Beowulf, David Lynch, and Evil

The best bit in Beowulf occurs just after Grendel’s monstrous mother attacks and the survivors decide to go after her in her lair. We are told “It is no pleasant place. From it the surging waves rise up black to the heavens when the wind stirs up awful storms, until the air becomes gloomy, the skies weep.” When they get to this “many a lair of water-monsters” it is truly horrible: “Then they saw on the water many a snake-shape, strong sea serpents exploring the mere, and water-monsters lying on the slopes of the shore such as those that in the morning often attend a perilous journey on the paths of the sea, serpents and wild beasts.” What is interesting is its location: the monster Grendel and his mother “hold to the secret land, the wolf-slopes, the windy headlands, the dangerous fen-paths where the mountain stream goes down under the darkness of this hills, the flood under the earth. It is not far from here.” That last sentence is a fantastic anti-climax.

The idea that evil is not far away is picked up persuasively by David Lynch. In Blue Velvet Kyle MacLachlin appears to live in a picturesque suburb, with a sweet old lady, but is warned not to go on Lincoln street. Later in the film, as Dennis Hopper is introduced, we discover that Lincoln Street and the surrounding neighbourhood is composed of dangerous, run down tenement apartments like something out of 1980s New York. In Mulholland Drive the spirit of pure evil lives behind a diner. Evil isn’t in some far away place like the land of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings; it’s (almost literally) right around the corner.

Comics Out 7 June 2006

New feature: Once a week I am going to call attention to notable comics coming out (if I think there are any). I have no idea if the comics will be good, but I will be picking them up.

Allan Heinberg and Terry Dodson's Wonder Woman #1 comes out today. Wonder Woman from the writer producer of The OC. With Joss Whedon writing and directing the upcoming film, Wonder Woman suddenly has my attention.

And bad news for Seven Soldiers #1 on Newsarama.com.

Alex Ross versus Greg Land

I want to start from two very different but competing images: Alex Ross's Wonder Woman and Greg Land's Phoenix

In 1994 Alex Ross burst on the comics scene with Marvels, a story that retold the early moments of Marvel Comics from the perspective of the little people on the streets below the action; he followed this up with Kingdom Come, in which, in the near future, the classic heroes (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) return to their glory over and against the new grim and gritty anti-heroes. Ross is a striking comics artist because he brings photo-realism to a medium and a genre that had not seen it before. Ross uses real people as models, and the comics, just at a glance, impress people, because the skill involved is very visible to anyone.

Superhero comics are a quirky, strange set of stories, better suited, I think, to art highly mannered, stylized and artificial: Chris Bachalo (whose art can be seen in part six of my online paper), Frank Quitely, Mike Mignola, and Frank Miller (all of whom I have already blogged about). These guys can look less talented to outside observers ("Frank Miller draws like a child"), but are ultimately more rewarding. At the end of the day Ross is quite simple, and his simplicity is part of a simple agenda: Ross thinks superheroes should be moral guides for the young, and he is on record as saying that he doesn't like drawing the X-Men because they are not iconic enough, which I take to mean not enough like Jesus Christ. His conservative stance is mirrored by his influence: Ross's major source is Norman Rockwell.

Recently Ross has been implicitly challenged by newcomer Greg Land, the artist on X-Men: Phoenix Endsong and Mark Millar's Ultimate Fantastic Four. Land makes photo-realistic art as well, but rather than being heir to Norman Rockwell, he is heir to Maxim magazine, the ultimate rebuke to Ross. Superhero comics do not have to be juvenile, but they cannot escape some basis in juvenile material: without the 1939 Superman Watchmen would not exist, and there is something inevatable about the choice in photo-realistic superhero art between Rockwell and Maxim. I don't read Maxim -- I don't like Maxim -- but I think superhero comics should be cool, should be hip, should be sexy, and I will take Land over Ross any day.

Announcements 2

Two quick announcements:

I have an essay on story structure and Veronica Mars coming out in a BenBella Books' Smart Pop collection. I will let you know when it comes out.

For those of you in Oxford, The Wadham film society is screening Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, in which Johnny Depp, an accountant lost in the Wild West of 1851 is told he is the reincarnation of William Blake. Guest stars include Gary Farmer, Crispin Glover, Lance Henriksen, John Hurt, Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, Gabriel Byrne, Alfred Molina, and Robert Mitchum in his last film appearance; soundtrack by Neil Young. A fantastic and weird movie. Because the film is an example of what my thesis calls an imaginary biography, I will be introducing the film, and giving a short paper afterward on parallels between Jarmusch's strange portrayal of Blake and Blake's strange portrayal of John Milton. 9 June, Moser Theater, 8pm.

And a quick teaser: upcoming blogs (since I have a few in the can) will include discussions of All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, the song Fault Lines by the Mountain Goats (a three part blog), and the children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon (a four part blog).

Cherwell X-Men: The Last Stand Review

[This article has been edited because the links no longer work -- see below. ]

Because I was asked to review X-Men: The Last Stand for the student newspaper I got to attend a preview screening in a posh mini-theatre (no commercials, no previews) at the London Fox headquarters. The seats were very comfortable, and I considered reviewing them instead, just to keep things positive. Click here to read my one star review-attack of X-Men: The Last Stand.

I have to say I was shocked to discover that the film was not panned by The New York Times, The Onion AV Club, or The Village Voice. I suppose it is possible that my usually good radar could be off here, but I doubt it.

[I have reprinted the original article below.]

X-Men: The Last Stand

By Geoff Klock

Unlike the first two admirable Bryan Singer X-Men films, Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand is wretched. It packs all the mistakes found in the Matrix sequels into a mere 104 minutes, leaving no time for even a single salvageable moment, or line of dialogue. The posters, stylishly designed, are much better than the movie.

The plot of the third X-Men film revolves around a so-called mutant cure. The stress between super-powered mutants and normal humans explodes into war as the American president threatens to “de-power” mutants with a new vaccine. Ian McKellen’s Magneto gathers mutants who refuse to see themselves as diseased and leads them in battle. The X-Men – the mutants dedicated to harmonious living between mutants and humans – are torn down the middle, many tempted by a “normal” life. To complicate matters, the unbelievably powerful former X-Men Jean Grey is back from the dead, and psychotic. There is nothing essentially bad about the idea for the film; there is everything wrong with its execution.

Ratner veers between ham-fisted control and no control at all. My audience laughed as Patrick Stewart’s Xavier suddenly launched into a big, sudden, absurd explanation of Jean Grey’s survival and her split personality. A mutant who can sense other mutants might as well be code-named “Plot Device Girl.” Shades of Barbarella and Flash Gordon insinuate themselves into serious moments, such as a beautiful topless winged mutant boy in jeans who poses the camera, before jumping out of the window in defiance. The film wants awe; it has a pinup that looks, in the long shot, like a seagull. Characters repent for no reason, and speak cliché after cliché (at one point, two in a row). Famke Jansson’s Jean Grey, the film’s sex symbol, is made to look terrible when she is evil, which is most of the time.

Even the film’s blockbuster effects amount to nothing. Magneto violently relocates the Golden Gate bridge so he can get to, and then attack, a small island off the coast of California; one wonders why he couldn’t have just flown, chartered a ferry, or even just destroyed the island with the bridge and been done with it. Magneto throwing cars is not enough, and so his mutant lackey bizarrely sets them on fire first. A film like Charlie’s Angels 2 can use mess to its advantage, wallowing in gleeful insanity, but X-Men 3 is just a badly told story.

The film’s attack of its own characters is perhaps most disturbing. Though there are small loopholes, the emotional impact of the end of the film involves life-changing violence to no less than six main characters from the first film. That’s bad enough, but no first-year student filmmaker would make Ratner’s appalling mistake of leaving two of these major character moments completely off screen. Words alone cannot express the badness of this film. It has to be seen to be believed, but it shouldn’t be.