What's Up Wednesday - October 5, 2011

So did you know that since the reign of Queen Victoria, the last Wednesday in September has been given the name "Second Tuesday"? That's because it's not true. I missed a week. Oh well! Let's see what I found interesting in the past two weeks.

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Music
I love The Muppets and am a big fan of off-beat covers, so when I saw The Green Album I knew I would eventually have to give it a spin. It starts off really promising: OK Go!'s cover of "The Muppet Show Theme" is weird and groovy, although it goes on a little too long. Things pick up with Weezer & Hayley Williams's cover of The Rainbow Connection, which gives us a harp doing the traditional banjo riff and a beautiful two-part harmony for the last verse. The Fray's "Manah-Manah" sounds nearly the same as the TV version, which is okay but nothing special. And then there's the Alkaline Trio's version of "Movin' Right Along" which could be my favourite song on the album: it's a fusion of the band's sound with the spirit of the original, where the band plays with it just enough to make it interesting without completely destroying the song. My Morning Jacket's version of "Our World," a song I've never heard before, is a nice little song that would be easily performed by both Muppets and rock stars.

And then...things start going downhill. Amy Lee does a creepy version of "Halfway Down The Stairs," which needs that kind of interpretation like Archie Andrews needs a goth-style makeover. Another lowlight is a really awkward version of one of my favourite Muppet songs ever, "I Hope That Something Better Comes Along" - a human should not sing lyrics like "What could be better than a saucy Irish Setter" straightforwardly. An adequate version of "It's Not Easy Being Green" almost pulls us out of the nose-dive, but then the album closes with Rachael Yamagata's version of "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday" which seems weirdly-orchestrated just for the sake of being weird, and is truly unfortunately mixed (I don't need to hear the soft tisues of your mouth sliding against each other when you're singing). I like about half the album and the rest either underhwlmes me or makes me frustrated thinking about how much better it could have been.

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Comics
I have been curious about Matt Wagner's Grendel comics for a few years, so last week I got off my ass and took Grendel: Behold The Devil out of the library. If I had done my research I would have discovered that this was one of the last books in the series, but I decided to try it anyhow, figuring every comic is someone's first and that it might hook me hard enough to want to seek out the other comics. And boy, did it. In this volume Grendel is Hunter Rose, bestselling author by day and brutal crime kingpin by night. Behold The Devil is an examination of a "lost" episode in his life, and if this is anything like the earlier comics then I am in. Beautifully illustrated, perfectly paced, this tale of violence unfolds step by glorious step until the surprise (to me) ending. The violence is absolutely exq$uisite; the first five pages of Chapter One completely blew me away. I will be back for more, definitely, and will re-read this one with relish when I get back to its spot in publishing continuity.

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Movies
I saw Drive yesterday and it is GOOOOOOOD. It's not the big dumb action movie they're trying to sell it as, although sharp-eyed viewers would probably have figured that out by the use of pink font on the posters and trailers. It's a thoughtful, suspenseful action film, more along the lines of a Point Blank or To Live& Die In L.A. than a Fast & The Furious. I've heard a few people say the 70s & 80s homage is slap-dash and unsatisfying, but I really feel there's a lot to like. There are a number of very quiet moments, nearly TOO quiet, and there are a lot of very subtle performances that would have been completely extinguished in a lesser film. And when things go bad, they go really bad. Shocking, grotesque violence, with one scene that had me squirming in my seat. And the cast is great, too. Ryan Gosling's stoic performance may go a little too far towards stone-faced at times, but Carey Mulligan is note-perfect, Ron Perlman is fun and intimidating, Bryan Cranston is great as usual, and Albert Brooks is TERRIFYING as a crime boss. No seriously. I was shocked too. If you like film in general and action films in particular, then you need to make a trip to see Drive, and soon.

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Books
After months of struggling to read, I broke into Grant Morrison's Supergods for Nerd Book Club and it is a really fun and fast (but uneven) book. I enjoyed his (admittedly skewed) examination of the Golden and Silver ages of superhero comic books, with a little bit of examination of how these books represent spiritual archetypes that have been with us for centuries, but these analogies didn't really going anywhere other than "Did you notice that? I did, it's amazing." Which is okay, I guess, and I enjoy seeing someone else's perspective on these familiar characters. And then about halfway through, it became less about an exploration of the character archetypes & how they could inform us about human nature and became part-history, part-memoir. I understood why: Morrison felt he needs to explain his motivations for writing, which are based on his life experiences, including his metaphysical ones. And while that fits into the theme of the book, which I won't completely reveal because I think finding that theme is part of the journey,

I think the memoir aspects could have been toned down and the thematic aspects given more direction and follow-through. The book is in some pretty desperate need of an editor, as things get a little meandery about halfway through and almost spiral completely out of control towards the end. (There are also some pretty obvious typos and things being mentioned out of sequence.) For me, though, being familiar with Morrison's style, I find the lack of direction is a trap he sometimes finds himself in, and I was able to climb out of it with him and bring something worthwhile along with me. So I ended up liking it and will probably re-read it in the next couple of years, but  I would be really interested in a non-fan's perspective on the book.  I don't know if it would be easy to follow or impactful for someone who doesn't have strong connections to the characters or the writer like I do.

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DVDs/Blu-Rays
Two weekends ago I went to visit a friend and we had a marathon of all 25 episodes of the first season of Community Season 1. That marks the seventh time I've gone through the first season in under 12 months. Which probably sounds silly but it really is that good. I noticed jokes and references this seventh time that had completely passed me by the first time, which means that either a) I am not very observant or b) these are some amazingly great episodes. I would like to think that the answer is b). Regardless: if you haven't seen Community, you really should. It is one of only a handful of shows that represent the pinnacle of television comedy, and I have no doubt that it will be remembered very fondly in the coming decades.

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TV
This "week," I would like to take a moment to talk about...The Playboy Club. When I first heard that there was going to be a prime-time drama about The Playboy Club, I was dubious. I thought that it was just a lame way to grab ratings by cashing in on the Mad-Men-60s-style-chic and parading beautiful women around in Bunny costumes and their underwear. And I will admit: it was partly that. But honestly, only partly. By the end of the first episode I thought, despite myself, that there was something more there. They introduced a lot of characters, and involved a lot of interesting themes: politics, race relations, organized crime, sexual orientation, gender roles, and a handful of interesting mysteries. And there were musical numbers! And did I mention a half-dozen beautiful women? Sure, some of the characterizations were groaningly broad, and the "Hugh Hefner in the shadows" bits were pretty awful, but I thought there were things to grow on. I felt even more positive about the show after the second episode, where things felt a little rushed and some plots were given more time to breathe. And that meant, of course, that it would be cancelled. I just didn't think it would have been by episode three! I thought for sure I'd get a half-season out of it at least, where they could wrap at least a couple of plot threads up. Instead I got three episodes of what was a pretty promising show. I guess most viewers didn't see it the way I did, but I really think that The Playboy Club is up there with American Gothic as one of those promising shows cancelled way too early.

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Life
Last Monday my brother got me royally drunk, tied some training wheels on me, and set me up in his hockey draft. I apparently did okay, stealing some players out from under some of the other guys, and I walked away thinking I did okay. And then three days later he sent me a text saying I had drafted someone who had already retired. And nobody noticed. So I have a lot more to learn, I guess.

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And that's it. More song updates to follow, for sure, but now it's time for me to get on the exercise bike. Curse you, bike.

The Return of What's Up Wednesday: September 14, 2011

Hello! In efforts to find more ways to distract myself that aren't "sit on couch and eat too much while watching movies," I'm pulling out the What's Up Wednesday semi-feature I tried about a year back. This should get me writing more regularly, and should provide me with a "deadline" and reason to dedicate some blog time every week. This week's update is going to be long, as I figured I should dive in headfirst, so let's see what struck me as interesting, fun, and or important about the previous week!

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Movies

I got to see Contagion with @Morgoid last night. The trailer had me mildly interested until I saw that it was directed by Steven Soderbergh, and then I knew I had to see it. Soderbergh's one of my favourite modern directors, and although he's helmed a few clunkers he's also put together two of my favourite movies: Out of Sight and The Limey. And since he is apparently retiring from the movies to paint, I thought I should see what might be his last movie in the theater.

Overall, I thought Contagion was a good film. First of all, it's a hell of a cast: Lawrence Fishburne, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Enrico Colantoni, Chin Han, Elliott Gould, Jude Law, Jennifer Ehle, and Bryan Cranston all do remarkable work. I thought it would be distracting having so many recognizable faces because the presence of so many stars might pull you out of the story, but ultimately having so many names helped because they were all really good performances. Each character was given moments of weakness and of strength, so the characters weren't all paragons or villains, but people with varying degrees of greed, hope, selfishness, passion, and fear.

The pacing, sparse score, and naturalistic dialogue help the film to be very matter-of-fact without being boring: it really does feel like this is what would happen if there was a worlwide outbreak of a devastating disease, which makes the horror very real. You get to see the impact of the outbreak from varying levels: international tensions, national political issues, state and family emergencies. It's a very thoughtful and well-researched film that some others might find cold and unengaging but I appreciated the lack of sensation and sentimentality that you might find in a lesser "Hollywood-style" thriller.

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Books

Still finding it really hard to read lately - apparently stress plays havoc on my concentration - but I am trying to finish The Lost City of Z that I started reading for Nerd Book Club. It's adventure non-fiction, the story of explorer Percy Fawcett and his doomed trip into the South American jungle in search of a fabled lost civilization. I'm enjoying it but I don't like the author putting words and thoughts in the character's mouth: it's one thing if you're quoting from journal entries and letters, but inventing dialogue whole-cloth is where I draw the line in my non-fiction. Your mileage may vary, but if you enjoy exciting and interesting non-fiction then I think this is up your alley.

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DVD/Blu-Ray

Speaking of Elliott Gould: I watched a lot of DVDs this week (including the fascinating I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale which is a must-see documentary for people who love acting and/or movies, and the entire first season of Castle which was just as fun as I remembered), but the DVD I really want to rave about is The Long Goodbye. I read Raymond Chandler's novel when I was in University and really liked it, and was a little hesitant to watch a re-imagining of the story directed by Robert Altman, who I knew had taken a number of liberties with the story and the setting (updating it to the early 1970s, contemporary for the time). Finally sitting down to watch it, though, I was really pleased: although it does feel like an Altman film in the same vein as M*A*S*H or McCabe & Mrs. Miller (meandering storyline, chunks of improvisation, moments of unintelligible dialogue, constantly moving cameras), it works as a movie in its own right.

Elliott Gould's Marlowe is really terrific, and it's because he doesn't do a version of Humphrey Bogart, although there are similarities in the characterizations. I love the contrast between Marlowe's 1950s aesthetic and the rest of the characters "contemporary" attitudes and styles; his straightforward hard-boiled nature and older-cut suits play beautifully off the ambiguous characters and sometimes outrageous outfits. Gould is funny and wry when he needs to be and tough and cold when the situation calls for it, and another awesome standout is Sterling Hayden, sporting a Hemingwayesque beard, as a troubled writer that Marlowe is hired to find. Plus: Arnold Schwarzenegger in a non-speaking role sporting a moustache. Yeah. That happened. I can't stop thinking about it since I watched it three days ago, which to me is the mark of a good movie. Watch it: you just might be surprised.

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Podcasts

I'm going to shine a spotlight on what is not just one of my favourite comedy podcasts but one of my favourite podcasts period: Doug Loves Movies. (Fun Fact: I saw a taping of Doug Loves Movies when I went to California in July and if you listen to this episode you can hear me laughing in the background and catching a monkey.) The premise is that comedian Doug Benson sits around a table with a bunch of his friends, ostensibly talk about movies, then play movie-themed games such as "Build a Title" (where you add movie titles together to make things like "Wait Until Dark City of Angels in the Out-Field of Dreams" and "The Leonard Maltin Game" (think "Name That Tune" but with movies and actors). In the past two days I've listened to five episodes and they're all very funny; three of the most recent episodes were recorded live from the Bumbershoot festival and feature great guests such as Scott Aukerman, Kyle Kinane, Eugene Mirman, and Paul F. Tompkins. I think the Bumbershoot episodes are a good intro to the show because you get a lot of content and a lot of great guests without a lot of self-promotion (which, let's face it, is why people do the podcasts). If you like movies, standup comedy, and tangents: Doug Loves Movies is for you.

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TV

On Monday the last episode of So You Think You Can Dance Canada aired and while the show itself felt kind of like filler, Mary Murphy's breasts shocked and terrified, and Leah Miller's special brand of anti-charisma threatened to break my spirit, I enjoyed it. Not only did the "right" dancer win (in both my and @DanicaHere's opinions), it featured some of my favourite routines. If you're curious as to what I thought, or what you can expect, here are four of my favourite routines of the season in glorious low-fi YouTube quality! (You can skip through the judges at the end, I usually do.)

Melissa & Shane in a Hip-Hop routine (choreographed by Luther Brown; the music is awful but the dance is really fun; starts at about 0:50)

Jordan & Joey in a Jazz routine (choreographed by the great Sean Cheeseman; starts at 1:16)

Shane & Lindsey in a REALLY fun disco routine (choreographed by Melissa Williams; starts at about 3:08)

And because I want EVERYONE to see this last one, embedded video! Jordan & Christian in a breathtaking Jazz number (again by the brilliant Sean Cheeseman):

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Comics

I read quite a few comics last week, but the ones I'm going to focus on are the ones from the DC relaunch. For those non-comics people who read my blog, DC Comics (they who make Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc.) decided to revamp/relaunch their line of superhero comics by streamlining continuity, making the characters younger and more modern, and releasing 52 new titles starting all over at #1. It's an attempt to bring in new and lapsed readers, and as someone who is neither of those two things I'm still excited to see what they do with their titles. The four titles I liked best from last week were:

Swamp Thing: The list of talented creators who've worked on this title in the past is about as long as my arm, and this first issue lives up to those expectations. This is more of a supernatural thriller than a superhero book, but it's definitely grounded in the shared universe thanks to featured appearances by a number of recognizable DC characters. Swamp Thing features really lush art from Yanick Paquette, which is some of my favourite art of the books I read. I've never read anything by Scott Snyder but he has sold me on this Swamp Thing and I will be going back to pick up some of his Detective Comics run as well.

Animal Man: I have a soft spot for Animal Man; I have almost the entire run of single issues from 1-89, and even when it got really weird and sloppy it was still interesting. Writer Jeff Lemire does a good job of holding the tradition of the title while still breaking new ground, and while I wasn't always affected by Travel Foreman's art there were a number of sequences that blew my mind. Definitely a companion book with Swamp Thing, bringing supernatural and horror elements into the superpowered DC Universe, and despite a few reservations I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

OMAC: Something I thought would be disposable and easy to pass up ended up being my favourite book of the week! I love 70s Jack Kirby and OMAC is some of the best stuff he did in my opinion, and Dan DiDio, Keith Giffen, and Scott Koblish make this new iteration SING. Part of the reason I love it so much is that it reminds me of those old Kirby books, with many tips of the hat to the King's legends, but the other part is because it is BIG LOUD FUN which is sometimes all I want out of a superhero book. Evacuate your expectations because OMAC is going to destroy them!

Action Comics: The new origin of Superman from writer Grant Morrison, penciler Rags Morales & inker Rick Bryant is probably the most new-reader-friendly of the bunch, and despite some online brouhaha is a very good comic. This new Superman feels like he's going back to his 1930s roots: a working class hero with a sense of social justice. He doesn't fly: he leaps tall buildings in a single bound. He's faster than a speeding bullet. As for the locomotive...well, you just have to read the issue. It tells a complete story but ends on a cliffhanger, daring you not to pick up the next issue.

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Life

Is about as positive as a Morrissey song. I'm not getting into it. But the possibility of more #yegprov (a Twitter-enhanced improv experiment) is an exciting development. And I hope to have a new creative project to ignore starting on Monday, so keep your eye on this space.

Nerd Book Club: The Strange, Strange World of H.P. Lovecraft

About a year ago now, I was lucky enough to be invited to join a book club that is basically populated by a bunch of genre nerds. I'm not saying that all they read is sci-fi, fantasy, and horror fiction - not all of them, at least - but the club has a definite slant in that direction. And so I affectionately refer to it as Nerd Book Club. We meet once at the beginning of the month to eat at an unnamed family restaurant, talk about the book (and other related and not-so-related things), and frustrate the waitstaff. It allows me to hang out with gentlemen I might not otherwise see on a regular basis, and it gets me to read things I wouldn't normally read.

February's book was my choice, and I chose to go to something well outside my comfort zone: H.P. Lovecraft. Before selecting this book, what I knew about Lovecraft came from playing the Call of Cthulhu RPG and the Arkham Horror board games, but I had always been vaguely interested in discovering more about the man's work, seeing as how it influenced many modern fantasy and horror writers, as well as some of my friends. So I checked The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories out of the library and ploughed my way through three hundred pages of psychological horror. And what were my thoughts? Conflicting.


(Ooooh, spooky waterfall!)

Let's get this out of the way: I did not love this collection. I found many of the stories, particularly the ones in the first half of the book (which were also the earliest-written stories) poorly-executed and only half-thought-through. Lovecraft is widely-praised for his ability to create a new kind of horror, one of slowly-creeping insanity often due to the realization that the main character and/or mankind in general is an insignificant speck in the face of the unknown and unknowable universe. That being said: he was often a lot better in the idea phase than in the execution.

The biggest issue that I have with this collection is that many of the stories are very, very dated. Many of the stories are peppered liberally with what seem like cliches, except at the time, they weren't cliches: they were new and fresh ideas. I don't know why I can't get over early genre cliches the same way I can get over early film cliches - I watch classic silent and early sound movies and really enjoy them - but that's a big stumbling block for me. It also doesn't help that he re-works ideas from his earlier stories into (usually) much better and longer later stories; the repetition of themes and ideas in this collection sometimes gave me the feeling that he lacked depth and imagination.

(Another thing that doesn't help is his not-so-subtle xenophobia that borders on racism. It's not there in all the stories, but when it is there, hoooo BOY it is not pleasant. And this isn't just the Mark Twain, "a product of his times," uncomfortable-yet-important kind of writing. This is a man who is clearly afraid of and distrustful of other cultures and who incorporates those fears and dislikes into his stories. It's the kind of subtext that can kill the sense of paranoia and terror that he's trying to craft.)

That being said, however, there are some really good stories in this collection as well. Some of the earlier stories, such as "The Rats in the Walls" and "Herbert West -- Reanimator" are absolute gems, excellent studies in tone, genre, and creepiness. "The Rats in the Walls," in particular, was a standout: when you start a story by saying that you wish you had never learned about to the house of your ancestors, and now it is being BLOWN UP, that is a pretty damn great hook. The fact that he completely delivered on that promise made for a really great story, one that kept me going through the rest of the collection, hoping for a story that might even exceed it.

And a number of the later stories are very good too; although longer and sometimes overstuffed with flowery descriptions, I think Lovecraft became a more skilled writer over time, and his descriptions of the places and the eerie feelings that slowly begin to overwhelm his narrators are more effective towards the end of the book. My two favourite stories are from the end of the book. The first, "Shadow Over Innsmouth," featured terrific descriptions of slowly mounting unease and a narrator that was actually active and dynamic (well, active and dynamic by Lovecraft's standards), and it had a great ending that actually raised the hairs on my arms. The second and the best of the collection, was "The Color out of Space," is a very languidly paced but vividly described tale of a mysterious meteor that crashes on a patch of farmland and releases an indescribable "color" that slowly begins infecting the land...then the animals...then the people. Even now, weeks after reading the story, I can recall Lovecraft's unsettling descriptions of the images and events of the story and get subtly creeped out.

So overall, I would say that The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories was worth reading. Although the colleciton is definitely uneven, the ideas he put forth in some of his poorer stories are still powerful upon reflection. There were also a handful of truly excellent stories that I would love to re-read again in the future, and it was a decent introduction to a writer whose influence stretches beyond his time and genre, even if many readers (including a younger me) don't realize it.