events.
This too is an archetypal situation: human history is full of examples of one group in power tormenting a powerless group who serve as unwilling scapegoats. Take, for example, the Romans in the Colosseum taking enjoyment in seeing Christians thrown to the lions. Moreover, it strikes me that this theme of lack of empathy is particularly appropriate to the present day, with politicians campaigning to shred the social safety net, reduce the availability of medical care to the less prosperous, cut Social Security and Medicare for the elderly. Remember in one of the Republican presidential candidates’ debates when people cheered at the idea of letting someone without medical insurance die?
In Cabin Whedon and Goddard are questioning the motivations of horror film makers, and their audience, including themselves in both categories. Why do you take pleasure in seeing these young people suffer? Why do you enjoy seeing people killed off one by one?
Perhaps Whedon and Goddard point to a possible answer through the third act’s big twist. It turns out that the scientists are not just staging these horrific scenarios for their own perverse pleasure. Each of the five teens is revealed to be a representative of an archetypal figure: the Athlete, the Whore, Student, the Virgin, ad the Fool. Metafictionally speaking, these are character types in this horror subgenre. Moreover, the scientists’ repeated scenario of having menaces of different sorts attack and kill an isolated group of teenagers is revealed to be a ritual, that has presumably been enacted for millennia. Here Whedon and Goddard are indicating that they are not just dealing with the conventions of a certain type of horror film; they are showing that these conventions are actually modern versions of a mythic pattern involving similarly mythic archetypes. Thus this “cabin-in-the-woods” horror subgenre is a contemporary version of a mythic ritual of human sacrifice, in which the innocent young perish at the hands of dark forces.
According to Cabin, this ritual is conducted over and over in order to appease ancient H. P. Lovecraftian gods so they will refrain from destroying all of humanity. Does this have any figurative meaning with regard to Whedon and Goddard’s metafictional exploration of horror films? In this case I couldn’t find any clues in Whedon’s recent interviews. Perhaps, though, Whedon and Goddard are suggesting that horror films are the filmmakers’ and audience’s way of dealing with greater terrors than those the films evoke, such as the inevitability of mortality. We cope with our awareness and fears of death by watching inflicted on other people who are Not Us, while we remain safe, like Whitford and Jenkins’ characters watching on their screens.
At the end of Cabin, the two surviving protagonists decide to allow the Lovecraftian gods to exterminate humanity rather than keep playing the scientists’ game. Can the deaths of billions, the genocide of the human race, really be the preferable solution? The end of the film seems not a victory or restoration of order, but an expression of exhaustion: let the world die, give in to darkness.
As such, Cabin seems to me to be the most extreme step yet in the continuing darkening of Whedon’s work, ever since the latter seasons of Buffy. Whedon first won his devoted audience through the early seasons of Buffy, which succeeded in combining intense, operatic drama and genuine darkness with a compensating humor and optimism; Buffy was a tormented teen, doomed to be unhappy in love, and yet she was embarked on a heroine’s journey of empowerment, providing a source of hope. The Whedonverse has steadily grown darker and even more despairing at times. I followed Dollhouse but never truly found it appealing; Whedon’s trademark wit was absent or misfired, and the plight of the heroine, unaware of her true identity, manipulated as a slave and prostitute by her masters, seemed dismayingly unpleasant to watch, far removed from the heroism of past Whedon characters. In Cabin even though two protagonists defy the ritual and survive, hope and heroism are absent. (Anyway, the those two protagonists will only survive until the Lovecraftian monsters get around to killing them. too.)
I wonder if Whedon and Goddard’s revisionist take on horror films even loses its way in Cabin‘s third act. The movie ends with chaos, with monsters loosed from their cages, slaughtering everyone , including all but two of the principals. Blood is literally everywhere. If the filmmakers are questioning why the audience should enjoy watching people suffer and die, then why fill the end of the film with so much suffering and death? Whedon told Salon that he intends for the viewers to care about not only the teen protagonists but also even Whitford and Jenkins’ characters. But recall that he also noted that “Cabin in the Woods is, for me, a way of making the kind of movie that I love.” Maybe the love gets in the way of the critique at the end, since it ends in a universal bloodbath, and the film seems impassive towards the deaths of all the scientists. Just more bloody slaughter to entertain jaded moviegoers.
Telling The New York Times about his next project, a web series called Wastelanders,-created with Warren Ellis, Whedon said “”It’s very dark and very grown-up,” he said. “But it’s the next thing that I want to say, so I can’t worry about “˜Well, where’s the empowerment narrative that people love?’ “. So the journey into darkness continues. But will this affect the Avengers film, which I would like to think will ultimately be a celebration of the superhero genre?
Interestingly, Whedon told Salon about Cabin and Avengers, “There’s going to be the people trying to manipulate a situation and controlling it from above, and the people who are actually in the trenches. In that sense, Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers are oddly similar.” Later, he added, “I’m incredibly excited and proud of both of these movies and they have many similarities, but they really couldn’t be more different in so many ways It’s nice to be able to do that.” Well, after I get to see The Avengers movie, you may expect to see me compare and contrast it with Cabin here in “Comics in Context.”
Thinking about Cabin‘s critique of horror filmmakers;’ motives, I wonder if the same approach can be applied to superhero comics. Take the common contemporary trope of continually killing off long-running, beloved characters, sometimes horrifically (consider Supergirl’s demise in Crisis on Infinite Earths, for an early example). Usually the character is eventually resurrected, although readers may have to wait decades for this, as with the Silver Age Flash. Death and resurrection, real or symbolic, are part of the mythic hero’s journey, but how triumphant are many of these resurrections in contemporary comics? Indeed, more and more, these killings and resurrections seem to be devised as cynical ploys to appeal to the jaded palates of fans who have seen too many supposedly shocking scenarios in latter-day comics. Surely no one at Marvel really intended the recent demise of Captain America, whose body was then show decaying on panel, to be permanent, and yet readers fell for it, and even after Cap’s return, readers fell for the seeming demise of the Human Torch in yet another cynical scenario that inevitably resulted in his return. Sometimes I have found myself wondering about the mindset that devises these storylines. When did the superhero soap operatics that Stan Lee pioneered turn into this cold manipulation of heroic icons, dragging them through death and degradation for the entertainment of a generation of readers of “grim and gritty” comics? Are these iconic superheroes inspiring figures, or merely puppets manipulated into increasingly dark and despairing narratives by an industry desperate to keep sales from falling any further?
“Comics in Context” #241
Copyright 2012 Peter Sanderson
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I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
The Silver Age of the 1960s brought an explosion of creativity in the superhero genre that has not been equaled in it since; now, a half-century later the Marvel characters created during that decade are now conquering movie screens. But the Marvel revolution was only one aspect of the change in American comics in the 1960s, which also launched the underground comix movement which evolved into today’s alternative comics and graphic novels. And what happened in comics is only one aspect of the major revolution across popular and political and sexual culture that took place during the 1960s. I don’t think there has been as seismic a generational shift since. Just look at all the middle-aged people using computers and smartphones and social networking; the Boomers have proved to be adept at adopting new cultural developments.
Once again, far too many good films to see and so little time. That is including the documentaries, World Cinema and short films provided. I am hoping to follow up with some of them in the next couple of weeks. As for the festival itself; stars were in attendance starting with Academy Award winning actress, Marcia Gay Harden present for a tribute to her body of work. Michael Biehn (Terminator, Aliens and The Abyss) introduced his directorial debut with “The Victim”. Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down) popped in to greet everybody with his new film “Slumber Party Slaughter” and the festival had a host of filmmakers introducing their films as well.
Best Documentary was whisked away by “We Run Sh*t”. Directors, Michael Rogers and Scott Storm (star of last year’s “Official Rejection”) bring us an insane tale of five veteran event producers who plan a five day rave party in Miami only to have everything and anything go very, very wrong. Sex, drugs and music pervades a lurid tale of corruption in the club scene while platinum selling artists and spoiled celebrities are the nasty spice that no one in their right mind needs when their life is being threatened. Michael Rogers was the videographer throughout the event and the man is to be commended. He practically gave his life for this document of decadence. Scott Storm managed to not only piece it together and make sense of it, but he also provided the witty animation where no cameras were allowed to go.
The winner of Best Picture was a surprise to me, at first. I had seen the trailer of “Shuffle” several times and was not impressed, but upon my first viewing, like many others, I was wowed and reduced to tears. Director Kurt Kuenne gives us the best movie regarding time jumping since George Roy Hill’s interpretation of Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s, “Slaughterhouse-Five”. Kuenne, cast and crew give us a film that touches our heart and soul and makes us better for it while having us reflect on our own lives. Lovell Milo’s life is shuffling away. He keeps falling asleep and waking up at different ages; 28, 30, 8, 92 and so on. Lovell attempts to get a handle on what is going on and to what purpose. The mystery is suspenseful, funny and endearing with T.J. Thyne giving a very honest and empathetic performance, Paula Rhodes making us so very easily fall in love with her as Grace and the two children Dylan Sprayberry and Elle Labadie who play their young counter parts deliver the joys of youth in spades.
Watch this, buy this. Support horror comedy done right. There is something so fun about a movie that knows what it wants to be and embraces it fully.
This is a movie not for the timid.
It’s a true loss that Nat Hiken’s 
Even if you’re not steampunky, it’s hard to resist the charm of the positively beautiful 
I would say that 
The best way to describe the brilliant new stand-up special from the brilliant Paul F. Tompkins is that it’s an oral history of the career of comedian Paul F. Tompkins. Suffice to say, you would regret it for the rest of your days if you do not purchase 
The dandy scribe behind Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes, explores another slice of class warfare – this time historic – with the 4-part miniseries 
Have a little Jackie Gleason-thon in high definition this weekend with the Blu-Ray arrival of the guilty pleasure comedy 
Fox has released another of their star-specific DVD collections, this time bringing together 10 films for the 
The fine folks at Mill Creek continue to re-release seasons of a handful of TV classics for staggeringly rock-bottom prices you’d be foolish not to take advantage of. Included this time around are 
A movie lover who devoured old films, my grandmother would have loved if I had gifted her the dirt cheap, 12-disc genre sets Mill Creek has been releasing, mainly because each of those 12-disc sets – flicks of the 1950’s in 
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
If you only know him from Derrick Comedy or Community, you owe it to yourself to partake of Donald Glover’s first stand-up special 
Who doesn’t love being able to launch things at friends, foes, and family alike with their very own desktop catapult? Particularly when that desktop catapult launches safety-friendly foam balls? Well, that’s just what the 
Further closing the hole in fans’ complete collection of every episode, a pair of rather good Jon Pertwee 3rd Doctor stories – 
I’m delighted that my goof buddy Loren Bouchard’s brilliant 
While Meryl Streep is certainly wonderful in the role, it’s a shame that 
It’s one of those not-terribly-good releases that curious and completionist genre fans have been asking about for years, so they’ll be delighted to get 
Kudos to director Brad Bird for helming 
Just when you thought it was safe to assume that David Attenborough and the BBC’s nature documentary team couldn’t possibly top themselves comes the incredible beauty of 
Time for another soundtrack round up for all of you fans of cinematic scores – you know who you are. First up is David Arnold & Michael Price’s score from the BBC’s superb 
Kiddies and hipsters alike will rejoice at the release of 
While most of the talk has been about Michael Fassbender’s part in Steve McQueen’s 
As if Frozen Planet weren’t enough, another visually stunning nature documentary hits home video this week with 
Elmo gets supersized in 
Fans can pick up the 7th volume of Seth MacFarlane’s often overlooked other series, 
The adventures of Ben 10 come to a close with 
The second season of 
Dance your weekend away – or at least watch the master do it – with a pair of deep catalogue release from the Warner Archive Collection starring the great Fred Astaire – 
How about a clutch of new releases from the History Channel? On the good side, you have a pair of documentaries worth a look-see, with 
Here we are again, at long last. For those who came in late, as they say in The Phantom, I’m Peter Sanderson, and I’ve been writing about comics since I was a contributor to Silver Age DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz’s letter columns in the 1960s. After doing graduate studies at Columbia University, I planned to become a teacher, but got diverted into the comics business, where I researched and helped write the original DC Who’s Who and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Since then I became Marvel’s first archivist, taught about comics at New York University, helped curate exhibits at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York, worked on documentaries about comics, and write and co-wrote a lot of books about comics. There’s even a new one that is just coming out now. Years ago I reviewed the first edition of The Superhero Book, an encyclopedia of superheroes in comics, movies and television, edited by Gina Misiroglu. Years later, Gina invited me to help her revise and update the second edition, and I ended up writing lots of new entries and updating nearly all the rest. You can find the new edition on Amazon here: 
