Comics 101: Spider-Man

Young Peter Parker, high school science whiz, is bitten by a radioactive spider and gains the relative strength of a spider, as well as at the ability to scale walls and a “spider-sense”. Using his scientific expertise, he constructs web shooting gauntlets. At first, he uses these powers to make money as an amateur wrestler, but after a judgment he makes causes the death of his Uncle Ben. Living true to the motto of “With great power, comes great responsibility”, Peter becomes Spider-Man, fighting crime while being vilified by his employer, The Daily Bugle. You know the basic origin, so lets get into some of the details, shall we?

Early on, Peter juggled high school, work as a photographer for The Daily Bugle, and Spider-Man. J. Jonah Jameson, the Bugle’s publisher took a particular relish in vilifying the webcrawler. Peter pressures himself to  bring home his share of money for his widowed Aunt May, while she attempts to set him up with the neighbor’s niece, Mary Jane Watson. Not wanting to be set up, Peter avoids this for awhile (multiple years in our time). Some of Spidey’s early villains were The Chameleon, The Vulture, The Sandman, Doctor Octopus, Electro, Mysterio, Kraven the Hunter, and of course Green Goblin. Peter also dated Betty Brant, J.J.’s secretary in his senior year of high school, but eventually fell for Gwen Stacy once he got into college. A major turning point in Peter’s life revolved around Gwen, an event that would change him forever.

The Green Goblin had figured out that Spider-Man and Peter Parker were the same person, while Spidey was unaware of who the Goblin was. To hit Spider-Man deep, he kidnapped Gwen and held her captive atop the George Washington Bridge. The two men battled and Gwen plummeted off the bridge. Spidey dives, firing a web to catch her leg, but the jolt of the web’s tug causes Gwen’s neck to jerk back and snap, killing her. Enraged, Spider-Man hunts the Goblin down and in the process of the battle, the villain is impaled on his own glider. During his grieving period, Spider-Man is secretly cloned by one of his professors, and battles himself, as well as is tricked by a clone of Gwen. Peter believes his clone is dead, but the clone lives, taking the name Ben Reilly and leaves NYC for the next few years. Peter finds himself in the arms of Mary Jane Watson and the two become inseparable for a long time.

Aftre graduating from college, Peter becomes involved in a secret war on the moon between Marvel’s top heroes and villains, organized by a being called The Beyonder. While on the moon, Peter ditches his red and blue duds, for a sleek black and white costume which he is unaware is a living organism, a symbiote that enhances Peter’s powers but also increases his rage. Back on Earth, Peter is becoming increasingly violent and gets help from Mr. Fantastic to separate himself from the symbiote. Peter returns to normal, but the symbiote eventually escapes its containment, and finds Eddie Brock. Brock was a reporter for the Daily Bugle who has falsified facts in an effort to break a big story. He gets caught in the lie by Spider-Man, and Brock grows to hate the hero. The symbiote detects this hate and merges with Brock to become Venom. Venom plagues Spider-Man with a cannibalistic brutality, but eventually creates his own nemesis by accident, the even more brutal Carnage.

Peter and Mary Jane get married, but their happiness is short lived when Ben Reilly, his clone returns to his life. It turns out there were a few clones made, including Kaine, a violent version of Peter who uses his sticky wallcrawler hands to tear the skin off people’s faces. Spider-Man battles his evil clone and eventually Ben takes up the identity of the Scarlet Spider. The Scarlet Spider’s career is cut short when he is suddenly and brutally killed by the original Green Goblin, returned from the dead. As a way to strike at the core of Peter, The Goblin aka Norman Osborn causes Mary Jane to believe she miscarries, while he actually kidnaps the child to raise as his own. Life continued down this bleak path, with M.J. and Peter separating, Aunt May taking ill many times, and Peter struggling to maintain his personal life. The Kingpin learns of Spider-Man true identity while imprisoned and hired a hitman to take Parker out. Instead the bullet hits Aunt May and Peter searches for help from heroes like Doctor Strange and Iron Man.

Mephisto, Marvel’s version of the Devil, appeared to Peter and MJ with a deal. Aunt May would be saved if Peter allowed his life with MJ and the memories of it to be taken. Peter refused to make such a deal, but MJ agreed to it, knowing Peter would be heartbroken if Aunt May died. In a flash, their marriage was gone, Peter was a high school chemistry teacher, still photographing for The Daily Bugle and MJ had left New York years ago. J. Jonah Jameson has won the election to become the mayor of New York City, while Norman Osborn achieved the highest level of power in American defense.

All of Spidey’s enemies have evolved over the years as well, most tragically The Lizard, who was Peter’s mentor Dr. Curt Conners, has submitted to his mutation and devolved permanently into a mindless reptilian creature. Most recently, Peter has been hunted by the vengeful Kravinoff family, the heirs of Kraven the Hunter. They have killed and tortured characters whose powers are related to spiders (Spider-Woman, Arana, Madame Web) to lure Peter into a trap. He was even reunited with Kaine, his surviving clone along the way. It culminated in the ressurrection of the dead Kraven and a massive battle with Spider-Man. In the end the Kravinoffs failed and were driven out of NYC. Kaine sacrificed himself to save Spidey and the adolescent Arana became Spider-Girl.

Character Actor Month – Part 3

Keith David (IMDB credits: 180 credits, The Thing, Platoon, They Live, Gargoyles, Princess Mononoke, There’s Something About Mary, Pitch Black, Requiem for a Dream, Coraline)

Keith David is an actor known just as well for both his on screen performances as well as voice over work. When I see his face I immediately think of Childs in John Carpenter’s The Thing. When I hear his voice I think of Goliath from Disney’s Gargoyles, one of the best children’s animated shows from the 1990s. David was born in Harlem, New York in 1956 and first found himself moving towards acting as a career when playing the Cowardly Lion for a school production of The Wizard of Oz. He entered into New York’s High School for the Performing Arts and attended Julliard afterwards. You can definitely hear the classical Shakespearean training in his voice, particularly as the Celtic Goliath. David has become a frequent collaborator with John Carpenter and provided the voice-overs for three Ken Burns documentaries (“The War”, “Unforgivable Blackness”, “Jazz”) and won Emmys for the first two. He is one of those actors more and more directors are using and his IMDB boasts 12 projects in various stages of production.

Paul Dooley (IMDB credits: 160 credits, Slap Shot, Popeye, Strange Brew, Sixteen Candles, Waiting For Guffman, Insomnia, A Mighty Wind, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Cars, Hairspray)

Dooley is one of those people that has always had a creative mind and was bound to be involved in entertainment and the arts somehow. Born in Virginia in the 1920s, Dooley was very into cartooning and even drew a regular strip that was part of the local newspaper. He joined up with the Navy, but after getting out and enrolling in West Virginia University he discovered theater. Comedy was his strength, so he moved to New York and did stand up for five years, and then worked as a stage magician and clown. Dooley was discovered by Mike Nichols and cast in the original stage production of The Odd Couple. In the 1970s he helped co-create The Electric Company for PBS and worked as one of its writers for its initial run. Around this time he also got involved with Robert Altman’s films, playing key roles in A Wedding and Popeye. In the 1990s, Dooley got involved in the Christopher Guest movies, as well as becoming a regular in shows like My So Called Life and The Practice.

Grace Zabriskie (IMDB credits: 134 credits, Norma Rae, An Officer and a Gentleman, Drugstore Cowboy, Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart, Fried Green Tomatoes, Ferngully, Seinfeld, The Grudge)

Grace Zabriskie was born in New Orleans and grew up amongst some interesting guests of her father’s cafe and various business in the city. She claims that they were visited by Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, and Truman Capote at various times. As a young adult, she wrote poetry and would perform it in coffeehouses in New Orleans as well as Atlanta. It was also during this time she became a very accomplished silkscreener, and she has been recognized for her very artistic lamps, which she says is an attempt to sculpt using light. Zabriskie is best known for her role as Sarah Palmer on David Lynch’s brilliant Twin Peaks. While her character faded from episodes after the middle of the second season, she remains one of the most iconic figures in the series. Since then Zabriskie has had a recurring role on Seinfeld as well as continued to work with David Lynch, one of the few directors she says she continues to enjoy working with.

Harry Dean Stanton (IMDB credits: 173 credits, Cool Hand Luke, Alien, Escape From New York, Repo Man, Paris Texas, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart)

Harry Dean Stanton was born to a Kentucky tobacco farmer, got a degree in journalism and radio arts, and starred in at least one episode of pretty much every Western television series from the 1950 through 60s. Stanton has the perfect face for the weather beaten soul that has seen too much in lifetime. It’s helped him convey a lot of unspoken emotion, particularly in his best film Wim Wender’s Paris, Texas. Stanton got a start in low budget films of the late 1960s like Two-Lane Blacktop, but went on to befriending up and coming directors like Sam Peckinpah, David Lynch, and Franics Ford Coppola. Stanton has become a favorite of critic Roger Ebert who says any movie starring Stanton can’t be bad. Outside of film, he has toured bars and clubs playing covers of classic country on his guitar, a true modern cowboy.

Director in Focus: Brian De Palma – Redacted

Redacted (2007)

So we have caught up with Brian De Palma’s body of work. Redacted goes back to a lot of the same territory as 1989’s Casualties of War. We have American troops in a foreign land and the sexual violation of a native girl is the crux of the conflict. There’s one soldier who above all the rest is still virtuous. This was one was written by De Palma as well and really shows off his weakness as a writer. However, there are some interesting technical elements to the picture, and it really easy very experimental for De Palma, both in its making and the distribution.

Told through soldiers’ personal video diaries, CCTVs, news footage, and user submitted online videos, this is based on a true story where a squad of American soldiers were responsible for the rape of 15 year old girl and the subsequent murder and burning of both she and her family. The film did not do well upon its release, and in no way is this a great movie. However, many of the criticisms were jingoistic blather about De Palma wanted to imply that all soldiers are evil monsters. The fact that one of the squad members goes to the authorities with what happens must have gone over their heads. Its part of this thoughtless creed of “support the troops” which many interpret as do not question or think critically about the actions of the military. I don’t believe every soldier over there is some sort of sociopath, but I believe the culture that surrounds the military breeds that in people who leaned that way in the first place. That said, De Palma doesn’t present either the villains or the hero of the film in an interesting way at all.

The two vile soldiers who perpetrate the rape and murder are drawn cartoonishly broad. There are even scenes where they cackle like the hyenas in The Lion King. The hero is also without flaws and there’s nothing remotely interesting about him. The type of evil that is most interesting is the kind that comes out of mundane and ordinary people. When you have two characters who appear to be walking cliches they don’t come off as truly intimidating at all. A good filmmaker would make us like these guys, show us sympathy for them, and then reveal their darker nature. It makes us question ourselves. Even Sean Penn in Casualties of War, of which De Palma is really ripping himself off on, was a character I understood. Even though his action were abhorrent I could see what he saw in the world. What I did like was De Palma trying to do more with his camera. His typical POV shots were incorporated as part of the soldier’s diaries and there’s some interesting work done with website video.

Looking back on the films of Brian De Palma I have to defend him as a cinematographer. He may not always be a great all-around storyteller but he is one of the best cameramen I’ve ever seen. The level of tension he can generate in a film is amazing, and its all done through some of the tightest editing around. The moment in the prom scene of Carrie, as Amy Irving is figuring out what the bullies are about to do is such a perfect example of that. So much information is told without words, simply looks and cuts. The museum scene in Body Double should be shown to every wannabe filmmaker of how to tell a voluminous story in a only a few minutes and without a single piece of dialogue. Even watching the worst films of De Palma’s, I always knew he would amaze me with the camera. Sadly, his career has been marred by too many failures in a row. According to IMDB, De Palma appears to be working on a remake of his great rock opera Phantom of the Paradise (seen before I started this marathon), a prequel to The Untouchables sub-titled Capone Rising, and The Boston Stranglers, based on a true crime book about the theory that multiple men were placed under the umbrella of one serial killer. My hope is that De Palma can still find a way to produce good films again, I know he has it in him and I think there’s a strong possibility that he can rally a comeback in the same way that Francis Ford Coppola has been doing.

Back Issue Bin: Animal Man #1-26

Animal Man #1-26 (1988-1990)
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Tom Grummett, Chas Truog, and Doug Hazelwood

It’s no secret that I love Grant Morrison’s work. He’s like the second coming of Julius Schwartz, the crazy DC Comics innovator of the Silver Age mixed with metaphysical, post-modern sensibilities. Just a year after Watchmen’s publication, Morrison wrote what was in many ways a response to Watchmen’s attempt at realism. With Animal Man, Morrison created a hyper real look at the comic book reality and its the relation of creator and creation. The fact that these were mainstream comics published by DC, yet so innovative and experimental is amazing. Its hard to see anything like this happening again, though there was a brief attempt with Brian Azzarello’s Architecture and Morality mini-series in 2006, more on that later.

Animal Man was created decades before, in 1965 in Strange Adventures. The character could take on the abilities of what ever animal life was in the vicinity, so if a bird was around he could fly, if an elephant was close he could charge with massive strength, etc. The character was pretty flat an uninteresting, and even ironically became a member of a team called The Forgotten Heroes in the early 1980s. It was in the late 1980s, that the young upstart Morrison, newly imported from the UK was given the character. DC deemed it fairly safe to test the young writer out on a superhero with little fanbase invested in him, so if he screwed up it wouldn’t cause very much damage. What Morrison managed to do was turn Animal Man into one of the most complex and interesting characters DC published. The character continues on in popularity, having been a major player in events in the last five years, as well as getting his own eight issue mini-series.

Morrison began things by making Buddy Baker, the civilian identity of Animal Man, a family man. He had a wife, Ellen, and two kids, Cliff and Maxine. In the first story arc of the series, Buddy become involved in a battle between fellow animal-linked hero B’Wana Beast and a company using animals for scientific testing. The story is dark and poignant and there aren’t your typical hero versus villain battles. B’Wana Beast dies and Buddy is changed significantly. In resulting stories he goes vegan, his powers now linked to the emotional spectrum of animals, feeling their suffering. Morrison doesn’t let him get away with this easily, and Buddy ends up in some heated arguments with Ellen who doesn’t appreciate Buddy forcing his personal lifestyle change on the rest of the family. As you can tell, this is not the sort of thing you expect from comic books and its incredibly refreshing.

The most mind blowing story up this point came in Animal Man #5, “The Coyote Gospel”. In this story, a humanoid coyote wanders the desolate roads of the American southwest. He’s hunted by an obsessive truck driver who kills him, only for the coyote to rise from the dead again and again. Animal Man, who plays a very backseat role in this story, shows up and the coyote hands him a scroll. The story shifts to the content of the scroll which explains that this coyote came from a universe very much like that of the Warner Brothers cartoons. The inhabitants lived in a state of un-death, dying but constantly ressurecting. This coyote finally became fed up and question his world’s creator. The creator, depicted as a man in a plaid pants and wielding a paintbrush condemned the coyote to wander other worlds. Morrison pulls us back to show that to Animal Man’s eyes the scroll is unintelligible chicken scratch. He tells the coyote that he can’t read this and at that moment the trucker fires, shooting the coyote point blank in the head and killing him. The final full page panel is off a hand drawing this scene which has faded away partially at the bottom as just a simple pencil sketch.

This single issue serves as the thesis statement for the rest of Morrison’s run on the series. He begins to deconstruct the ideas of continuity in comics and how Animal Man’s original creator and his own intentions for the character are drastically different. Morrison looks at the idea of the multiverse and about what happens to comic book characters who are forgotten and never used. All of this culminates in a meeting between Animal Man and Morrison himself. What also has to be one of the trippiest moments in comics books occurs during this run, as Animal Man has gone to a mountaintop and taken peyote in an attempt to break free from the physical constraits of his universe. In this moment, he suddenly feels that he is being watched, then looks right up at the reader, shouting that he can see you, that he knows you are watching. Chills!

As further reading, Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang got together for a very small series of back up stories in the mini-series Tales of the Unexpected (2006). Much like Morrison’s stories, these explore the nature of forgotten characters and their relationship with their creators. The series is a lot of fun and features some crazy characters (Genius Jones, Infectious Lass, The Gorilla Brigade) as well as poking fun at DC’s editorial staff. It’s available in a collected edition titled Architecture and Morality.

Comics 101: Green Lantern Part 2

Hal Jordan was now the Green Lantern of Earth again. Kyle Rayner was still Ion, containing the power of the Green Lanterns without needing a ring to wield it. Guy Gardner and John Stewart were both Lanterns again and lived on Oa, the homeworld of the Green Lantern Corps training new recruits. Things were good. What they didn’t know is that Sinestro was busy in the Anti-Matter Universe, forcing the Weaponeers to construct a massive Yellow Lantern, which mimics the Central Battery on Oa, where the green power came from. With his own yellow battery, Sinestro created multiple rings sending them out to those beings in the universe that inspired great fear. Once his Sinestro Corps was assembled, they led a brutal assault on Oa, killing many Green Lanterns in the process. The battle was unlike anything the universe has ever seen and raged on to eventually come to Earth. Kyle Rayner was stripped of his Ion powers, but managed to get a ring in time to join the Corps. Sinestro was captured, but not before the Guardians allowed the Lanterns to compromise their values and use their rings to kill.

Sinestro was locked up in Sciencell on Oa but told Jordan that the “Blackest Night” was coming, and in this time of darkness Jordan would be compromised. Jordan was shaken up but worked to distract himself. The Guardians adapted to the new threat of the yellow rings of fear but establishing the Alpha Lanterns, regular Corpsmen transformed into emotionless judges, meant to keep the Corps in check. Meanwhile, other rings created from different aspects of emotion were manifesting in the universe. In Sector 666, the demonic Atrocitus vomited up a bloody red ring of rage. On a distant serene planet, two rebel Guardians made blue rings of hope. On the all-female world of Zamaron, its inhabitants made violet rings of love. And deep in a cavern on Okaara, one lone figure clutched an orange ring of greed. All of these various Corps began to get into conflicts and change the dynamics of the universe. In the Anti-Matter Universe, a jet black lantern manifest black rings of death, and these would change everything.

While the Corps worked to hunt down Sinestro’s soldiers still out there, using their rings to torture innocent beings, Hal Jordan encountered the Blue Lanterns and found his could use his green ring in conjunction with a blue one. He also ended up in Sector 666, where a red ring of rage overtook him for a little while. Sinestro was being transferred when his Corps arrived to liberate him and all hell broke loose. The War of Light began, all the various colors battling each other. As they were distracted, an old villain named Black Hand brought the scourge of the Black Rings to Earth. These rings were keyed only to the dead, and allowed hordes of dead heroes and villains to be resurrected as dark versions of themselves. At the time characters like Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, and Hawkman were all dead and came back as monstrous Black Lanterns.

After a few days of fruitless battle, the Black Lanterns merely reconstructing themselves, its discovered that if two Lanterns of different colors use their powers together they can destroy a Black Lantern. Across the globe the battle rages and its revealed that Nekron, a being who controls death has been making the rings. It’s also discovered that an entity lives in the Earth who generates a White energy that creates a single ring and single Lantern. Sinestro gets ahold of it and fails, with Hal using its power to drive Nekron and the Black Lanterns away. Before the White Lantern vanishes, it resurrects a handful of heroes and villains. Through battle, Hal and Sinestro have reached a tentative alliance. Currently, Hal and girlfriend Carol (now wielding a Violet ring) have discovered that the Red Lantern, Atrocitus is on Earth looking for the source of his rage power. The White Lantern has also reappeared in New Mexico, forming a crater where it landed, and much like the sword in the stone is immovable.

Comics 101: Green Lantern Part 1

In Comics 101 I breakdown a comic character’s back history in an easy to understand way for newbies.

The story of Green Lantern began in 1940 with Alan Scott. Unlike the latter and more long running Green Lantern, Scott was based in mysticism and magic. He is a railroad engineer at the time and discovers a mysterious green lantern that imbues him with a magic ring. The ring gives him the power to fly as well as manifest constructs from it. Scott ended up being a founding member of the Justice Society of America, a World War II era precursor to the Justice League. He also had two children out of wedlock, Todd and Jennie who would grow up to be the super heroes Obsidian and Jade, respectively. Scott is still around, as a member of the JSA, and partnered with his old pals plus some new blood. But the core of the Green Lantern story really began in 1959.

In the late 1950s, the Silver Age of Comic Books began. DC has sort of pulled back its superhero publishing, with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman being about the only remainders. Julius Schwartz, the editor in chief at the time was wanting to take names used by heroes back in the 1930s and 40s and create all-new characters around them. This time around, Green Lantern was to be ace pilot Hal Jordan. While testing an experimental craft for his employer Ferris Air, Hal was pulled by a mysterious force to a crash site in the middle of the desert. There lay a dying alien wearing a strange green and black uniform. His name was Abin Sur and he told Hal he was part of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic police force. Sur was dying as a result of the crash and Hal was deemed the only one on Earth worthy to wield the ring. Hal accepted and became Earth’s Green Lantern. The ring held 24 hours worth of energy and would have to be recharged in an accompanying lantern. The only catch in its seemingly invulnerable power was an impurity that made it vulnerable to the color yellow in spectrum. Hal would go on to battle a cavalcade of odd 60s appropriate villains, but his arch-nemesis would always be Sinestro.

Sinestro was also a Green Lantern, but unlike Hal, he saw his place as using the ring to control the population of his home planet Krougar. The masters of the Green Lantern Corps were known as the Guardians of the Universe, small blue skinned men whom demanded total submission from all the Corpsmen. Sinestro and the Guardians clashed and as a result he was stripped of his ring. Enraged that this power would be taken from him, Sinestro sought out other sources. He found a way into the Anti-Matter Universe, a sort of reality underneath our own and home to the Weaponeers. The Weaponeers constructed a new ring for Sinestro, a yellow ring that specifically affected the power of the Green Lanterns. While the green ring used the aspect of Will, the yellow ring tapped into Fear to feed itself. For years, Sinestro plagued Hal Jordan and was eventually killed.

Along the way, other Earthmen took up the ring. Hal would become increasingly annoyed with the Guardians dictates and leave the Corps. In time social worker Guy Gardner became a Green Lantern, as well as architect John Stewart. Hal also befriended many of the alien Corpsmen: Kilowog, a lumbering brute, Tomar-Re, one of the most noble of the Lanterns, Salaak, a typically annoyed and distant being, and Arisia, a young girl whose family were a long line of Lanterns. Things went dark when Hal’s home town of Coast City was attacked by Mongul, an alien warlord. Mongul’s massive engine city/ship destroyed the city and killed everyone there. Hal became obsessed with using his power to fix things, rebuild Coast City. This obsession led him into madness and he began to kill other Green Lanterns to amass a large collection of rings. The Guardians were desperate to stop him and resurrected Sinestro. The two old enemies clashed and in the end the Guardians, the GL Corps, Hal, and Sinestro were obliterated. Except for one solitary ring.

This ring found its way to Earth and into the hands of young artist Kyle Rayner. Unlike Hal, Rayner had no one to teach him how to use the ring so he underwent a lot of trial and error. In time, he joined the Justice League and established himself as the one true Lantern. Hal returned as a villain, Parallax, infused with an almost infinite power. Parallax attempted to destroy reality and recreate it in his own image but the heroes of the DC Universe stopped him. He returned once more when Earth’s sun was being devoured by an alien Suneater. Making the ultimate sacrifice and redeeming himself, Parallax flew into the sun, reigniting it. He was rewarded for this act of bravery and made The Spectre, the manifestation of God’s wrath. Kyle Rayner continued on as the Green Lantern and eventually unlocked a power in his ring that turned him into a being called Ion, a sort of pure manifestation of the Green power.

Things changed suddenly when Kyle crashed to earth, after having been missing in space for a few months. Along with this, Coast City suddenly appeared rebuilt. All of Earth’s former Lanterns (Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and even Alan Scott) became involved as Hal Jordan was reborn, as well as The Guardians of the Universe and all of the dead Corpsmen. It turns out that the source of the rings’ power was a cosmic entity known as Ion, while Sinestro’s ring was powered by Parallax. The Lanterns battle the now unleashed Parallax entity while Sinestro returns from the dead. In the end the Corps is restored, but Sinestro returns to the Anti-Matter Universe with some big bad plans for the Green Lanterns….

Continued

Criterion Fridays – Summer Hours

Summer Hours (2008, dir. Oliver Assayas)
Starring Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jeremie Renier

It’s always refreshing to see a film made for grown ups. Too often American dramas dumb things down, maybe out of a lack of talent in the writer or maybe a lack of confidence in the audience’s intelligence. Here director Assayas looks at the strange dynamic of being both the adult child of a parent and a parent to your own children. In one position you are still looked on as an infant or adolescent and in the other you are the supreme authority. This difficult place is used to examine how we deal with death and responsibilities placed on us by the dead. The whole thing is a very naturalistic, quiet piece of cinema that is rewarding and ambiguous. The answers we receive will be as open ended as the characters in the film, and like them, we have to learn to happy with that.

Helene has just turned seventy-five and has come to terms with the fact that her life is coming to an end. She takes her eldest child, Frederic aside and explains to him how the family’s vast art collection and the country home they grew up in is something she wants him to maintain and make sure her grandchildren can bring their children to. Helene dies soon after her children make their last visit to the house, all of them caught up in busy lives: Frederic in Paris, Adrienne in America, and Jeremie in China. Frederic comes together with the siblings who all want to sell off the artwork and the house as they don’t have the funds or time to maintain the property. Frederic concedes and they go about cataloging the contents of the home. Frederic maintains a sense of guilt as he watches the promise to his mother fade away.

Summer Hours is a film that will demonstrate how programmed you have become by cliched Hollywood plot devices. There is a never chance anything of major conflict with occur, no one is going to explode in an emotional rage and there will be no ironic twist of fate. This is a very relaxed film about a family and the compromises we all make as a part of families. Frederic never really puts up a fight and its hard to be angry at him. As much as his mother loved the collection her uncle had amassed and she inherited, it is almost impossible for her children to maintain it. What is interesting is how Frederic’s teenaged daughter, Sylvie feels a strong emotional connection to the country house. The opening scene is of her and her little cousins running through the woods, playing, being children. The final parallels this, but with a more bittersweet tone as it is the last time she will be there.

This is not a film that has a message for you. Assayas simply tells the story of these three adult siblings, lives without melodrama, dealing with the aftermath of the death of a parent. What you are meant to get out of the film is what ever you want. So often in American mainstream cinema scripts are locked into formulaic beats and its all about hitting certain plot notes by certain page numbers. Here no one is rushed along, no one reveals some deep dark secret. Its very refreshing, and beautiful, and ultimately stays with you a lot longer than a script that sloppily goes didactic. If you are looking for an incredibly thoughtful film that lets you decide what you want it to mean, then I think you’ll be in for a treat with this one.

Event Fatigue: The Thanos Imperative

The Thanos Imperative: Ignition
Written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Art by Brad Walker

The Thanos Imperative #1,2
Written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Art by Miguel Sepulveda

The year I really got into reading comics seriously (1991) was the same year Marvel released the epic mini-series The Infinity Gauntlet. At the time, it was just a really cool cosmic story with all the big Marvel superheroes (Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain America, etc.) battling a cosmic despot named Thanos who had gathered the Infinity Gems, jewels imbued with great power and sought to sacrifice existence to Death, his lover. He actually succeeded, destroying reality, with a few heroes saved inside a pocket with him. Captain America eventually got his hands on the Gauntlet and brought back all of creation and Thanos was exiled. For years since, Thanos has returned, seeking the sweet relief of Death, which is what he believes is perfection. About five years ago he was finally killed off, but it seems someone doesn’t want him to have the rest he craves.
For the last six years, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have been redefining the cosmic elements of the Marvel Universe. Starting with a mini-event called Annhilation, they brought together The Silver Surfer, Thanos, Nova (think Marvel’s Green Lantern), and many more to tell a story that created a status quo for the space faring characters. Since then there have been two more Annhilation mini-series, a War of Kings storyline, and then a Realm of Kings storyline. It sounds like a lot, but instead of doing monthly series its all been pretty much contained to 3 to 6 issue minis. Along the way Nova has gotten his own ongoing, and some of the characters have assembled into a team known as The Guardians of the Galaxy, but its the sort of epic crossover event that isn’t taking up a billion titles and becoming too complex to follow. Abnett and Lanning really cut their teeth on handling a huge cast with DC Comics’ Legion of Super-Heroes in the 90s, a futuristic science fiction series featuring over two dozen adolescent metahumans and aliens. What they’re doing at Marvel is taking all these disparate elements that made up the cosmos and finding logical connections that make the whole thing much more cohesive.

Storywise things kicked off when the Inhumans, an earthbound race of people genetically modified by aliens decided to track down their creators and usurp them. Their creators were the Kree Empire, a militaristic society devastated during the aforementioned Annihilation storylines. The Inhuman leader Black Bolt took the throne of the Kree Empire and went to war with neighboring Sh’iar Empire. If you are familiar with your X-Men comics, you’ll know the Shi’ar are partially responsible for poor Jean Grey becoming the Phoenix. At this point in time, the Sh’iar were ruled by Vulcan aka Gabriel Summers, brother of Cyclops. Vulcan was a cruel leader and he and Black Bolt clashed in a epic battle that ended with them both dying and a tear forming in space. Over the next few months, both the Kree and Shi’ar dispatched vessels to probe this growing tear in space time and what they found was parallel universe where death no longer existed. Sounds good, right? Well, the way death was nullified appears to be through some sort of arcane pact with Lovecraftian elder gods. Now the forces of this parallel reality are swarming into the Marvel Universe attempting to “bless” them with undeath. When you have a character like Thanos who has a bizarre romantic relationship with the embodiment of Death there’s bound to be some conflict.

The first thing that stands out about the three pieces of these mini-series so far is the stellar artwork. There’s a two page spread in Thanos Imperative #2 that involves joined fleets of Kree, Shi’ar, other species, Galactus, The monolithic Celestials, and other cosmic beings battling the enemy fleet emerging from the tear in space. Its one of those moments where a still image is anything but static. Despite the lack of sound in real space, you can hear the unloading of thousands of laser cannons, energy blast explosions, and all out cosmic war. The Silver Surfer is drawn in a very interesting way as well by Sepulveda. He is almost featureless, his face simply a blank silver head and it really works. The effort has always been to humanize the Surfer but I like the idea of really making him alien and distant. The level of power he possess should eventually make him feel that he has little in common with mortals.

The series has shown great pacing and made its shocking reveals perfect. Every issue so far has ended on a well earned cliffhanger that’s making me chomp at the bit for the next issue. It was also a brilliant idea for the ongoing series of Nova and The Guardians of the Galaxy to go on hiatus till the end of this mini series. It helps avoid the glut of cross overs that fill space until we can get back to the core of the story. Because these are not core Marvel characters the stakes actually feel high. Reading an earthbound Marvel title, you know that Iron Man isn’t going die and that Spider-Man will make it out alive. With these characters you know its not beyond the possibility that they could die, that the heroes could lose. Because of the quality of work of Abnett and Lanning with the Marvel cosmic line so far I have huge confidence in this story to deliver. It’s definitely worth your time and puts a lot of summer blockbuster films to shame.

Hypothetical Film Festival – Brothers

It’s as simple as the title, films that have very prominent brother relationships at their core.

American History X (1998, dir. Tony Kaye)

Everyone remembers Edward Norton as the terrifying, swastika tattooed skinhead. The scene where he curbs a young black man who had broken into his house is gut wrenching. What’s interesting is how he so embodies evil in the flashbacks during the film, yet is an incredibly sympathetic character when reformed. His younger brother, played by Edward Furlong, is high school student struggling to understand how his older brother has turned his back on their family’s white power ways. In many ways the film is a race against time picture, Norton is desperately trying to get his little brother to stop being motivated through hate before something terrible happens to him.

Capturing the Friedmans (2003, dir. Andrew Jarecki)

In the 1980s, Arnold Friedman, a Long Island resident was arrested for possession of child pornography. As investigations continued police believe that Arnold and his son Jesse were sexually molesting students of private computer lessons they gave in the home. The two other sons in the family become strained as the family is marked as a pariah in the neighborhood. The evidence for the case is based entirely on the testimony of the students, and it could be interpreted that these confessions were encouraged by the authorities. But that doesn’t explain the magazines, or the overall strangeness of this family and these three brothers. A very disturbing film that, much like in real life, leaves you with a lot of answered questions.

Straw Dogs (1971, dir. Sam Peckinpah)

While the main plot concerns Dustin Hoffman and his British bride being plagued by the local thugs of her hometown, those thugs are brothers through their life together in this small village. In particular, David Warner as Henry Niles, a mentally handicapped man whom tags along with the boys in a major piece in the story. The film is violent and hard to watch. Hoffman basically cracks after being pushed too far by the thugs and precedes to murder them all. By the end of the film Hoffman has take Warner into his care, and Warner has shifted from being the brother of his villagers to a brother with Hoffman. His final line of the movie “I don’t know my way home” is incredibly poignant given the larger context of the film.

Mean Creek (2004, dir. Jacob Aaron Estes)

Mean Creek is a film about actors you are familiar with doing very dark things. Actors from Nickleodeon and Disney Channel shows are featured here as well as a Culkin brother. It seems Sam (Rory Culkin) is bullied endlessly by George (Josh Peck). Sam’s brother and his friends invite George out for a rafting trip with the intention of humiliating George on camera and then showing it to the kids at school. Things go wrong, someone dies, and the group are forced to deal with dark subjects you would never expect them to have to. A body has to be hidden, police have to be lied to, and their innocence is completely destroyed by the end of the film.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007, dir. Sidney Lumet)

Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke star as brothers whose choices have led them down some very sad paths. Hoffman is a successful investor who has been dipping in the company till to fund his drug habit. Hawke is divorced and estranged from his daughter, he needs money to prove he can share custody. Hoffman suggests they knock over their parent’s jewelry store, knowing that insurance will cover the losses. They send in a third party and things go very bad. The film is told out of sequence and it definitely works well. We see the heist, not knowing who any of these people are, then we jump back and see how it was put together. We see a funeral then we see the brothers hatching their plan. This is probably one of the darkest films about brotherhood and a criminally overlooked film from a master director.

Mature Reading: Sweet Tooth

Sweet Tooth #1-11
Written and Illustrated by Jeff Lemire

This blog is intended to be mostly for people unfamiliar with comic books and what’s out there. I know some friends who read Watchmen for a college English class or people who may not be up to date on the newer series out. For those of you not too up to date, DC Comics has an imprint called Vertigo which specializes in non-superhero fare aimed at adults or adolescents with literary maturity. Most of the time the series their present are great, a few seem to fall flat. Sweet Tooth is very much the former. It’s a post-apocalyptic story about mutants and survival and humanity becoming incredibly tribal. The art style increases the uneasy feeling you’re meant to have reading that this scary and violent world. And its all the work of Jeff Lemire, recently signed as an exclusive creator for DC Comics.

Gus is 9 years old and lives with Pa in the middle of the forest. He’s never left the forest and Pa has warned him that outside of it is all the evils in the world, and if Gus doesn’t want to go to Hell he’ll stay put. Then Pa dies and Gus is left alone in the world, slowly running out of food in their desolate cabin. Then one day some men enter the woods carrying guns, and when they see Gus they know they have found something special. You see, Gus has a pair of deer antler growing from his head. His mother died in childbirth and Pa ran away with Gus to keep him safe. The hunter surround the little boy but he is saved by Tommy, a lone mercenary who becomes Gus’ protector. The duo set off to a place Tommy says will be safe for Gus. Along the way they encounter roving bands of killers and thieves that populate the now devastated American Midwest.

Sweet Tooth is a slow burn, and its perfect that way. Almost one year in and we still know very little of the mystery behind Gus. We know that his mutation is one of many that occurred as a result of a virus that killed millions. All the children born in the wake of the virus had animal mutations. There’s even a brothel they run across where a few women dress in animal masks to satisfy the cravings of some of the more perverted clientèle. The environments in the comic are very wide and very open, because its the Midwest it was already like that, but the apocalyptic air increases it a million times.

The artwork in Sweet Tooth is incredibly aesthetically inventive. In one of the more recent issues, Gus is put under hypnosis to pull out his memories of his life in the woods. The way Lemire stages is this is by miniature versions of Gus and the hypnotist walking along the full size Gus’ head, crawling into and out of his ears. It runs through the entire issue and is just one example of the creativity and interesting storytelling at work. This is a very easy one to get caught up on. Only two collections out right now so you could be ready to follow it month to month by catching up in day. A series that I am looking forward to seeing where it goes.