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Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

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Scott Pilgrim levels up when he gains the Power of Love.
Scott Pilgrim levels up when he gains the Power of Love.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World , a live-action film based on a popular comic book limited series which was written to mimic a quasi-video game world, goes beyond “quirky” into a new realm of meta-film.

What do I mean by this? I guess the best way to explain it is that at no point during the film is the viewer really allowed to forget that they’re watching a film. Watching the film is like watching a mix of anime and video game which happens to be performed by real actors. The fight scenes are extremely impressive, a mix of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Super Mario Galaxy, with some Guitar Hero thrown in for good measure.

“Realism” has no place in this film.

At first, you might think that things like this would ruin the film, but instead it allows you to engage with the film on a whole different level than what you’re used to … and it works.

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No Mere Nostalgia, Part II: TRON (1982)

No Mere Nostalgia, Part II: TRON (1982)

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tron-title-cardOn the other side of the screen, it all looks so easy. . . .

Earlier this year, I marched stolidly at the front of a phalanx to defend the original Clash of the Titans right before its re-make was about to hit theaters. I found the re-make more palatable than I expected, although I have since gotten frosty about it after watching it a second time when the DVD came out; the sucker just doesn’t hold up. Although a sequel to the re-make is now in the works, I think the status of Harryhausen’s 1981 film remains secure. It may even improve.

Now I am facing a similar-sounding situation with this Friday’s looming release of TRON: Legacy. I am here to defend the 1982 film TRON, a movie that balances on a triple-edged knife’s tip of nostalgia, prescience, and ridicule.

However, my position with the new TRON is different than that of the new Clash of the Titans. The forthcoming TRON: Legacy is not a re-make, but a sequel, and this puts me less on the defensive and instead rezzes me up. The early reviews are lukewarm, but at least TRON: Legacy isn’t trying to override the memory of the first movie, and it has brought back the original star Jeff Bridges as well as director Steven Lisberger (in the role of producer this time).

During the early stages of the “New TRON movie” development, Disney did consider doing a re-make, but thankfully someone in the Mouse House realized that a sequel was a better plan. Developments in computer technology between 1982 and 2010 provide an opportunity to explore how the world of computers from the original film have changed — how the grid and the primitive Internet have expanded to rule the world and transform into a reality parallel to our own — and that is fertile ground for a sequel. A sequel almost seems a necessity.

But that TRON: Legacy got made at all is a celebration of one the weirdest, long-term success stories of science-fiction cinema: how a “video-game craze” movie that got a muddy reception on its original release turned into a piece of technical prophecy, an oracle of the modern hi-tech zeitgeist.

Yes, but is it a good movie?

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A Review of Another Fine Myth by Robert Asprin

A Review of Another Fine Myth by Robert Asprin

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another-fine-mythAnother Fine Myth, by Robert Asprin
Dell Fantasy (224 pages, $1.95, 1978)

Reading Another Fine Myth, by Robert Asprin, was a peculiar experience. This is not because of the book itself, but because I’ve been following the comic by Phil Foglio, currently being posted as a webcomic. I think Foglio’s style made me expect a more frantic story than I got; if you read any of his comics, such as Girl Genius, you’ll know that the panels tend to be full to the point of bursting.

While I liked Another Fine Myth, I didn’t love it, and some of that may be because I was expecting a different sort of story. Mostly, though, I think it’s because the narrator never really took control of the events, making him more a sidekick than the protagonist I thought he was supposed to be.

He’s not enough of a fool to be the sort of protagonist who solves the problem through sheer luck and incompetence, but he doesn’t really get a shining moment either. He’s just there. I suspect this is a problem that goes away as the series progresses. My opinion of the series as a whole will probably be a bit different from my feelings about this one book.

Skeeve is a magician’s apprentice, but arguably not a very good one. He sees magic mainly as a potential thieves’ tool, a point of contention between him and his master. To show Skeeve that control is more important than power, the master decides to summon a “cold, vicious and bloodthirsty” demon by way of demonstration. Unfortunately, said master is assassinated just as the ritual is completed.

Fortunately for Skeeve’s continuing existence, the demon is not as vicious and deadly as advertised. His name is Aahz.

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Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.11 “Appointment in Samarra”

Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.11 “Appointment in Samarra”

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This episode begins with the appearance of Robert Englund (better known as Freddy Kreuger from Nightmare on Elm Street) as a doctor who works out of the back room of a Chinatown butcher shop. He’s stitched up John Winchester many times over the years, but now it’s Dean seeking him out, for some sort of procedure which, apparently, has a 75% success rate. I’m thinking a vasectomy, but no, he’s going to go all Flatliners.

Death (left) and grim reaper Tessa (right) offer Dean a deal to get Sam's soul back.
Death (left) and grim reaper Tessa (right) offer Dean a deal to get Sam's soul back.

In the seven minutes that he’s dead, Dean casts a spell to summon Tessa, a Reaper (as in the Grim kind). But he doesn’t really want Tessa, he wants her boss … Death.

Dean figures that if there’s anyone they know who can get Sam’s soul out of its little hell box with Lucifer and Michael, it’s Death. And, in fact, he’s right. He tries to blackmail Death by threatening to not give his ring back (the ring was obtained at the end of last season, so that the Winchesters could trap Lucifer). Death is amused, because he knows exactly where the ring is being held. But still, he offers Dean a deal, a bet, and if successful he’ll give Sam’s soul back and put up a wall that will hold back the memories of his torments … for a time. Possibly even a lifetime.

The terms of the bet: Dean has to wear Death’s ring for a day.

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AMC’s The Walking Dead: Devouring six million viewers, and me

AMC’s The Walking Dead: Devouring six million viewers, and me

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the-walking-dead-comic-imageConfession: I watch almost no TV. Well, that’s not quite true: NFL football, an occasional news program, and the odd episode of The Simpsons aside, I watch no TV. Lost is lost on me. There aren’t enough hours in the day for 24. The Sopranos? Fuggedaboutit. There are too many good books to be read in the world and not enough time for television.

Another reason I avoid TV, particularly serialized programming, is the “that guy” phenomenon. When it comes to shows like Lost, there’s always one person in the office who insists on telling you how much you’re missing, or describing the minutiae of a cast of fictional characters’ lives for whom you know and care absolutely nothing about. It just ends up making me hate the boob tube even more.

So now that I’ve set the stage for why I avoid TV, let me tell you all about AMC’s The Walking Dead! I’m a huge fan  of the zombie genre and the temptation to watch a TV program about the undead was too great not to tune in. After an excellent episode one I was hooked. I’m mortified that I have to wait until the fall for episode 2.

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Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.10 “Caged Heat”

Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.10 “Caged Heat”

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The Winchesters and the Angel Castiel meet back up with an old friend: demon Meg.
The Winchesters and the Angel Castiel meet back up with an old friend: demon Meg.

The demon Crowley is now the king of hell, since Sam and Dean trapped Lucifer back in the pit, and he’s on a mission to track down a way to claim Purgatory next. Monsters, it seems, come from Purgatory and go there when they die, so he thinks that by collecting the creators of different monsters – the Alphas of their respective races – he’ll be able to figure out how to take over Purgatory. Toward that end, he’s resurrected Sam, but without his soul, and is blackmailing Sam and Dean into working for him to get it back.

One of the monsters they’ve already caught is the Alpha Shifter, who Crowley is interrogating. The casting director got a bit of a break this week, because the shifter has taken the form of Crowley, so he’s torturing himself. It ends with Crowley decapitating the Alpha, which really doesn’t particularly seem to help his case, but then, Crowley is a demon, so you can forgive him for being driven by his passions.

Speaking of demons, an old favorite, the demon Meg, returns and kidnaps Sam and Dean. It seems that since Crowley’s taken over Hell, he’s been cleaning house of all of the Lucifer loyalists. She’s trying to use them to get a lead on Crowley, but the Winchesters haven’t actually seen him in a while, dealing instead with middlemen as they drop off their prey. Instead, Sam makes a deal with Meg to take out Crowley. Oh, what a tangled web they weave …

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A review of War for the Oaks, by Emma Bull

A review of War for the Oaks, by Emma Bull

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warfortheoaksWar for the Oaks, by Emma Bull
Ace Books (309 pages, $3.50, 1987)
Cover by Pamela Patrick

Thematically, War for the Oaks by Emma Bull has a lot in common with Charles de Lint’s Jack the Giant Killer, which also appeared in 1987 (and which I reviewed here.) If I’d known exactly how similar they were, I’m not sure I would have picked it to review for a few months yet. Still, it’s a good book, and I’m glad I got a chance to read it.

Eddi McCandry, guitarist and singer, is about to leave both her old band and her boyfriend, the lead singer. She’s ready, she thinks, for a normal life. It’s a plan that falls apart in only one chapter; the fey need a mortal presence to witness their upcoming war, and they’ve chosen her.

In short order, Eddi is stalked by a man and chased by a huge dog, insulted by a woman made of water, drafted by the Seelie Court, and saddled with a constant guardian: the man-dog shapeshifter who herded her into the encounter.

To make matters worse, Eddi finds out that she has to stay under surveillance for at least half a year so that the Unseelie Court can’t assassinate her. Her watchdog is a phouka who enjoys living up to his trickster roots, and keeping a regular job would be impossible with him following her everywhere even in the unlikely event that he decides to behave himself, so Eddi bows to the inevitable and decides to start a band.

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Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.9 “Clap Your Hands If You Believe”

Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.9 “Clap Your Hands If You Believe”

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Dean Winchester detains a suspected fairy.
Dean Winchester detains a suspected fairy. Does this count as a hate crime?

If you’re an avid fan of my posts on this blog (and I assume that most of you are) you’ll notice that I didn’t post last week. I’m hoping that the intervening week has removed some of the trauma and heartache from the experience, not to mention given you the opportunity to seek some much needed counsel from your spiritual guru or therapist.

It was my DVR’s fault. A week ago, I re-arranged the living room so that we’d have room for the television. I moved the television, along with the accompanying bundles of wires and electronic gizmos. Everything was working fine, hours before Friday night prime time television. But, sadly, the DVR still decided (and make no mistake, it was a conscious choice, of this I’m sure) not to record Supernatural.

So I went to the CW website, in hopes of watching the episode in time to review it … but to no avail, because it takes a week for them to post the episode. And my internet television of choice, Hulu, does not offer Supernatural. Thus why you, dear readers, are getting this recap more than a week after the show aired.

On the plus side, though: Dean gets abducted by aliens … or maybe fairies!

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Goth Chick News: You Really Need to Tell Me Everything… Now

Goth Chick News: You Really Need to Tell Me Everything… Now

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image0083I’m about to cross into some sacred territory here, but what the heck.

I really didn’t like The Empire Strikes Back, originally the second (ultimately fifth) in the Star Wars series. In fact, it pretty much put me off the rest of the movies and though I doggedly attended each and every one, the shine went off at number two.

Why?

Because the story left me hanging.

Yep, that’s basically it. The fact that we had to — nay, were forced to — come back for number three to find out what became of Han Solo, who was frozen in carbonite and being rocketed toward certain doom at the end of Empire, sucked the life out of the entire experience for me. Darth Vader’s evil pales in comparison to a cheap trick like an unfinished storyline.

Now before you start peppering me with email and comments about how George Lucas is a national treasure and “how dare I” and all that, please hear me out.

I know a lot of you will say that being left in suspense is part of the fun, and that if a tale is too rich to be told in under three hours it deserves to be broken up into segments. In the case of an HBO series or daytime soap operas I completely agree; waiting to see what happens tomorrow or next week is indeed the hook that keeps the viewers coming back, me included (i.e. True Blood).

The big difference is, the individual segments were never conceived or written to stand alone. And perhaps this is the argument one could make about George Lucas and his intentions when he wrote the entire Star Wars epic. However, a little cynical part of me can’t help but wonder if it had something to do with money, and that’s the bit that ever so slightly gets under my skin.

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A Review of The Lion of Cairo, by Scott Oden

A Review of The Lion of Cairo, by Scott Oden

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lion-of-cairo1The Lion of Cairo, by Scott Oden
Thomas Dunne Books (384 pages, $25.99, December 7, 2010)

I think it’s totally cool that the dedication page of Scott Oden’s forthcoming novel The Lion of Cairo (U.S. publication date Dec. 7) pays homage to a sword and sorcery legend:

To Robert E. Howard
whose tales of swordplay and sorcery
gave inspiration to a kid from Alabama
and caused him to take up the pen
in his own time

After the Howard name-drop you pretty much know what you’re in for: Pulse-pounding sword play, leagues of warring assassins, political intrigue, a hint of evil sorcery, and the clash of armies on a grand stage. On all these elements Oden delivers.

Though inspired by the man from Cross Plains, The Lion of Cairo is no slavish imitation of Howard. The work — book one of the Emir of the Knife trilogy — shares just as much or more in common with Harold Lamb’s Swords from the East or Steven Pressfield’s historical fiction than REH’s tales of the Hyborian Age. Cairo’s main character, the assassin Assad, is more Pale Rider than muscular Cimmerian. He’s a dude you don’t want to tangle with: Deadly with a blade instead of a six-gun; not cocky but quietly confident in his abilities; single-minded of purpose; a stone-cold killer. Though he’s an assassin Oden successfully manages to portray him as sympathetic, a killer we can get behind. It’s a pretty nifty bit of characterization.

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