Will Pfeifer's Blog, page 30

Great Moments in Comics History, Part 29

Buddy Bradley discovers the power of music. 
"Rock 'n' Roll Refugee," Neat Stuff #3 (March 1986) Script, pencils, inks and letters by Peter Bagge

Podcast alert double feature! Will this guy ever shut up? (Clearly, the answer is "no.")

Wondering why I haven't updated this blog in more than a week? Obviously it's because I've been too busy talking about movies and comic books to do any actual typing. But, of course, that means you get another chance -- heck, TWO chances -- to hear my dulcet tones via the internet.


First up is another installment of "Scene Missing," the segment of John Siuntres' Word Balloon podcast wherein John, Gabriel Hardman and myself discuss a classic movie you might have missed. This time, the film in question is Peter Bogdanovich's 1968 thriller "Targets," where a vintage horror star (played by none other than Boris Karloff himself) faces real-life horror in the form of a psychotic sniper. You can listen by clicking here. And, like John says, if you like what you hear, leave the guy a tip at his site, WordBalloon.com.


And then there's the latest episode of "The Quad," a great rambling podcast hosted by two of my pals, Zack Kruse and Ben Tiede. On the episode in question, I join the conversation, offering my thoughts on "Love and Rockets," including why I think Jaime Hernandez is, no kidding, one of the greatest -- maybe THE greatest -- cartoonists of all time. And naturally, because I'm involved, this is another podcast that -- after a few detours involving Billy Wilder and Fred MacMurray --eventually devolves into a discussion of the genius of Jack Webb. Listen to The Quad in question here.

Podcast alert! Listen to movie talk with 'Scene Missing' on Word Balloon

If you enjoy reading my thoughts about old movies on this blog but dream of actually hearing me talk about them, well, your dreams are about to come true. 
Podcast legend John Siuntres and artist extraordinaire Gabriel Hardman are both lifelong movie fans, too, and they've invited me to join them for "Scene Missing," a new film-focused segment of John's Word Balloon podcast.
For the first installment, we talk about Jack Webb and his 1959 newsroom drama "-30-," along with his other work, including (of course) "Dragnet." I had a lot of fun talking movies with John and Gabe, and if you enjoy delving into the dark corners of cinema history, I think you'll enjoy listening. 
Go here to download the podcast. Besides "Scene Missing," the episode includes plenty more movie and comics talk, with guys like Matt Fraction, Brian Michael Bendis and some other folks you just might have heard of.

Movies I Watched in July

In case you're wondering why such a high percentage of this month's movies were aimed at the younger set, it's because I spent a solid chunk of last month in the company of the younger set -- daughter Allie, nephew Jack and niece Ryan. They didn't necessarily make the movies any better, but they did make the experience of watching them more fun.
That being said....

Here's all I'm going to say about these "Despicable Me" movies, which are apparently very, very popular despite (or, more likely, because of) following a by-the-numbers template of heartwarming moments, pop culture references and 3D-friendly action scenes: Whoever thought up those minion characters was a genius. Not because they necessarily add anything of real value to the movie (like, say, the supporting characters in the "Toy Story" movies) but because anytime the already thin plot runs a little too thin, they can be used to tell any joke that passes a few seconds of screen time. (Strained Village People reference, anyone? Complete with the Leather Man? Coming right up!) It's a brilliant move, really. 

Somehow, despite all my efforts, I wound up watching this Adam Sandler movie that, with a cast that includes Sandler, Kevin James and David Spade, feels like some sort of animated stealth version of "Grown Ups." Like "Despicable Me 2," it follows that template so devotedly that a month or so later I can barely remember anything about it. One thing I do remember is the awful ending where Sandler's Dracula and the rest of the character perform some sort of hip-hop number that everyone loves (and everyone in the audience is supposed to love). Remember many, many years ago on "The Simpsons" when Homer did a little impromptu rapping and Lisa and Bart told him to never do that again? That applies to all characters in all animated media.

Here's an interesting 1971 heist movie from Sidney Lumet that awkwardly straddles the '60s era of high-spirited crime flicks and the '70s era of paranoid conspiracy thrillers. Sean Connery plays an ex-con with the master plan of stealing everything from a luxury apartment building. The conspiracy twist is that he and his accomplices are under the surveillance of various government agencies and private detectives. The twist-on-the-twist is that none of these spies are communicating with each other (or even know the others exist), so no one realizes a million-dollar heist is about to take place. The cast is solid, with Connery exuding his usual rough-edged charisma (and probably having fun not playing 007) and support coming from an impossibly young Christopher Walken and Martin Balsam playing what Hollywood thought a gay man was like, circa 1971. Keep an eye out for a pre-"Saturday Night Live" Garrett Morris playing a cop at the end. I can't be 100 percent sure, but it looks like he was climbing around some impressively high New York buildings without the aids of ropes -- or a stunt man.


Highlight of the month and, frankly, one of the highlights of the year. This is a fascinating documentary about Rodriguez, a Detroit musician who recorded a couple of albums that never sold, then disappeared. Two things, however, make Rodriguez' story different than that of 99 percent of the musicians in the world. One, despite being ignored and forgotten in his homeland, he somehow developed a HUGE fan following in South Africa, selling thousands of records and inspiring a number of people in the anti-apartheid movement. And two, Rodriguez was really, really talented, with a sound that resembles early '70s Dylan but with a certain Detroit edge. You hear that voice and those lyrics, and you wonder "What the heck ever happened to that guy?" Well, this movie answers that question. It's structured in a way aimed at surprising the viewer, but since it's been out for a year or so, anyone interested enough to watch it probably knows the twist. Even so, it's still a fascinating movie full or great moments and great music. And even if you know -- or suspect -- what's coming, the scene where the moment you've been waiting for actually does arrive really packs a wallop. Be sure to check this one out.

Two of my favorite actors (that would be Mr. Robinson and Mr. Arnold) in a newspaper/crime drama sounds like something right up my alley, but the elements in "Unholy Partners" never quite come together. Robinson plays a returning WWI doughboy who decides to start his own newspaper that will (a) be smaller than a broadsheet (but apparently not a tabloid) and (b) tell the real news, the tough news, the news when -- or, if possible, before -- it happens. Naturally, with a screwy business plan like that, he has trouble finding investors. Not so naturally, he winds up turning to local crime boss Arnold. I think you can see where this is going, and that's exactly where it goes, with only some sharp black-and-white cinematography and fun performances from the two leads to keep things interesting. Too bad. Talk about a wasted opportunity.

One of the best political movies ever made, striking just the right note between low-key comedy and laid-back drama. Maybe Redford's best performance, with Peter Boyle even better as his campaign manager. Why oh why is this not out on Blu-ray. Criterion, get your ass in gear!

Want my thoughts on "Pacific Rim"? Then click here, friend. 

Last but not least, but not exactly first, either. There's nothing really wrong with "Frankenweenie," but there was nothing wrong with Tim Burton's original (much shorter) live-action version, and that didn't stop him from remaking it. At this point, no matter how charming the character design is or how many references to classic movie monsters we get, I think we're all suffering from Tim Burton fatigue. Maybe what he needs is to go small-scale again, like he did in his best film, "Ed Wood," and maybe that's just what he's doing in "Big Eyes," his 2014 film about Margaret and Walter Keane, the artists behind all those painting of kids with, well, big eyes. The casting of Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz in the lead roles is a good signs. Hell, at this point, any Tim Burton movie that takes place in the real world and doesn't star Johnny Depp is a good sign.

Six quick thoughts on 'Pacific Rim'

1. Surprisingly, I liked the robots more than the monsters, and this is coming from a guy who's seen virtually every Godzilla movie ever made but stayed far, far away from those Transformers films. What I liked the most about the robots was that each one had its own look, tied into when and where it was built. My favorite was the Russian robot, which looked tough, rugged and utilitarian -- like it would be plowing the great Soviet steppes if it weren't bashing some giant lizard in the jaw. I wish we would've seen more of it in action.
2. The characters, unfortunately, had a lot less personality than the giant robots they rode around in. Sure, Idris Elba was a lot of fun as the stalwart Stacker Pentecost, but I wish his character had been as imaginative as his name (wotta monicker!) As for the rest, they were mostly a blur of bland actors playing one-note characters with your standard action-movie neuroses -- one has a dead brother, one struggles with daddy issues, one seeks revenge for her flattened family... you know the drill.

                               

3. The exceptions? Charlie Day and and Burn Gorman as the squabbling pair of scientists working to understand (a) the monsters and (b) the dimensional rip that's giving them access to our poor planet. It shows where director Guillermo del Toro's heart is that while the brawny robot pilots slug it out on for the world to see, these two goofballs are mind-melding with a chunk of dead monster brain and discovering that all those beatings might not make a difference after all. Bonus points for avoiding the cliche of having Gorman's creepy character turn out to be a villain and instead use the slightly less obvious (and a lot more fun) cliche of him being just as heroic as his buddy Charlie -- and everyone else.

4. This being a Guillermo del Toro movie, the other exception is, of course, Hannibal Chau (another great name) played by -- who else? -- Ron Perlman, aka Hellboy himself. Chau only has a few scenes, but Perlman makes the most of them, getting us to root for a dimensional war profiteer simply because he's got the balls to make a buck off all those dead monsters. I understand there's a scene after the credits offering up a little more Chau, but being an old, old man, I split from the theater and missed it.

5. My major complaint with the movie unfortunately involved the very heart of "Pacific Rim" -- those monstrous fight scenes. They were well choreographed and thankfully avoided the cut/cut/cut style that plagues most modern movies, but even so, they were -- at least to these aging eyes -- often hard to understand. I wish del Toro would've filmed at least a few of them (a) during daylight hours and (b) far from water. I understand that the monsters were lurking underwater, but it would've been much more visually appealing if we could've waited until they waded up onto land before the fights began. There's a shot near the beginning of a monster marching toward the Sydney Opera House was so clear and bright and wonderfully ominous that it made me wish the whole movie had looked like that.


6. Having said all that, I still liked "Pacific Rim," and I'm damned glad I caught it on the big screen. The monster-robot slugfests, murky and muddled as they could be, were still exciting, and you could sense the planning and logic behind every battle. The monsters looked like monsters, scary and huge and inhuman, but going along with the film's kaiju roots, they also looked like there could be an overheating Japanese actor lurking beneath that computer-generated skin.

And while the characters were thinner than the pixels making up the monsters, they still had their moments. Stacker Pentecost's "We are CANCELLING the apocalypse" speech has been repeated ad infinitum, but my favorite rah-rah moment came when a monster suddenly sprung a pair of giant bat wings and Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) just as suddenly spring a giant sword from the robot's hand and declared revenge for her flattened parents in Japanese. Corny? You bet. Fun. You better believe it. Plus, this being a Guillermo del Toro movie, it was packed with strange little personal touches lurking in the corners: Hannibal Chau's golden footwear, the giant rib cage looming over Hong Kong's Bone Slums, the Godzilla-esque musical tones, the whole mind-melding concept of "drifting" and, last but not least, those scenes of poor lil' Mako wandering around a devastated Tokyo, hoping the skyscraper-sized monster wouldn't  notice her. In a movie full of unimaginably large combatants, it was a nice change of page when the story shifted back down to something refreshingly human-sized.

Great Moments in Comics History, Part 28

Batman gives Robin a little advice regarding Wonder Woman and her costume.

"For the Man Who Has Everything," Superman Annual #11 (1985). Script by Alan Moore, art and lettering by Dave Gibbons, colors by Tom Ziuko

Here are twenty-six great black-and-white movies in alphabetical order

"The Apartment" (1960)

"The Black Cat" (1934)

"Cat People" (1942)

"Deadline USA" (1952)

"Eraserhead" (1977)

"A Face in the Crowd" (1957)

"Glen or Glenda" (1953)

"Haxan/Witchcraft Through the Ages" (1922)

"In Cold Blood" (1967)

"J-Men Forever" (1979)

"The Killing" (1956)

"Little Fugitive" (1953)

"The Manchurian Candidate" (1956)

"Night of the Demon" (1957)
"Out of the Past" (1947)

"Psycho" (1960)

"The Quatermass Xperiment" (1955)

"Raging Bull" (1980)

"Sweet Smell of Success" (1957)

"Throne of Blood" (1957)

"The Uninvited" (1944)

"The Virgin Spring" (1960)

"White Heat" (1949)

"The Man from Planet X" (1951)Sorry. It's the closest to an X I could get -- and it does look beautifully atmospheric in black and white.

"Young Frankenstein" (1974)

"Zelig" (1983)Admittedly, it's not all in black and white, but the best bits are.

Great Moments in Comics History, Part 27

Matt Murdock uses a pay phone.
"Purgatory," Daredevil #228, March 1986, script by Frank Miller, art by David Mazzucchelli.

A movie about movies about movies

If the Academy had any sense, they'd use this beautifully edited supercut featuring scenes from movies involving movies on the next Oscar show .... but you can bet they won't.

And that's a shame. Because this montage not only celebrates cinema, it follows an emotional but linear progression from seeing the marquee to buying your ticket to finding your seat and so on, even making room for film breaks and projection room repairs.

Today's list of great 1980s movies is brought to you by the letter 'R"

"Risky Business" (1983)

"The Right Stuff" (1983)

"Raging Bull" (1980)

"Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981)

"Raising Arizona" (1987)

"Ran" (1985)

"Reanimator" (1985)

"Repo Man" (1984)

"Return of the Living Dead" (1985)

"Return of the Jedi" (1983)

"Robocop" (1987)

"Reds" (1981)

"The Road Warrior" (1981)

"Real Genius" (1985)