Michael May's Blog, page 104
January 13, 2017
Starmageddon: For the Love of Spock, Rogue One, and Carrie Fisher
Need to catch up some more on reporting recent podcast activity. And by "recent" I mean the last three months. It was a sporadic autumn for Starmageddon, but we did have some good discussions that you should totally listen to.
In Episode 38, we discussed the final Rogue One trailer, then Episode 39 was mostly about Adam Nimoy's documentary, For the Love of Spock. Episode 40 was all about Dan and my initial reactions to Rogue One, and then we got all silly in Episode 41, where we talked about the most recent Axanar news and shared our memories of Carrie Fisher.
January 9, 2017
6 Movies I Didn't Like from 2016
Today, we start counting down all the 2016 movies I watched from worst to best. Here's the bottom of the barrel.
50. Mechanic: Resurrection
2016 was a year of ill-advised sequels that no one asked for. I managed to avoid a few of those (like Independence Day 2) as well as some that we definitely asked for, but by all reports turned out to be no good (Jason Bourne). A couple of them got me though. Even though I enjoyed the 2011 Mechanic remake, I wasn't exactly clamoring for more, but I like Jason Statham enough that Resurrection got me to the theater. And for a while, I was really impressed.
The film starts in Rio and uses a landmark that brought Moonraker to mind and put me in the mood for a big, fun action movie. A pretty cool fight and a very cool stunt later, and I was hooked. I was still into it when Statham's character went to Thailand to hang out in some very Man With the Golden Gun-looking islands with Michelle Yeoh (reminding me of the best part of Tomorrow Never Dies). Were were still all good.
But then Jessica Alba showed up.
I don't dislike Alba as an actor; it's the script's problem. Up until her appearance, the movie is about Jason Statham's staying one step ahead of his enemy and refusing to get back into the assassination business. But then Alba reveals that she's been recruited (seemingly at random out of literally everyone on the planet; there's no compelling reason for the villain to have picked her in particular) to seduce Statham so that when she's later "kidnapped" by the bad guy, he'll have leverage over Statham.
Even knowing this, Statham falls in love with her anyway because of a wedding dance and the rest of the movie plays out exactly as Alba predicted it would. You don't even have to have seen an action movie before to know what's coming. Her character literally tells you in the first act. From there, I was just bored.
49. Assassin’s Creed
This is a good-looking movie with great actors who are doing and saying ridiculous nonsense. There are some good action sequences in some cool period settings, but they're completely undercut by constant visual reminders that what's happening isn't real and that there are no stakes.
48. The Young Messiah
A fan fiction prequel to Jesus' story that promises to explore his coming to terms with his role as the Messiah. Sadly, it doesn't actually deliver that. Really it's just his learning the facts around his birth, so that he discovers that he is the Messiah, and then there's a bit of voiceover monologue at the end where he explains what he thinks that's about. I was hoping for something more thoughtful.
Excellent performances all around though and I especially like the character arc given to Sean Bean's centurion. The set up for that story is kind of ridiculous and very contrived: Herod the Great's mad son orders Bean to seek out and murder the legendary child who escaped the massacre of infants seven years ago in Bethlehem. But having Bean's character be one of the soldiers who was in Bethlehem that night makes for a compelling story as he wrestles with his past and has to decide if he's going to repeat it.
47. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
I was surprised and completely charmed by the first movie in 2002, so this was a sequel I was actually looking forward to, regardless of what the critics had to say (and they didn't say nice things). Besides, there was at least one of other widely maligned comedy sequel in 2016 that I enjoyed quite a bit. Revisiting the original in preparation for this, though, I was concerned by how some of my fondness for it had expired.
The original is still very sweet and often funny, but I think a lot of its surprise was because of how it stood out among other romantic comedies of the early 2000s. Watching it today, when almost all romantic comedies are quirky and low-budget, it doesn't feel as fresh. I still quite like it though.
The sequel, on the other hand, tries to do too much. The first one knows exactly what story it's trying to tell and has no problem focusing on it. This one is sort of about Toula's relationship with her daughter, sort of about her daughter's relationship with the rest of her family, sort of about Toula's relationship with her family and how that affects her relationship with her husband, and sort of about her parents' relationship with each other. As much as I enjoyed seeing these characters again, the movie should have picked one - or maybe two - of those plots.
46. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
Pretty funny, but the first one had the advantage of surprising me with an actual story. This one tries to do some of the same stuff - to be about something - but isn't as deep (if "deep" is the word I even want to use for the first one). The first one dealt with Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne's crisis about growing older and uncool. The sequel deals with their fears about being bad parents. But the thing is, they really are horrible parents, so I don't care to see them make their peace with that. I'd rather see them learn to become good parents.
I do like the girl power angle of the story though and I found it easy to root for both sides of the war.
45. Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice
Speaking of wars, this was better than I expected, but that's a really low bar. It's built on the very shaky foundation of Man of Steel, which presented a brooding, selfish Superman. Because of that, the citizens of this world can apparently only react to him in one of two ways: god or monster. One character in Batman v Superman pays lip service to a third option: that he's just a man doing the best he can. But that's not really explored.
In order to get the fight of the title in, Batman is forced to see Superman as a monster, but in an unconvincing way that makes Batman seem pretty dumb. So most of the movie is a bunch of people acting really shallowly or stupidly. Lex has an interesting point of view - that Superman is a god and therefore must be treated as a monster - but Lex is so clearly insane that it's hard to take him seriously either. He's basically the Joker Lite.
Without anyone to care about, there are no stakes and most of the film is pretty dull. That changes somewhat once Lex's plan finally becomes active though. There's suddenly something to lose (in a contrived and cliche way, but still) and some of the action scenes are pretty cool, if not particularly thrilling.
Affleck makes a fine Batman and I'm interested in seeing a solo film with him as long as Snyder and Goyer aren't creating it. Almost as interested as I am in the Wonder Woman film. BvS only teases what the character will be like, but so far so good (and the trailers give me even more hope). I'm also hopeful about Aquaman's movie, but will need convincing about the Flash and Cyborg.
50. Mechanic: Resurrection
2016 was a year of ill-advised sequels that no one asked for. I managed to avoid a few of those (like Independence Day 2) as well as some that we definitely asked for, but by all reports turned out to be no good (Jason Bourne). A couple of them got me though. Even though I enjoyed the 2011 Mechanic remake, I wasn't exactly clamoring for more, but I like Jason Statham enough that Resurrection got me to the theater. And for a while, I was really impressed.
The film starts in Rio and uses a landmark that brought Moonraker to mind and put me in the mood for a big, fun action movie. A pretty cool fight and a very cool stunt later, and I was hooked. I was still into it when Statham's character went to Thailand to hang out in some very Man With the Golden Gun-looking islands with Michelle Yeoh (reminding me of the best part of Tomorrow Never Dies). Were were still all good.
But then Jessica Alba showed up.
I don't dislike Alba as an actor; it's the script's problem. Up until her appearance, the movie is about Jason Statham's staying one step ahead of his enemy and refusing to get back into the assassination business. But then Alba reveals that she's been recruited (seemingly at random out of literally everyone on the planet; there's no compelling reason for the villain to have picked her in particular) to seduce Statham so that when she's later "kidnapped" by the bad guy, he'll have leverage over Statham.
Even knowing this, Statham falls in love with her anyway because of a wedding dance and the rest of the movie plays out exactly as Alba predicted it would. You don't even have to have seen an action movie before to know what's coming. Her character literally tells you in the first act. From there, I was just bored.
49. Assassin’s Creed
This is a good-looking movie with great actors who are doing and saying ridiculous nonsense. There are some good action sequences in some cool period settings, but they're completely undercut by constant visual reminders that what's happening isn't real and that there are no stakes.
48. The Young Messiah
A fan fiction prequel to Jesus' story that promises to explore his coming to terms with his role as the Messiah. Sadly, it doesn't actually deliver that. Really it's just his learning the facts around his birth, so that he discovers that he is the Messiah, and then there's a bit of voiceover monologue at the end where he explains what he thinks that's about. I was hoping for something more thoughtful.
Excellent performances all around though and I especially like the character arc given to Sean Bean's centurion. The set up for that story is kind of ridiculous and very contrived: Herod the Great's mad son orders Bean to seek out and murder the legendary child who escaped the massacre of infants seven years ago in Bethlehem. But having Bean's character be one of the soldiers who was in Bethlehem that night makes for a compelling story as he wrestles with his past and has to decide if he's going to repeat it.
47. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
I was surprised and completely charmed by the first movie in 2002, so this was a sequel I was actually looking forward to, regardless of what the critics had to say (and they didn't say nice things). Besides, there was at least one of other widely maligned comedy sequel in 2016 that I enjoyed quite a bit. Revisiting the original in preparation for this, though, I was concerned by how some of my fondness for it had expired.
The original is still very sweet and often funny, but I think a lot of its surprise was because of how it stood out among other romantic comedies of the early 2000s. Watching it today, when almost all romantic comedies are quirky and low-budget, it doesn't feel as fresh. I still quite like it though.
The sequel, on the other hand, tries to do too much. The first one knows exactly what story it's trying to tell and has no problem focusing on it. This one is sort of about Toula's relationship with her daughter, sort of about her daughter's relationship with the rest of her family, sort of about Toula's relationship with her family and how that affects her relationship with her husband, and sort of about her parents' relationship with each other. As much as I enjoyed seeing these characters again, the movie should have picked one - or maybe two - of those plots.
46. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
Pretty funny, but the first one had the advantage of surprising me with an actual story. This one tries to do some of the same stuff - to be about something - but isn't as deep (if "deep" is the word I even want to use for the first one). The first one dealt with Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne's crisis about growing older and uncool. The sequel deals with their fears about being bad parents. But the thing is, they really are horrible parents, so I don't care to see them make their peace with that. I'd rather see them learn to become good parents.
I do like the girl power angle of the story though and I found it easy to root for both sides of the war.
45. Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice
Speaking of wars, this was better than I expected, but that's a really low bar. It's built on the very shaky foundation of Man of Steel, which presented a brooding, selfish Superman. Because of that, the citizens of this world can apparently only react to him in one of two ways: god or monster. One character in Batman v Superman pays lip service to a third option: that he's just a man doing the best he can. But that's not really explored.
In order to get the fight of the title in, Batman is forced to see Superman as a monster, but in an unconvincing way that makes Batman seem pretty dumb. So most of the movie is a bunch of people acting really shallowly or stupidly. Lex has an interesting point of view - that Superman is a god and therefore must be treated as a monster - but Lex is so clearly insane that it's hard to take him seriously either. He's basically the Joker Lite.
Without anyone to care about, there are no stakes and most of the film is pretty dull. That changes somewhat once Lex's plan finally becomes active though. There's suddenly something to lose (in a contrived and cliche way, but still) and some of the action scenes are pretty cool, if not particularly thrilling.
Affleck makes a fine Batman and I'm interested in seeing a solo film with him as long as Snyder and Goyer aren't creating it. Almost as interested as I am in the Wonder Woman film. BvS only teases what the character will be like, but so far so good (and the trailers give me even more hope). I'm also hopeful about Aquaman's movie, but will need convincing about the Flash and Cyborg.
January 6, 2017
Celebrating Wonder Woman and Giving Dead People Work at Nerd Lunch
Between 31 Days of Gothic Romance in October and Christmas Carol stuff in December (with my now-annual Non-Blogging November in between), I completely whiffed on mentioning a couple of episodes of Nerd Lunch that I was on.
In October, Stacey Rader and I joined CT and Pax to discuss Wonder Woman for her 75th birthday. I was also on the 75th anniversary discussions of Superman and Batman, so it made me really happy to complete the DC trinity. And really, Wonder Woman is the one I most looked forward to discussing. I love Superman and Batman, but they aren't that complex. Wonder Woman is. That's why I've written about her pretty extensively to try to figure her out. And we talk about that on the episode, too.
In November, I was back on again for my first shot at one of Nerd Lunch's recurring topics: "Give that Guy Some Work." That's usually where they pick some under-used actors and imagine the kinds of projects that they'd love to see those people work in together. This time, in the spirit of 2016, CT modified the topic to "Give that Dead Guy Some Work." I won't spoil the episode for you, but the image below suggests just one of the three amazing concepts that CT, Jeeg, Andrew Bloom, and I came up with.
Click on the links above to listen, or better yet, subscribe to Nerd Lunch on your favorite podcast listening platform.
January 4, 2017
24 Movies I Missed from 2016
I did pretty well with 2016 movies. In fact, my list of seen movies should be double the list of ones that I missed (assuming that I'm able to catch up on a couple of more this week like I plan). But I did miss a couple dozen that I wanted to see, so here those are; mostly to explain why some movies didn't make it into my rankings. As usual, I'm listing them more or less in the order that they were released:
1. Swiss Army Man
I don't know why I'm so fascinated with Daniel Radcliffe. I like the Harry Potter movies a lot and am enjoying the books (which I'm just now reading for the first time), but I'm not so huge a fan that I want to keep up with everything everyone Potter-related is doing. And yet, I'll see anything with Radcliffe in it.
Of course, the premise of a dead body who goes on adventures with a despondent man would intrigue me no matter who's playing the corpse.
2. Captain Fantastic
I feel like this can only end in heartbreak, but I love the idea of Viggo Mortensen experimenting with raising his kids outside of cultural influences and I really want to see the kids' stories once they have to interact with other people.
3. The Love Witch
Throwback to and parody of the lurid, semi-gothic horror movies of the '60s and '70s like what Hammer used to make. It just hit some festivals and had a small, limited release last year, so I'm waiting for it to hit home video. Hopefully by this Halloween.
4. The Wild Life
I heard almost nothing about this after it came out, which can't be a good sign. Of course, neither can the 15% on Rotten Tomatoes. But I'm up for a silly, animated version of the Robinson Crusoe story.
5. In a Valley of Violence
Neither Hawke nor Travolta are favorites of mine, but it's a Western and I did enjoy Hawke in the new Magnificent Seven.
6. Don't Think Twice
I'll see anything with Keegan-Michael Key at this point, but I'm also into exploring the politics when someone from an improv troupe hits it big and how that effects their relationships with the other members.
7. Hell or High Water
A modern-day Western with Ben Foster and Chris Pine.
8. The Red Turtle
Another animated movie about an island castaway. Probably not as silly as The Wild Life. The animation looks beautiful and I'm intrigued by its not having any dialogue. I love wordless comics, so I'm curious to see if I'll feel the same way about a wordless film.
9. Blood Father
Such mixed feelings, but this is exactly the kind of movie that I used to love Gibson in. I don't know if his offscreen issues are going to make this impossible to enjoy.
10. The Secret Life of Pets
Haven't heard good things, but the trailer made me chuckle.
11. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
I love all four of the people on this poster. Keeping my expectations low, though.
12. Ghostbusters
I was pretty stoked to see this and support the idea of it, but early reviews (from people who were also expecting to enjoy it) dampened my enthusiasm. I've also heard really good reviews though, so I'm eager to see it and form my own opinion. I just didn't make it to the theater.
13. Pete's Dragon
The original is cute enough, but it never grabbed me like the fully animated Disney movies from that time did. I think I always resented the live-action elements of it. So a remake was never something that I cared about one way or the other, but I've heard a lot of great things, including that it's an improvement on the original story. If nothing else, it's got Karl Urban.
14. Ben-Hur
Morbid curiosity. I love the silent version from 1925 and enjoy the '59 remake. I expect nothing but even more diminishing returns, but want to see what changes have been made and what's been kept for a modern audience.
15. Swallows and Amazons
Hasn't been released in the US yet, as far as I can tell, but as soon as it is, I'm all over this story of a bunch of English kids on vacation who split into rival factions and have adventures.
16. Imperium
My love for Daniel Radcliffe overcomes my disinterest in stories about undercover agents and white supremacist groups.
17. La La Land
You put Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in anything together and I'm there. Even more so if they're singing and dancing.
18. Nocturnal Animals
Wasn't sure about this based on the description, but the trailer nabbed me.
19. The Edge of Seventeen
Hailee Steinfeld is another person on my Gotta Watch list. And I've finally come completely around on Woody Harrelson. Used to not care a thing about his films, but then he made Zombieland and he's become increasingly endearing to me since.
20. Inferno
I've never read Dan Brown and I only sort of liked the previous movies in this series (Wait... did I see Angels and Demons? I forget.), but I like them enough - and I like the genre enough - to give Inferno a look, too. And hey, Jyn Erso.
21. The Rendezvous
Speaking of whatever genre the Dan Brown movies are in, here's one with Kate Beckett.
22. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
Really like the first one. Heard this isn't nearly as good, but what the heck. It's Tom Cruise running with a gun.
23. Rules Don't Apply
Snow White and Young Han Solo. And it'll be nice to see Warren Beatty again. And crap, look at the rest of that cast: Haley Bennett, Ed Harris, Oliver Platt... and those are just my favorites of that list.
24. Collateral Beauty
Was originally attracted to this as a feel-good, holiday film with some of my favorite actors in it, but I understand now that the trailer is completely misleading and that the movie itself is nuts (but not in a good way). So now I'm attracted to it as a crazy train wreck with some of my favorite actors in it.
1. Swiss Army Man
I don't know why I'm so fascinated with Daniel Radcliffe. I like the Harry Potter movies a lot and am enjoying the books (which I'm just now reading for the first time), but I'm not so huge a fan that I want to keep up with everything everyone Potter-related is doing. And yet, I'll see anything with Radcliffe in it.
Of course, the premise of a dead body who goes on adventures with a despondent man would intrigue me no matter who's playing the corpse.
2. Captain Fantastic
I feel like this can only end in heartbreak, but I love the idea of Viggo Mortensen experimenting with raising his kids outside of cultural influences and I really want to see the kids' stories once they have to interact with other people.
3. The Love Witch
Throwback to and parody of the lurid, semi-gothic horror movies of the '60s and '70s like what Hammer used to make. It just hit some festivals and had a small, limited release last year, so I'm waiting for it to hit home video. Hopefully by this Halloween.
4. The Wild Life
I heard almost nothing about this after it came out, which can't be a good sign. Of course, neither can the 15% on Rotten Tomatoes. But I'm up for a silly, animated version of the Robinson Crusoe story.
5. In a Valley of Violence
Neither Hawke nor Travolta are favorites of mine, but it's a Western and I did enjoy Hawke in the new Magnificent Seven.
6. Don't Think Twice
I'll see anything with Keegan-Michael Key at this point, but I'm also into exploring the politics when someone from an improv troupe hits it big and how that effects their relationships with the other members.
7. Hell or High Water
A modern-day Western with Ben Foster and Chris Pine.
8. The Red Turtle
Another animated movie about an island castaway. Probably not as silly as The Wild Life. The animation looks beautiful and I'm intrigued by its not having any dialogue. I love wordless comics, so I'm curious to see if I'll feel the same way about a wordless film.
9. Blood Father
Such mixed feelings, but this is exactly the kind of movie that I used to love Gibson in. I don't know if his offscreen issues are going to make this impossible to enjoy.
10. The Secret Life of Pets
Haven't heard good things, but the trailer made me chuckle.
11. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
I love all four of the people on this poster. Keeping my expectations low, though.
12. Ghostbusters
I was pretty stoked to see this and support the idea of it, but early reviews (from people who were also expecting to enjoy it) dampened my enthusiasm. I've also heard really good reviews though, so I'm eager to see it and form my own opinion. I just didn't make it to the theater.
13. Pete's Dragon
The original is cute enough, but it never grabbed me like the fully animated Disney movies from that time did. I think I always resented the live-action elements of it. So a remake was never something that I cared about one way or the other, but I've heard a lot of great things, including that it's an improvement on the original story. If nothing else, it's got Karl Urban.
14. Ben-Hur
Morbid curiosity. I love the silent version from 1925 and enjoy the '59 remake. I expect nothing but even more diminishing returns, but want to see what changes have been made and what's been kept for a modern audience.
15. Swallows and Amazons
Hasn't been released in the US yet, as far as I can tell, but as soon as it is, I'm all over this story of a bunch of English kids on vacation who split into rival factions and have adventures.
16. Imperium
My love for Daniel Radcliffe overcomes my disinterest in stories about undercover agents and white supremacist groups.
17. La La Land
You put Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in anything together and I'm there. Even more so if they're singing and dancing.
18. Nocturnal Animals
Wasn't sure about this based on the description, but the trailer nabbed me.
19. The Edge of Seventeen
Hailee Steinfeld is another person on my Gotta Watch list. And I've finally come completely around on Woody Harrelson. Used to not care a thing about his films, but then he made Zombieland and he's become increasingly endearing to me since.
20. Inferno
I've never read Dan Brown and I only sort of liked the previous movies in this series (Wait... did I see Angels and Demons? I forget.), but I like them enough - and I like the genre enough - to give Inferno a look, too. And hey, Jyn Erso.
21. The Rendezvous
Speaking of whatever genre the Dan Brown movies are in, here's one with Kate Beckett.
22. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
Really like the first one. Heard this isn't nearly as good, but what the heck. It's Tom Cruise running with a gun.
23. Rules Don't Apply
Snow White and Young Han Solo. And it'll be nice to see Warren Beatty again. And crap, look at the rest of that cast: Haley Bennett, Ed Harris, Oliver Platt... and those are just my favorites of that list.
24. Collateral Beauty
Was originally attracted to this as a feel-good, holiday film with some of my favorite actors in it, but I understand now that the trailer is completely misleading and that the movie itself is nuts (but not in a good way). So now I'm attracted to it as a crazy train wreck with some of my favorite actors in it.
January 2, 2017
Movie-Watching in 2016
Every January for the last few years I've been counting down all the movies I watched from the previous year. I'm gonna do that again, but before then, I thought it would be fun to look briefly at all the movies I watched last year that weren't from 2016. About 88% of them, as it turns out.
I know that because it was the first complete year that I used Letterboxd from January to December and I was faithful about logging everything in. That means that by the end of the year, Letterboxd was able to put together a handy group of statistics about my overall viewing habits in 2016.
I watched a total of 415 films (or about 8 a week). That's a lot, but keep in mind that a) some of those are short films and b) I don't watch a bunch of TV series. Mostly, if the TV's on, there's a movie playing.
The first film I watched of the year was 2007's Alvin and the Chipmunks (on David's recommendation) and the last was When Harry Met Sally... because that's a New Year's Eve tradition.
For the first half of the year, I focused mostly on movies from the 1910s to the early '30s. So, far and away my most-viewed actor was Buster Keaton with 34 films (though most of those are shorts). Then there's a huge gap to the next group of actors I watched: John Wayne (12 films), Boris Karloff, Shirley Temple, and Bela Lugosi (8 films each), and Lionel Barrymore (7 films).
Keaton was also my most-watched director (32 films) followed by Alfred Hitchcock (9 films), Cecil B DeMille (5 films), Sergio Leone (4 films thanks to Hellbent for Letterbox), James Whale (4 films), and Josef von Sternberg (4 films, all starring Marlene Dietrich whom I finally got around to checking out this year).
The most critically acclaimed movie I watched last year was 12 Angry Men (1957) and the most critically panned was M Night Shymalan's The Last Airbender (thanks to Mystery Movie Night).
The most popular movie I saw was The Force Awakens. The most obscure was a 1931 B-movie called Sea Devils starring nobody we know.
52% of the movies I watched were brand new to me; 48% were ones that I'd seen before.
Since 88% of my movie-watching was of 2015 films and earlier, 12% were ones that came out last year. I'll have a lot more to say about those in the coming month, but before that - as usual - I'll run down a list of movies from last year that I wanted to see, but never got around to.
December 31, 2016
Out with the Old
For a lot of folks, 2016 can't end quickly enough. And I'm not going to argue otherwise. It's been a dark year. There have been more deaths (both celebrity and personal) than seems possible to deal with. And the US Presidential election accentuated how divided the country has become.
I have lots of thoughts on both of those things, but I don't think that this blog is the place for them, except for maybe one exception. Carrie Fisher's death hit me pretty hard.
She was a huge part of my childhood, but one of the things I love most about having new Star Wars movies isn't that I got to see more Leia Organa. It's that all the interviews gave Carrie Fisher so many opportunities to display her fearless honesty about how she saw the world. Whether she was making jokes to Colbert about having to lose a fourth of her weight for Force Awakens (so the "fourth" wasn't with her) or sharing her experiences and wisdom with Daisy Ridley, the Carrie Fisher I saw over the past year is the one I mourn most. That's the lady we need more of. And that's why her death really punched me in the heart.
But for the most part - for me, personally - 2016 has been a pretty good year. I got to take a trip to Tallahassee where I grew up, so I was able to reconnect with a lot of old friends and introduce them to Diane and David. I also got to spend some good (if too little) time with Nerd Lunch's Carlin Trammel and his family and also the ever-awesome Paxton Holley.
And speaking of the Nerd Lunch fellas, 2016 was the year when the podcasting bug bit deep and I co-launched three new shows: Mystery Movie Night (with my pal Erik Johnson and a bunch of my family members), Hellbent for Letterbox (with Pax!), and Greystoked (with my buddy Noel Thingvall).
I didn't get as much writing done as I'd planned to, but I'm working on a pitch with a very talented artist and work is progressing on the Kill All Monsters omnibus re-scheduled for 2017 from Dark Horse. Hopefully, I'll be better next year at integrating writing and podcasting, because I love both of those things.
I saw a bunch of movies, too, but that's a subject for another post. Or series of posts, because that's how I like to spend my January. Here's hoping that 2017 is a better year for everyone. Happy New Year.
December 23, 2016
Klaus: A Christmas Comic Book Review [Guest Post]
By GW Thomas
Comic books featuring Santa Claus go back to the Golden Age. The Funnies, Disney Parade, Santa Claus Funnies; the four color Santa has been drawn by Irvin Tripp, Arthur E Jameson, Walt Kelly, and (much later) even John Byrne. Holiday comics are a guaranteed one-shot sales booster. They come and go like Bing Crosby tunes, Grinch cartoons, and fruit cake. So imagine my surprise when in November 2015 a comic appears called Klaus. It’s written by British comic book writer, Grant Morrison (who gave us Justice League revamps, Dark Knight adventures, and lately 18 Days) and ran until August of 2016. Christmas comics in the summer! Maybe that’s why he was worthy of Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2010. That takes some writing chops.
The seven-issue mini-series is set in the town of Grimsvig, a Medieval settlement ruled over by a cruel baron. He has made virtual slaves of the men and forbidden toys, merriment, and the Yule holiday. Sound familiar? The baron’s name isn’t Burgermeister Meisterburger. It’s not Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town, the 1970 children’s special written by Romeo Muller. Morrison begins in the same place then deviates into a power struggle between toymaker and baron that is closer to Game of Thrones than kiddie cartoons. We learn about the character of Klaus, who lives alone in the woods with his pet wolf Lilli and uses the magic of the forest, and how he was framed for murder by the baron who has also stolen his love, the beautiful Dagmar.
Klaus’s one-man war on the enemies of Christmas will appeal to comic fans who like their knights dark and their heroes bloody. Again, different than the Rankin-Bass cartoon, this comic has a nice, dark, almost Lovecraftian vein to it. The baron is not a madman, but in league with a demon trapped under the town’s vein of coal. The baron tells everyone the coal is for the king who will visit at Yule, but is in fact being cleared to free the monster. When this creature escapes we are in for a great sword-and-sorcery style fight. The terrible demon is the basis for the anti-Santa, Krampus, who wishes to devour the town’s children.
Morrison describes the comic thusly: “Klaus is the story of our hero’s greatest challenge and how he overcame it. This is the tale of one man and his wolf against a totalitarian state and the ancient evil that sustains it. Part action thriller, part sword-and-sorcery, part romance, part science fiction, Klaus has given us free rein to revamp, reinvent, and re-imagine a classic superhero for the 21st century. He’s making a list and he’s checking it twice. This Christmas it’s all about psychedelic shamanism, anti-authoritarian guerrilla gift-giving, and the jingle bells of freedom!”
The artwork in Klaus was done consistently throughout by Dan Mora, who also did the color. His work has a little Disney appeal, but can do all the realistic stuff it needs to do for a sword-and-sorcery tale, much as European artists like Crisse do. His designs for the evil Big Bad are creepy and believable at the same time that they are utterly fantastic. Mora worked on Hexed, also published by Boom, so he can draw magic stuff well.
Now the idea of writing Santa’s back story is not new with Morrison. L Frank Baum did it in 1902, and pulpster Seabury Quinn was much closer to Morrison’s version with “Roads” in Weird Tales in January 1938. What Morrison does do is write an adult story worthy of where Quinn leaves off. He gives us a hero to cheer for, an underdog with a righteous cause, a love story, and good villains who may at first seem cardboard, but become more interesting as we learn their objectives and struggles. Unlike Romeo Muller’s cartoon, Morrison hints at some origins of Christmas, but isn’t bound too tightly to it. This isn’t really a Christian tale so much as a Yuletide one. There is more of Robert E Howard than Saint Nicholas here: a celebration of love, family, hope, and light that can be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of religious belief; something comic book publishers are more sensitive to today.
GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.
Comic books featuring Santa Claus go back to the Golden Age. The Funnies, Disney Parade, Santa Claus Funnies; the four color Santa has been drawn by Irvin Tripp, Arthur E Jameson, Walt Kelly, and (much later) even John Byrne. Holiday comics are a guaranteed one-shot sales booster. They come and go like Bing Crosby tunes, Grinch cartoons, and fruit cake. So imagine my surprise when in November 2015 a comic appears called Klaus. It’s written by British comic book writer, Grant Morrison (who gave us Justice League revamps, Dark Knight adventures, and lately 18 Days) and ran until August of 2016. Christmas comics in the summer! Maybe that’s why he was worthy of Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2010. That takes some writing chops.The seven-issue mini-series is set in the town of Grimsvig, a Medieval settlement ruled over by a cruel baron. He has made virtual slaves of the men and forbidden toys, merriment, and the Yule holiday. Sound familiar? The baron’s name isn’t Burgermeister Meisterburger. It’s not Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town, the 1970 children’s special written by Romeo Muller. Morrison begins in the same place then deviates into a power struggle between toymaker and baron that is closer to Game of Thrones than kiddie cartoons. We learn about the character of Klaus, who lives alone in the woods with his pet wolf Lilli and uses the magic of the forest, and how he was framed for murder by the baron who has also stolen his love, the beautiful Dagmar.
Klaus’s one-man war on the enemies of Christmas will appeal to comic fans who like their knights dark and their heroes bloody. Again, different than the Rankin-Bass cartoon, this comic has a nice, dark, almost Lovecraftian vein to it. The baron is not a madman, but in league with a demon trapped under the town’s vein of coal. The baron tells everyone the coal is for the king who will visit at Yule, but is in fact being cleared to free the monster. When this creature escapes we are in for a great sword-and-sorcery style fight. The terrible demon is the basis for the anti-Santa, Krampus, who wishes to devour the town’s children.Morrison describes the comic thusly: “Klaus is the story of our hero’s greatest challenge and how he overcame it. This is the tale of one man and his wolf against a totalitarian state and the ancient evil that sustains it. Part action thriller, part sword-and-sorcery, part romance, part science fiction, Klaus has given us free rein to revamp, reinvent, and re-imagine a classic superhero for the 21st century. He’s making a list and he’s checking it twice. This Christmas it’s all about psychedelic shamanism, anti-authoritarian guerrilla gift-giving, and the jingle bells of freedom!”
The artwork in Klaus was done consistently throughout by Dan Mora, who also did the color. His work has a little Disney appeal, but can do all the realistic stuff it needs to do for a sword-and-sorcery tale, much as European artists like Crisse do. His designs for the evil Big Bad are creepy and believable at the same time that they are utterly fantastic. Mora worked on Hexed, also published by Boom, so he can draw magic stuff well.Now the idea of writing Santa’s back story is not new with Morrison. L Frank Baum did it in 1902, and pulpster Seabury Quinn was much closer to Morrison’s version with “Roads” in Weird Tales in January 1938. What Morrison does do is write an adult story worthy of where Quinn leaves off. He gives us a hero to cheer for, an underdog with a righteous cause, a love story, and good villains who may at first seem cardboard, but become more interesting as we learn their objectives and struggles. Unlike Romeo Muller’s cartoon, Morrison hints at some origins of Christmas, but isn’t bound too tightly to it. This isn’t really a Christian tale so much as a Yuletide one. There is more of Robert E Howard than Saint Nicholas here: a celebration of love, family, hope, and light that can be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of religious belief; something comic book publishers are more sensitive to today.
GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.
December 22, 2016
Cthulhu Christmas Classics: The Festival [Guest Post]
By GW Thomas
I have been re-experiencing HP Lovecraft recently. I read pretty much everything he ever wrote back in the late 1980s when I was obsessed with the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. I can’t complain. It gave me my first non-fiction and fiction sales: “The City in the Sea” in Cthulhu Now! (1987) and “The Man Who Would Be King” (Eldritch Tales #24, Winter 1990). My reading of HPL was hurried and usually with the intent of finding useful bits to use in the game. So, in re-reading him, I am enjoying his work in a new – and I think – more honest way: as a horror writer.
One of the stories I re-read is “The Festival,” which appeared in Weird Tales, January 1925. I read it from a digital scan of that magazine that included the creepy Andrew Brosnatch illustration. January issues actually sold in December, making this the Christmas issue. “The Festival” is a perfect choice for such an issue since it is a Lovecraftian Christmas story. Now don’t expect anything as tame as a Dickensian ghost. Lovecraft was a complete atheist and so he isn’t trying to retell Jesus’s story or be Clement Moore. (Though HPL was a poet and followed up “The Festival” a year later with the poem “Yule Horror”: “But a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of feastings unhallowed and old.”) Lovecraft wants to take us to the time before Nazareth and “Jolly Old St. Nicholas.”
The plot of “The Festival” will seem familiar to Lovecraft readers. He would use it again in “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and elsewhere: a man who learns of his family’s ancient ties to a decrepit town (inspired by a visit to Marblehead, MA) goes to that place and experiences a terror and a realization of what his family has been involved in. Sometimes they turn out to be people turning into fish-frogs; other times devil-worshipers. The narrator of this tale has come to Kingsport, a rotting little town on the Atlantic coast at Christmas, where he hears no village noise or sees any tracks. Lovecraft indulges his love of antiquarian architecture with a description of the elder town:
…snowy Kingsport with its ancient vanes and steeples, ridgepoles and chimney-pots, wharves and small bridges, willow-trees and graveyards; endless labyrinths of steep, narrow, crooked streets, and dizzy church-crowned central peak that time durst not touch; ceaseless mazes of colonial houses piled and scattered at all angles and levels like a child’s disordered blocks; antiquity hovering on grey wings over winter-whitened gables and gambrel roofs; fanlights and small-paned windows one by one gleaming out in the cold dusk to join Orion and the archaic stars. And against the rotting wharves the sea pounded; the secretive, immemorial sea out of which the people had come in the elder time.
But the master knows that horror fiction works on mood so he gives us the creepy treatment as well:
The time arrives and the old couple gives the visitor a cloak to put on and everybody in town is joining in, as they all file to the old church (this is the scene Brosnatch drew). At the church the man realizes nobody, including himself, is leaving any tracks in the snow. The robed acolytes take him down a long, winding stairwell to a pit that emits a cold flame. The man is forced to join in terrible rites and hopes only for escape. Then he finds out that this is only the precursor to worse things, every member of the town jumping onto the back of a winged terror to fly into a dark cavern that contains a vast sea. The old man tries to force him onto a mount and his skin mask falls off. The narrator screams and flees into the water.
The tale ends (where else?) at the loony bin in Arkham, after the narrator is rescued from the freezing water near Kingsport. The shrinks think the best way to cure him is to allow him to read the Necronomicon (again, edging toward the ludicrous) and finishes with a quote that speaks of gigantic caverns beneath the earth, filled with terrors. Not HPL’s best version of these ideas, but this was only 1923. The story, despite two rather silly points, works wonderfully in other ways. HPL parodies many Christmas themes: traveling to be with family, staying with relatives, the silly little customs we observe every year, dressing up for church, worship, and inclusion. The entire story is a black Christmas the narrator would rather forget.
Looking back at my notes from 1985, my only take away from this story was the name Kingsport and the first appearance of the “byakhee,” the flying monsters the cultists rode. It wasn’t even Lovecraft who named the beasts, but August Derleth who made them the ride of choice in The Trail of Cthulhu (1944). I completely missed all the fun Lovecraft was having with his character, like a dupe from Algernon Blackwood’s “Ancient Sorceries” stumbling onto a village of were-cats. I don’t usually think of HPL as a funny guy, but I can’t help but think this tale is meant to be just a little ridiculous even as it is exceptionally strange. It certainly is a change of pace from the Dylan Thomas and Alexander Woollcott chestnuts you find in most anthologies. And remember what old HPL says: “It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind.” Merry Cthulhu Christmas!
GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.
I have been re-experiencing HP Lovecraft recently. I read pretty much everything he ever wrote back in the late 1980s when I was obsessed with the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. I can’t complain. It gave me my first non-fiction and fiction sales: “The City in the Sea” in Cthulhu Now! (1987) and “The Man Who Would Be King” (Eldritch Tales #24, Winter 1990). My reading of HPL was hurried and usually with the intent of finding useful bits to use in the game. So, in re-reading him, I am enjoying his work in a new – and I think – more honest way: as a horror writer.One of the stories I re-read is “The Festival,” which appeared in Weird Tales, January 1925. I read it from a digital scan of that magazine that included the creepy Andrew Brosnatch illustration. January issues actually sold in December, making this the Christmas issue. “The Festival” is a perfect choice for such an issue since it is a Lovecraftian Christmas story. Now don’t expect anything as tame as a Dickensian ghost. Lovecraft was a complete atheist and so he isn’t trying to retell Jesus’s story or be Clement Moore. (Though HPL was a poet and followed up “The Festival” a year later with the poem “Yule Horror”: “But a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of feastings unhallowed and old.”) Lovecraft wants to take us to the time before Nazareth and “Jolly Old St. Nicholas.”
The plot of “The Festival” will seem familiar to Lovecraft readers. He would use it again in “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and elsewhere: a man who learns of his family’s ancient ties to a decrepit town (inspired by a visit to Marblehead, MA) goes to that place and experiences a terror and a realization of what his family has been involved in. Sometimes they turn out to be people turning into fish-frogs; other times devil-worshipers. The narrator of this tale has come to Kingsport, a rotting little town on the Atlantic coast at Christmas, where he hears no village noise or sees any tracks. Lovecraft indulges his love of antiquarian architecture with a description of the elder town:
…snowy Kingsport with its ancient vanes and steeples, ridgepoles and chimney-pots, wharves and small bridges, willow-trees and graveyards; endless labyrinths of steep, narrow, crooked streets, and dizzy church-crowned central peak that time durst not touch; ceaseless mazes of colonial houses piled and scattered at all angles and levels like a child’s disordered blocks; antiquity hovering on grey wings over winter-whitened gables and gambrel roofs; fanlights and small-paned windows one by one gleaming out in the cold dusk to join Orion and the archaic stars. And against the rotting wharves the sea pounded; the secretive, immemorial sea out of which the people had come in the elder time.But the master knows that horror fiction works on mood so he gives us the creepy treatment as well:
Beside the road at its crest a still higher summit rose, bleak and windswept, and I saw that it was a burying-ground where black gravestones stuck ghoulishly through the snow like the decayed fingernails of a gigantic corpse. The printless road was very lonely, and sometimes I thought I heard a distant horrible creaking as of a gibbet in the wind. They had hanged four kinsmen of mine for witchcraft in 1692, but I did not know just where.The wanderer on Christmas tredding the snowy country -- this could be a scene from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula’s Guest” or an MR James tale. But wait! It’s going to get much weirder. Because the narrator goes to an address scavenged from some family record and is introduced to two seemingly bland people, an old man and his wife. They accept him immediately thanks to his lineage and sit him down to wait. Wait for what? The visitor has no idea, but is willing to find out. To pass the time, some light reading: a stack of arcane volumes including nothing less than the dread Necronomicon. HPL is ridiculously close to unintentional humor here, but with his usual deftness manages to make it creepy, with the visitor realizing that this old couple are stranger than they seemed at first. He has the odd feeling that the man is actually wearing some kind of skin mask.
The time arrives and the old couple gives the visitor a cloak to put on and everybody in town is joining in, as they all file to the old church (this is the scene Brosnatch drew). At the church the man realizes nobody, including himself, is leaving any tracks in the snow. The robed acolytes take him down a long, winding stairwell to a pit that emits a cold flame. The man is forced to join in terrible rites and hopes only for escape. Then he finds out that this is only the precursor to worse things, every member of the town jumping onto the back of a winged terror to fly into a dark cavern that contains a vast sea. The old man tries to force him onto a mount and his skin mask falls off. The narrator screams and flees into the water.
The tale ends (where else?) at the loony bin in Arkham, after the narrator is rescued from the freezing water near Kingsport. The shrinks think the best way to cure him is to allow him to read the Necronomicon (again, edging toward the ludicrous) and finishes with a quote that speaks of gigantic caverns beneath the earth, filled with terrors. Not HPL’s best version of these ideas, but this was only 1923. The story, despite two rather silly points, works wonderfully in other ways. HPL parodies many Christmas themes: traveling to be with family, staying with relatives, the silly little customs we observe every year, dressing up for church, worship, and inclusion. The entire story is a black Christmas the narrator would rather forget.
Looking back at my notes from 1985, my only take away from this story was the name Kingsport and the first appearance of the “byakhee,” the flying monsters the cultists rode. It wasn’t even Lovecraft who named the beasts, but August Derleth who made them the ride of choice in The Trail of Cthulhu (1944). I completely missed all the fun Lovecraft was having with his character, like a dupe from Algernon Blackwood’s “Ancient Sorceries” stumbling onto a village of were-cats. I don’t usually think of HPL as a funny guy, but I can’t help but think this tale is meant to be just a little ridiculous even as it is exceptionally strange. It certainly is a change of pace from the Dylan Thomas and Alexander Woollcott chestnuts you find in most anthologies. And remember what old HPL says: “It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind.” Merry Cthulhu Christmas!
GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.
December 21, 2016
“More of Gravy than of Grave” | Patrick Stewart (1999)
Index of other entries in The Christmas Carol Project
The TNT Christmas Carol did some pre-work on Jacob Marley back in the very first scene, so I was curious to see if that pays off with Marley's appearance here. Patrick Stewart's Scrooge is best characterized as isolated and lonely. That's something that he's apparently welcomed, but it doesn't seem to have always been the case. He showed emotion at Marley's funeral and expressed at least a deep respect for his friend and partner, if not actual fondness. So how is he going to react to Marley now?
With shock, initially, of course. Marley's face appears as Scrooge is approaching the door to unlock it. There's some CG at work, but it's not as blatant as the Muppets version. Marley's face morphs and grows out of the knocker, but the image is formed out of mist. It's clear that we're looking at a face, but its a face that's being thrust here from another world. Even Marley's scream is distant and barely audible. Scrooge can't believe what he's seeing. He says Marley's name aloud, but there's doubt in his eyes. He looks back at the street as if to see if someone's playing a trick on him and his slow "humbuuug" has a tone like, "You're not fooling me..." Even if he's talking to his own mind.
The interior of the house is clean and spartan and there's writing on a wall that I can't quite make out, but looks like it could be a directory of office tenants in the building. If that's right, it's a great touch. He goes upstairs (no hearse or any other spookiness) to his room, but he doesn't search it right away. He gives the interior a good look, but then just hangs up his hat and lights his fire. When he hears some old-house noises though, he gets a little spooked and checks out a tiny closet/lumber room. It's empty, so Scrooge hums a satisfied "mmm," as if to say, "I thought as much."
The scene cuts to him in his dressing gown, double-locking the door to the hallway before pouring himself a watery bowl of gruel. He eats in silence until the Dutch tiles around his fireplace catch his eye. A face on one of the tiles turns into Marley's face (but still drawn in the style of the tile art; very cool) and turns to glare at Scrooge. On another tile, the entire scene becomes Marley's face (still in that same art style). Scrooge blinks and burps, trying to remove pressure from the upset stomach he believes is causing him to see things.
And hear things, because after that the servant's bell starts to clang on its own before being joined by other, unseen bells and then suddenly going quiet again. Far off from somewhere else in the house, a large door opens and Scrooge hears the clunk of footsteps and the clank of chains coming nearer. He sets down his bowl and scooches back in his chair, away from the hallway door that he now can't take his eyes off. The camera moves outside for a ghost's eye view as something comes up the stairs and moves toward the door. Back inside, Scrooge stands up and whispers that he won't believe it.
In another CG effect, Marley morphs through the door like Kitty Pryde. He's all-white and see-through and a strange wind is clearly blowing his hair. Scrooge gasps and jerks back, trying to hide in a corner, but he recovers enough to question the ghost and start the conversation.
Marley looks cool. Bernard Lloyd has a full head of hair and the bandage is wide enough to cover his entire chin and jaw. He looks stylish and purposeful. He carries himself sort of like a cowboy, moving his chains out of the way like Clint Eastwood moves a poncho. He even has an Eastwood squint. These are interesting choices and create a very confident Marley.
Stewart is awesome too, of course. There's doubt in his eyes as he shakes his head. Marley picks up on it. "You don't believe in me." Scrooge goes back to eating his comforting gruel as he explains his indigestion and what he thinks it's doing to him. The action gives him courage, so by the time he gets to "gravy than of grave" he's sneering and adds a mocking, "Jacob!"
This causes Marley to lose his cool. He stands and screams and unties his bandage, which has the apparently unintended effect of causing his jaw to open to an unnatural degree (thanks to more CG). Scrooge has to actually walk over and help Marley shut his mouth. It's this action that seems to help Scrooge overcome his disbelief. So he asks Marley about why he's come.
From here, their conversation is a discussion between equals. And friendly ones at that. I can feel something of their old partnership, with Marley's concernedly warning Scrooge and Scrooge's asking insightful questions. It's a lovely scene with masterful acting. Marley is appropriately heart-broken about his own condition; Scrooge is perfect in not understanding why Marley's being punished. Scrooge doesn't even acknowledge his own guilt so much as concede that Marley at least believes in it.
Because it's so important to Marley, Scrooge is curious about the "chance and hope" that Marley's offering him, but quickly becomes disinterested when he learns that it involves three more ghosts. This Marley is true to Dickens and schedules the coming spirits over a three night period. Scrooge sighs as if he's merely steeling himself for a meeting with an unpleasant client. I think he's enjoyed this visit from his old friend, but he still doesn't really believe it's happening.
Marley reties his bandage with a sickening clack and I realize that it's the tightness of the bandage that was causing him to squint earlier. He walks over to the window, which opens itself, and points outside. When Scrooge goes over, he sees the host of phantoms. Some of them are flying in formation like a giant school of fish, but others are closer and seem to be beckoning to Scrooge. He watches as one, lone ghost - shackled to a huge safe - flies down to the street where a mother and her young child huddle in the cold. The ghost holds his hands out to them, but it's not perfectly clear what he's trying to do until Marley explains it. His message finished, he flies out too to join the stragglers who are making their way to the school of phantoms.
Alone again, Scrooge is contemplative about his experience. It's not clear if he believes any of it, but he's not even trying to convince himself with a "humbug."
December 20, 2016
“More of Gravy than of Grave” | Michael Caine (1992)
Index of other entries in The Christmas Carol Project
The Muppets use CG to provide a great transformation scene with the knocker. No superimposed faces here; we get to see the knocker slowly morph into Marley's face - or a Marley's face - before our eyes. It's Statler of Statler and Waldorf. A spooked Scrooge identifies him as Jacob Marley before the ghost moans Scrooge's name so loudly that he startles the horse pulling Gonzo and Rizzo's carriage. Gonzo and Rizzo spill out and when we cut back to the door, Marley is gone. Scrooge takes a close look on it and decides, "Humbug."
Gonzo narrates some more, focusing on Scrooge's fondness for the dark and generally making Scrooge out to be recovered from the incident, but wary. Scrooge lights some lamps and searches his rooms. He looks determined, but he also picks up a poker from the fireplace to carry as a weapon. And in a great bit, he attacks his own dressing gown, thinking that it might be an intruder. He even pounds on it a couple of times on the floor, before realizing in horror that he's abused a valuable piece of clothing.
The scene then cuts to Scrooge by the fire, wearing the gown and taking some bread and cheese. No gruel for this Scrooge. He's not a spendthrift, but Michael Caine's Scrooge enjoys his wealth. He just doesn't share it with anyone else. As he eats, the servant's bell gives a little jingle. Scrooge looks at it and it goes still, but when he returns to his dinner, the bell goes crazy before settling down once more.
Scrooge's fire doesn't grow larger at Marley's nearness, it goes out completely, which is probably a better visual. We're used to rooms getting cold before spirits appear and that's the sense that I get here. There's some distant creaking and maybe some footsteps, but the music does most of the work in building suspense until the Marleys pop up.
In this version, there's no door separating Scrooge's sitting room from the staircase. There's just a bannister, so the Marleys (Statler and Waldorf this time) fly up the stairwell to hover near the rail. Their moans turn into the duo's trademark heckling laughter and they immediately launch into insults about Scrooge's looks. When the disbelieving Scrooge asks who they are, they introduce themselves as Jacob and Robert (get it?) Marley. They're pale and transparent, but neither wears the traditional bandage for some reason.
Caine's Scrooge has already demonstrated a sense of humor, so it's fitting that he uses it here to convince himself that he's hallucinating. The Marley's are into it, too, chuckling to themselves until Scrooge gets to his gravy quip. That's when they go into full heckling. "What a terrible pun!" Jacob says. And Robert: "Leave the comedy to the bears!" Scrooge's reaction is telling. At first he begs, "Please don't criticize me!" But then he scowls and points. "You always criticized me!"
Of course that would be the case. Statler and Waldorf are horrible people and they make fitting Marleys. I can't imagine working with them and it builds sympathy to think of Scrooge's having to endure them as partners, even as mean as he is.
When he asks why they're there, they launch into a song that explains their plight and how Scrooge is heading down the same path.
I have some of the same problem with this interpretation that I do with Goofy's playing Marley in Mickey's Christmas Carol. Not to that same extent, because an additional part of Goofy's problem is that he's generally known for being a good-natured pal, so he's not a natural fit for Marley. Statler and Waldorf are at least reasonable choices. But they do the same thing that Goofy does, which is to try to balance remorse over their past deeds with a humorous pride. It doesn't work any better for Muppets than it did for Mickey, so I generally don't care for these Marleys at all. I doubt that this visit to Scrooge was their idea. They seem like the kind of guys who had to be forced into it.
Their song is good though and I love that their cash boxes and padlocks join in for a line. It's also great that Caine plays the whole thing straight. He's appropriately frightened and seems to take their warning to heart. It's hard to get a good sense of where he's at, because he's just interjecting lines into a song, but if there's no great insight to Scrooge's mindset, we can at least accept that he's shaken up. There's been no real change in him yet, though. It'll take more than a fun, but silly song.
When the song is done, it's interesting that the Marleys have to be literally dragged back towards the bannister by their own chains. They struggle to get out the last of the message, but manage to tell Scrooge about the coming spirits. They're vague about the timing though and only mention that the first is coming that night at 1:00.
When they reach the stairwell, their chains continue to pull at them, down the well (or into hell, if you're imagination wants to go there). As they descend, they go back to their song, "We're Marley and Marley!" It's just a musical end cap, but there might also be something to their trying to hold onto their identities as they rejoin the nameless forces that have both sent them there and are drawing them back. Maybe that's deeper than you want Muppets to go, but the movie shows some surprising depth in other areas, too, so I'm going with it.
There's no host of phantoms trying to help a homeless mother in this version. As the Marley's disappear with a final command for Scrooge to "Change!" the lamps go out and everything is dark for a couple of seconds. Then Scrooge's fire roars back to life.
The scene shifts outside for some more narration/shenanigans by Gonzo and Rizzo, then back to Scrooge's bed as he climbs in. He's holding the poker again, still unnerved, but he gets out a whole "humbug" as he pulls closed the curtains.
