Free Form Comments

[Every since I took these Free Form posts off of Wednesdays because I did not want this and the LOST blog going up at the same time, I just forgot about them. It was my intention to put these up Fridays. Sorry if you needed them.]

Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, introductions if you have never commented before, personal news, self-promotion, requests to be added to the blog roll and so on. If I forget, remind me. Remember these comments can be directed at all the readers, not just me.

ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy.

AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore.

You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.

WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If I see a big free form comment that deserves more attention, I will pull it and make it its own post, with a label on the post and on the sidebar that will always link to all the posts you write for this blog. I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music, books and iPhone apps.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Remake

[My friend Lucas, obsessed with the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, discusses remaking his favorite movie. Welcome this new guest blogger, and whatever you do, do not fall asleep while reading this, because it would probably hurt his feelings.]

This weekend, Platinum Dunes, the Michael Bay-helmed production company behind remakes of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher and Friday the 13th, is releasing its latest abomination: A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. I think it's safe to say that I am not pleased.

Before I lose myself in a harangue, I'd like to clarify two things:

1) This is not a review. I have not yet seen this movie. This is a preview. I have only seen the trailers and read articles and interviews about the movie. Thus, this piece is heavily steeped in presumption, and

2) my presumption is NOT that A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET will suck as a movie (that is my fucking prediction!), but rather that it will suck as a remake.

And here's why:

Uncanny X-Men #266

[Jason Powell continues to look at every Claremont X-Men issue. Can you believe we are already at GAMBIT! God I loved that character when I was a kid. A dumb kid.]

“Gambit – Out of the Frying Pan”

More layers of duality emerge here, beginning with the title, which forms two pairs: First with the title of the previous issue (“Gambit” is matched with “Storm”) and then again with the next (“Into the Fire”). The introduction of Gambit himself – who, like Ororo, is a mutant and a thief – creates more parallels. Note how Dr. Shen’s predatorial sexual attraction to Gambit is set up as a mirror with the Shadow King’s for Storm; and that the old-male-mentor/young-female-protégé dynamic has two iterations here (Gambit/Ororo, Shadow King/Dr. Shen) and a third one off-panel (Wolverine/Jubilee).

The plot mechanics of the issue are in keeping with the motif as well, built on a structure of leap-frogging rescues between Gambit and Storm. Claremont’s feminism is at work here, as he attempts to keep the scales in rigorous balance between his favorite girl and the new, “cool” male character (a co-creation with Jim Lee which was plainly meant to appeal to the core, teenage-boy faction of the comic-book-readng audience). Gambit may be allowed to rescue the damsel in distress, but not without the damsel turning around and rescuing him two pages later.

Leap-frogging is occurring on the production level as well, as Michael Collins jumps back over Bill Jaaska to provide fill-in art for Uncanny 266. Given that this is Gambit’s first in-story appearance (his first published appearance having occurred a month earlier in the chronologically misplaced X-Men Annual 14), it seems odd that co-creator Jim Lee was not assigned as the penciller. Collins’ storytelling style is a bit stiff and inorganic here, drawing a bit too much attention to Claremont’s contrived multiple-rescue scenario (thus necessitating Gambit’s self-aware bit of dialogue: “I’ve lost track … who rescues whom next?”).

Still, the point gets across: Young Ororo has found herself a kindred spirit, clearly destined to be a new addition to the X-Men’s cast (and the last major character Claremont would contribute to the mythos).

An Open Letter to Anthony Lane, in Response to his New Yorker Kick-Ass Review

[Major spoilers for Remember Me, and light spoilers on Kick-Ass, but the ending is not discussed. Lane does spoil it, so look out if you click through to his review.]

Dear Anthony Lane,

Nearly a year ago I wrote on this blog a response to your colleague David Denby for his review of Inglourious Basterds, in part because he felt the need to spoil the ending of a movie he did not like. In that open letter I mentioned something you did that bothered me: you spoiled the ending of the movie Watchmen, a movie you did not like. I have heard arguments that movie reviewers should be able to spoil movies, because now they are too straightjacketed by "rules." I am sympathetic to this. The ending of the movie is part of the movie, and as a reader I might need to know about it to understand if it is any good. I never really got into Seinfeld until the brilliant final episode, and it was a wrongly mailed to me copy of Entertainment Weekly that spoiled the season 2 ending of Alias for me and got me into that show -- and from there to LOST, a show I love. And a lot of times I want the review instead of the movie. I am never going to see Remember Me, but I totally wanted to hear about the absurd ending in which it turns out this dumb love story -- surprise! -- does not take place in the present day, but in 2001, and ends with our guy going up the Twin Towers the morning of September 11. So if you guys decided to open reviews up to discussing the endings, this could be a neat thing. It would put you ahead of the game maybe.

But the New Yorker has not done this. I know, because after your review of Watchmen your magazine printed a letter to the editor from a reader who was bothered that you spoiled the ending. This was, I think, a gentle rebuke from your editor surely. In printing the letter the New Yorker was saying "hey, we think this guy has a valid point." That may seem like a dumb thing to point out to someone like you, but the fact that you later spoiled the ending of Kick-Ass shows that you were unable to see that. And I don't think that you want to have a spoiler-ific discussion of movies anyway. I think you believe that movies should NOT be spoiled. That is why you only spoil movies like Kick-Ass and Watchmen -- movies you hate. You are spoiling these not for discussion, but for spite.

Lost Season 6, Episode 13: The Last Recruit

My latest LOST blog is up at Smartpop. Here is a sample. Click for more.

Even Jack’s son — who looked weirdly like his mini-me here, in a suit like his dad’s — has my attention. The kid is just too intense looking, with that rich dark hair, for such a young actor. At times he reminds me of Malachi in The Children of the Corn almost. It makes me think he is going to do something crazy, like be the Man in Black. It now looks like the thing that is going to bring everyone together at the hospital will be the birth of Claire’s baby (maybe Sawyer and Miles, with Kate tagging along, will let Sayid see his brother one last time). That would be pretty satisfying — especially if there turns out to be a connection between the dark haired and light haired cousins Aaron and David, Jacob (light hair) and the Man in Black (dark hair as Titus Welliver), and the light haired kid and the dark haired kid we have seen on the island. That could be a really great moment. Plus ending a show with the birth of a kid is just classic television. It can’t be a minor thing that that kid is left to wander the hospital while his dad is in surgery: the hospital is where everyone is. And we still don’t know who his mom is. Pregnancy and generations has been a big thing on this show — this is how to end it surely.

I am still not at all understanding the whole -- once you talk to him you are already compromised thing. Anyone have any thoughts on that.

Uncanny X-Men #265

[Jason continues to look at every issue of Claremont's initial X-Men run. Doesn't everyone think that when Jason is done he should WRITE the X-Men?]

“Storm“

The question of what exactly went on with Ororo after her seeming death in Uncanny 248 had been on a slow burn for a year by the time Claremont got around to this, the first chapter in a three-parter that serves both to answer all the questions and give the character her memory back. Like the recent Mandarin trilogy, Uncanny #’s 265-267 are neatly self-contained (apart from the four-page prologue in this issue, which seeds a separate plot entirely).

Once again, the hand of Bob Harras is detectable. The new “X-Men Forever” series, which gives hints as to Claremont’s actual intentions back in the early 90s, stars a Storm who is still adolescent and amnesiac, suggesting that the author had plans to stretch out Ororo’s situation much longer. Presumably at this point, Harras had a strict timeline for Claremont getting the team reunited – or nearly so – for them to participate properly in the two (!!) upcoming summer crossovers (“Days of Future Present” and “X-Tinction Agenda”).

The upside of Harras’ hardening control is that it forced Claremont to structure his stories more formally -- something he’s always been capable of, despite his natural inclinations not to do so. Thus, the Storm arc begun here has a strong sense of care and control – the plot is focused and direct, the pacing quite solid, the dramatic beats clean and logical. Not even the shifts in artistic style from one chapter to the next (each issue being drawn by a different artist) manage to disrupt Claremont’s confident flow.

Random Notes about AMC's The Prisoner

I watched AMC's The Prisoner remake. The AV Club gave it a C. I would give it a B. I kind of liked it -- it made great use of space and color, and I will not spoil the ending, but in a lot of ways it reminded me of my favorite movie, Dark City.

But WOW did it want to be LOST.

1. Like maybe the opening shot is a close up of our hero's eye as he wakes up in this mysterious place.
2. A mysterious old man says "help me" to our hero, and disappears.
3. Our hero finds a nice suburban community in the middle of what appears to be a dangerous, savage, uninhabited place.
4. There is this mysterious totally inhuman -- nearly abstract -- monster thing going around killing people.
5. It flashes back and forth between two times -- but the relationship between the two turns out not to be your first assumption.

And it uses an early theory of LOST as its ending.

Lost Season 6, Episode 12: Everybody Loves Hugo

My LOST review is up at Smartpop -- here is a sample. Click it to read the whole thing.

On one level this is Lost at its most classical — dramatic without making a lot of sense, but you forgive it because it is all fun. If you have to carry unstable dynamite, why jump around so much, and also why not give it to the immortal guy to carry — they guy who in an earlier episode proved he could not be blown up by dynamite? And how, you know, on Earth, could Hurley have gotten so far ahead of the group — enough to get into the Black Rock, and set a fuse, then get far enough away to not die and also before anyone else was close enough not to die — without anyone noticing? Don’t chuck your enemy’s wildcard down a well: I know it looks like you are getting rid of him, and I also enjoy the irony of Desmond once again being alone down in an underground place on the island accessible by a deep shaft, but surely you have just chucked him down to somewhere interesting where he is going to bite you in the ass — especially if this is anything like the other well. By the way: The well, we are told, is so old it was built by people who had no tools — because they wanted to know why their compasses were going crazy. They had compasses but not shovels?

In the morning light I see that to say the wells were dug by hand just means without modern construction equipment, and maybe Locke was not trying to get rid of Desmond at all -- we don't know what his motivation was, I guess.

If Hurley, Desmond, Faraday and Charlie all remember the Alt U because of Love it is going to be interesting if Jack and Locke remember because of EACH OTHER. Start your slash fiction now. (A note to my mother -- you can put "slash fiction" into wikipedia, but I don't recommend it).

Oh and more cute revisions of love cliches along the line of The Constant's "I have to have your phone number of I will (literally) die" -- Libby's "don't I know you from somewhere." The Main U of course.

Uncanny X-Men #264

[Jason Powell covers every issue of Claremont's X-Men run. It's almost GAMBIT time people. Can you believe it?]

“Hot Pursuit “

This issue is – not counting the typical quota of Claremontian subplots – basically a “done in one,” its plot revolving around an incursion by Genoshan magistrates into the States, to reacquire David Moreau and Jennifer Ransom. (They both defected to America at the end of the original Genoshan arc.) This is the magistrates’ second such attempt, the first having occurred in issue 259. Repelled by an amnesiac, non-metal Colossus originally, they arrive with greater numbers and firepower this time around, requiring a team-up between the Forge/Banshee duo and a couple members of X-Factor.

All of which happens in order to set up the next mutant-title crossover: “X-Tinction Agenda,” which will begin in six months. Claremont also takes the opportunity to clean house: The Colossus/Callisto thread (which climaxed in the previous issue) gets a line drawn under it, making it explicitly clear that Peter is out of circulation, at least for a while.

Free Form Comments

Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, introductions if you have never commented before, personal news, self-promotion, requests to be added to the blog roll and so on. If I forget, remind me. Remember these comments can be directed at all the readers, not just me.

ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy.

AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore.

You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.

WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If I see a big free form comment that deserves more attention, I will pull it and make it its own post, with a label on the post and on the sidebar that will always link to all the posts you write for this blog. I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music, books and iPhone apps.

Lost, Season 6, Episode 10: Happily Ever After

My review of the most recent LOST episode is up at Smartpop. Here is a sample; click to read the wholet thing.

Just like The Constant, Happily Every After anchors an insane science fiction story in some pretty basic and cheesy ideas about love. Like the Constant it got to have its cake and eat it too, using all the cliches of love but using the sci-fi to reinvigorate them. Love is beyond time and the only thing that can save our lives — literally true in The Constant. Love happens at first sight — because you knew that person in an alternate universe. Love is so powerful you will faint with joy — because it is time for your mind to return to the machine that propelled you into another world. Love inspires musicians — to write quantum mathematics. The mother of the woman you love will stand in your way — because she has some mystical sense that the universe cannot allow Penny and Desmond to meet.

You have to be impressed with a great LOST episode that manages to be great in spite of a total lack of Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson.

Uncanny X-Men #263

[Jason Powell continues to look at every issue of Claremont's X-Men run. In a note attached to this one he worried people are going to think he is phoning it in because it is so short, but I am here to tell everyone -- he just got the last Claremont post into me, and he is not phoning it in. He is reserving strength for the final push, which is now done, even though, like the light from a distant star, it will not reach you for weeks.

I also want to do a comment pull quote here. In the comments to last week's post Jason quoted a Doug M, who described Forge as "mutant cyborg millionaire genius inventor Native American sorceror Vietnam vet with post-traumatic stress issues." Powell retorted, "And if Grant Morrison had created him, the above sentence would be used by bloggers everywhere as proof of how AWESOME he is." Well played, Powell, well played.]

“The Lower Depths”

Fill-in art this month comes from Bill Jaaska, an artist whose figure-work is wildly distorted but still consistent and expressive, and whose skills as a storyteller are considerable. Very similar in several ways to Rick Leonardi, Jaaska was never going to get a regular assignment on X-Men, whose fans were used to a sense of weight and realism. Still, compared to Michael Collins, with whom he plays fill-in artist leapfrog over the course of the next few issues, Jaaska is quite dynamic indeed.

Jaaska’s energy helps to lift the latter half of the Morlock two-parter into something rather above the expectations set up by Part One. His interpretation of the tentacled Jean Grey is particularly strong, making a goofy story point into something genuinely disconcerting. The story acquires some additional narrative crackle from Claremont’s delightful use of Colossus – who uses his mutant power here without ever realizing it. This and other deftly applied details (like the Morlock “Bliss,” amusingly derived from John Joseph Miller’s “Ti Malice” character in the Wild Cards novels) make “The Lower Depths” a surprisingly fun adventure story – and signals that Claremont’s wheel-spinning is, again, only temporary. (See the similar floundering following immediately after John Byrne’s departure ten years earlier.)

Meanwhile, Uncanny 263 is given some genuine psychological heft through Forge’s first-person narration. The action in the Morlock tunnels is counterpointed with his flashbacks to Vietnam, effectively making this the “origin issue” for Forge. The parallel narrative tracks are laid simply but effectively, winding into a strong sense of redemption in the story’s final pages. A feeling of triumph suffuses the ending, similar to what Claremont accomplished with Dazzler in Uncanny 260. With Claremont’s run so close now to wrapping up, it is stories such as these -- with their effervescent moments of hard-won, well-deserved victory – that ring the most true.

Explaining Hot Chip's I Feel Better Video

This is the best music video I have seen since Christopher Walken dancing in an empty hotel to Weapon of Choice, and that was like ten years ago.


Hot Chip - I Feel Better

Hot Chip | MySpace Music Videos

It is directed by Peter Serafinowicz, the Brit who is the voice of Darth Maul and the creator of Look Around You (he also played a small role on Spaced). The thing, without explanation, is just awesome, and thoroughly hilarious, mostly because of the inspired absurdity, pointless and ridiculous violence, and the mischievous facial expressions of the bald guy. I also especially like a detail that skims by too quickly at the opening -- one guy is named "Kyng" and another "Mar'Vaine." What follows may be over-reading but I thought I would throw it out there anyway. Forgive me for the fact that my references are 10 years old. Someone who knows music better than I will be able to give better examples, I am sure.

Lost Season 6, Episode 9: The Package

My post about the latest episode of Lost is up. Here is a sample: click it for the rest.

For me the problem with the last episode was not that Richard did not have lots of mythology to show us, but that a lot of the story was uneconomical, and so slack on conflict — we knew so much of it already, and it was more powerful hinted at, and much covered ground we had already seen such as the attempt by the Man in Black on Jacob using a surrogate, or the theory that the island is Hell. My problem here is similar. I appreciate that the final season is the time to bring everything back, to appreciate the return of people and places. But so many Lost episodes this season have relied on that final punch of BAM — Widmore’s Back! Claire’s Back! Jin’s Back in the Alt U! plus all the little “everyone is someone” gags — that when Desmond is back! some of the necessary force is lost. Same with the way everyone in the ALt U is ending up at the hospital with Jack. The surprises need variety — the 5th time the magician does the same card trick I stop being so interested.

With seven broadcasts left, and so much to do, including a huge number of returning cast members coming back for multiple episodes if the reports are to be believed, it is hard to see how this wraps up in any kind of a satisfying way. Right now I am doing the same thing I did during BSG: saying to myself, well that was not the best episode, but that must mean the remaining ones will be unbelievably packed with awesome. We all know how that ended, but you never know. Part of the fun is seeing how the writers are going to get themselves out of what appears to us to be a corner. It is just like that magician again.

Free Form Comments

Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, introductions if you have never commented before, personal news, self-promotion, requests to be added to the blog roll and so on. If I forget, remind me. Remember these comments can be directed at all the readers, not just me.

ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy.

AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore.

You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.

WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If I see a big free form comment that deserves more attention, I will pull it and make it its own post, with a label on the post and on the sidebar that will always link to all the posts you write for this blog. I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music, books and iPhone apps.