THOMAS (HANKS) CROWNE AFFAIR

NEW IN THEATRES...

* Larry Crowne. This weekend, you can watch cars transform into robots, or you can let Tom Hanks transform your cold, dead heart into something living again. Your call.

UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

* People on Sunday, a who's who of German ex-pat directors make their first feature back in their home country. This 1930 film is wonderfully restored and not to be missed.

THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...

* BLAST!, a science documentary about sending a telescope up into the sky on a balloon to look at the stars.

* Eight Iron Men, a WWII variation on the "chamber room drama" that never quite takes off. From Edward Dmytryk and Stanley Kramer.

* The Goddess, Paddy Chayefsky wrote this thinly veiled portrait of a Marilyn Monroe-type actress, played by Kim Stanley. Interesting, if not entirely successful.

* The Herculoids: The Complete Series, the bizarro '60s cartoon comes to DVD.

* The Man in the Net, starring Alan Ladd, directed by Michael Curtiz. Read the review that one fan called "a classic example of...uninformed arrogance" and inspired him to suggest I "take up something else to while away your time or attend a junior college film class."

* New York, New York, Martin Scorsese's notorious 1977 musical mash-up of new and old styles, starring De Niro and Minnelli.

* The Romantic Englishwoman, Joseph Losey directing a Tom Stoppard script about Glenda Jackson's aching loins. And Michael Caine yells a lot.

* Spectacle: Elvis Costello with...Season 2, a second go-around with the maestro.

* Vera Cruz, Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper shoot up Mexico in a film by Robert Aldrich.

Current Soundtrack: The Warlocks, Enter at Your Own Skull, vol. 1 - 18 tracks, $5 - get it now!


e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich

IMAGE FANTOME: SUMMER MOOD

Nico has drawn this super cute promo image to kick off the summer.

The Spell Checkers have hit the beach, and these witches don't burn!

We're going over lettering on volume 2 right now, so it's off to the printer soon. Order now, get the book in September.

Spell Checkers vol. 2: Sons of a Preacher Man from Oni Press.

Current Soundtrack: The Rolling Stones, "Good Time Woman"

MOVIN' RIGHT ALONG



This past weekend, my friend Robert Fortney (who also snapped the above photo) and I took a road trip down to Coos Bay, Oregon, to see the second-ever live performance of Mike Allred's band The Gear. We then hung out at Mike's house and enjoyed that famous Allred hospitality. (So much French Toast!)

Bobby was driving, and our trip was going to be over 3 hours, so I made a 3-hour, 23-minute road trip mix, with an ear towards propulsive rhythms and choosing songs that had some sort of thematic connection to travel, running, the sun, freedom, etc.

52 songs in all. If anyone wants to try to rebuild it themselves, here is the full track listing.

1. Nigel Godrich - "Universal Theme"
2. Bat for Lashes w/ Beck - "Let's Get Lost"
3. Cee-Lo Green - "What Part of Forever (Remix)"
4. Primal Scream - "Loaded (Single Version)"
5. Jim Reid - "And Your Bird Can Sing"
6. The Beatles - "Free As a Bird"
7. Spiritualized - "Run (single version)"
8. The Troggs - "Any Way That You Want Me"
9. Pink Floyd - "Apples and Oranges"
10. The Trash Can Sinatras - "Oranges and Apples (Single)" [a tribute to Syd Barrett]
11. Low - "Fearles" (a Pink Floyd Cover)
12. Cat Sevens - "Wild World"
13. The Rolling Stones - "I Am Waiting"
14. The Kings - "Powerman"
15. Broken Bells - "The High Road"
16. Suede - "Europe Is Our Playground" [Best of version]
17. Morrissey - "Moonriver (2011 - Remaster)"
18-19. Frankie Goes to Hollywood - "Fury [Ferry Across the Mersey]/Born To Run"
20. One Dove - "White Love (Radio Mix)"
21. The Style Council - "Everything To Lose (Blue Remix/Extra Demo)"
22. The Divine Comedy - "A Woman Of The World"
23. Dum Dum Girls - "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"
24. Alex Turner - "Piledriver Waltz"
25. Elvis Costello - "I Can't Stand Up (For Falling Down)"
26. Sam & Dave - "I Can't Stand Up"
27. Wanda Jackson - "Let's Have a Party"
28. Gorillaz - "Stylo (Alex Metric Remix)"
29. Scissor Sisters - "Invisible Light"
30. Cee-Lo Green - "Fuck You"
31. Harry Nilsson - "You're Breakin' My Heart"
32. The Who - "I Can See For Miles"
33. David Bowie - "I Can't Explain"
34. Wire - "Three Girl Rhumba"
35. Pulp - "The Professional"
36. Super Furry Animals - "Juxtaposed With U"
37. Cults - "You Know What I Mean"
38. Christina Aguilera - "Woohoo - Feat. Nicki Minaj"
39. Kanye West - "Monster (featuring Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj & Bon Iver)"
40. Nicki Minaj - "Girls Fall Like Dominoes"
41. A Tribe Called Quest - "Can I Kick It"
42. The Velvet Underground - "Ride Into The Sun"
43. Ride - "Twisterella"
44. Otis Redding & Carla Thomas - "Tramp"
45. The Supremes - "Run, Run, Run"
46. Dusty Springfield - "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes"
47. Marvin Gaye - "Hitch Hike"
48. My Chemical Romance - "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)"
49. Arctic Monkeys - "The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala"
50. New Order - "Krafty"
51. Depeche Mode - "Free"
52. Geneva - "Have You Seen the Horizon Lately? (Aloof Mix)"

***

And don't forget, you too can see the Gear playing at the Tr!ckster event during Comic Con!

Current Soundtrack: The Band, Greatest Hits

MYSTERIES FLASHING AMBER GO GREEN WHEN YOU ANSWER

NEW IN THEATRES...

* Green Lantern. You will believe that space can be realllllly boring. And Earth. And everything else.

* Submarine, a quirky, heartfelt coming-of-age drama set in Wales.

* The Trip, Steve Coogan on a very funny roadtrip with his pal Rob Brydon. Directed by Michael Winterbottom.

Portlanders can catch The Trip at Cinema 21.

Also opening in Portland this weekend is the Italian film The Double Hour, an excellent crime drama I reviewed at PIFF.

UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

* Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold's portrait of a girl struggling with growing up to fast.

Might make an interesting double-feature with Submarine, actually.

THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...

* Despair, a Vladimir Nabokov adaptation from writer Tom Stoppard and director Rainer Werner Fassbender, starring Dirk Bogarde. And it's as weird as that combination would suggest.

* Laila, a silent Norwegian epic from 1929.

* Public Speaking, Martin Scorsese's documentary about author Fran Lebowitz. Engaging and funny.

Current Soundtrack: various B-sides and sessions from Pains of Being Pure at Heart


e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich

ME & MOEBIUS DOWN BY THE SCHOOLYARD

Comic Con fast approaches. This year, hotels and badges sold out at a record speed. Servers crashed just trying to deal with demand.

Once upon a time, this was not so. Whether this is good or bad is a larger debate, but to illustrate how different it once was, I offer you this item from my first ever San Diego Comic Con attendance.

That's a poster for the Marvel/Epic reprint series of Moebius comics. This line was released in 1987, which is when I got the poster. I was 15. I had never read Moebius, but he was well known, everyone was aware of his work. This was a time when Heavy Metal magazine was still sold at convenience stores, and everyone my age had a friend who had an older brother who read Heavy Metal--and usually did so inside a van with a Frank Frazetta painting on the side.

I didn't go to the show planning to meet Moebius. My list of must-sees were the Pander Bros., Dave Stevens, Art Adams, Matt Wagner, and the like. All of which I had hunted down, and so at some point, I started wandering the aisles seeking what was there to find. Down one random aisle, flanked by booksellers and T-shirt displays, Moebius sat all by himself. I don't know if he was with Marvel or a book dealer or just had his own table, but there was this white-haired man with glasses just sitting there, no line, no one in front of him, nothing. I looked at his stuff, saw the free posters, asked to get one signed.

He obliged.

Such promotional techniques worked, in so much as I bought the first Epic volume. I didn't much care for it, so never bought the rest. But that's just the part I tell at parties to shock people.

The memory baffles me to this day. How had the most famous international artist in our industry get hidden away down a side corridor in the convention hall, like a point on a scavenger hunt. "Find Moebius, win a prize!" When was the last time he even set foot through the doors of the San Diego Convention Center? And when he did...did anyone notice?

By the way, I didn't smudge the signature, he did. See the spotting around the "to" and at the end of my name? As you can see, the poster folded multiple times, it was not rolled. Moebius opened the first flap, signed the poster with his silver pen, and immediately flopped it closed again, not even waiting for it to dry. Maybe he sensed I was wasting his time and was punishing me, I have no idea. I remember grabbing the artifact in a panic and opening it back up again to minimize damage. You'd think a cartoonist would know how ink and paint worked!

Current Soundtrack: Hercules & Love Affair, "Painted Eyes;" Asobi Seksu, "All Around" and remixes of "Trails"

ALL THE ISLANDS IN THE OCEAN, ALL THE HEAVENS IN THE MOTION

NEW IN THEATRES...

* Beginners, Mike Mills' exploration of mortality, love, and depression will catch you off guard. Naturally quirky and moving, it stars Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, and Melanie Laurent.

* The Tree of Life, in which Terrence Malick wrestles with the universe, the All Father, and all fathers.

UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

* Insignificance, Nicolas Roeg's historical fiction about the night Marilyn Monroe could have met Albert Einstein. (Also at DVD Talk)

* The Makioka Sisters, a soft Japanese drama about four siblings dealing with life, love, and an uncertain future just before World War II. (Also at DVD Talk)

THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...

* Carancho, an Argentinian twist on crime and romance, from the people who brought us Lion's Den.

* Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, a mixed bag of an animated film showcasing the Green Lantern Corps. Kind of for fans only, methinks.

* Marriage Italian Style, a strangely dark, yet intriguing, romantic "comedy" from Vittorio De Sica, reteaming Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.

* Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour, a concert documentary about the influential feminist punk band. The DVD includes a ton of great bonus features.

Current Soundtrack: Depeche Mode, Tour of the Universe: Barcelona 20/21.11.09 Blu-Ray



e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich

JUST ANOTHER TR!CKY SATURDAY FOR YOU

Tr!ckster plans are starting to come to fruition. One of the big things the team is putting together is workshops and Symposia so that attendees can get some professional information a little more valuable than the latest movie trailer or a slide show of comics covers that will be available on the internet five minutes later.

Full information and how to get tickets is on the Tr!ckster website.

I'm going to be involved on Saturday, joining Mike Allred, Greg Rucka, and Larry Marder for Symposium 5.

SYMPOSIUM 5:
Saturday, 7/23/11, 1:00PM to 3:00 PM
BUILDING A CREATOR-OWNED CREATIVE TEAM
Featuring storytellers MIKE ALLRED, LARRY MARDER, GREG RUCKA, JAMIE S. RICH, and more TBA
Writing a story is hard enough, but finding the visual pairing to help express the story to its fullest can be pivotal in crafting your work. The right combination of exposition and dialogue with the perfect set of sequential images make for excellent, memorable storytelling in comics and children’s books. Join in with acclaimed writers and the artists they’ve worked with as they explore how the creative team, and the creative process, come to fruition.

PERFECT FOR: writers and artists hoping to make comics as a team.

This is, obviously, a topic I know more than a little something about.

I'm considering also making a minicomic to sell at conventions collecting the three short stories Joëlle Jones and I did for Popgun. Is there interest in such a thing? Would people buy it? I'm serious with this question. It's a lot of money to pull together, so I toss this out there just to see if anyone responds.

Current Soundtrack: Kaiser Chiefs, The Future is Medieval -- the new record, build it yourself at their website

IMAGE FANTOME: SHE WAS WORKING AS A WAITRESS IN A COCKTAIL BAR

Today's preview art from Dan Christensen. He wanted me to look over her outfit. Love my job!

Current Soundtrack: A Tribe Called Quest, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

FREAKS OF THE INDUSTRY

NEW IN THEATRES...

* 13 Assassins, samurai slaughter from Takashi Miike.

Playing Portland at Cinema 21 starting this weekend.

* Midnight in Paris, everything old is new again in Woody Allen's delightful return to form.

* X-Men: First Class: Hey, man, that's a groovy mutation, but the movie's kind of a piece of crap.

THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...

* The Cocoanuts, yuck it up with Los Bros. Marx in their 1929 debut.

* Man from Del Rio, starring Antony Quinn as a Mexican sheriff in a racially progressive 1950s western.

* Never Apologize, Malcolm McDowell's one-man show in remembrence of director Lindsay Anderson.

* Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, a trio of themed stories from director Vittorio De Sica and actors Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren.

Current Soundtrack: Depeche Mode, "Personal Jesus 2011" remix EP; Bar-Kays, Soul Finger




e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich

RIOT ON AN EMPTY STREET

Just goes to show, it’s always bad when you don’t take your own advice.

For a while now, whenever the idea of me trying to get work from the big superhero publishers has been mentioned, my reason for not trying very hard to do it has always been, “I don’t want to be the guy who spends months working on a Blue Beetle proposal, only to find out they’re going to kill him.” A joke I must have come up with around the time of 52.

Well, no joke, I ignored that thinking and decided to work on some proposals earlier this year. Not out of any expectation that I’d get the specific books greenlit, but that I could create showpieces for myself and maybe parlay that into other work. To play it safe, however, I decided not to get obscure with my character choices but instead to monkey with some mid-level perennials that weren’t likely to go anywhere. That’s always the hardest thing, you see, and the first question any editor will ask you: what characters do you want to work on? It drives me nuts. I lean toward a joke from an old pre-fame Johnny Depp movie called Private Resort. Johnny claims to be a doctor, pretty girl asks Johnny, “What kind of a doctor are you?” Suave eyes, suave reply: “What kind do you need?”

Tell me what you're looking for, I will tell you if I can delivery, but let's not play a guessing game.

In doing this, I honestly thought what would likely happen was that, since I was pitching with Joëlle, that she’d get a gig out of these efforts (because how could she not?) and I’d have some plots I could recycle elsewhere. Because between the two of us, I know which one I’d hire.

Well, I suppose DC rebooting their entire line is the reason I can tell myself for why no one ever returned any of my e-mails. Even mid-level perennials have been unplugged and plugged back in again. Too bad. Now you’re even less likely to see the already unlikely Power Girl/Supergirl team-up by myself and Joëlle Jones.

This isn’t a pity party, nor am I looking for positive reinforcement or showings of support. Just sharing mildly interesting anecdotes from my freelance life.

By the way, it doesn’t always work even when you try to fulfill a specific need. For a while, I had the ear of an editor who had a particular property I was interested in, and I kept looking for ways to pitch fill-ins or spin-offs, stuff the guy might actually have a use for. Every time I thought I had a great idea, I’d send it in. He tended to agree that it was good stuff...only I was working with a status quo that was about to change. You know, they were about to (metaphorically) kill Blue Beetled. Always a step or two behind.

So, yeah, mistakes I likely won’t make again anytime soon.

Current Soundtrack: Brian Eno guest DJing on "All Songs Considered"

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich

IMAGE FANTOME: WHY OH WHY PRETEND?



Natalie Nourigat calls this "My favorite panel from this chapter."

Chapter of what? Mysterious!

(By the way, pretty sure that's the same girl that's in her blog header. More mysterious!)

Current Soundtrack: Suede, "Everything Will Flow" CD2

THE INTENSE HUMMING OF EVIL

This week, I did a capsule review of Shoah for the Portland Mercury. Shoah is having some rare public showings at the NW Film Center. The 9 1/2-hour documentary about the Holocaust is a rightly revered historical record, telling the story of death camp survivors in a straight-forward manner. The details are harrowing as they are, they require no embellishment, just the human voice to relate the facts. Seeing Shoah was a large inspiration for Steven Spielberg to make Schindler's List (a movie I personally think is fantastic).

You can read what the Mercury printed here.

I like how it turned out, though it's particularly no-nonsense, just-the-facts in approach. Which might best fit the movie. The assignment was for 150 words. That's not a lot when it comes down to it. In fact, I had a different write-up originally that I couldn't find a way to cut. It's 216 words:

Halfway into Claude Lanzmann’s 9 ½-hour Holocaust documentary Shoah, the importance of his monumental undertaking becomes all too clear. An anonymous man emerges from a crowd in front of a Polish church, mere miles from the Treblinka death camps were 400,000 Jews were murdered, to relay a story he heard about a rabbi instructing his people to go with the Nazis willingly as atonement for killing Jesus. It’s an unsettling moment. Lanzmann has been rooting around for just this kind of justification, and there it is. That one of the only two people to escape Treblinka is standing in the group, silently observing, makes it all the more haunting. The technique in Shoah is raw, but it’s not about cinema, it’s about making sure the stories don’t fade away. Lanzmann gathers up survivors, observers, and persecutors and pushes them to tell their version of events. With them, he travels to the notorious camps and ghettoes, tracing the long march of death. Completed in 1985 after a decade of work, Shoah is a towering tribute to those lost. It’s also difficult to sit through, both in terms of content and presentation. The Film Center will be showing it in two parts, and whether you go all day or two days in a row, expect a long haul.

You can see how I worked some of the info around for the final piece. The basics were easy to communicate, but there wasn't much room to get flowery.

It was weird watching Shoah and Charles Chaplin's The Great Dictator within a couple of days of each other. Both films touch on basically the same subjects in very different manners, and yet both moved me to consider the evil that men do and the possibility of such evil repeating. I noted in my review of the Chaplin that actions our government has taken since 9/11 seem to come from the same willful blindness that comedian warned about. I had similar thoughts while watching Shoah and listening to how Jews were packed onto trains and whisked away to prisons and slaughterhouses with no one questioning a thing. I couldn't help but think that extraordinary rendition and Guantanamo Bay are really no better. Isn't our government removing people from their lives and imprisoning them for no other reason than because of their race and religion? Most of these victims are never charged with a crime, never given a trial; some have been arrested just because of their name. Have we really learned so little in all this time? And who among us is going to answer for these crimes in future generations? Have we tried to stop it enough, if at all? You can pretend it's for the greater good, but the greater good makes for easy justification when the definitions are malleable. Move the line, there is no penalty.

History may judge us just as unkindly as it judges the people who lived near Treblinka and Auschwitz, who watched the trains roll in full of people and then leave empty, all those lost souls never to be seen again.

Current Soundtrack: The Black Ships, "The Kurofune EP" [free download]; Ride, Nowhere (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)



e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich

HE IS A GOLDEN GOD

NEW IN THEATRES...

* Hesher, Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as the title character. Hit an open chord, take off your shirt, and be a teenage dirtbag, baby.

Playing Portland at Cinema 21 starting this weekend.

* True Legend, a disappointing new action flick from the awesome martial arts choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping. Lame story, too much CGI.

UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

* The Great Dictator, Charles Chaplin's daring comedy parody of Adolph Hitler still packs a punch today.

THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...

* The Misfits, John Huston directs Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe in their final screen roles. Also stars Eli Wallach and Montgomery Clift, in a script by Arthur Miller.

* The Unloved, Samantha Morton's softly rendered, heartfelt directorial debut.

Current Soundtrack: Adam Wade, "Gloria's Theme;" The Indelicates, David Koresh Superstar [album available for download, name your own price]

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich

IMAGE FANTOME - IN YER FACE: SPELL CHECKERS vol. 2 cameos

A panel from the second book (due in September), featuring the Spell Checkers creative team and a bunch of our friends.



The gag from the original script actually read as:

Outside the stall, boys stand around and stare in disbelief as [redacted]. Goran has also come in.

Maybe the crowd can be teen versions of you, me, James Lucas Jones, and Smoking Adolescent Tomboy Joëlle(TM).

Nico took the inside joke and ran with it!

Noemie is the lead singer of Virgin Princesse, while Vanyda is the creator of the comic book The Building Opposite

Young James refers to James Lucas Jones, editor in chief of Oni Press, and Tally is the nickname for Natalie Nourigat.

Erika Moen is the talented artist of Dar and, most recently, Bucko.

There are even funnier cameos planned for vol. 3...but you'll have to wait for those.

Current Soundtrack Cults, Cults

SCATTERGOOD: We are the Broken Ones by Vincent Lavious and Corey Lewis

Corey Reyyy Lewis hooked me up with one of his latest minicomics at Stumptown. It's a collaboration with writer Vincent Lavious called We are the Broken Ones.

Short and scattered, Broken Ones is basically a comic book poem, a clipped narrative of two people circling one another, a boy and a girl subject to their own metamorphoses and who become estranged as a result. Is it a metaphor for growing up, for falling in love and moving apart? Possibly. It could also just be a collection of randomly chosen cool images, arranged into a kind of beautiful sequential mash-up. Its impact isn't lessened regardless. There is a happy, hopeful punchline, surprisingly poignant. The closing nugget is also just as weird as the rest of the reality this pair capture and relate through these pages, a tasty emotional fortune cookie baked with their own unique recipe.

Corey has put all of We are the Broken Ones online. You can read it here. I like it better printed, the way the pages flip and the images juxtapose, so if you can still get it that way, do it.

Corey has also finished his long-gestating second Sharknife book, so watch for an announcement of its 2012 release from Oni Press soon.

Current Soundtrack: Arctic Monkeys, "Don't Sit Down 'cause I've Moved Your Chair;" Nicki Minaj, "Set it Off/Baddest Bitch"

MORNING COMRADES

This is a dismal week for new movie releases; I haven't seen a single one and don't intend to. Luckily for those of us living in Portland, we have a lot of great revival houses and alternatives to the multiplexes. Starting tomorrow, Sunday the 22nd, and ending Thursday the 26th, Cinema 21 will be showing a 35mm print of Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. Here is the blurb I wrote for the Portland Mercury:

Sergei Eisenstein pretty much invented cinematic language in his 1925 silent film about rebellion on a Russian cruiser, but don’t mistake watching Potemkin as akin to reading a textbook--it’s as stirring today as it was nearly a century ago. The dizzying battle sequences and iconic riot on the Odessa stairs (you’ve seen it ripped off hundreds of times) turned what would’ve otherwise been a standard propaganda film into tension-filled art. Fully restored with its original score, this 35mm print is a rare chance to see a masterpiece in public with all the P-town Bolsheviks.

In lieu of that, here are three new DVDs worth seeking out, and one you're better to ignore...

UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

* Diabolique, Henri-Georges Clouzot's white-knuckled thriller. After half a century, it will still keep you guessing.

* Pale Flower, a chilly tale of Japanese gangsters, gamblers, and nihilistic romance. Directed by Masahiro Shinoda, released 1964, now on Blu-Ray. (Also at DVD Talk.)

THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...

* Ayn Rand: In Her Own Words, an interesting story given a dull presentation.

* Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno, a stupendous documentary sifting through the remains of the Diabolique-director's unfinished would-be masterpiece.

Current Soundtrack: Jesus & Mary Chain, 21 Singles




e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich

MYTHS OF THE NEAR FUTURE: Gang of Fools by James Smith III

James Smith III slipped me a copy of Gang of Fools at the New York Comic Con last fall. It's an immediately impressive package, a fully printed 96-page book, spine and everything. It's also completely packed with comics. James' pages rarely have less than six panels, and they regularly have nine, and each one of them counts. The artist packs each unit with as much storytelling he can muster, allowing his characters to be chatty, but also maximizing the visual punch. In terms or style, his sketchy drawings work with Paul Pope and Jim Mahfood as a base aesthetic, but with a thin line more reminiscent of Jim Rugg. The combo gives the cartooning a sense of immediacy, but the expressive characters and the heavy detail of his futuristic world suggests there is far more consideration than that. Smith must work hard to make it look so easy.

Gang of Fools takes place in an overcrowded urban environment sometime in the near future. Living space is precious, as is information and mobility. The title is no joke, Gang of Fools has a huge cast of pornographers, gangsters, artists, and hustlers. Its central subjects are a group of twenty-something friends working the system and navigating the high-tech social structure in hope of carving out their own space in things. The ultimate center is Aditi, an Indian-American girl working as a messenger to raise her rent. Not the smartest move: the two most dangerous things in future living is traveling and real estate. Getting from place to place to drop off a package, crossing turf lines and jammed roads, is bad enough even when your landlord doesn't want you dead.

Smith builds a complicated storyline with crisscrossing plots, all of which converge, diverge, and then converge again. As Gang of Fools progresses, the technique grows more frenzied, the narrative more choppy, and Smith cuts from scene to scene faster and faster. Honestly, some of it can be a little hard to keep straight, and Gang of Fool kind of ends more than it really finishes in any real satisfying sense, but I was thoroughly caught up in the madness nonetheless. Gang of Fools is a fascinating debut from an intriguing new talent.

Gang of Fools Motion Flyer from Daniel J. Kramer on Vimeo.

Gang of Fools began life on Act-i-vate, and this book and more was serialized there. You can also read more of James' comics at his own site. Some of the unfinished feeling might come from the fact that more was coming.

Read an interview with James at Talking Comics with Tim.

I'm not entirely sure the best way to go about getting the books, but the Facebook group might be a good way to start looking.

Current Soundtrack: The Go! Team, Rolling Blackouts; Christina Perri, Lovestrong




e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich

ANOTHER TR!CKY DAY

Big things are happening. Today was the official announcement of Tr!ckster, an alternative to Comic Con, a sidebar if you will. The Beat rightly compares it to Slamdance, the rogue film festival that sets up during Sundance. It's a different venue, offering different ideas, running concurrent to the big event.

Check out the official website here.

There's going to be a ton going on: signings, symposiums, live art battles, Mike Allred's band The Gear playing live--the whole thing is going to be an amazing chance to meet your favorite comic book creators, get special products, and get a more interactive con-going experience.

More details are to come, including more of how I will be involved and what I hope to put together for Comic Con. Big thanks to Scott Morse for inviting me out. I can't wait!

Add Tr!ckster on Facebook.

Current Soundtrack: The Indelicates, David Koresh Superstar [album available for download, name your own price]

PUNK ROCK BOY, YOU LOOK SO WILD
PUNK ROCK BOY, LET'S HAVE A CHILD

Check it!

More updates from Marc Ellerby--including info on all his projects, personal appearances, and the story I teased about last week--over on his blog.

The three-pager we put together is for a comic promoting the new Art Brut album. Other contributors include Jeffrey Brown, Jamie McKelvie, Bryan Lee O'Malley, and Hope Larson. Eddie Argos has more details at his blog.

It's a fun project to be a part of, some great company, and awesome to have worked with Marc again. It was pretty punk rock, moving at that speed. Just two boys, a couple of computers, and a whole lot of ink. I can't wait to see what everyone else cooked up.

Current Soundtrack: Christina Perri, Lovestrong [Deluxe Version}

I DON'T WANT TO SPOIL THE PARTY

NEW IN THEATRES...

* The Beaver, Jodie Foster directs Mel Gibson, who talks through a beaver puppet. Yes, it's pretty crazy.

* Bridesmaids, this Kristen Wiig-led comedy is a real winner. Funny and heartfelt. And next time someone asks if Bridesmaids is a chick version of The Hangover, ask them if that's a stupid person's version of a smart question.

* Everything Must Go, in which Will Ferrell drinks some sad beer, channels Raymond Carver, and is pretty good at doing it.


UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

* Something Wild, Melanie Griffith's star turn still intrigues and provokes more than twenty years later. Directed by Jonathan Demme.

Poster by Connor Willumsen

THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...

* Araya, Margot Benacerraf's 1959 blending of fact and fiction on the salt marshes of Venezuela.

* Bananas!*, a documentary about the fight against Dole Fruit, accused of poisoning Nicaraguan workers in the 1970s.

* Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, an intriguing mash-up of classic indie cinema and classic movie musicals

* Hold On!, Herman's Hermits come to America, join the space race, play some music, pitch some woo.

* Shoeshine, a Neorealist classic from Vittorio De Sica, released 1946.

Current Soundtrack: Eve, "Nothing to Say" & Sincere, "90" (download both from the Timbaland site); Raphael Saadiq, Stone Rollin'




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All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich