Jason's Blog, page 154

Cartoon C

Third and final cartoon, done around 86. The humour magazine I had worked for during high school didn't exist anymore. I sent these cartoons to another magazine, but with no luck.

Cartoon B

-Hi, been waiting long?

Cartoon A

-Got a light?

Squirrel

Coming Home

Jane Fonda is married to Marine Captain Bruce Dern who is going to Vietnam. She falls for paralyzed veteran Jon Voight. Directed by Hal Ashby.

It's not a bad film - there are some touching scenes between Fonda and Voight - but the film makers are clearly on Voight's side, there's no question which of the men Fonda will choose. There would maybe have been a bit more tension or conflict in the film if they had made the Dern character less of a fool, who 1. can't bring his wife to orgasm, 2. wants her to stay in the kitchen, and 3. got injured by accidentally shooting himself in the foot. The film is saved somewhat by an ambiguous ending.

Bison

Annie, Skeezix

I've finished reading volumes 5 of Little Orphan Annie and Walt and Skeezix. LOA gets a bit repetitive, with Warbucks travelling abroad, Annie going on the road, ending up in some trouble and then being rescued by Warbucks, but there's still lots of charm. The strip is very melodramatic, but that works well within that Dickensian universe. When W&S go melodramatic, like the trial in volume 4 and the fake will in this volume, it breaks the tone a bit from the rest of the strip. As a reader I'm not hooked. Also, the drawings in W&S appeal less to me than the ones in LOA or cartoonier strips of that time like Polly and her Pals. For one thing, in W&S the angle is changed in every panel for no reason. LOA, for me, just works better as a comic. So I've ordered volume 6 of Little Orphan Annie whereas volume 5 of Walt & Skeezix will be the last volume I buy, I betcha.

Beetle

Gazelle

Two-Lane Passenger

The Passenger by Michelangelo Antonioni.

War correspondent Jack Nicholson takes another man's identity.
Of all the slow and rambling films from the seventies, this must be one of the slowest and ramblingest. I suppose it has something to do with existentialism. Nicholson is solid, some of the other actors are weak. It's really a bit too arty for my taste. The famous, long take at the end, though, makes the film almost, almost!, worth sitting through. "What do you see?"

Two-Lane Blacktop by Monte Hellman

James Taylor and Dennis Wilson are racing Warren Oats. Also, there's a girl.
The characters are completely uninteresting. Either they talk car technical gobbledygook or they're saying things like "You can never go too fast." or "We're just passing through." The old existential thing again, or is the film trying to say something about America? Visually, the film looks great, but it's kind of boring, actually. But then again, so are most cultfilms.