Drag Me to Hell

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So, you know who I like? Bruce Campbell, star of such fine shows as The Adventures of Briscoe County, Jr. and Burn Notice, and of such fine movies as Bubba Ho-tep and Army of Darkness. As it happens, he is closely related via both cinema and pre-existing friendship with one of the finest horror directors of the ’80s, Sam Raimi.[1] After what feels like an extended absence, Mr. Raimi has returned to his genre of origin with what is simply the finest PG-13 horror movie I’ve ever seen.

In Drag Me to Hell, a sweetly ambitious loan officer runs afoul of a gypsy and her curse, and is then run through the gauntlet by a tormenting spirit who, in less than four days, will drag her to hell. (Unexpected plot twist there, I know.) As a technical exercise, it is quite close to perfect. From the soundtrack orchestration to the foley artistry, every moment of audio is, er, picture perfect. And speaking of that, the framing of the shots and the unusually relentless daylight[2] are every bit as well done on the visual side of things. But, however good, you didn’t come here for a piece of technical achievement. And that’s just the thing: as an actual horror flick, it is classic Raimi, straight to the hilt. The laughs are hysterical[3], in the most literal sense of the word, over the top in the kind of measure needed to make up for equal measures of jumpy scares and existential, well, horror. Because[4], the underlying message of this movie is that it doesn’t matter how underserving you are. Sometimes, you can piss off the wrong person, and your life will go extremely pear-shaped extremely quickly. That right there is an unpleasant truth that extends well beyond demonic table dancing and workplace sexism.

Really, my only complaint? No Bruce Campbell.

[1] You may be aware of some of his more recent work.
[2] I mean, relentless for a horror movie. A lot of other kinds of movies probably would not be noteworthy on this point, for even more daylight than this.
[3] There are by-God running gags. So awesome.
[4] Aside from a ten second shot of shifty-eyed Alison Lohman at the dinner party with her boyfriend’s parents, in which she signed, sealed, and delivered her ability to deliver black comedy. I am officially a fan of this woman.

Ultimate Nightmare

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With my first foray into an Ultimate universe crossover series, I find myself wishing for the first time that I was reading these approximately as they come out instead of all jumbled together and out of order. One of the first thing I noticed about the Ultimate Galactus trilogy (or at least about its first volume) is that several of the characters have evolved well past who they were when these books were written. Specifically, both Wolverine and Nick Fury’s reactions to the X-Men seemed entirely uncharacteristic with my current expectations. But, on the bright side, I continue to make good progress and will eventually catch up.

The aptly named Ultimate Nightmare chronicles an unexpected worldwide multi-spectrum signal being broadcast from Tunguska, site of a century-old meteor strike that has been science fiction fodder ever since. Among the reactants to the images of an alien culture being destroyed while a mysterious voice repeats certain doom over and over are select members of the X-Men and of the Ultimates[1]. For the most part, the meat of the story purportedly being told lies in the future. This book was largely an excuse to visualize several bit character villains from Marvel’s past, in the guise of decades of Soviet experimentation. Luckily, as in the case of footnote 1, the book was more than entertaining enough to support being a mere prelude to the Galactus story I have been implicitly promised.

[1] Including a character named Sam Wilson with whom I am wholly unfamiliar; pleasingly, he was interesting to read about.

Ultimate Fantastic Four: Salem’s Seven

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I’m not sure if it happens more often in some titles than others, nor whether I am noticing more often than I used to, but it’s definitely the case that some Ultimate storylines revolve around bringing back and/or reinventing heroes and villains from the original Marvel run. Sometimes this is fine, because it’s someone I want to see, and other times it’s iffy, because it’s someone I never have seen, but there’s an implication I should know all about them and resultingly a little bit too much character background is left out. Salem’s Seven was one of the best outcomes, however, wherein I’d never heard of them before, and yet the story they were brought into was entirely engrossing and entertaining.

There’s not much to tell plotwise that wouldn’t drift into spoiler territory, but this reminded me a lot of old school Fantastic Four, wherein all kinds of plot elements were thrown together just to see what would happen. You’ve got our heroes and their interpersonal issues, you’ve got a ridiculously sexy S.H.I.E.L.D. psychologist on a mission to determine the viability of the Baxter Building and its many projects, you’ve got a new batch of superheroes out of, implausibly, Salem, Oregon, you’ve got the return of Namor, and you’ve got yet another world-ending threat. This is what the Fantastic Four is (are?) all about, yo.

Management

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Last week I think was a good week for catching an indie romantic comedy. Management was an enjoyable, if deeply flawed, example of the genre. There’s this guy, Steve Zahn, who is the night manager at his parents’ small-town motel. He’s the kind of actor that you know who he is, but have no way of saying what it is you’ve seen him in before.[1] One day, corporate art saleswoman Jennifer Aniston stays at the hotel, and he gets the idea to give her gifts, courtesy of “management”, in the hopes that… well, I doubt he knows exactly what it is that he hopes for, being the sad sack of a lonely man that he is. Whatever he hoped for, he got a whole lot more than that. But what would have been an unlikely one night stand is turned on its head when he flies out to see her after her departure the next day.

And that’s where the implausibility comes in. I don’t think he was a stalker, so much as a sad sack of a lonely man who also has no sense of realistic boundaries. But she didn’t have the audience’s insight into his head, and would surely have seen him as nothing but a stalker. So, we have about 75% of a movie that is predicated on the least likely reaction I can conceive of, wherein she decides to keep him in her house overnight so that they can hang out for a day or two. There are many more obstacles on the path to what may or may not be true love, as the genre dictates, but it’s hard to really buy anything after that one glaring flaw.

Still, if you can ignore that, it’s pretty decent, starting out with Office-style discomfort humor but frequently branching out into the genuinely funny kind that has no need to be preceded by “horrified”. The best acting is turned in by Steve Zahn’s mom and by his Asian sidekick; as you would expect of an indie comedy, the bit characters are the ones to shine. And I guess that’s mostly why I still watch these: yay, acting surprises!

[1] But not, I think, a character actor. It’s hard to explain why not, which possibly indicates my inaccuracy as to this point.

The Terror: A Novel

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After the relative disappointment of Olympos and what I’ve been told about others of his sequels, I was a little bit nervous about grabbing a new Dan Simmons book. But after glancing at The Terror closely enough to see it had no room for a sequel and liking the cover, I snagged it and sat on it for a while. When I finally started it, well, I’m pretty happy with these results.

The Terror refers to a couple of things. Primarily, the Terror was one of two ships on John Franklin’s expedition to discover the Arctic Northwest Passage, between Canada and the North Pole; as the book opens, these two ships have been trapped in solid ice for over a year, victims of unfortunate navigation choices and a failed summer thaw. The Terror also refers to a creature that is stalking the trapped men. It is massive, seemingly unstoppable and every bit as dangerous as the weather and dwindling supplies. Like I said, I was a little bit nervous about the book, and so I may have been more critical than usual. One scene near the middle of the book seemed a touch over the top, and I was a little bit antsy about the conclusion, but I got over it. On the whole, extremely solid book.

Additionally, it spoke to me pretty strongly, because I have myself experienced some fraction of a percent of what those men did, and as the prolonged cold started to take its real toll on them, I was pulled in more and more. But then, just at the end, real creepiness struck, above and beyond both scary monsters and punishing climates. Turns out, all this stuff really happened.[1] It’s one thing to be reading a book, watching people die one by one, wondering who of the characters might have a chance and who not. It’s quite another to learn that all of the results were set in stone before Simmons’ pen was ever set to paper, and to look at a picture of the last mission report, pulled out of a frozen cairn years after it was put there, their doom written in the margins of the only paper they could find.

I am not sure, but I think that may have made it better for me than it already was. I will, for certain sure, carry it with me longer.

[1] Not, y’know, all of it.

Terminator Salvation

MV5BMjA5MzE0MTMyM15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDYwNjAzMg@@._V1__SX1859_SY893_So, it’s a Terminator movie, right? These are basically brilliant studies of predestination versus free will and where humanity exists, set against the backdrop of evil robots bent on making explosions happen. Very much a win-win. The latest entry in the series, Terminator Salvation, made the good decision of ignoring the third movie (without necessarily contradicting it) and the understandable decision of ignoring the recently lamented Sarah Connor Chronicles. With all of the time travel events over the course of the series, pretty much anyone could create a canonical Terminator story these days, saving only that it doesn’t contradict the first two flicks. I still haven’t completely decided how I felt about this one, but I’ll say this in its favor: it made me want to rewatch the originals.

Our setting is some years after Judgment Day. Skynet has broken humanity but not destroyed it. There are still roving bands of civilians, and there is a serious resistance against the machines, and a young man named John Connor has had some solid successes thanks to his mother’s advice and foreknowledge, enough that people see him as at least a mascot and possibly a prophesied savior. And while Connor is preparing to fulfill the destiny that will cause Skynet to try to kill him via Austrian time travel desperation, an unexpected new party, Marcus Wright, shows up with information about the whereabouts of one very necessary Kyle Reese[1] and a decided lack of information about himself, such as where he came from and why he’s a robot. And suddenly our hero is adrift in a sea of questions with no more prophetic answers.

As far as the whole question of where humanity exists, this movie was a champion. I know I just called Connor the hero, and he’s always been half of the hero of the series. But for this movie, and without intending the claim to be a spoiler, Wright was very much the hero. Or, let us say, main character, as that’s equally precise and far less prejudicial. The predestiny part was kind of handwaved but ultimately irrelevant, which makes it hard for me to accept this as a pure Terminator movie; except that the original ignored questions of humanity, so I’ll let it pass. As part of a likely series of sequels, there’s still some time to address all relevant philosophies. So, for explosions and things, yeah, it’s here and Connor is ready to deal with it. But for philosophical discussion, the camera is firmly on Wright from start to finish.[2]

[1] John Connor’s father, thanks to a crazy-ass time loop. But seriously, I’m sure you must already know that.
[2] Well, and on the talented but tragically named Moon Bloodgood.

Fables: The Mean Seasons

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In the wake of the Battle of Fabletown, the winds of change are blowing. The exiled Fables finally have prisoners who might reveal information as to the disposition of their long-abandoned homelands, not least of which would be the identity of their Adversary. Despite the seeming upswing in fortune, though, it’s really more of an ill wind as blows nobody any good. Political discord, births, deaths, clandestine spywork, and ultimately the scattering and separation of our long-time heroes, all blows on this wind. No wonder the book was named The Mean Seasons!

Although the book seemed to be rushing along on those winds, blowing a year past in almost the blink of an eye, there were several points of interest along the way. Demonstrations of just how capable of a leader that Bigby Wolf and Snow White each have really been are scattered throughout; particularly, Bigby’s prowess as a manager and spymaster are laid bare. Meanwhile, Snow stumbles onto an unfortunate murder mystery, and there’s a completely gratuitous WWII story thrown in. By and large, it’s a good book that suffers only by letting the ongoing plot simmer instead of boil. I’m still looking very much forward to whatever comes next.

Utimate Spider-Man: Carnage

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Carnage is yet another book I am not sure how to adequately address. Not, this time, because I have mixed feelings about it. Rather, because there are huge turning point spoilers. I can’t say I know how long the consequences will ripple forward[1],but this felt like the single largest event since Peter first came to terms with his powers, or at the very least since the Ultimate Six storyline (but really that one was/will be more of a delayed reaction consequence thing, without the sense of immediacy shown here). Anyway, the story starts off with genetic engineering master-minded by Peter’s very first reformed enemy, Dr. Curt Connors aka Lizard Man[2], and ends up with the Spidey suit having been put away… for good?

Okay, probably not, but I think I like the idea of that part sticking around for a while. Brief spoiler discussion fodder below the footnotes.

[1] There’s an Amazon review (which you should avoid reading by all costs, as they are less good about spoilers than I) that implies the consequences are few if any. I’m not sure I can bring myself to believe it, though, since the series has stood out so high above the pack to date. I’ll let you know, though!
[2] Lizardman wins![3]
[3] I mean, spoiler alert, Lizard Man isn’t even in this book. I’m talking about something else. Continue reading →

Ultimate X-Men: The Most Dangerous Game

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I’m having a hard time quantifying my most recent Ultimate X-Men book. On the one hand, The Most Dangerous Game is every bit of retreaded ground that its title implies. What, you say? Mutants are being hunted for sport, and that’s all dangerous to the hunters? Inconceivable! But it has things going for it, too, including a nice murder mystery and a chance to get some face time with the many new mutants that have joined Xavier’s school lately. I pretty much feel like I have a handle on all of them again, and that’s pretty cool. On the whole, it was a perfectly serviceable middle-quality storyline that would seem terrible in some of the other Ultimate series and pretty much the best thing written in the rest.[1]

Things I look forward to in the next book: the fates of several X-Men missing from this story, and also maybe for Magneto or the Sentinels or some other cool ongoing enemy to come back. ‘Cause, those dudes are sweet.

[1] That most of the remaining “series” I have in mind tended to actually only be standalone books instead is perhaps beside the point?

Blood Rites

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At some point between the last Dresden Files book and this one, I got accidentally spoiled for a piece of character development between Harry Dresden and Thomas Raith, a vampire of the White Court he’s been palling around with lately. (That is, of course, a drastic simplification and barely accurate at that, but so be it.) As such, it’s going to make it tricky for me to dig into the rich thematic ground here that I would and often have plumbed with great abandon for similar situations in other works. And while I could probably still kill this paragraph and start over in a theme-based review without letting you get spoiled by the character elements, these things are mostly more about me than the actual stuff I consumed, as you will have no doubt noticed by now.

After reading five previous novels, what I find that has been the most glaringly absent from the series, the single thing I could point at and say, “Where’s that?”, is porn. Thankfully, Blood Rites has solved this problem to my satisfaction. It’s like, you can only read so many books in a series and remain interested before someone puts some porn in there, am I right? And at long last, there Harry is, surrounded by women in lingerie, watching the cameramen and the boom operators as the director tries to get the shot just right. Because, porn![1] So, um, anyway, Harry is hired to clean up a little bit of entropy that has gotten all over the porn studio.[2] And as the formula dictates, he finds all too rapidly that he’s in something way over his head. Because, there’s the porn and the thing with Thomas, sure, but there’s also more fallout from the war between the wizards and the less pleasant vampires of the Red and Black courts, and at last a little bit of overt sexual tension between Harry and his long time CPD contact, Karrin Murphy.[3]

Plus, bonus awesome evil-detecting puppy!

[1] Oh, hey. You didn’t think I meant, y’know, a gradual devolution of the ongoing plotlines until all that’s left is a series of orgies “held together” by a pregnancy scare? Jesus, that would be a terrible book.
[2] Ew.
[3] I grew up on Moonlighting. Sue me.