What a week. Tuesday I went to a 3-hour lunch with some bankers. We were sitting in a private room in this posh restaurant, and from the hall where the staff were working on the food and stuff we heard some one yell out loudly in anger “OH FUCK!!” It was quite surreal. Wednesday I went to a reception at the Raffles Hotel, stayed too long and drank a bunch of beer and snacked on a bunch of so-so goodies. Thursday I ran a bunch of errands, including picking up some new shoes, and then went to the Prince of Wales to see a colleague’s sister’s husband’s band play. Friday my own band had a practice, we auditioned a new drummer and a new guitarist (our old drummer has moved to bass) and had a good time. Great band, very tight from the outset. Now I need to work on memorising my lyrics so that I’m not constantly looking at a sheet.
Saturday I woke up, did a bunch of chores, and then went out to see “Let Me In.” Great! I also went to the public library and discovered that they have tons of comics! I got Maus I, three books that collect Jack Kirby’s trippy work, and also one about Plastic Man and one about The New Teen Titans. Fantastic!
Movie Review:
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Le Me In – One of the best movies I saw last year was “Let The Right One In”, a Norwegian vampire movie that was bleak and arty and basically about the morally ambiguous relationship between two twelve-year-old kids. I walked into this one five minutes late, which I normally don’t do, but I thought it would be okay because the credits usually eat up five minutes anyway. But in this case, the movie had started already, at a scene that I knew was halfway through the film. I thought to myself “did I come in one hour and five minutes late instead of just five minutes late?” But what the director does is he starts at an important scene from the middle, then jumps back two weeks.
The film is a very faithful remake of the original, and it’s always interesting to see how the director’s going to stage any given scene. The one thing that is very different is that neither of Owen’s divorcing parents are ever seen; the father is only heard on the phone, and the mum, who he lives with, is only seen from the shoulders down, heightening the sense of Owen’s isolation and loneliness. No adult befriends Owen, and his classmates are either indifferent or hostile. Owen’s moral lapse comes out strongly in this film, and he’s so happy to finally have a companion that he forgets that Abby is a heartless killer.
One complaint is the soundtrack, which is too moody, and when it turns moody it projects that something bad is going to happen. I don’t remember much music in the original at all. But since its intention is to make the viewers tense, it sure does its job well.
Owen is played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, the young boy who was in The Road, and he was 13 at the time it was filmed. Abby is played by Chloë Grace Moretz, who was Hit Girl in the movie Kick Ass, and she was also 13 when the film was made. Both actors have been working since 2005 and have been in a bunch of films!
Comic book reviews:
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Maus I – Maus is the story of Art Spiegelman’s father, Vladek Spiegelman, and his life in Poland in the 1930s and 1940s with his first wife (and Art’s mother) Anja; this is mirrored by the life of the family in the 1970s or 1980s, after Anja’s suicide when Art is a young artist, married but with no kids, and his relationship with an eccentric, aging Vladek and his new wife Mala, who Vladek doesn’t get along with. In the story the Jews are portrayed as mice, Germans as cats, Poles as pigs, and Americans as dogs (both black and white). In some senses the tale would be well known – prosperous Jews are slowly constricted in their business activities, their possessions are taken away from them, they are removed from their homes and businesses, they are forced to live like dogs and their livelihoods are taken away from them. Eventually they start seeing that some Jews are being killed, then they are seeing that many Jews are being killed, then they realise that they could be killed at any moment too… and so many that Vladek knew were snuffed out off-scene, as Vladek recounts when he learns years later. Finally they hide out, because every cluster of survivors would know of even more who had been killed, then they try to escape, then they are trapped for good.
The modern tale of Art and his father and where their story together is going is unknown, and watching it develop is fascinating… and makes you feel just as helpless and bewildered. Their relationship is very complicated, and Art records even the seemingly mundane, such as an incident with matches. There’s also the discovery of a comic that Art drew long ago, “Prisoner of the Hell Planet” about his mother. I can’t wait to read Maus II.
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For a review of Jack Kirby’s work please visit My big bad Jack Kirby page.
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DC Archive Editions: Plastic Man – Plastic Man was a hit in the late ’30s for artist Jack Cole, who worked with Will Eisner (of “The Spirit” fame – in face, Eisner writes the introduction to this volume). Plastic Man is “Eels” O’Brian, a notorious gangster who has acid spilled on him in a heist gone wrong. He is saved by a kind monk, who inspires him to fight criminals. As Plastic Man (or as “Eels” O’Brian, whichever can help his cause) he busts gangsters, an Asian opium ring, pinball crooks, Madam Brawn’s gang of notorious female gangsters, Those Hands (disembodied hands that steal compulsively), the United Crooks of America, the evil Magnetic eight ball, Hairy Arms, a 17th century warlock/scientist who lives on in an infected brain, a corrupt sculptor, submarine nazis, weather Nazis in Mexico (Hitler makes a quick appearance), an Indian medicine man, evil actors in the Maniac House, and a freaky scientist with his forest of evil animated animal-trees (and tree-animals). He saves a bald beauty, spars intellectually with Woozy Winks and gets enlisted with the FBI. He also encounters strange sidekicks, like a dopey Western Union guy, who helps him bust Nazi collaborators, and Woozy Winks, a dopey fat guy who is charmed with a spell that protects him from personal harm. In the surreal final episode, Woozy takes on the magicians Abba and Dabba, while Plas recovers from an explosion. The artwork, layout and design is sensational, with a great use of black, and a trippy talking microphone “narrating” the proceedings. Some drug references, including opium, someone feeds “Eels” reefer to make him go crazy, someone else gives Woozy “loco pills” (LSD?). Great, surrealistic fun that was many years ahead of his time. Â He was doing tripped-out Jack Kirby-like stuff way before Kirby was. With his tale of a hero who gains super powers after some chemical was spilled on him, and who keeps a secret identity so that he can fight crime, he’s not all to different from Eisner’s The Spirit anyway – although he’s definitely a lot stranger.
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DC Archive Editions: The New Teen Titans – Great drawing, quite good characters, even if they seem pretty square (particularly midwest conservative Wally “Teen Flash” West. The volume covers “The New Teen Titans” issues 17-20, plus all four issues of a mini-series chronicling the origins of the members (one each issue – Cyborg, Raven, Changeling and Starfire are chronicled here – I guess they don’t bother with Robin, Wonder Girl or Kid Flash as they’re established characters).
Issue 17  is “The Possession of Francis Kane”, which is a bit like Carrie, in that it is about a woman that seems possessed (but she’s not possessed by a demon, rather possessed by Dr Polaris, trying to escape the dimension he’s trapped in), and whose mother tries to exorcise her. Bizarre. Wally seems to be falling for Francis, forgetting about his lonely love for Raven. Action, destruction, helpless females. Starfire is on the cover, even though she’s not in the book. Issue 18 is called “A Pretty Girl is like a  Maladi”, about a Russian bride-to-be who unknowingly brings radiation poisoning to the USA, and the Russian superhero Starfire who is sent to bring her back/put her out of her misery. Wally constantly insults him for being a Soviet murderer, but is put in his place at the end by a strange twist. Good one, but a bit melodramatic/pointless, like all of those stories about good guys fighting each other for stupid reasons (Spider-man vs The Fantastic Four, The Avengers vs The Hulk, etc). Teen Titans 19, “The Light Fantastic” is about Mr Light, a powerful but lame super-villain who escapes from jail and reanimates ancient Hindu relics that become rampaging monsters. With the help of Hawkman. So-so.  “Dear Mom and Dad” is done in a letter format, with Wally writing a sentimental letter to his mom and dad about a day in the life of the New Teen Titans, and about how they bring down the Disrupter and his dad.  The Disruptor has strange powers, he can disrupt anything, short circuiting people’s superpowers or their regular bodily functions (heartbeat, etc). Crazy. Pretty gruesome villain, and a strange family feud goes on as well. The letter-writing thing is corny too.
The Mini-series. Issue 1 tells the strange, sad tale of Cyborg, how his relationship with his father was poisoned, and how he ran into fair weather friends, like a thug called Ron, who become some sort of Black Panther. Nasty story, but good story telling. Issue 2 tells Raven’s story, and it is about trippy-trans-dimensional demons like Trigon, and the people of the world of Azarath, and the godmother of the clan Azar. Issue 3 tells Changeling’s story, and it is kind of silly and jumps all over the place, not the better tale. Issue 4 tells the story of Starfire, and it is the best of the bunch, showing a young Koriand’r as she deals with her evil older sister Kommand’r, the evil Citadel, the even-more-evil Psions, and her eventual flight to earth, away from her father King Miand’r, mother Luand’r, and brother Riand’r.