I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.
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TERRIBLY HAPPY – REVIEW
You have to look at a performance by Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds in order to fully comprehend why Jakob Cedergren, who plays town cop Robert Hansen in Terribly Happy, deserves his own spot on the world stage.
Cedergren takes a character, an urban police offer who is exiled into a rural, remote village town after having a nervous breakdown, and twists it into a complex individual who has no predictability, no hints about what he’s going to do next. He’s thrilling to watch on screen as he is tasked with what ought to be a simple enough assignment: watch over a sleepy hollow where no one seems to even want official law enforcement. The town has its own rule of law, its own way of handling things, and Cedergren disturbs the natural order with his presence. He’s a cop who seems to engender not an ounce of intimidation or respect from the townsfolk but he does find a kindred spirit in a local woman who isn’t from around here, either, a woman with her own secrets.
The pastoral themes abound in a town that wants to keep its close knit community closed off from interlopers looking to change things and Cedergren is absolutely dynamic in a role that showcases his range, not only in ability, but in the way his character vacillates throughout the film. When we meet him he’s Superman, a hero who is absolute in his convictions and black and white-ness, but, by the end of the movie, as the town’s secrets slowly give up its dead, it’s Batman that takes over. By the third act moral ambiguity becomes the predominant theme, the line between what’s right and what’s wrong blurs in ways that haven’t been seen in modern cinema in some time.
Sure, to those who wonder whether director Henrik Ruben Genz’s film that deals with such ambiguity smacks of Cohen or Lynch-ian type of filmmaking would be right in postulating as such but that would be a disservice to a filmmaker who demonstrates his ability to craft a noir tale that does not relent. More importantly, Genz’s film is its own creation, living and breathing within this hermetically sealed world where oddity is subjective. For example, when we meet who is ostensibly the femme fatale of this thriller, Ingerlise (played by Lene Maria Christensen), she leans on Cedergren to help her escape her abusive husband Jørgen (Kim Bodnia). The outcome of what will be a face off between these two men will not only surprise you in its originality but will satisfy any filmgoer’s expectation to be entertained along with being jolted. The dark comedy that simmers below this film’s bleak palette is there but it exists only insofar in its subtlety. It won’t smack you or be ostentatious in order for you to recognize it but that’s the draw with filmmakers of this type. It makes you work for it but there is a payoff in the form of the movie’s themes.
Such a theme, like subjugation, looms large when you consider the movie deals a lot with the idea of drowning a town’s dark secrets in its bogs. Literally. Bogs play a symbolic role but, again, its use is done with intelligence, not obviousness.
The movie transcends its linguistic cadence that does take some getting used to but, once you give into how it is telling its story, the story is enveloping to the point of amazement. Amazement that this movie has flown underneath so many people’s radars because it offers so much sustenance to those hungry for a good story about a man who has to trade in some of his altruistic character in order to maintain some sense of normalcy in a town where absolutely nothing is normal.
$9.99 – DVD REVIEW
$9.99 is not your typical stop motion film.
There are no cutesy talking bears, no star-studded roster of actors who just happened to lend their voices to the main leads of the movie, and certainly it is not concerned with one singular tale. $9.99, a film from Tatia Rosenthal who based this film on a series of short stories by Etgar Keret, is a movie that deserves not only to be watched but deserves to be ruminated on.
The way this movie sets itself apart from any other animated film is that the subject matter it deals with packs enough wallop you wonder why little figures were used and not full sized actors. The meaning of life is something that is knocked around in other films but here it is dealt with head-on as all the vignettes that are told through its nearly 90 minute run time confront the notion of what is really the purpose of human beings. It’s heady to be sure but Rosenthal makes exquisite use of drama and the absurd in an ebb and flow fashion.
From grown adults who are trying to find love, one wants it from a gorgeous woman while the other is looking to get approval and love from his father, a lazy roustabout who needs some direction in his life, to a boy simply looking to save up for a shiny new toy, there are other stories in here which really try and push the boundaries for what you can put in a stop motion production. There are mature themes and elements, sex does manage to happen between two puppets, but it never feels like the medium is being used unnecessarily or in a way that seems exploitative. There is some genuine heart and soul put into these inanimate objects as they ruminate about what they are really after but what’s exceptional about this film is that Rosenthal manages to be emotionally affective with her presentation.
Real moments are shared between these voice talents that blend seamlessly with what we’re watching on the screen. While, yes, there are times that the animation takes away from what’s occurring on the screen there is nonetheless a world that’s created where you believe in the action happening before you.
Surely, if you are in need for a grown-up film that deals openly with what many think about every now and then in the quiet moments of our lives you could not do any better than $9.99. It’s a movie that provokes you to think, if only for a few moments, and in a movie landscape cluttered with treacle which leaves your system as quickly as it’s processed by your eyes this is movie is a wonder.
DEAD SNOW – DVD REVIEW
If you’re only able to see one movie that deals with Nazis and zombies this winter, you’ve got to check out Dead Snow.
Dividing audiences and critics alike, this movie, about resurrected zombies who terrorize a pack of individuals who find themselves holed up in a snowy cabin (isn’t that always the way) and a wily kook who tells these vacationers that evil abounds who is quickly dispatched in order to let the narrative take its eventual course, is a literal howl. Getting everything right about what makes a good splatterfest of gore and viscera, director Tommy Wirkola ought to be given some kind of Congressional Medal of Honor for having a clear vision of what he wanted to make and making it the way he did.
Yes, Nazis awake from their dead slumber and attack these youths in a way that is reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead tinged with an obvious nod to a movie like Evil Dead and Dawn of the Dead. The fast moving zombie debate is one that purists can go impale themselves on if they feel that animating dead tissue ought to be accompanied by slow movement. In Dead Snow I delighted with how Wirkola used his quick moving undead in order to keep the pace fast. The editing ought to be recognized as well for assisting in making this a movie that, once it starts, never lags.
The quality kills, however, are the real crowning achievement here. From brains, to guts, gnashing flesh, to torn limbs this movie achieves high marks for, even though it is low budget, managing to keep every penny up on the screen. Often times, in an age where there is a lot more modesty in horror films in the last decade, as an audience we have to fill in patches of action with our own idea of what’s happening. Here, however, nothing is left to the imagination and “Huzzah!” all around for the copious amounts of blood.
It’s obvious that the plot is not what you came here to see. However, writer Stig Frode Henriksen crafts a screenplay that doesn’t try too much nor tries to be anything more than what it is. What that is, however, is an absolute winner of a movie that not only gives you everything you expect out of a zombie film but, as the second disc of this DVD shows you, the production that went into this movie is just fascinating. To wit, a 45+ minute documentary that shows how these filmmakers brought Nazis back to life north of Norway is nothing if not educational.
BRAVE NEW FILMS 5TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION – REVIEW
In an interview I did with Henry Rollins a couple of years ago. While Henry was talking about the nature of information gathering and the level of news he consumed on a daily basis and the amount of reading he does that I started to feel inadequate as a citizen of this country in that I don’t feel like I’m plugged into what’s really happening out there. I kind of felt like a piece of plankton that’s at the mercy of the ocean’s current. I feel that way about a lot of things that happen in this country that I just feel resigned to because I work all day at a job and then come home and work at another job as a father. How am I supposed to know what is really brewing behind the twinkling lights of Washington D.C., how the slickly dressed and perfectly coifed talking heads on networks like Fox News are disseminating their information or what the Wal-Mart effect means to average people like myself? Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films collection is an excellent and highly recommended place for you to start getting answers.
That said, this 10 DVD collection ought to be bought for its scholastic and academic merit than it does its filmmaking. And it’s not that Greenwald’s 10 films are somehow poorly made, certainly nothing more could be further from the truth, but these documentaries are done with minimal flash and sizzle. Compared to a movie like Super Size Me you can see how editing and effects are like snapping fingers, things that are meant to hold your attention. These movies, in contrast, are no frills. You’ve got to take each one of these movies in stride, trying to jam through all of them in one sitting will make you feel angry, despondent, and thinking the world outside your door is not worth fighting for. Greenwald should be taken in doses. Anger goes a long long way and where Greenwald excels is getting his facts straight and his interpretations fleshed out. You do walk away from each one of these films more educated than you were before you started and for that alone these deserve your time and attention.
It’s the production values that make me want to educate buyers that what you are getting with these are not just documentaries that are trying to pick apart social issues that need some light and air on them but this is, honestly, a collegiate level course in Modern Civics. This is the best way to view a collection of movies that range from examining the Iraq war, to uncovering the seedy goings on of Fox News, what Wal-Mart is doing to America, and scads of other topics that are culturally relevant this is a compendium of knowledge that should be required viewing for anyone wanting to know more about the country they live in.
While there is some narrative bias in some of the reporting in these films the points raised in the films are sobering if not frightening. Finding out a lot more about the very things that we take at face value doesn’t always end well but getting to the point of raising your consciousness ought to be good enough incentive to take a look at this hefty collection.
ABOUT THE DVD RELEASE
NEW YORK, NY ““ For the last five years, Robert Greenwald and his production company Brave New Films have been at the forefront of the fight to create a just America. Using new media and internet video campaigns, Brave New Films has created a quick-strike capability that informs the public, challenges corporate media with truth, and motivates people to take action on social issues worldwide. Now, the team at Brave New Films has compiled virtually everything they’ve produced to date into a colossal, 10-disc box set. This must-have full access tool kit for every documentary filmmaker, activist organization and person who wants to use film and video to achieve social and political change will be released on January 26 by The Disinformation Company and will be available for $59.98SRP.
The New York Times has cited Brave New Films as an example of the growing influence of the internet on American politics, and from Real McCain and Sick For Profit exposés to calling out FOX News for its overt media bias and hard-hitting videos on social and economic injustices, Brave New Films’ groundbreaking online campaigns have revolutionized traditional grassroots politics. Using online video, bloggers, social networking sites and strategic partnerships with both national networks and local activists, Brave New Films reaches millions of people and gets results ““ fast.
Included in this comprehensive box set are ten dual layer discs containing 40 hours of video and film:
“¢Â   RETHINK AFGHANISTAN
“¢Â   UNCOVERED: THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR + all related antiwar shorts
“¢Â   OUTFOXED: RUPERT MURDOCH’S WAR ON JOURNALISM + all the “Fox Attacks” shorts
“¢Â   WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE + all related shorts and extras
“¢Â   IRAQ FOR SALE : THE WAR PROFITEERS + all the related shorts, Greenwald’s media appearances and more
“¢Â   The War on Greed: all the shorts including Henry Kravis, Fighting for Our Homes, Starbucks, Bank of America, Burger King and Sick For Profit
“¢Â   The Political Shorts including The Real McCain series, The Real Rudy, Lieberman Must Go and many others
“¢Â   This Brave Nation + many more activist shorts
“¢Â   Brave New Films focus with Arianna Huffington,
“¢Â   Larry Lessig, Sam Seder and more
Over 1,000,000 members strong and growing by the day, Greenwald has built the Brave New Films machine into an organization that can produce a hard-hitting three-minute video in less than 24 hours that exposes John McCain’s double talk and receives 8 million views around the world. However, they can’t create a nation of socially conscious activists alone. If you’ve ever been interested in fomenting change through the quickly evolving medium of film and the Internet, don’t miss THE BRAVE NEW FILMS 5TH ANNIVERSARY ACTIVIST COLLECTION.
One of the animated films nominated for an Academy Award this year is live action director Wes Anderson’s venture into stop-motion animation, Fantastic Mr. Fox. This is based on Roald Dahl’s children’s book, which draws upon the traditional characterization of the fox as a trickster, which goes back to Aesop’s fables and the European tales of Reynard the Fox. Other wild members of the dog family likewise have appeared as tricksters, notably the coyote in Native American mythology, and sometimes the wolf.
I think that even as a child I recognized that Top Cat was inspired by the TV series that was originally called You’ll Never Get Rich but was retitled The Phil Silvers Show, and familiarly known as Sgt. Bilko. When I first saw Top Cat, Phil SIlvers was still a prominent figure on television, and Bilko was in syndication. Bilko was Silvers’ signature role: a fast-talking sergeant in a motor pool on an army base who endlessly devised money-making schemes. Aided by his crew of corporals and privates, Bilko continually bamboozled authority figure Colonel Hall and numerous other dupes, and his plans often became elaborately successful before usually collapsing due to some twist of fate. (After all, the title was You’ll Never Get Rich.) Bilko was a classic example in pop culture of the comedic con man; W. C. Fields and Groucho Marx played variations on this sort of character in most of their films. Probably a major reason for Bilko’s success was his role as an army sergeant in a time when most of the adult men watching TV were veterans of either World War II or the Korean War: Bilko was their hero, defying the frustrations and limitations of military life they well remembered. 
Beyond that, Bilko was a mid-20th century version of an archetypal figure in comedy, the trickster. Top Cat is so appealing and memorable a character because he is such a well realized version of this perennial comic figure. (I have previously written extensively about tricksters in my “Comics in Context” columns about Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys, his novel on the subject.)
I did not have the chance to see this film while it was playing in the theaters but it made a decent amount of coin at the box office and I now have a few copies to give away for a few people who would like a chance to win one.
I deeply regret having to drag Robert Altman into this.
There’s no denying that this movie has had its setbacks. From delays to reshoots to the replacement of the editor, and original director, this film ought to have been a multi-million dollar, direct-to-DVD dud. Instead, what we have been given by director Joe Johnson is a movie that is paced quickly, has more than a few quality kills, has a story that isn’t completely insulting to the viewer, and is pure fun.
The great caricaturist David Levine, who passed away at the close of 2009, was the subject of a sad profile article, “
I began with a section on 
The picture of Lear also shows two of his young tormentors on either side of the trash can, berating him. These figures and their costumes remind me of characters that Sir John Tenniel might have drawn into his illustrations for the original editions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. As one of the great political caricaturists of the 19th century, Tenniel was an artistic forebear of Levine, and this portrait of Lear and two of his tormentors thus becomes Levine’s homage to Tenniel, making the stylistic influence of Tenniel on Levine clear. Most noticeably, Levine, like Tenniel, gives his subjects enormous, caricatured heads and tiny bodies.
I then turned to a section called “
Charles Laughton, in a portrait published February 15, 1990, seems to be depicted in his costume and persona as the wily but benevolent Senator Gracchus of ancient Rome in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960), with a toga, laurel wreath, and big, beaming smile. Of the many performances I’ve seen Laughton give in films, this is my favorite–perhaps it was Levine’s as well–with his U. S. Senator in Otto Preminger’s Advise and Consent (1962), a very similar part, as runner-up. Perhaps Levine chose to portray Laughton thus also as a tribute to his professional stature, as if he were a member of a pantheon of great actors in a classic tradition. Levine shows Laughton leaning on one arm, at ease, a pose that suits both Gracchus and one’s image of Laughton: so masterful at what he does that he made it look easy, and he can relax and enjoy himself.
In his portrait of Humphrey Bogart (May 18, 1972), Levine makes the gun he holds look tiny, but his bow tie look enormous. Bogart often wears bow ties in his later films, which, by today’s fashions, look rather peculiar. One might expect to see a tweedy academic wear a bow tie (yes, I used to, decades ago), but not the movies’ preeminent tough guy. But Levine chooses to emphasize another aspect of Bogart than the tough guy image. He draws Bogart with a particularly immense head, emphasizing his sad eyes, with slated eyebrows reinforcing this sense of sorrow. Levine emphasizes the crinkles beneath Bogart’s eyes, showing his age and perhaps weariness. Bogart’s lips, rather than tightly curling in a characteristic scowl, look loose and uneven, again like those of an aging man. Rather than show us Bogart’s familiar aggressiveness, Levine instead chooses to show us the vulnerability in Bogart’s screen character, the melancholy that is just as much a part of his familiar persona. Levine also thus reminds us that Bogart was not a young man when he became a true star, that, from High Sierra (1941) on, he played heroes in mid-life who were grappling with the choices they had made in life and aware of their mortality.
Levine’s picture of film director Ingmar Bergman from March 8, 1973, turns him into a deeply unhappy man the size of a child, cradled in the lap of a monumental woman. This is a satiric variation on a memorable image from Bergman’s then-new film Cries and Whispers (1973), in which the dying woman played by Harriet Andersson lies in the lap of the large woman who is her devoted nurse. That, in turn, seems to be an obvious allusion to Michelangelo’s Pieta, the statue of the dead Christ lying in the lap of his mother. Levine seems to be cleverly and cuttingly commenting on the way that Bergman poured out his emotional turmoil in his films and often, as in Cries and Whispers, made women his leading characters. Here Levine seems to be caricaturing Bergman as someone who hasn’t truly grown up, who is an emotional wreck who seeks solace from women he views as idealized mother figures. 
Levine’s portrait of Jerry Seinfeld, from August 14, 1997, at first looks wholly positive. Seinfeld looks directly at us, confidence in his eyes and grin, and he seems to be standing in a relaxed position, one leg crossed over the other. But his arms are folded in front of his chest, a classic defensive gesture. Does this mean that the crossing of his legs is likewise defensive? Is Levine signaling that Seinfeld’s public image as extroverted comedian is a public facade, and that he is hiding the true self from us?
Levine presents Richard Burton in an April 27, 1989 drawing playing one of his most famous stage roles, as Hamlet. But Burton is posed standing precariously with one foot atop a skull–presumably that of the jester Yorick–while holding a bottle, signifying Burton’s notorious alcoholism. So Levine presents Burton as trying to strike a similarly precarious balance between his artistic achievements and his flaws. Did Burton succeed? Or did he reduce his career as an arguably great classical actor to something akin to a jester doing a balancing act? He gives Burton a wistful, yearning look, like that of a young man searching for his artistic goal, or like Hamlet himself, but gives Burton oddly empty-looking eyes, with mere dots for pupils, as if Burton’s artistic vision is clouded by an alcoholic haze. Yorick’s skull is one of the most memorable images of mortality in literature. By having Burton stand atop Yorick’s skull, Levine likens him to Yorick as well as Hamlet, while reminding the viewer of Burton’s own early demise.
Levine’s portrait of Fred Astaire from Nov. 29, 1993, is a prime example of his technique of drawing contradictions. Astaire looks old, but he has a big, happy smile, and extends one arm gracefully outward; the top half of his body is still. Beneath the waist Levine shows multiple images of legs, as if Astaire is moving in a frenzy. And there is the paradox: serenity coexisting with speed. Astaire is dancing with a female partner, whose face is concealed, but has lots of what seems blonde hair, and who wears a long gown. She has many, many feet, so she too is moving at great speed, though, significantly, she does not raise them as high as Astaire. Her hair and costume and speed suggest Ginger Rogers, but by hiding her face Levine makes her into every dance partner Astaire ever had, while making clear that Astaire is the dominant figure in the partnership and the portrait.
Levine’s method of portraying contradiction and contrast is very apparent in his October 21, 1982 caricature of Louise Brooks, a star of silent films an early talkies, most famously in G. W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box (1929), whose acting career plunged into oblivion, but who resurfaced late in life as a talented memoirist. Levine pictures her as virtually naked, but crossing her arms over her bust, an exhibitionist but vulnerable, part of her still modest. Levine gives her her trademark hairdo but huge, sad eyes, as if she is distressed at her typecasting as sex symbol. 
Levine clearly likes Preston Sturges, the writer and director of such great and classic comedies as The Lady Eve (1941), Sullivan’s Travels (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944). Levine gives Sturges an impish look through his eyes and smile, indicating the wit and high comedic spirits of his films, puts him in a suit with wide lapels, and puts what may be a traveler’s scarf or a well-dressed man’s ascot around his neck, and has him carrying a bag at the end of a stick, a classic prop for a hobo. This probably refers to the film often considered Sturges’ best, the seriocomic Sullivan’s Travels, whose film director protagonist spends time living as a homeless tramp to study the dark side of life and ends up discovering the importance of comedy to lift people’s spirits in hard times. so Levine thus casts Sturges as Sullivan. Perhaps Levine was also hinting at the collapse of Sturges’ short, brilliant filmmaking career, and suggesting that the wit of his comedies nonetheless lives on. This image certainly casts Sturges as the artist/comedian as outsider, able to take a comic perspective from being an outsider. Levine’s Sturges as tramp is thus more typically Chaplinesque than Levine’s own aforementioned portrait of Chaplin.
But then there are the people whom Levine clearly did not like. Levine’s his March 6, 1997 portrait of John Wayne casting him in his iconic cinematic image as western gunfighter, but disturbingly alters that image. Under grim eyes; Wayne smiles, but that smile hardly seems benevolent. Instead Wayne’s expression looks disconcerting and ominous, and his face seems distorted in some way that is hard to define. Was Levine portraying the John Wayne of The Searchers (1956), in which he played a dangerous, obsessed figure? Or was this the leftist Levine’s comment on Wayne’s real life right wing politics? 
The most devastating of these portraits is that of Leni Riefenstahl, director of the infamous Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will (1934), who lived to be 101 years old, spending the last half of her life downplaying her allegiance to the Third Reich. In his Feb. 6, 1975 picture of her, drawn while she was still very much alive, Levine portrays her with a fanatical look, a disconcertingly fixed smile, and snakelike locks of hair, as if she were a modern Medusa, holding a camera, garbed in a Nazi uniform, sitting atop a pile of skulls.
This is reminiscent of Levine’s most biting caricatures of presidents, which you can find 
And then there is perhaps Levine’s most famous caricature, from May 12, 1966, inspired by the incident when Lyndon Johnson revealed his operation scar to reporters: Levine turned the scar into the shape of Vietnam. This is an indictment of Johnson’s role in the war, which had metaphorically become part of him, but it also shows a certain sympathy for him: the Vietnam war had become his self-inflicted wound. Caricature is usually thought to work by reducing a figure to a comedic figure, but Levine’s work at its best portrayed his subjects in their complexity, mixing comedy with pathos and even tragedy. 
I firmly believe that nostalgia is wasted on the old.
During my lengthy leave of absence from writing “Comics in Context,” the 
Maybe Famous was attempting to have Herman mimic Bugs Bunny: Mel Blanc, who originated Bugs’s voice, claimed it was a combination of Brooklyn and Bronx accents. So Bugs Bunny is a wisecracking, feisty, sharp-witted New Yorker, transplanted by director Tex Avery in the first true Bugs Bunny cartoon, A Wild Hare (1940), into the woods. Only occasionally do the Warners cartoons make it explicit that Bugs is a New Yorker, as in Friz Freleng’s A Hare Grows in Manhattan (1947), which recounts his growing upon the Lower East Side. Herman has an even stronger New York accent. Famous Studios originated as the legendary Max Fleischer animation studios, which Paramount took over. Apart from a relatively brief sojourn in Florida, the Fleischer and Famous Studios were based in New York City, so it makes sense that Famous would develop a character who was clearly a New Yorker. 
Roger Ebert recently 
You’ve just got to put yourself back into the frame of mind in order for this to work.
I am a man of simple pleasures.
What made a movie like this so unique when compared to seeing Ti West’s House of the Devil in the same week is that here are two movies that get it right. While one is a distillation of everything that made old school horror such a hoot Pontypool proves that you can fast forward your time machine, Doc Brown, and enjoy the stylings of an artist that knows how to make 21st century horror cool again.
The long-awaited release of Universal Studios’ 2010 version of The Wolfman conjures the history of the men who made the original horror films at the studio in the 1920s through the 1940s. Not only was the original 1941 film The Wolf Man key among them, but the rich history of the other films is directly tied into both why and how that film was created.
For the Waggner Wolf Man film, slated as a B-picture by the Universal brass, Pierce and Fulton knew that they had an opportunity to create a unique project that would harken back to the old Laemmle years at the studio. In Chaney, they had the hulking physical actor who could be used to realize their ideas. With The Wolf Man, Kent, along with major contributions by studio mainstays Pierce and Fulton, created the film’s showpiece “transformation” sequences which became standard fare in the many spin-offs that followed. Witness the lap dissolves that Kent and Fulton implemented for transformations from man to wolf, and especially, in the film’s tragic climax, from wolf back to man. Kent also cleverly orchestrated the noted end of the film where Claude Rains unknowingly beats his own son with a silver-tipped cane, later realizing that it was his own flesh that he killed. In their tussle, an especially marked cut to a close shot of Chaney, Jr. as the Wolf Man struggling with Rains makes for one of the film’s most fascinating moments.
In my childhood I ignored Little Lulu comics: since a little girl was the title character, I probably assumed they were for little girls, and not me. But as a middle-aged adult I became increasingly aware that Little Lulu comic book stories by the the late writer/artist John Stanley (1914-1993) were considered classics. 
I must say I was startled by the Stanley stories in Classic Children’s Comics. Take the first one in the collection, “Five Little Babies,” by Stanley and Tripp from Marge’s Little Lulu #38 (1951). (As usual, I hereby issue a spoiler warning, since my critical essays discuss stories in detail.) Snotty rich kid Wilbur Van Snobbe is boasting to Tubby and other boys about his supposed irresistible appeal to girls. He claims that he could even get the feisty Lulu (who, as the other boys point out, hates him) “to do anything I wanted,” and, getting carried away, declares that he could make her follow him around on her hands and knees as if she were a dog. Wilbur makes a bargain with the boys that if he can actually get Lulu to do this, they will admit him to their club. Stanley leaves it to his young readers to note his subtle ironies. Although Wilbur started out in this story by playing a trick on Tubby and the other boys, and boasts how all girls are attracted to him, he is probably actually rather lonely, since he really wants to be a part of Tubby’s club. Moreover, although Tubby and his pals do not believe Lulu will do what Wilbur wants, none of these boys seems to think there is anything wrong in Wilbur getting girls to humiliate themselves; in fact, they are all quite amused by the idea. (When we are shown their clubhouse a few pages later, it bears the graffiti “No Girls Allowed.”) So much for Wilbur’s self-proclaimed image as a ladies’ man: he really doesn’t seem to think of girls as more than status symbols he can manipulate. 
I am also struck by Stanley’s pacing. For example, he could have easily cut from Wilbur’s first encounter with the boys to his conversation with Lulu, without taking the time and space to show him going home to fetch the collar and leash in between these two events. The action in this story is continuous, without any editing, as if this were a film sequence done all in one take. It’s decompressed storytelling done right, since Stanley keeps the action going throughout. Nor is there a narrator, interposing himself between the readers and the characters. It’s as if the readers is watching it all happen for real, without a break or pause, right in front of them; this must be part of the appeal of Stanley’s stories for children. 
There is no crow in Aesop’s “The Fox and the Grapes,” which recounts a fox’s vain efforts to get hold of grapes high on a tree. (Spoiler warning: as usual I will discuss stories, including their endings, in detail.) Tashlin introduced the Crow, who tries to steal food from the Fox’s picnic spread. The Fox angrily retaliates by giving the Crow a hotfoot. The Crow then finds the fable of the Fox and the Grapes in a book and decides to restage it. He hangs a bunch of grapes on a tree branch high above the ground, and offers to trade them for some of the Fox’s picnic food. Though immediately obsessed with the grapes, the Fox refuses. So the Crow then watches placidly as the Fox makes repeated and ever more elaborate attempts to reach them, all of which backfire on him. Chuck Jones is said to have cited Tashlin’s The Fox and the Grapes as an influence on his Roadrunner-Coyote series.
Now the Crow, who usually keeps his cool and control of the situation, becomes flustered and angry. On page 1 he was complimenting himself on how quickly and easily he comes up with new ideas; now he realizes that he has just been recycling old ones. The Crow is suffering from something similar to writer’s block: after all, his schemes are what usually drive the comics stories he and the Fox appear in. He quickly concocts a new trick, and it nearly works, but the Fox sees through it. Now the Crow worries that he is in effect over the hill in his chosen profession of con artist: “If I fail now, I’m t’rough! Washed up! Finished!” He’s like a creative figure going through a midlife crisis.
LEVI: So it was right around the corner from where the convention was and Adam and I had a panel on Saturday. We already talked about Chuck and we were supposed to have another panel with another actor who didn’t end up making the convention so it was just going to be me. And I said I didn’t want to just sit up there and say the same things so I said, “Hey, instead of me just talking, who wants to go walk over to Subway and have some sandwiches?”
LEVI: I think that A) it is the element that Chuck is one of them and I feel partly that like Josh and I, we are Chuck and Morgan, not entirely, but when we say we’re gamers, we are genuine gamers. And I think that there is an honesty that comes through in that and that’s not a pat on our back by any means but certainly I feel like the audience feels less duped. I feel like they get to watch the characters and feel like that these guys are like that too. They are on Xbox and like comic books ““ so on a personal level I think they are invested in us too which I think is a really awesome thing. But then on top of that I think it’s an entertaining show and speaks to the fanboy and fangirl. We nod to and allude to, not rip off”¦
LEVI: We’ve already seen some changes and those changes have all been kind of monetary, budget restricting changes which is across the board, really. Some shows didn’t come back at all because they just couldn’t work it on with the budget or they were already on season 7 and it’s like…look, Without a Trace for example was in the top 10 shows or something and it didn’t come back. That was making huge numbers and far bigger numbers than us. So across the board, studios, networks, everybody feels it so I, as tough as it is sometimes, would be like, “Come on, give us a little bit of love.”
I am a huge fan of Lost. And when they hit ““ I thought second season was fantastic. The first half of the third season, had maybe writer changes, but you are not getting the mythology, not getting questions answered, just more and more questions, but not questions at all, just day to day living and I’m like, “Come on, what’s going on?’ And then they went on hiatus and came back and the second half of the third season was some of the best television I ever saw in my entire life. I was like, “YES, here’s my show.” And I felt good because I didn’t give up, I could have, but I didn’t and you feel good that you stayed and it’s still to me the best show on TV. I love Lost. I can’t wait to find out what’s going to happen. I’m dying.
Bitch Slap – Giveaway
One insult after another with nary a punchline to be found.
Youth In Revolt, in contrast, only suffers from being too well-written.
CS: One of the things that marked this year, this season, for Chuck was the number of people who came out wanting to be sure the show was saved from the network chopping block. What was your take on how that swell started? I know a lot of people in your position would say “There’s nothing we can do about it” but what was it like to have all those people come out and say, “Please save the show?”
The rubber has got to meet the road somewhere. And so that, mixed with a couple other variables, allowed us to come back for a 3rd season. I think it’s really kind of blazed a trail and I think if network television is going to survive in this new DVR, internet, downloadable world, why not like that? Why not just have one main sponsor and harken back to what TV used to be? How about Borax? I don’t know. But as long as it’s an easily consumable product. Unfortunately for car makers, you can’t be a Toyota and hope that people will go buy a Civic, or a Celica, I mean. All of that combined to create a perfect storm of this is really happening. It was weird because at first your pride takes a hold a little bit. You think, “Why aren’t we picked up? We are a good show and critics like us, a lot of critics love us, our fans love us, and yes, we only do 7 million live but there’s a number 5 if you count all the DVRs and download and DVD purchases. That’s a lot of people. Right?”
Sita Sings the Blues – Quick Review
With no hesitation or hyperbole I can state that Inglorious Basterds was in my top 5 films of 2009. This movie could have been released on DVD without so much as any promotion as it certainly doesn’t need my help in saying how utterly brilliant it was.
Ok, I am not going to posture and say that Angel is my favorite magician of all time.
So, I don’t know much about this film and won’t purport to know different so whether it’s a decent direct to DVD film or if it’s another tired entry into this series. But, I do know Eugene Levy is back again so that has to count for something, right?
CHRISTOPHER STIPP:Â Dave?
CS: That’s what’s amazing that these guys, most of the people you were in with, do have long resumes. They’ve done one shot here, one shot there but they’ve done a lot of productions but like you said, they are not household names but they are good at what they do.
