Review in Brief: Gail Simone, Freddie Williams II: The Movement, #1-12

I’ve been catching up on the monthly comics that I have been following, but not following, if you catch my meaning. (Life has a way of intruding, sometimes.)

Warren Ellis made a comment relative to our fascination with superheroes (from an interview published in Voyage in Noise) to the effect that "we rely on them to save us, when we should be saving ourselves." Gail Simone has taken that idea and run with it in The Movement.

Simone has been one of my favorite comics writers for a while now, ever since I read her Secret Six series. She has a way of making her characters very real – they’re not all sweetness and light, but they’re not morbidly self-absorbed. In The Movement, she brings us a bunch of teenagers with particular abilities who have decided to take Coral City – or their part of it, the “Tweens,” the area between Tenth and Twentieth Streets – back from a corrupt police force and uncaring city government. They wind up taking on not only the police department, but City Hall and ultimately, the man who is actually running things, even though he holds no formal office. Then, they tangle with Batgirl, who comes to Coral City in pursuit of a fugitive – who isn’t really a criminal. And finally, they defeat the Cornea Killer, who has been killing the homeless and taking their eyes.

Simone’s ability with character is in full evidence here, not only with the team members – a group of misfits who’ve banded together as much because they have no place else to go as for any other reason – but, most tellingly, the villain in chief, James Cannon, the aforementioned man who’s really in charge, who ultimately turns out to be a man who bit off more than he could chew – not the Movement, but his chief tool for “cleaning up” his city. (In this and the general setting, the series reminds me somewhat of the TV series Arrow.) Simone also leaves room for some humor, mostly revolving around Mouse, who is one of the more off-the-wall characters I've ever seen.

The story arcs are good and tight, but there’s room for some history as we learn who these kids are and how they got here. Dialogue is sharp and to the point, and even the narration tells us what we need to know and no more.

Freddie Williams II did the art, and it’s right on target – comic realism, leaning a bit toward the comic but not enough to undercut the realism. Chris Sotomayor’s color is apt, a little dark, but it fits the setting and mood. Narrative flow is good – the layouts are not rigid, with a fair amount of overlapping frames, but it’s always clear. All in all, we’re treated to some nice, juicy visuals.

Sadly, the series didn’t get the fan support it deserved – which means, in the world of comic publishing, that sales weren’t good enough – so it ends rather abruptly with #12.

If you’re interested in my reaction to Secret Six, the reviews are at Sleeping Hedgehog – look for Gail Simone under “Reviews: Graphic Lit" in the sidebar.

(DC Comics, 2013-14)

Review in Brief: Arrow, Season One

Arrow is the latest variation on DC's Green Arrow, and the writers and directors (of which there are many) have done a creditable job of adapting it.

Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), playboy son of a billionaire, is stranded for five years on a desert island in the North China Sea when his father's yacht goes down in a storm. Before he dies, his father (Jamey Sheridan) tells Oliver that his, the father's, associates have plundered Starling City, their home and asks Oliver to survive, return to Starling City, and right his wrongs.

In spite of what he tells everyone on his return, we learn very soon that Oliver was not alone on the island. We also learn that the "associates" who are plundering the city include his mother, Moira (Susanna Thompson), and Malcom Merlin (John Barrowman), the father of Oliver's best friend, Tommy (Colin Donnell).

Complicating his welcome is that fact that accompanying him on this trip was his girlfriend's (Laurel Lance, played by Katie Cassidy) sister, Sarah (Caity Lotz), who was killed. Not only does Laurel have mixed feelings about Oliver, but her father, Det. Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne) actively hates him (not that he ever thought much of Oliver to begin with).

To fulfill his father's dying wish, Oliver disguises himself with a hood and takes a bow and arrow to the bad guys.

As background to his adventures in Starling City, we are given flashbacks to his time on the island, where he was first rescued by a banished Chinese general, Yao Fei (Byron Mann), then by a stranded Australian intelligence agent, Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett), both of whom begin his training (by necessity -- he's not only not a fighter, he's a liability), and finally by Yao Fei's daughter, Shado (Celine Jade).

If this sounds complicated, remember it's the set-up for twenty-two episodes -- this description is bare bones. As it plays out, the series is equal parts action/adventure, melodrama, and soap opera. The action sequences are well done, sharp, fast a beautifully choreographed. The melodrama/soap opera sections are an attempt, I think, to give some depth to the characters, and are moderately successful. They would have been more successful, I think, if they hadn't killed the pacing. The same holds true for the bulk of the flashbacks -- there's a lot of talking, not a lot of doing.

However, despite its flaws, I've watched the first season several times and am getting ready for the second, which is finally on Netflix. It's a nice way to kill an hour or two in the evening.

(DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television, Berlanti Productions, 2012) For full credits, see the listing at IMDb.

Review in Brief: Kurt Busiek/Stuart Immonen: Secret Identity

I picked up this trade paper collection on the recommendation of my local comics store guy, and it was a good choice. Busiek has written a sort of "alternate" life for Superman -- who is not really Superman, just a guy named Clark Kent from a small town in Kansas who happens to have superpowers, possibly the result of meteor strikes near his hometown when he was thirteen.

That doesn't really matter. (It's actually a throw-away toward the end of the book.)

What does matter is the story of Clark Kent's life -- enduring the Superman jokes through high-school and into his first job as a writer for The New Yorker (note that's "writer," not "reporter'), meeting Lois Chaudhari (not Lane), and on through a life that turns out to be pretty normal, give or take the superpowers and the side job of rescuing people and averting disasters -- and avoiding the feds, who are very, very interested in this guy, whoever he is. (Lest you think this is purely a feel-good sort of story, be advised that there are a couple of pretty horrific episodes. But we get past them.)

This is a very appealing comic, not least, I think, because it's told mostly in narration, from Clark's journal that he types on an old manual typewriter -- he doesn't want any of this on a computer, because computers can be hacked.

Stuart Immonen's art fits perfectly -- spare, brushy in places, stark in places, sometimes dense but never enough to distract from the visual narrative -- and that narrative is clean and clear throughout.

This one's a winner.

(DC Comics, 2004) Includes Superman: Secret Identity #1-4.

Reviews in Brief: Marjorie Liu, Mike Perkins: Astonishing X-Men, #48-56

OK, I admit it: I started following Astonishing X-Men because #51 was getting a lot of hype in the blogosphere because that was the wedding issue: Northstar, Jean-Claude Beaubier, married his boyfriend, Kyle Jinadu. This story actually starts a little before that, though.

Northstar has been having dreams – nightmares, in which the X-Men turn against him. And then the team is attacked by the Marauders, headed by Chimera, and a group of mercenaries. But it seems that Chimera is being controlled by someone else – not a mutant with superpowers, but someone very ambitious with some high-grade, cutting-edge tech, who intends to turn the X-men into her tools.

And in the middle of all this, Jean-Claude and Kyle get married.

The main story arc is pretty much standard fare, but very well done – tight and focused, with some surprising revelations and character development that’s a notch above what you expect from a superhero comic.

As for the relationship between Kyle and Jean-Claude, writer Marjorie Liu actually uses it to advance the plot in a number of instances – it’s an integral part of the story, not just a throw-away. (You can read my reaction to it here.)

Mike Perkins did the art, and my comments in the review of #51 hold: it’s well done, although sometimes a little too detailed, but the layouts are clear and the narrative doesn’t falter. Andy Troy’s color is fairly highly modeled, but it doesn’t detract from the images.

On the whole, this is a series worth looking at – Liu has done an excellent job of handling the gay relationship and it’s an absorbing story.

(A note: Northstar is sometimes referred to as "Jean-Claude" and sometimes as "Jean-Paul," in case you were wondering about the discrepancy between this and the Epinions review. Not My Fault.)

Reviews in Brief: Gail Simone, Freddie Williams II: The Movement, #1-12

I’ve been catching up on the monthly comics that I have been following, but not following, if you catch my meaning. (Life has a way of intruding, sometimes.)

Gail Simone has been one of my favorite comics writers for a while now, ever since I read her Secret Six series. She has a way of making her characters very real – they’re not all sweetness and light, but they’re not morbidly self-absorbed. In The Movement, she brings us a bunch of teenagers with particular abilities who have decided to take Coral City – or their part of it, the “Tweens,” the area between Tenth and Twentieth Streets – back from a corrupt police force. They wind up taking on not only the police department, but City Hall and ultimately, the man who is actually running things, even though he holds no formal office. Then, they tangle with Batgirl, who comes to Coral City in pursuit of a fugitive – who isn’t really a criminal. And finally, they defeat the Cornea Killer, who has been killing the homeless and taking their eyes.

Simone’s ability with character is in full evidence here, not only with the team members – a group of misfits who’ve banded together as much because they have no place else to go as for any other reason – but, most tellingly, the villain in chief, James Cannon, the aforementioned man who’s really in charge, who ultimately turns out to be a man who bit off more than he could chew – not the movement, but his chief tool for “cleaning up” his city.

The story arcs are good an tight, but there’s room for some history as we learn who these kids are and how they got here. Dialogue is sharp and to the point, and even the narration tells us what we need to know and no more.

Freddie Williams II did the art, and it’s right on target – comic realism, leaning a bit toward the comic but not enough to undercut the realism. Chris Sotomayor’s color is apt, a little dark, but it fits the setting and mood. Narrative flow is good – the layouts are not rigid, with a fair amount of overlapping frames, but it’s always clear.

Sadly, the series didn’t get the fan support it deserved – which means, in the world of comic publishing, that sales weren’t good enough – so it ends rather abruptly with #12.

If you’re interested in my reaction to Secret Six, the reviews are at Sleeping Hedgehog – look for Gail Simone under “Graphic Lit.”

Reviews in Brief: Glen Cook’s “Annals of the Black Company”

Annals of the Black Company is undoubtedly Glen Cook’s best-known and most popular series, and one that I have been reading as new books came out for a good long time. Having been housebound for a couple of weeks recently, I sat down and did a Black Company marathon: all ten books, one after another, in the recent omnibus editions coming from Tor.

A quick sketch: the story opens with the Black Company, the last of the Free Companies of Khatovar, in service to the Syndic of Beryl. Whatever its original purpose, the Company has become a mercenary outfit, with a reputation for deception, misdirection, general trickiness, and avoiding fighting whenever possible. And a long string of successes. Enter Soulcatcher, one of the Ten Who Were Taken: potent wizards now serving the Lady, an even more potent wizard who is building an empire in the north. The Company enters Soulcatcher’s service, the Syndic having somehow departed the realms of the living, and the Company’s contract with him therefore void.

The methods of the Company carry over into the methods of the storytelling. Almost all of the books are first-person narratives, which gives us a couple of things to note: the narrators, first Croaker, Company physician and annalist, then Lady, Murgen, and Sleepy, succeeding annalists, are not always reliable. Sometimes they don’t know what’s happening elsewhere; sometimes, like Croaker, they just don’t want to tell us what’s going on; and other times, as in Lady’s case, there’s some vanity involved. The result is a narrative that doesn’t always wind up in the place where it seems to be going.

The second thing of note is the way Cook uses the diction: it changes from narrator to narrator, so there is no mistaking the somewhat abrupt and cryptic Croaker for the more fluid and thoughtful Sleepy.

Ten volumes is a lot to deal with in brief, but I’ve reviewed the full series at Green Man Review. Those reviews are:

The Chronicles of the Black Company (The Black Company, Shadows Linger, The White Rose)
The Books of the South (Shadow Games, Dreams of Steel, The Silver Spike)
The Return of the Black Company (Bleak Seasons, She Is the Darkness)
The Many Deaths of the Black Company (Water Sleeps, Soldiers Live)

And a footnote: I am wildly enthusiastic about the cover art for the reissues, done by Raymond Swanland. It fits the mood of the stories perfectly.

Some Remodeling

I don't remember if I've mentioned this, but I'll be adding some new pages here. Epinions has closed itself to new reviews, although the old ones will be available. Given the state of the search engine, which is a disaster, and the fact that a lot of my earlier reviews didn't make it into the new catalogue, I'll be adding a group of pages here with links to my Epinions reviews -- all 538 of them. Since I won't be able to get into my account after March 25, it's all going to happen fairly soon.

It also means that the materials I have on hand for Epinions reviews will probably be used for Reviews in Brief here. Once the meds wear off and I can write again.

I have a horrible feeling this may lead to a master index of all my reviews, which number well over a thousand at this point. Oh, well -- a project for rainy weather.

Reviews in Brief: Kenneth Branagh’s “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit”

I know, that’s a really dumb title. I wound up seeing this recently because I was having a severe attack of cabin fever and it was the least objectionable thing playing. (Sorry, no – with a high of 11 degrees and gusty winds, a walk in the park was not an option.)

Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) is a graduate student in economics, almost done with his PhD, on 9/11. Eighteen months later, his helicopter is shot down in Afghanistan. He manages to rescue his two team mates, but not without severe damage to his spinal column. His physical therapist, Cathy Muller (Keira Knightly), pushes him mercilessly to walk again without crutches. Maybe that’s why she becomes his steady girlfriend. Then he’s approached by Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner), his one-time mentor, who reveals that he is also working for the CIA. It’s back to school for Jack, and then a job with a very high power financial firm with clients all over the world, including a large number in Russia – all of whom are holding American securities and currency, and too many of whose files Jack can’t get into. It’s starting to shape up as an attempt to destroy the American economy in concert with a terrorist attack. It’s off to Russia for Jack, to conduct an audit. Things start to go down the toilet when Jack’s “bodyguard” tries to kill him.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this one, but the combination of Pine, Costner, and Branagh – who not only directed, but appears as Viktor Cherevin, Jack’s contact in Moscow -- was enough to give it an edge. I was quite pleasantly surprised.

It’s a very tight film that moves at a good brisk pace – and the actions scenes were perfectly place and perfectly executed. The tension this film generates, as Jack is trying to crack the files and find out when and where the attack is going to happen, is amazing – I was on the edge of my seat, almost literally. (And given theater seats these days, that’s saying something.)

The cast, as might be expected, is perfect. I can’t fault anyone on anything.

(Paramount Pictures, Skydance Productions, 2014) PG-13, 105 minutes. Full credits at IMDb.

Reviews in Brief: Harry Partch’s “Delusion of the Fury”

It hardly seems fair to do a brief review of Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury, so rather than calling it a review, I’m just going to make it a heads up, in the hope it’s something you’ll want to check out. It’s a theatrical piece – some have called it a “play,” but that doesn’t really fit. It’s dramatic, yes, but it’s more like a circus than anything else I can think of – motion, sound, spectacle, all in one package.

The music itself is Partch’s own microtonal composition, played on instruments of his own design and manufacture. It is, to put it bluntly, more than a little otherworldly, but I think that’s the point. It’s highly percussive, and not what we normally think of as melodic, although there are certainly melodies that thread their way through the piece. It’s very hard to describe. If you happen to be watching the performance, it’s totally absorbing. If you’re just listening (which I happen to be doing right now), it’s also totally absorbing, but in a very different way. You can just let your imagination wander through this music, but you will be guided, more or less: there are images here, although I can’t quite pin them down as references – I did say “otherworldly,” and I think that’s the best characterization I can come up with.

I do remember, years ago, seeing Partch and his ensemble in performance. It was quite an experience – something I suspect that would be closer to a medieval festival than anything else I can think of. There was that sort of ad hoc quality to it, although you know the performers had been thoroughly rehearsed. The instruments themselves became part stage set, part props, and part actors in their own right.

Jut to give you some of the flavor, here’s the opening, “Exordium.”

You can find the whole thing on YouTube.

(A footnote: yes, the title does have a specific meaning in relation to the work itself: it’s about anger and reconciliation.)

Reviews in Brief: Devo Ke Dev . . . Mahadev

This is more of a heads-up than a review, and yes, I realize it’s a day late. But here it is.

I’m not sure how I first twigged to Devo Ke Dev . . . Mahadev, which is an Indian TV series about the doings of the gods, specifically Shiva. To be perfectly honest, even watching it with English subtitles, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on, but the core story seems to be about one Prajapati Daksha (Surendra Pal), the son of Brahma, who rules a city and is very proud of himself for creating “civilization,” which to him means a society governed by rules. He decrees that Vishnu will be the only god worshipped in his city, and commissions a large idol to be installed in the temple. When it comes time to move the idol into the temple, however, it won’t budge – that is, until Daksha’s daughter, Sati (Mouni Roy), surreptitiously adds a “shiva linga” to the grouping.

Shiva himself (Mohit Raina) is busily renouncing the world, and seems to spend most of this time meditating – except that he keeps getting pulled into the here-and-now to deal with Daksha – and Sati. There’s a strong and very obvious attraction between Sati and Shiva (of course), and the seeds of the conflict between Daksha and Shiva are fundamental: Shiva is a “vagabond,” a renunciate who has no concern for the world or its rules, and Daksha is all about rules and stability.

I’m really taken with this one, not for the story so much, but for the presentation – visually, it’s gorgeous, the actors are by and large very attractive, and the music, which is a constant, is thoroughly engaging – it actually carries a lot of the story.

One part of the fascination is that this is a very different way of presenting a story – there’s not really very much dialogue, but there are a lot of meaningful gazes – in that, it’s really pretty melodramatic – and there’s the music. It’s a whole different set of assumptions about storytelling, and I’m intrigued.

You can find the first 37 episodes with English subtitles here.

Reviews in Brief: Best of 2013

I never do "Best of" things (well, I do, for Sleeping Hedgehog, at the request of the publisher), but I thought I'd finish of the year's "Reviews in Brief" with one, with links to reviews I've written. That way, I don't have to write a review.

Film:

The big stand-out is Man of Steel: good tight story, well-constructed, and the prettiest Superman ever. Just forget the final fight scene, which could have -- and should have -- been cut.

The Wolverine: Logan actually becomes a person. And they don't try to destroy Tokyo.

Strangely enough (or maybe not), I bucked the prevailing wisdom on 47 Ronin. It occurred to me that it's not a movie about Westerners -- it's about Japanese from the feudal period. Whole different psychology. And Keanu Reeves is spot on.


Music:

My most recent acquisition is Morton Feldman's Piano and String Quartet. Lean, spare, almost fragile, "minimalist" in the true sense -- think Samuel Beckett, or Dan Flavin -- but hypnotic and ultimately, compelling.

Moby's Innocents is pretty much in the same vein, if somewhat richer in resources. Eclectic, quirky, and captivating.

I was going to limit this to things that came out in 2013, but just realized that I'd blown that idea with the Feldman, so here's another one that, although I've actually had the recording for a while, I only really listened to this year: Toru Takemitsu's I Hear the Water Dreaming (and other works). A lot of similarities to Feldman, but some intriguing differences. Worth listening to.


Books:

Head and shoulders above most comics is Alex Woofson's Artifice. Two outcasts find love; it doesn't really matter that one of the is as much machine as anything else.

A new book by Steven Brust is always cause for celebration, and when he's collaborating with another writer -- in this case, Skyler White -- you never know what's going to happen. That's the case with The Incrementalists

Leona Wisoker came out with Book Four of The Children of the Desert, titled Fires of the Desert. It's one of the best fantasy series of recent memory. Or even longer.

One last book: Warren Ellis can do no wrong. He proved it in his run on The Authority, issued this year as Volume 1 in a hardback compilation.

That was fun, for me at least. I may do it again next year.

Reviews in Brief: Hunger Games: Catching Fire

I broke down and went to see Hunger Games: Catching Fire. (I was desperate to get out of the house, and it was too cold to just go out and walk around.) I’m not going to bother with a plot set-up; if you don’t know it, you can get it at the IMDb listing.

It’s an odd sort of movie: nothing really happens, although there’s a lot of activity. It’s as though there’s a plot, but no story. There are hints at dark doings behind everything – Donald Sutherland, as President Snow, does everything but twirl his moustache while figuring out how to ruin Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) so that she cannot become a focal point for rebellion.

I haven’t seen the first film, nor have I read the books, but this one holds up well enough as a stand-alone: backstory is filled in as appropriate (at least there’s no abrupt stop to the action while someone lectures us about how we got here). And the action scenes, of which there are a multitude, are well done. The trumped-up “romance” between Katniss and her fellow victor in the Games, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) can’t seem to make up its mind whether it’s going to develop into something real or not – and there is the complication of what I assume is Katniss’ real love interest, Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth, who doesn’t have enough to do).

All in all, it’s really no more than a two-and-a-half hour set-up for the next movie (which itself, apparently, is going to come in two parts). The one clue, and it’s just barely that, is the character of the new Games Master, Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) – you just know he’s playing a double game, but the film doesn’t give you anything solid to grab onto until the last five minutes. Also of note is Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy, a previous victor and Katniss’ mentor – he’s also a lot more than he seems, as we discover -- eventually.

And that's really the thing here: the whole story happens in the last five or ten minutes.

All in all, it’s a fairly entertaining couple of hours, but there’s no substance, and it’s fairly heavy-handed. I'm not inclined to see it again, unless I have raging cabin fever, and not all that interested in seeing any of the others.

PG-13, 146 minutes.

Reviews in Brief: Nickelback’s “Here and Now”

I did a full-length review of Nickelback’s Here and Now when I first got it, over at Epinions, but I’ve been listening to it a lot recently, and, as they say in the song (someone else’s song), I can see clearly now. You can get a track-by-track first-impressions take from the Epinions review, but as for my further thoughts:

Nickelback’s albums fall into a distinct pattern – there’s the loud, obnoxious rock’n’roll opener (in this case, “This Means War”), there will be the party song (“Bottoms Up”), the social justice song (“When We Stand Together”), and probably a song to establish their heterosexual stud bona fides – in this case, “Midnight Queen” and “Everything I Wanna Do,” and usually one quasi-satirical song about the rock-star business (“Kiss It Goodbye”). What’s different on this collection is the somewhat rougher edge, the darker tone to most of these songs.

What caught me on this one, as it does on most of their albums, are the love songs – “Trying Not To Love You,” “Holding On To Heaven,” "Don't Ever Let It End," and, in a way, “Lullaby.” Nickelback comes up with these sometimes back-handed love songs that are perfectly tailored to front man Chad Kroeger’s voice – he puts all that raw yearning into these songs, and that makes them work.

This one’s a bit more polished than previous albums, not quite so much as Dark Horse, but all the better for it. There’s a couple of earworms here. It may very well be their best release so far.

This is a really stupid video for this song, but it's the "official" video, so that's what you get. You're getting it because the song has been my morning earworm for about a week now.

Reviews in Brief: Masahisa Fukase's "The Solitude of Ravens"

This is really an edited version of an essay I did a few years ago at Epinions, sparked by Fukase's book The Solitude of Ravens. It's worth reading, so check it out. For the short version, read on.

Masahisa Fukase (1934-2013) was a Japanese photographer who created a body of work that is sensuous, compelling, and emotionally challenging. His photographs of ravens began in 1975, on a train ride from Tokyo to Hokkaido after his divorce from his wife. Ravens and crows became Fukase’s overriding image, providing themes for five exhibitions between 1975 and 1984. The Solitude of Ravens (if you can find a copy) gives a good survey of his work from 1975-1978.

Not all of the images in this book are of ravens. It’s a “winter” book – darkness, snow, cold gray seas, a barrenness and spareness that surround and reinforce the central “journey” (this book is a journey, no doubt of it). While there is one sequence of a cat’s head, a nude woman, and a dead fish that, individually and together, state the idea of “round” with finesse and droll humor, the overriding thrust of this book is ravens. Fukase’s ravens are images of great power, sometimes overtly aggressive, sometimes remotely ominous, sometimes harrowing, and take on a mythic component that reaches into all of the meanings of “raven” in all cultures. This partly due to the folklore of ravens themselves, and partly due to Fukase’s treatment.

The photographs in this book don’t defy the Western idea of photographic modernism so much as ignore it. They seem much more akin to the work of William Klein, Robert Frank, or Bruce Davidson, but far, far darker, more on the edge. Fukase somehow manages to wring much more in the way of emotional impact out of similar, but more extreme, techniques. The images are dark, they are grainy, they are sometimes highly abstract and at others depressingly realistic. Dead ravens in the snow, ravens roosting at twilight, perched on temple gates, reflections from ravens’ eyes in the dark, combine with visions of snowstorms, deserted nighttime streets, a tramp wandering alone, fog on gray winter seas to present a picture of loss, loneliness, alone-ness. There are several remarkably beautiful images that provide no detail at all, merely shades of gray finally resolving into a landscape, like dreams of being lost in the wastelands.

It is unfortunate that this particular book is so unobtainable, although some of Fukase's images can be viewed online: there is a sequence of ten of Fukase’s images at Robert Mann Gallery’s website, and the biography at Steven Wirtz Gallery’s website has a series of unpublished works. And of course, you can always do an image search under the book title.

Reviews in Brief: John Krokidas' "Kill Your Darlings"

This is really first impressions, and I doubt that I'll see it again -- I just didn't find it that interesting.

If you don't know, this is about Allen Ginsberg's (Daniel Radcliffe) years at Columbia University, where he falls in with Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), a dissolute (and fairly pretentious) young man. The core of the film, supposedly, is a murder: Carr kills his -- one hardly knows what to call him -- lover? Pursuer? -- David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall). It's somewhat up in the air as to whether Carr actually murdered Kammerer or was acting in self-defense, as he contends. Along the way, Ginsberg meets William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) and Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston).

Formally, the film does have a narrative line, which doesn't really go anywhere, broken by flashbacks and broken sequences of action in the now. Even the famous "gay sex scene"* is broken by other vignettes, and sequences of Ginsberg writing (at one point, under the influence of drugs) are fragmentary. This is a technique that can work beautifully in terms of filling in backstory and developing character, but I didn't get that here.

One problem may be the characters themselves. None of them are really sympathetic, even Ginsberg, who seems for the most part to be along for the ride: he enters university as a blank slate, falls in with Carr, and it's downhill from there. Carr is, ultimately, a spoiled brat, a sociopath in the making (actually, pretty much finished), Burroughs is a self-centered snot who hates being rich, Kerouac is pretty much a cardboard cut-out, and Kammerer is just a weak personality. Those characterizations, at least, are beautifully realized.

All of that contributes to a distanced quality to the film. The characters are revealed more than they develop, with the exception of Radcliffe's Ginsberg: by the end of the film, we can see that he's poised to become the voice of the Beat generation, but we're not sure how he got there.

I will hand director John Krokidas this: I've been thinking about this movie for two days. But when it comes right down to it, I didn't really care. None of these characters are people I want to know better, and there are huge sections of the film that are just plain dull. It's not tight, and it's not really what I'd call focused.

* About that sex scene: Radcliffe gave at least one interview in which he talked about filming that scene, and how Krokidas coached him through it, with special emphasis on how much it hurt. You didn't really see that in the action that wound up on the screen -- Radcliffe/Ginsberg was just taking it in, as far as we could tell, and his reaction was muted, to put it mildly. What should have been a moment of realization for Ginsberg was just another moment of "Oh, well, that was interesting." No pleasure, no pain, not much of anything. And that's pretty much my reaction to the whole film.

Reviews in Brief: Nickelback, "Here and Now"

Nickelback's latest, that I missed when it first came out. I did a full review at Epinions, with my track-by-track first impressions, when I first downloaded it. Since then I've listened to it a few times, and just threw it in the queue again this morning. My basic impression hasn't changed all that much -- it's Nickelback, unmistakably, a little darker than previous releases, but back to their grunge/country/rock sound, which is one of the things I like about them. It's got a slightly more focused feel to it, their essential sound distilled down to -- well, essentials.

Chad Kroeger's vocals are even more evocative than in the past -- on tracks like "Trying Not To Love You" and "Lullaby," two of the stand-out tracks, that urgency and plaintiveness pack a punch. There's a poignant quality to "Lullaby" that cuts through the irony of the title (and it is a little bit ironic, in a way I can't quite explain) and turns it into a beautiful, gentle song.

On the other hand, songs like the opening track, "This Is War," and "Kiss It Goodbye" (that one's a bitter song, and heavily satirical) reveal a kind of harshness that I haven't seen in them before -- it's in the same vein as "Rockstar" from All the Right Reasons, without the self-deprecating humor.

It's a solid collection, although not all the songs are what I'd call "strong," but the ones that are make up for it.

My favorite from the album. (Well, one of them.) The video's kind of trite, but the song has everything it needs:

Reviews in Brief: Journey’s Greatest Hits

I’ve decided to re-institute the Reviews in Brief column, probably every Sunday, as in the past. And I happen to be sitting here listening to Journey’s Greatest Hits, and that seemed as good a place as any to start.

There are a number of rock bands from the 80s that deserve the title of “major,” and Journey is certainly one of them. This album sort of sums it up – the songs, the band members, everything. Not to sell Arnel Pineda short – he’s a fine singer and front man – but Steve Perry was “the Voice,” no dispute. It’s Perry’s voice, I think, that became the band’s identity. The band was pretty much anchored throughout its history, though, by lead guitarist Neil Schon. Rhythm guitarist George Tickner, Jonathan Cain on keyboards, Steve Smith on drums, and Ross Valory on bass joined Perry and Schon as the line-up for most of the ‘80s, when the band had its greatest success.

And now to the music. There’s not a less than strong track on this album. The big hits are here – “Wheel in the Sky,” “Open Arms,” “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’,” and my favorite, “Separate Ways.” The sound is, quite frankly, manufactured – the band went through several changes in personnel and direction in the 1970s until it came up with a sound akin to Foreigner and Boston (and any number of other bands from the period). It’s Perry, I think, along with Schon’s guitar work, that made the difference.

The sound, like that of most of the ‘80s bands, is rich, dense, heavily textured, with accents popping up to lend definition. One of Journey’s strengths, very much in evidence on this collection, is their ability to maintain that sound without becoming repetitive – the songs are not carbon copies of each other, but they are unmistakably Journey.

This is one of two albums I had on CD – I seem to remember having more on vinyl, lost in a messy break-up years ago – which are now MP3s. No matter – it’s the music that matters, and this is quintessentially the music of the ‘80s.

My favorite:

(Gods, that is so '80s!)

Reviews in Brief: Some Thoughts on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings

I broke down and bought the DVDs for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, mostly because I got them really cheap. After watching a couple of times, I have some thoughts. This is not really a "review" as such, just some things I noticed. (I should note that this is based on the DVD of the theatrical release. I'm not sure I could survive the extended version.)

First, a caveat: Adaptations from one medium to another are, as they say, fraught with consequences. One of the most successful adaptations I've seen was Brokeback Mountain, and that was developed from a short story. One might guess, then, that adapting a trilogy of novels that run well over a thousand pages would pose some risks. I've tried to stay away from comparisons, because the film is not the book, but there are a number of problem areas that caught my attention that are, I think, internal to the film.

Character and motivations: What I call the "basis" for the action. A few things jumped out at me: Merry and Pippin wind up on the quest by happenstance, and there's really no foundation for their participation aside from that. We get no real sense of a bond between them and Frodo that would support their involvement on any other than the most rudimentary level. Likewise, the relationship between Eowyn and Faramir is left to assumption -- we get one glimpse of them standing next to each other at the coronation, but as I recall, there's not even a glance to seal the assumption. Aragorn as a character is well done, within a somewhat limited scope, but there's a dimension missing: what he is in the movie is an adventurer on his way to becoming a king and not a king on the way to reclaiming his throne, despite repeated references to his heritage. There's a difference. Leaving the reforging of Anduril until late in the story was a mistake, I think, as was glossing over Aragorn's confrontation with Sauron via the palantir. Again, it leaves important parts of the story with no basis -- too often, I found myself wonder "Why is this happening?"

I don't know what Cate Blanchett had been smoking -- she looked and acted like she was stoned -- but it should probably be illegal. Galadriel has none of the humanity one sees in the other elves, and again, it undercuts the impact of what she says and does.

On the whole, the characters for the most part lack depth, and given the caliber of the cast, I have to fault the script.

The one other important respect in which I think the film trilogy falls short is that Jackson couldn't seem to settle on a consistent tone. Even without reference to the books, what we're seeing is high heroic fantasy, in which we're assured the good guys win (Jackson even sets it up so that the Shire is completely untouched by Sauron's machinations), but the context is Hollywood realism in a fairly run-of-the-mill adventure story. It's an uneasy mix, and Jackson didn't seem to be able to find a comfortable middle ground.

The Fellowship of the Ring is certainly the best of the three -- the tightest and most coherent -- while the other two gradually come unglued.

I'll probably watch the whole thing again, at some point, in spite of Jackson's tendency to milk scenes that need to be tight and truncate scenes that need more development -- there are too many of those to enumerate, but take the final scene in the Grey Havens as the type specimen -- because there is credible work done by the cast, and the scenery is gorgeous. (And there's another disjunction with the action: there's more fantasy in the landscape than in the story.)

Reviews in Brief: Joss Whedon's The Avengers

I saw The Avengers when it was in the theaters, and came right home and pre-ordered the DVD, which arrived Thursday. I have now watched the DVD three times, from you which you might infer that I love this movie. You'd be right.

If you have somehow avoided knowing anything about the film, the basic set-up is as follows: S.H.I.E.L.D. is working with the tesseract, a mysterious artifact retrieved from the depths of the ocean during the search for Captain America when he was being an icicle, trying to a) figure it out, and b) use it as a source of unlimited sustainable energy. However, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), still smarting from his exile from Asgard, has another use for it: he's going to conquer Earth, using the tesseract to create a portal to bring his army through from another dimension. So he manages to transport himself to the lab where the work is being done and steals the tesseract, magically coopting Dr. Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and Agent Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director of S.H.I.E.L.D., needs a response team, and starts to put it together: Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Dr. Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). They capture Loki and are transporting him back to headquarters when Thor (Chris Hemsworth) inserts himself into the picture, intent on taking Loki back to Asgard to face judgment there.

Then the fun begins.

This is Whedon's show, and it's terrific: he co-wrote the story, wrote the screenplay, and directed. It's hard to explain the appeal. (Well, aside from Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth running around in tights, and Robert Downey, Jr., being cute as all get-out, and Jeremy Renner's shoulders, and Mark Ruffalo naked in an abandoned warehouse -- you get the idea.) It's tight, focused, starts moving even before the opening titles and doesn't slow down (not much, at least). Visually, it's a treat as well --- even aside from the aforementioned eyecandy.

The actors are all in top form -- there's a lot of spiky back-and-forth and outright confrontations between Captain America and Iron Man, between Bruce Banner and Nick Fury, between Thor and everyone. And yet they somehow make themselves into a team, and the final battle scene -- which lasts about an hour -- is absolutely no holds barred. (The effects are, as you might guess, spectacular.)

The prize, I think, goes to Johannson as Black Widow -- not only is she a superb physical actress, but her character is multi-faceted and very subtly drawn.

Oh, and it's funny. There's some great throw-away lines sprinkled throughout the movie.

So, yeah, this is my movie of the year.

Marvel Studios/Paramount Pictures, 2012. Running time 143 minutes, rated PG. Full credits at IMDb, and a full review at Sleeping Hedgehog.

Reviews in Brief: Brian Michael Bendis et al: Avengers vs. X-Men, #0-3

Well, my two favorite superhero teams have finally crossed swords, thanks to Brian Michael Bendis and the folks at Marvel.

Hope Summers is the only mutant born since M-Day. She's with the X-Men, where her life is just one long bout of training. She's a young woman now, and like young people in general, is feeling the restrictions imposed on her activities by her elders.

The Avengers have discovered that the Phoenix Force, a cosmic-scale energy pool that it capable of destroying whole worlds, is headed toward Earth and figure out that it's headed right at Hope. In the first of a series of remarkably stupid moves, Steve Rogers (Captain America) goes to Utopia, home of the mutants, to demand that Hope be handed over for safe-keeping. Unfortunately, Scott Summers (Cyclops) can be just as stupidly stubborn as Captain America, particularly when faced with not onlyl a confrontation, but a whole shipload of Avengers. The ensuing pitched battle is no real surprise, but Wolverine, compounding the stupidity in ready supply on both sides, takes off on his own to capture Hope. Apparently, no one told him that she's already very powerful. Spooked, she sets off on her own while Wolverine is busy regrowing his skin -- among her other attributes, Hope can generate fire out of pretty much nothing.

In spite of all the arrogance and idiocy demonstrated on both sides, particularly by two men who should know better, this is turning out a to be a lot of fun. Needless to say, there's lots of action, and both teams are seeing a chance to settle some old scores. This, happily, is not at the expense of some strongly drawn characterizations -- Cyclops, in particular, reveals himself to be a shrewd leader who always has a back-up. The main responsibility for the scripting has fallen on Brian Michael Bendis, and he's holding up his end quite well.

Frank Cho penciled #0, then John Romita, Jr., picked it up for the next three numbers, ably supported by Scott Hanna's clean, incisive inks and colors by the incomparable Laura Martin.

This one's a lot of fun -- I feel like a fan boy, running up to the comics store every two weeks to pick up the next number. I'm not sure yet whether I'm going to continue reviewing them in chunks. We'll see.