Mr. Springsteen And His Shows

Yes, I know it's been over a month since my last post.  What can I say, I've been busy on various fronts and that focus comes at a price.  Besides, when you download a new official Springsteen show every couple of days, there goes the weekend, baby!

So, as I write this, there have been 11 official releases from Springsteen South Africa/Australian tour.  Out of those, Springsteen has elected not to put up one of the nights (2/16/14), at least not yet. The theory from fans is that Springsteen admitted on stage that he was a little buzzed that evening, and the show, one of the longest in awhile, was not exactly up to his standards.  Of course, this just makes that night a holy grail among fans, many of whom enjoy the idea of sloppy as much as perfection.  I have no doubt that some enterprising taper will eventually throw that night into the morass known as "the internet", but I do hope B.S. reconsiders and puts out an official version.

Meanwhile, anyone even vaguely interested in this nonsense should check out at least one of the shows. It's hard for me to pick a favorite, since the set lists vary drastically night by night, so your best bet is to peruse the set-lists and make your choice off that.  Born in the USA fan?  One night he does the entire album.  Darkness On The Edge Of Town devotee?  Same deal.  Sound quality is more or less equal (tho some nights feature a LOT of crowd) so that really isn't an issue.  Here's the official website...

http://www.store2.livenation.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Store.woa/wa/artist?sourceCode=FANWEB&categoryName=Live+Downloads&artistName=Bruce+Springsteen

Stuff I Like!

Ahh, Amazon, how you fulfill me... here are a few of the latest and greatest goodies to pass over the MV transom...

ROCKPILE: Live At The Rockpalast: An imported CD/DVD of an early 1980 show by the late, great Rockpile.  Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Billy Bremner and Terry Williams owed my rock and roll world back in the day, and this concert is pretty much the boys at their best.  Think a dab of rockabilly combined with a dollop of 60's rock, amp it all up to 11 and there's Rockpile.  The band broke up WAY too soon, though the principles went on to storied solo careers.  But there are always archival releases like this to remind us of past glories...

DAVE EDMUNDS "Alive": Speaking of storied careers, this is the first new Edmunds material in years.  Unfortunately there are only five new tracks combined with some goodies from previous releases, but the old stuff is only old if you've heard it before, and most of the songs are from Edmunds' more obscure releases.  The new stuff shows he hasn't lost a step, and here's hoping for a full-on new CD soon...

STOP YELLIN': Ben Pivar And The Horror, Mystery and Action Adventure Films of His Universal B-Unit.  Well, the book's subtitle kind of says it all.  Pivar produced dozens of movies in the 30's and 40's, but is perhaps most remembered for his contributions to the Mummy series and "The Brute Man", one of the more disturbing movies to emerge from the 40's.  Not because of the subject matter, per se (standard serial killer stuff), but because the star was Rondo Hatton, a sadly deformed man who evidently piqued Universal's interest after he appeared in a Sherlock Holmes movie.  This 500+ page tome absolutely tells you everything you ever wanted to know about Ben Pivar, and since you probably didn't want to know anything, some might call all that overkill. Me, I found it a fascinating slice of life from the trenches of 40's filmmaking with some Barton Fink overtones.

SPRINGSTEEN Live: Well, he's finally doing it.  Evidently every show from Springsteen's upcoming tour is going to be released 48 hours post-concert to an eager Bruce-loving world.  That's the good news.  The slightly less advantageous news is that the concerts are being distributed (at first anyway) through a system where you have to buy a 2GB memory stick either at the concert or from Springsteen's site for $40, which will them allow you to download Mp3 medium-resolution concerts from the internet.  Want more concerts, you gotta buy more memory sticks. Want higher resolution flac files, forget it (for now).  Look, I'm not gonna bite the hand that's finally giving fans what they've been clamoring after for decades, but here's hoping a non-memory stick, high quality downloadable version is hot on the heels of this initial effort!

ADDITIONAL INFO HOT OFF THE PRESSES!  Turns out Springsteen is also offering Mp3s and flac files from his website for $9.99 and $14.99 respectively.  FANTASTIC.  Now I wish I hadn't jumped in and bought a wristband already (*sob*). 

Tranquility The Series!

So my long gestating television project was finally announced last week in the various trades by my friends at Bell Canada.  Here's how the Hollywood Reporter put it:

Other police dramas being hot-housed by... (Bell Canada)... include Sonar Entertainment teaming up with Double Nickel Entertainment and Mark Verheiden (Battlestar Galactica) on Tranquility, a sci-fi series about a troubled ex-cop with a new gig on a moon colony.

The wonderful thing about a blog is the ability to "augment" this release with a tad more detail.  First of all, from the world of "sometimes you just have to persevere," I've been fussing with Tranquility off and on since 2005.  It began when the two principles involved with Double Nickle, former DC publisher Jenette Kahn and her partner Adam Richman, approached me with an idea from writer/editor/director Stewart Schill.  We developed a pitch for a series that year, but the world was not ready for Tranquility... yet...

But the project stuck with me, and as time passed it felt like there was more of an appetite for science fiction in the television world.  Aside from the change in the market, I had hatched some new story thoughts that expanded the original Tranquility world beyond the initial pitch.  Jenette and Adam and Stewart liked the fussing and so it was time for "take two."  And this time the folks at Sonar Entertainment and Bell Canada came on board.  I hesitate to get into too many more details about the show itself, but suffice to say there is more going on than your standard "troubled ex-cop" tropes.  I mean, it's on the moon, for cryin' out loud.  There will be mystery and heart and action and surprises galore...

And I will continue to report as developments ensue!

Homefront?

The title doesn't make much sense in context, but regardless, Homefront the movie is a solid action movie written by Sylvester Stallone (!), directed by Gary Fleder and starring Jason Stathem and James Franco.

Stathem plays "Broker", an undercover DEA agent who takes down a bunch of biker/meth dealers and winds up on the surviving biker's hit list. For reasons not really explained (though Broker's wife died off-camera a some point), Broker quits the force, packs up his 12 year old daughter and buys a ramshackle house in rural Louisiana.  Evidently the DEA has an amazing pension plan because Broker no longer has to work and spends most of his time puttering around doing home-repairs and charming his daughter's grade school teacher.

But.  There's ALWAYS a but.  When daughter Maddy gets in a schoolyard fracas with a bully, daddy Stathem is confronted by the bully's annoyed parents and employs his DEA/ninja skills to settle things.  Except slamming a guy to the ground and choking him in front of his wife and son doesn't have the placating effect he hoped.  Turns out the wife's brother is "Gator" Bodine (James Franco), yet another meth dealer with a cadre of goons, and he doesn't take kindly to this newbie roughing up his relatives.  He's probably sore because people make fun of his name.  Anyhow, a series of tit-for-tat confrontations escalate until... well, I won't get into spoilers, but there's a lot of beatin' up and shootin'.

That sounds pretty routine, but there are a couple of things going for Homefront.  First, it's very well directed by Gary Fleder, who eschews CGI stuntwork for more grounded fisticuffs.  Cars don't magically fly over other cars and bodies actually obey the laws of physics.  It's also very well acted by Stathem, Franco and Winona Ryder as a meth head (!).  And finally, the story actually leaves room for characters to evolve in slightly unexpected ways.  In real life, sometimes it actually IS possible to apologize and put things behind you without a half dozen suicidal machine-gun toting dudes coming after you.  At least I hope so (sorry I flipped you off, guy who cut me off in traffic!).

But again, I don't get the title. I've read that this was originally going to be a Rambo sequel, and a story about a soldier from overseas coming home to fight local bad guys, well, then Homefront makes sense.  U.S. based DEA agent retiring to U.S. based meth region and getting into fights, not so much.  Oh well.  Too bad there's an old Burt Reynolds movie called "Gator" because that's a great title...  

Nebraska Is A State of Mind...

...and "Nebraska" is also a really good movie from director Alexander Payne and writer Bob Nelson.  Yes, it's WGA "screener season" again, my chance to catch up on some great movies from the comfort of the couch. Yes, back cover of screener DVD box, I understand that movies are meant to be seen on the big screen... now leave me alone!  Get off my lawn!

Which is sort of the tenor of Nebraska... Bruce Dern plays Woody Grant, an elderly, verging-on-Alzheimers fellow who becomes convinced he's won a million dollar Publisher's Cleaning House-type sweepstakes.  But he needs to get from his home in Billings Montana to the sweepstakes office in Lincoln Nebraska to collect it.  Woody's wife and adult kids know it's a scam, but finally his son David (Will Forte) takes pity and humors Woody by giving him a lift.

It's a pretty classic set-up for some father/son road-trip bonding, but Woody makes Wilson the volleyball look like a chatterbox. So that doesn't exactly work out.  Then a pit stop in Woody's hometown leads to encounters with family and old friends who actually believe the million dollar story, leading to new adventures in greed and avarice.

Nebraska the movie is less about big laughs (though there are a couple) and more about those knowing smiles of recognition. Awkward family encounters, pointed silences, secrets unwittingly (or maliciously) revealed... twist those moments one way and they're tragic, twist them just a little the other and you have this movie.  Writer Bob Nelson has an ear for awkward dialogue and a great comic sense of timing.  There's a bit involving an air compressor (!) that is pretty darn funny.  And believe me, people have tried to make air compressors funny before!

You need to settle in for this one, let the moody black and white photography draw you in, but once you're there, Dern is amazing as Woody and June Squibb as his long suffering (but hardly passive) wife Kate is great, too. Good stuff!

    

Shark Alley The Novel

My buddy John Goins is a man of many talents (bass player for the legendary punk bank "The Cleavers", poker player extraordinaire in the legendary Nugget casino in Reno) and now he's added "excellent novelist" to the list.  His first novel, "Shark Alley", is now available from Smashwords for the ridiculously low price of $2.99, and it's well worth checking out.  A clever Western set in San Francisco's Barbary Coast, it's like a cross between Bonanza and The Wild Wild West, with great characters and lively twists.  I was hooked from page one!

Here's the official description:

SHARK ALLEY: San Francisco 1877: An insane ex-Confederate Colonel is murdering members of the famous Barbary Coast Squad. "Shark Alley" follows Detective Inspector Nick Lockwood as he pursues the evil Colonel Tobias before Lockwood's hidden past is revealed.

This gets my whole-hearted, five star, thumbs-up, multiple smiley-face recommendation.  

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/376669

On The Passing of My Father...

My father Eric Verheiden passed away on November 14 after a long struggle with prostate cancer.  He had recently turned 87 years old.  He is survived by his four sons and six Grandchildren, and he's resting alongside his wife Caroline, who passed away in 2008. 

Dad was born on Oct. 24, 1926, son to Amy and father Eric Senior.  My dad's dad was a logger in Oregon's timber industry and an accomplished amateur painter.  There were two sons, Eric and younger brother Hans, and the family was living in a small home in Portland Oregon when the depression hit.  A hard life became even harder when Eric Sr. was killed in a logging accident in 1933.

But the family persevered.  Classified 4F because of a heart murmur, my father worked in Portland's shipyards during the war.  His mother Amy worked in a cannery while attending to Hans, who had contracted polio and spent many months in the hospital.  They did not have an easy life by any means, but I honestly can't remember my father ever complaining about those days.  If anything, he would remember life in the 30's with fondness.  Buying used Doc Savage pulps for a nickle each from a nearby bookstore.  Working in a hardware store for 10 cents an hour and learning all about tools.  Fixing up on old car and rolling around the neighborhood.  

(Actually, I do remember one complaint: he washed dishes to pay for his tuition through college, and he hated souffle days because those pans were almost impossible to clean.)     

Dad graduated from Oregon State University -- he was an electrical engineer by trade and worked his entire career for Portland General Electric, the utility company that (still) delivers electricity to a big chunk of Oregon.  Early in his career, my dad designed the physical power poles that carried lines into various rural areas.  He was especially proud of one of his more elaborate constructions and took my then pregnant mother on a bumpy ride to check out his handiwork.  Not long after, yours truly was born prematurely...

For a long time Dad was the guy who would put together the crews on snowy/icy/stormy days to repair downed power lines.  Later he rose in the ranks of management and was involved in figuring out budgets and the "business of business" that kept the lights on.

My dad was proud of his work, but I think he was most proud of the freelance articles he wrote and sold to various utility/power company journals back in the day.  Most of these sales happened when I was still just a tyke and something about his delight and pride over those articles clearly registered in my four year old lizard brain.  So go ahead, blame my dad for my so-called writing career.  Trust me, he won't mind.

My father met my mother at the Oaks Park skating rink (it's still there, in "The Oaks" amusement park in Portland), where they shared an affinity for roller-skating and dancing.  He was 19 and she was 16, sparks flew, and they were married three years later.

Next thing you know, kids! They had a couple of "parenting" policies that seemed natural at the time but which I now, looking back, think were actually quite progressive.

1): If the kids needed anything "educational" (books, magazines, tuition), they would do whatever they could to provide it.  They subscribed to both local papers and dozens of different magazines, everything from the news weeklies to Road and Track and National Geographic.  I grew up in a house where reading and learning were as natural and routine as our morning bowl of Cheerios.

2): As long as his kids got good grades, there were never any "bed times" or "be home by 11" edicts.  We all kept crazy hours, but two of my brothers graduated with PhDs (Math and Physics), a third retired early from Microsoft, and then there's me, the Hollywood bum.   So I guess the system worked okay for us.

I have endless fond memories of growing up in (then) rural-ish Oregon.  We had a small house on one and a half acres of land, plenty of room for four boys and nearby friends to build forts, tree-houses, dig "holes to China" and other non-internet related activities.  When we were still kids, my parents invested in a small power boat and we spent many Summer weekends on the Willamette and Columbia rivers, water skiing and crashing through the wakes of passing big ships.  We rented trailers, dragged them behind our old station wagon and drove to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and many other vacation destinations.

Frankly, we made "Leave It To Beaver" look like an episode of "Sons Of Anarchy."  My parents didn't drink or smoke and I can count on one hand the number of times they had an argument.  No "horrors of childhood" stories here -- if any of us screwed up later in life, it was our own damn fault!

My Dad was an Eisenhower Republican, which led to the occasional (ahem) argument, but after the prosperous Clinton years and the not so prosperous Bush-2 years, he switched to Democrat and never looked back.  My father and mother were not particularly religious, and my father especially loathed the so-called Moral Majority and "social conservatives."  One strong memory, from when I was six or seven years old: my father had invested in the "Time-Life Series on Religion", a six volume set.  He didn't feel it was right to let his lack of religious interest influence us, so he decided he would read us a chapter a night from the books so we could make up our own minds.  That lasted two nights.     

Dad probably would have kept working for PGE until 65, but when early retirement deals were offered to older employees in a round of cost-cutting, my Mom encouraged him to take the deal and he retired at 59.  He later said it was the best decision he ever made (well, second to marrying my Mom).  Unlike some fellows who miss the hurly-burly of work, Dad was liberated and did much traveling/bike-riding/backyard sitting with my mother, until she was afflicted with both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.  It was an especially brutal combination, and despite having resources to do otherwise, my father insisted on caring for her by himself through her entire illness, a 24/7 job.  He was devastated when she died and she was never far from his thoughts in the years after.  They had been married for 59 years.  Then Dad's younger brother Hans died on Oct. 17, 2011, after struggling with the after-effects of polio all his life. 

My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer early on and struggled with the disease for nearly 17 years.  Actually, I'm not sure "struggle" is the right word.  He had a radiation treatment at the beginning, then started a regimen of medications, but only really started to manifest symptoms this year.  His doctors were perplexed (in a good way!) by his condition... there were times when Dad's PSA (prostate specific antigen) score soared into the 100's, this when a 10 is considered cause for alarm, but his doctors noted that they could only treat symptoms, not a number, so as long as he was feeling okay...

That finally ended this Summer, and when Dad's oncologist recommended hospice care in late August he took it with his usual calm demeanor.  My father wanted to stay in his house until the end, and with the help of some amazing caregivers and the hospice workers, he got his wish.  To a person, the caregivers were astonished by my dad's good cheer and graciousness.  He was always worried about the burden he was putting on them.  Our family was with Dad as much as possible, but his caregivers Steve, Gary, Norma, and Nikki (who was there with me and my younger brother when my father died) were amazing.

I could go on, and may in future installments, but that's what comes to mind a week and a half after his funeral... 

  

It's Been Awhile...

...and I figure I should post for "proof of life" or something.  Anyhow, I haven't disappeared, but it's been busy and difficult time the last few weeks and the ol' blog has suffered.  But I'm still seeing movies (hello, "The Room!"), collecting music (but enough of the gigantic impossible to store box sets, please!) and working on various projects.  Aside from writing the already announced "Children of Paranoia", nothing that ready to announce yet, but things are forging ahead.

More soon...

Olympus Has Fallen and It Can't Get Up

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN: So some North Korean bad guys want some prisoners released, so they manage to put together a cargo plane equipped with enough weapons (defensive and offensive) to fend off fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles (!) and launch an attack on Washington D.C. and the White House. Meanwhile, semi-disgraced secret service agent Mike Banning (great hero name! Wasn't he the tough guy on Jonny Quest?), played by Gerard Butler, winds up being the last man standing inside the White House after the really suicidal terrorists manage to capture the President and his top aides.

Look, this sort of movie is what it is. I'm a big fan of 80's style style action movies so in the immortal words of George W. Bush, "bring it on!" But a couple of things:

First, this movie is amazingly blood-thirsty.  The filmmakers wanted to make the attack feel dangerous and visceral, so when the magical Korean gunship bears down on the Washington monument and opens fire, tourists and guards and hapless acres of sod are blown apart in an orgy of CGI blood spurts and dust pops.  That's followed by a ground assault where dozens of secret service agents (and bad guys) are blasted. This is not the "war is heck" version of a White House takeover. 

Second, as much as I love old style action movies, I find myself more fascinating post-viewing by contemplating the logistics involved.  There's an entire movie in showing these North Korean bad guys recruiting a disgruntled American secret service agent, buying a cargo plane and amassing the high tech arms used in the attack.  I have no idea if the missile defense system aboard the cargo plane exists or would actually work, but the planning and devising that went into building it would be compelling.  And there's a whole 'nother movie in how the bad guys managed to insinuate themselves into the Korean delegation, gathered their suicidal forces and got them into the United States.

But watching Mike Banning kick a lot of ass is fun too... 

 
  

King V.S. Kubrick

A writer at "The New Statesman" takes umbrage at the idea that Stephen King didn't care for Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of THE SHINING.  Internet flames ensue!

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/09/stephen-king-still-wont-accept-kubricks-genius

Me, I find the article's stance puzzling and irritating. In an effort to defend Kubrick's vision no matter what, the writer seems to forget that King was the creator of THE SHINING and has every right not only to be unhappy with the adaptation, but to have that opinion respected.  I take particular exception with this section of the article:

Despite these criticisms flying in the face of popular opinion, King is not being deliberately contrary. In fact, his assertions prove that his connection with these particular characters have rendered him incapable of appreciating a terrific piece of cinema.

Really?  Condescend much, pal?  The guy who wrote the novel and created the characters has been rendered "incapable" of critical thought because he doesn't agree with you?

But then the truth is, I agree with Stephen King on this one.  I consider Kubrick one of the few true geniuses of film, but everybody has a misfire from time to time and for me, THE SHINING was one.  I was riveted by the book and still remember going to the theater gleefully anticipating the first real no-bullshit Stanley Kubrick horror film.  But King's right -- THE SHINING is cold and withdrawn.  Where's the amazing moment from the book where Torrance rampages through the hotel, slamming a bloody axe against the walls as he descends into total homicidal madness?  How did that become a literally ice-cold chase scene through a frozen hedge maze?

Look, even average Kubrick is better than 99% of the stuff out there, so there is much to admire and enjoy about the movie version of THE SHINING.  But accusing King of just not getting it is taking Kubrick veneration a step too far.  (Which is also the long way of saying I'm looking forward to the next film adaptation of the book!)

Runaway Train

One of the best films to come out of the Cannon factory (which, in this rare case, is NOT damning with faint praise), RUNAWAY TRAIN has just been reissued on blu-ray with many extras, though this edition appears to be only available (so far) from the U.K.

Based on a script originally written by Akira Kurosawa, TRAIN is about two escaped convicts, played by Jon Voight and Eric Roberts, who have the bad luck to a), escape from a maximum security prison in a blinding snow storm and b), hitch a ride on a train just as the engineer keels from a heart attack.  Various plot devices ensue that leave the train roaring down the tracks at high speed with no way to stop it.

In other hands this could have been another forgettable Cannon quickie, but director Andrei Konchalovsky makes everything he can out of the situation, and the result, as Jon Voight says in his commentary, is visual poetry.  There are many striking sequences, some made even more astounding when some of the tricks are revealed.   (Hint -- a big chunk of the movie was shot in a warehouse on Beverly Blvd. in Hollywood).

But the beating heart of this movie is Jon Voight, who delivers a riveting, over-the-top, compelling performance as Oscar "Manny" Mannheim, one of the escaped cons.  When we first meet Manny, he's being ordered released from the solitary cell that evil Warden Rankin (John P. Ryan at his nastiest) had him welded into (!) years earlier.  There's some nasty history between these two, and when Manny bids prison adieu, Rankin is determined to bring him back.  Meanwhile, Manny has to deal with his "partner" Buck (Mr. Roberts) whose self-aggrandizing blabber would have had Mother Theresa reaching for a gun.  One of the best scenes in the film, where Manny finally explodes on Buck for boasting about all the amazing stuff he's going to do once they're free, turns out to have been scribbled out by Voight the night before shooting.  Which means I have to hate him, I guess, but it really is amazing stuff.

I've always loved this movie -- the look, the gritty dialogue (some by ex-con Eddie Bunker), the performances, the incredible stunt work and FX -- it's got it all.  There are interviews with Konchalovsky, Roberts and supporting actor Kyle Heffner, but a lengthy piece from Jon Voight is especially interesting.  Well worth hunting down!

Jack Kirby's Least Used Best

This is a fun list of some of Jack Kirby's craziest (in the good sense) concepts, most of which I had forgotten or somehow missed.  The planet that is so evil it has devil horns is especially audacious, but they're all pretty amazing. 

http://comicsalliance.com/jack-kirby-ten-most-amazingly-underused-concepts/

The Silence: Feel Good Movie of Never!

THE SILENCE: Another entry in the Germanic/Norwegian noir category popularized by "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo", but the "The Silence" is less thriller than it is a somber mediation on loneliness.  It opens with two 30-ish guys coming up on a teenage girl... one of the men attacks, rapes and murders the girl while the other watches in mute horror/fascination.  When it's done, the "accomplice" packs up his stuff and leaves his murderous friend, but does not call the police.

23 years later, another young girl is murdered in exactly the same way.  In a slow build, we find the accomplice in an entirely different space, shocked that there's been another murder.  The cop who investigated but never solved the old murder has just retired but wants to help with the investigation, and the mother of the first victim continues to grieve over her daughter.  On top of that, another cop on the case is suffering a near nervous breakdown after the death of his wife from cancer five months earlier.  Like my title line suggests, it's not exactly the Three Stooges...

How all these characters eventually come into one another's orbit is the slow genius of the movie.  The why of the second murder becomes the signature question, and I'm pleased to say that there actually is an answer and it is simultaneously surprising, sad and compelling.

It's not exactly light viewing, but "The Silence" is beautifully shot and remains true to its subject matter... as in, there's no last act car chase.  The blu-ray comes with two short films by the same director (I haven't seen them yet) and cast/crew commentary...        

Nilsson Alert!! As In Harry Nilsson...

So RCA's just released a 17 CD box-set collecting all 14 of Harry Nilsson's RCA albums + 3 discs of extras, all in cool cardboard "LP" sleeves.  Having all of Nilsson's material in one handy little box is great news unto itself, but what makes this set "must have" are the three CDs of (mostly) unreleased demos, unreleased tracks and etc.  If you're not familiar with Harry Nilsson -- well you should be!  The album "Nilsson Schmilsson" is a flat out classic, one of those 100 albums you must hear before you die.  Nilsson's songs range from rockers to tin-pan alley to spine-tingling ballads.  Mostly, you need to hear this guy for his voice, which will send chills down your spine (in all the good ways). 

Nilsson had his ups and downs -- sadly more downs as the 70's wound into the 80's.  His story is well told in the excellent documentary "Who Is Harry Nilsson and Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?", but I'm focusing on the music here.  Which is mostly great.  I'm still plowing through the collection, but the solo piano demos for Nilsson Schmilsson (most of which were released in the U.K. a few years ago) are stunning and practically worth the $99-ish price for the set on their own.  Good stuff worth supporting! 

New Stuff!

Been reinforcing the concrete slab under our house to handle the influx of "stuff."  Among the latest arrivals:

BOY AND HIS DOG (blu-ray):  Harlan Ellison's classic novella as adapted by non other than L.Q. Jones, perhaps best known for his scuzzy roles in various Sam Peckinpah movies (Tector in The Wild Bunch!) and... well, for this.  In the year 2024 (only nine years away!) a nuclear war has scoured the Earth and the last rag-tag survivors run around scavenging old canned goods and being mean to one another.  A very young Don Johnson plays Vic, a horny-as-hell kid who hangs on the periphery of all the bad stuff, desperate for sex.  Vic has an edge on the rest of the survivors because he's developed a telepathic connection with his cute and very sardonic dog Blood, who protects Vic while insulting him in amusing ways.  "Adventures ensue."  This new master looks amazing -- and I always liked both the look of this movie (Mad Max four years before Mad Max) and the sardonic, cynical tone.  The disc also comes with a cool recent interview/"conversation" between L.Q. Jones and Harlan Ellison that explores how the picture came together.  Good stuff.

THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN (blu-ray): On the other hand... amusingly, both Boy and his Dog and Melting Man open with stock footage of fiery explosions.  Nuclear bombs in Boy, sun flares in Incredible.  However that's pretty much where the similarities end.  70's horror fans have an affection for Melting Man because of the grisly early make-up effects by Rick Baker, who was coming off the DeLaurentis King Kong at the time and who admits in one of the DVD extras that he wasn't sure this picture was a good career move.  But he made what he considered an outrageous bid for the make-up job and to his surprise they agreed, so this incredible guy?  He friggin' MELTS.  And melts.  And melts.  There isn't much story here, an astronaut gets fried by solar radiation and when he gets back to Earth he starts to, well, you know.  Evidently melting makes a guy real pissy and homicidal, and most of the movie features our titular character rampaging the low budget countryside killing people.  Toward the end a character begs the cops not to shoot Meltie because "the more he melts, the stronger he gets!"  But that scientific observation is eventually proven inaccurate.  Besides the Rick Baker interview, the disc also features an interview with director/writer William Sachs, who claims the producers ruined his vision -- he wanted to make a black comedy and they wanted straight horror.  What they wound up with was a very cheap, sadly boring movie with some gloppy make-up FX.  My two favorite parts: the opening title is "The Incredible Melting Man," followed by "Starring Alex Rebar as The Incredible Melting Man."  Poor dude (whose character name is actually "Steve") doesn't even get a name in the credits.  And then there's the ending, which suggests the comedic tone that Mr. Sachs claimed to be aiming for.  Otherwise, this is one of those "thank God for fast forward" curiosities...

BULLET IN THE HEAD (blu-ray):  Walter Hill teams up with Sylvester Stallone for a 70's style guns and gangsters movie, but sadly this one's a misfire.  Stallone plays an assassin who wants revenge on the really nasty guys (I'm looking at you, Jason Conan-guy Momoa) who killed his partner.  Stallone winds up joining forces with a cop played by Korean actor Sung Kang.  Stallone SMASH.  Mayhem ensues, just not particularly interesting mayhem, and it's capped by one of my least favorite gangster movie tropes, the absurd "bad guy kills all his own guys" scene.  Everyone involved has made WAY better movies so chalk this one up as "ehh" and hope for better next time...

Children Of Paranoia And Me!

So my next project has FINALLY been announced -- I'm adapting Trevor Shane's excellent "Children of Paranoia" for CBS Films, working with producer Akiva Goldsman.  C of P is a thriller with awesome twists and turns, and a very emotional story at the chewy center.  As happens in the world of show-biz it's taken 2 1/2 years of pursuing, pitching, deal-making and now, finally, writing to make this happen -- but it's worth it.   

Since it ain't official until it appears in Nikke Finke, here's the piece:

http://www.deadline.com/2013/08/cbs-films-options-children-of-paranoia/

San Diego ComicCon Excitement

Always enjoy visiting San Diego, and this ComicCon was especially pleasant weather-wise... very cool and comfy.  I did my usual investigation of various dealers, though for the first time in years I didn't buy any collectible comics.  I did however buy several collections (Golden Age "Phantom Lady" anyone?) which may explain why my appetite for pricey old books has diminished.  If I just want to read old comics, many are readily available in multiple forms. 

My greatest find was a page of original art from the 1960's "Herbie" comic -- specifically the last page of "Egyptian Conniption" from Herbie #19 (1966), where Herbie brings a bloated Cleopatra to present day to please his father, only to figure out that Dad was actually lusting over the much prettier Elizabeth Taylor version.  A Herbie website notes that this particular page features possibly the most optimistic father-son moment in the entire Herbie catalog -- Herbie's straight-laced Dad gives the son he usually calls "a fat little nothing" a wink after Herbie makes Cleo disappear before Mom comes home.  If you've never had a chance to check out Herbie, trust me, it's one of the most bizarre and somewhat subversive comics to ever come out.  And the entire 60's run is available in glorious hardback reprint from Dark Horse...

My only complaint about the convention this year would be my multiple run-ins with overzealous security.  Arriving to participate in a (fun!) Battlestar Galactica panel, I was told that panelists are not allowed to enter through the front door (!). When I asked which door was permitted, there was no answer.  When Richard Hatch and the rest of the panel went through the forbidden front door I just bulldozed along with them, but really?  Later I grew increasingly more grumpy with long lines of autograph seekers blocking entire central aisles with security approval.  I can't count the number of times I was told to detour and/or "keep moving" while wandering the crush of the con. I suppose it's heresy to even suggest this, but maybe those sessions need to be moved off the main convention floor...?

Oh, okay, one more complaint, but this is totally outside convention control: the price gouging by local hotels.  I could buy a very nice room in a high end Hawaiian resort for what it cost to stay in S.D. this year, and while I love San Diego, trust me, I love the Kona Coast even more.  But oh well.  I doubt I'd find too many Herbie pages on the big island...

 

Catching up...

Now that the frenzy of Sharknado has abated and the big San Diego ComicCon looms, time to FOCUS.

NEWS!  I'll be on the Battlestar Galactica panel at SDCC on Thursday, 7/18, at 10:30AM.  I understand there may be other surprise guests including a possible "hello" from the Admiral himself.  Since security wouldn't let me in last year (the room was full) I figured the best way to SEE the panel was to ask to be on it, and moderator Richard Hatch was kind enough to tender an invitation.  Anyhow, BSG is always fun to  blab about...

NEWS! Some very cool developments work-wise, but I have been asked to hold off any revelations until all can be coordinated.  I'm told an announcement of one of the projects will surface any day now (keep your eyes on Deadline Hollywood!). Suffice to say my lazy Summer has suddenly become a Worknado of writing madness...

NEWS! I actually did watch Sharknado.  First, I think it's cool that Anthony Ferrante, former editor of Fangoria, is now directing movies.  Second, well... I think it's cool that Anthony Ferrante, former editor of Fangoria, is directing movies.  Okay, that's a little snarky.  Actually, I'm kind of impressed by the sheer amount of bad CGI and "action" given what I assume must have been a *ahem* modest budget.  Plus it was set in Santa Monica, my almost home-base here in Los Angeles.  And John Heard was eaten by a shark.  Okay, that's enough on Sharknado...

* UPDATE 7/14: After much thought, I'm not sure Mr. Ferrante was actually the editor of Fangoria, but he did write for them...

Lazy Tuesday Mulling... Original Comic Art Edition

I've been picking up the odd piece of original comic book art from time to time.  I have quite a few examples from my own books, but also a number of pieces by my fave/most intriguing artists and books.  I doubt there are too many other collectors dying for a page of Tony Tallarico art from the Dell 60's "Werewolf" series, but at $30 a page, I'm there!

One thing I don't particularly like are pages that don't have the lettering actually on the artwork.  Almost all current comics are lettered with computer programs and overlays, a process which put a lot of fine hand-letterers out of business (*sigh*) but which makes editing, corrections and (*sigh* again) rewrites infinitely easier.  So I get the practicality of it all.  But original art still looks naked without the balloons and captions... meaning the vast majority of my original art collection is pre whenever the computer age of lettering kicked in.  Happily, most of my comics were done when the lettering was still being inserted by hand.  I just... like that.

In fact, I am inordinately pleased that I started my comics career way back when (some) books were still being published on newsprint-ish paper, with (mostly) hand-lettered cover copy and less than optimum color separations.  Because that's "comics" to me.  Everyone's eye adjusts to their own age of comics, so I'm sure most modern comics fans find older books unbearably primitive. But for me, the anti-slickness is most of the attraction.  I love the hand-made, seat-of-your-pants look that came from hand-lettered cover copy and logos, from a time when lettering Gods like Artie Simek or Sam Rosen or Ben Oda or Bill Spicer could make or break artwork with their truly remarkable styles.

This isn't some Luddite repudiation of computer lettering or better printing.  I know artists from the old days were endlessly frustrated with bad printing and the loss of detail that resulted.  And there are some modern artists who do their own lettering on the page (hello, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Robert Crumb) because the letters are a design element just as important as the artwork itself.  I guess I'm mostly thinking that slick for slick's sake isn't always a plus.  Anymore than crude for crude's sake always works.  I don't like those Tony Tallarico pages THAT much...

Lifeforce and British Security!

Tobe Hooper's amazing and insane Lifeforce has just come out on blu-ray, and it is as nuts as I remember from seeing it in the theater many moons ago. Based on the Colin Wilson book "Space Vampires", Lifeforce is probably most remembered for the lengthy and impressive nude scenes performed by Mathilda May, who gamely walks around London in the buff because space vampires don't need no clothes.  Yes, London, because this is a fanciful world where England is in the space race.  In fact the biggest leap in the film is the idea that the U.S. and England would actually cough up the cash for a joint space mission, and the U.S. would allow the HQ to be in London!

What impressed me most on this re-view of the movie is how casually our stalwart and mostly British scientists (including Frank Finley and Patrick Stewart) take the greatest discovery in human history.  Texas-drawling astronaut Steve Railsback and his shuttle crew find a space-craft hidden in Haley's comet.  Cue some cool John Dykstra special FX as our spacemen float into the ship and come across three naked humanoid forms inside crystal cubes, including the aforementioned (and did I mention impressive?) Ms. May.  Just looking at Mathilda provokes a lot of eye-acting from Railsback and the other astronauts -- her beauty is seductive, ya see.  Stuff happens and the aliens are eventually brought back to Earth for study. 

But the discovery of alien life seems about as exciting to these scientists as deciding between beef or fish for dinner.  They schedule the dissection of the seemingly dead female alien in the middle of the night, and send one schmucko with a scalpel into the dissection room to do the deed.  No one else is even watching -- guess they have better things to do than be there when someone CUTS OPEN THE FIRST ALIEN LIFEFORM EVER DISCOVERED.  Upstairs in his office, the lead scientist dozes off (!) in front a video array while scalpel boy gets busy -- only to have the female alien snap awake. Schmucko is getting his soul-essence sucked when the sleep-deprived head scientist finally snaps out of his stupor and calls "security".  The naked alien lass strolls around the lab while a crack force of three oblivious Bobbies -- one of whom offers the naked female space vampire a sandwich to settle her down -- basically watch her walk off into the night.  

I will say that you really don't know where the hell this movie is going, which is a plus -- there is a lot of whacked out shit going on in this thing.  And the blu-ray transfer is pretty spectacular.  But otherwise, there's a reason this hasn't risen higher in the pantheon of classic sci-fi...