Literateur: "Sword Woman and Other Tales" by Robert E. Howard

I love me some Robert E. Howard. The guy had zazz. Lots of zazz.

He wrote several careers' worth of pulp fiction in a single decade before, sadly, taking his own life.

Historical fiction, science fiction, horror, fantasy, western, sports fiction, etc. You name it, he nailed it.

Best known for creating Conan, his other notable creations include Solomon Kane, Kull, Bran Mak Morn, El Borak, and the Pigeons from Hell.

You're probably like me and have read everything by the guy except for this Sword Woman book, right?

Well, lemme tell you- that title is some false advertising.

Sword Woman sounds like a girl-power book filled with female protagonists, right? And that's something you don't normally expect from Howard's manly-man testosterone-fueled potboilers.

But nope. There is a story called "Sword Woman" in here and there is a woman and a sword in it. But that's it. Women are mostly collateral damage or carefully placed in fridges in his other stories.

"Are the stories any good, though?"

They're okay. Historical fiction yarns. Globe-spanning. Nothing too complicated. Standard Howard structure: "This guy boasts, that guy boasts, this guy fights that guy and we're done."

Howard has a great eye for historical detail and he loads his stories with sights, sounds, and sensations. As usual.

This is probably the weakest Howard collection I've read. But his worst is better than many writers' best. For completists only. Enjoy, you crazy completists!

-Phony McFakename

* * *

Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

This is a Thing: Local Movie Theaters

So, local movie theaters. Zip code 22903. Here we go.

Regal Stonefield 14
A big, fancy 14-plex. They play movies there. Even the smallest theaters have huge screens. (Only disadvantage: they're SO large that the so-called "IMAX" screen looks maybe a few feet larger than the other screens.) Stadium seating, comfy seats. They offer fried food at the concession stand- chicken tenders and jalapeno poppers that will only give you mild gastrointestinal turmoil. Big and corporate and hegemonic- 14 screens playing the new superhero movie, but no indie movies. But that's the norm these days. Nice place overall. I like going there.

Jefferson Theater
Was a pretty cool bargain theater. Two screens in an antiquated facility. Scuzzy. I was disappointed when ticket prices went up from $1.50 to $2. Was even more disappointed when it closed.

Carmike 6 Theater
A pretty mediocre multiplex. Sticky floors, small screens, popcorn delivered in trash bags every morning, imported from mystery popcorn-popping facilities. Was pretty cool when it became a bargain theater in 2013. $1.50 a ticket. Then they closed. :-(

Goochland Drive-In & Lexington Drive-In
They're each an hour away, in opposite directions. So I never went. Both are still open, though. I hear they rock.

Fork Union Drive-In
Only 50 minutes away, so I went to this one. Cool place. Cheap concessions, awesome cotton candy-flavored ice cream, and ticket prices lower than any multiplex...only you get TWO movies for this lower price! Two porta-potties in the back, if you like waiting a really really long time to go pee-pee or poo-poo. It's kinda refreshing to see men AND women waiting in long lines to relieve themselves. Gives guys a taste of girls' medicine there. The place is still open, last I heard.

Newcomb Cinemateque
Is that place still a thing? Student theater, plays movies on weekends?

Paramount Theater
Big, fancy theater. Has a nice balcony. They do retro movie screenings now and then. Pretty hoity-toity.

Alamo Cinema and Drafthouse
It's supposed to open here next year. I can't review it yet. It doesn't exist.

Terrace Theater
I saw Bride of Chucky there in 1998. Four stars. (The movie, and the theater.) It was demolished to make room for Whole Foods.

Culbreth Theater
They remodeled the outside. Looks pretty cool. I think they only play movies in there during the VA Film Festival. Or maybe not at all? I'm incredibly uninformed here.

Regal Seminole Square
Four giant theaters. Huge lobby with a big display of painted Hollywood stars. I worked there as an assistant manager in 2004. Saw an advance screening of Hellboy. You = jealous. Nice place. Gone now.

Vinegar Hill
They played indie films here on its single tiny screen. It felt like a cute little home theater in a famous film director's mansion's basement. Closed under a barrage of competition.

Regal Downtown
One good-sized screen and five tiny rooms with screens and seats jammed in. A perfect place to see Ninja Assassin or Land of the Dead or Legion, but it was always weird to see big-budget blockbusters in that place. Surprise, surprise- CLOSED!

Violet Crown
Took over the Regal Downtown space last year. And this is the theater I really came here to talk about. Because I went there for the first time the other day.

Pros:
-Nice decor. Bathrooms have marble-lined walls and fancy sinks.
-Their dine-in food is good and their bar is pleasant, according to reliable sources. I just ate the popcorn, which was fine.
-The picture and sound quality are solid.
-They managed to cram 10 screens into a theater space that used to have 6 screens. Props!

Cons:
-Poor theater design. The seats are all jammed up against the screen so close that even the largest theaters feel like shoeboxes. And the only remotely good screen view is in the fourth row, dead center.
-Assigned seats. Awful, awful way to buy tickets. You have no idea what the theater's gonna look like before you go in and your seat you assign yourself might be crap.
-Uncomfortable neck-jabbing chairs. If you're remotely tall, you will suffer for the entirety of your theater-going experience with these short seats.
-Being forced to wait behind people paying for their ridiculously complex check-splitting food orders at the restaurant because that's where you also have to buy your tickets.
-Impossible-to-see automated ticket machines. Seriously, they're invisible unless you're walking toward them from inside the theater. And if you're inside the theater, you presumably already hack a ticket.
-The line for a "TIP" on the credit card receipt they make you sign at the concession stand. I have never before in my life been solicited for a tip for someone getting me an insanely-overpriced popcorn and soda at the theater. Concession prices are more than high enough- even subtly requesting a tip on top of that is just awful.

Basically, if you're a tall person who just wants to see a movie, Violet Crown is not the theater for you. But if you're an average-sized person who wants to get a nice meal and eat it while you watch a theatrical film, it's probably functional.

(UPDATE: To answer the outraged emails and Tweets and Snapchats and MySpace messages- yes, I know there used to be another drive-in theater in the middle of town. And a theater on The Corner. And a theater further up 29 that closed minutes after I moved here in 1998. I don't know what any of those theaters were called. I mostly came here to rant about the Violet Crown.)


-Phony McFakename

* * *

Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

The Best Words: July/August 2016

Quotable quotes that I encountered over the past couple months.

"[In 1992] Clark had no great hope that Americans wanted their computers to educate themselves. He assumed they wanted their computers to play Nintendo and otherwise divert themselves from the poverty of their existences. The answer he finally came up with was that people wanted to watch any movies they pleased, whenever they pleased."
-Michael Lewis, The New New Thing

"In a sense the library gave me back my life. It's helped me to meet others more mature than me, people who I can discuss issues with and learn things from. I would say that just like the body needs food, the soul needs books."

-Mitch Ziems

"The Devil's at his strongest when we're looking the other way. Like a program running in the background."

-Mr. Robot

“A wholesome sense of humor will be a safety valve that will enable you to apply the lighter touch to heavy problems and to learn some lessons in problem solving that ‘sweat and tears’ often fail to dissolve”

-Hugh B. Brown

“It was rules that got you where you were and more rules that kept you there.”

“When you're whole and unharmed, no matter how scared you are there's always the feeling that nobody's going to touch you, really. It's only when the pain begins that you realize you're vulnerable.”

-Jack Ketchum, Hide and Seek

“Man will become better when you show him what he is like.”

“If people agreed suddenly to be sincere, everything would go to the devil, would fall to pieces...only savages and animals are sincere.”

-Anton Chekhov

“Moses knew that he couldn't create a society of free men from a generation born as slaves. Moses kept his people wandering until the previous generation had died."

Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club 2

“Don't ever call me mad, Mycroft. I'm not mad. I'm just...well, differently moraled, that's all.”

“Did the memory erasure device work, Uncle?"

"The what?"

"The memory erasure device. You were testing it when I last saw you."

"Don't know what you're talking about, dear girl.”

“Religion isn't the cause of wars, it's the excuse.”

“I don't believe in coincidences."

"Neither do I. That's a coincidence, isn't it?”

“The industrial age had only just begun; the planet had reached its Best Before date.”

-Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

"What website did you meet on? OKStupid? Haha, nailed it!"

-Playing House

“Don’t be afraid to laugh. A person without a sense of humor misses much of the joy of living”

-David O. McKay

"I've done everything for him! I changed religions, for God's sake! I'm not going to Heaven now! What more does he want?"

-Wonderfalls

“I remember once when he and I arrived at a country house where the going threatened to be sticky, Jeeves, as we alighted, murmured in my ear the words ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came, sir’, and at the time I could make nothing of the crack. Subsequent inquiry, however, revealed that this Roland was one of those knights of the Middle Ages who spent their time wandering to and fro, and that on fetching up one evening at a dump known as the Dark Tower he had scratched the chin a bit dubiously, not liking the look of things.”

“Irishmen are poets. They talk about their souls and mist and so on.”

-P.G. Wodehouse, The Mating Season

“Break me from this hold as I unfold blood eagle wings”

-Anthrax

“I understand why you love this gun thing. It completely detaches you from the guilt of your actions!”

-The Brothers Grimsby

“He kept his motor running, but he never kept it clean.”

-Skid Row, “18 and Life”

“Why do they always build banks to look like temples, despite the fact that several major religions a) are canonically against what they do inside and b) bank there?”

“The first impression it gave Moist was: this is Hell on the day they couldn’t find the matches.”

“People don’t like change. But make the change fast enough and you go from one type of normal to another.”

“It was sad, like those businessmen who came to work in serious clothes but wore colorful ties in a mad, desperate attempt to show there was a free spirit in there somewhere.”

“A weapon you held and didn't know how to use belonged to your enemy.”

“You get a wonderful view from the point of no return.”

“Whole new theories of money were growing here like mushrooms: in the dark and based on bulls**t.”

-Terry Pratchett, Making Money

“It is some advantage to lead a primitive life if only to learn what are the necessities...Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts are not only dispensable but positive hindrances.”

-Thoreau

“I don’t have a life. I have a schedule.”

-Parenthood

“What I tend to see happening more and more is people retreating into their own corners. People seem scared to get things wrong or be shouted at so they form villages in which they agree with every other member, and maybe they go out and shout at the people in the next village for fun, but there’s no interchange of ideas going on. I think we have to encourage the idea that you’re allowed to think things. I have thought a great many stupid things over the years, and I can tell you that there’s not one stupid thing that I ever thought where I changed my mind because someone shouted at me or threatened to kill me. On the other hand, having great discussions with good friends, possibly over a drink, has definitely changed my mind and made me try to do better. You’re allowed to do better, but we have to let people do better.”

”I think each of us tends to take something and use that as the place where you begin making your art. If you’re going to make good art, it’s likely that you’re going to go to the place where things are dark, and use that to shine light into your life and, if you’re doing it right, into other people’s lives as well. For Terry [Pratchett], it was always anger. There was a deep rage in him that allowed him to create. For me, it tends to be sorrow or loneliness or confusion.”

-Neil Gaiman

“Self-conscious, uncertain, I'm showered with the dust

The spirit enters into me, and I submit to trust

Smash the radio

(No outside voices here)

Smash the watch

(Cannot tear the day to shreds)

Smash the camera

(Cannot steal away the spirits)

The rhythm is around me

The rhythm has control

The rhythm is inside me

The rhythm has my soul”

-Peter Gabriel, “The Rhythm of the Heat”

“Satan can kiss my ass!”

“Spaghetti and meatballs is just too much excitement!”

-The Gilmore Girls

“It was Taine who said: ‘Democracies defeat themselves.’ Perhaps I haven’t got that quotation right. It doesn’t seem to mean much.”

“[Trout fishing] is nothing but a constant series of compromises with one’s better nature, what with sneaking about pretending to be something that one is not, trying to fool the fish into thinking one thing when just the reverse is true, and in general behaving in an underhanded and tricky manner throughout the day.”

“It is only recently that doctors have discovered that we have many more elements in our systems than was originally thought. Whether we have always had them and just didn’t know it, or whether they were brought there and left by some people who wanted to get rid of them has not been decided.”

-Robert Benchley

-Compiled by Phony McFakename

* * *

Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Cinemasterworks: No-Attention Span Reviews AGAIN?

There's too many of these "movie" things and I must see ALL of them. Here we go!

Sharknado: The 4th Awakens

The second Sharknado remains my favorite. This fourth one's flaw is that it just throws too much nonsense at ya. There's a Sharknado early-warning-and-prevention system. A chainsaw-sword. The Sharknados now go on land and become dust-storms or hit a nuclear power plant and become "Nuke-nados." And there's a robot and a cyborg and a quadruple-shark-swallowing. The storm goes nationwide and hits every American city and destroys every national landmark. You get David Hasselhoff AND Gary Busey. But it all just happens and there's no resonance or even humorous execution to it. It's just there. It took effort to make so much cool and fun stuff boring, but they pulled it off. So bad it's bad.

Star Trek Beyond

I like me some J.J. Abrams, but I'm glad he's gone from this saga, as his plot fu was getting mighty convoluted. Nice to finally see a straight-forward story with a MacGuffin and a clear, interesting villain. Best Trek film since First Contact.

Sucker Punch

Feels like a movie from another dimension. This is Zach Snyder with carte blanche. If that last sentence excites you, you'll like it. If it gives you pause, give it a pass. Some really remarkable scenes, either way. Very cold and harsh. But triumphant and relentlessly vivid and go-for-broke imaginative. It's either the best feminist film ever or the death of feminism. Maybe both.

The Pacifier

I dig Vin Diesel's absurd one-note performance in the Fast and/or Furious movies. But I haven't really studied his other work. This decade-old comedy shows he can actually handle humor. I laughed out loud several times at this Kindergarten Cop-ish mess. Not a good film, but harmless fun.

Ghostbusters: Answer the Call

I didn't even realize the subtitle for this film was "Answer the Call" until the credits rolled. It sounds like a generic call-to-action phrase, but it's actually something they keep saying to their incompetent secretary as a running gag in the film. And it's a good gag. And the movie itself is fine. A functional silly contemporary comedy. It's a remake of my favorite film of all time, so if anyone was liable to be harsh on it, it's me. And I'm fine with it. Laughed a few times. The kids in the theater where I saw it were all cheering and loving it. So it serves its purpose.

Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser

You may not believe this, but...it's not very good.

Hitchcock/Truffaut

A documentary about a book about a filmmaker by a filmmaker. And it's a delight. A wonderful exploration of Hitchcock and his work. Brought back fond memories of my college film buff days where I saw every film by Hitchcock, Truffaut, Kurosawa, Renoir, Godard, Welles, you name 'em. I review an awful lot of junk on here, but please rest assured: I'm deeply versed in cinema and it's nice to be reminded of its power. Oh, and speaking of junk...

Independence Day: Resurgence

WHERE'S RANDY QUAID???

The Witch

Yikes. Super-creepy ending and some psychologically devastating stuff in this historical witchery yarn.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

My three favorite things, all in one movie! But for super-realsies: they did a surprisingly good job with this.

Zoolander 2

It's okay. Some irresistibly funny and deliriously stupid moments.

Remember

Cool film about an elderly man who decides to hunt down the Nazis that tormented him in the concentration camp he survived as a child. I guessed the twist ending in the first five minutes, but most people don't. So you should be okay, since statistically speaking- you're most people.

The Purge: Election Day

Solid. The first one was a reasonable siege movie with an underutilized premise. The second one- Anarchy- finally delivered on the premise. This third film continues to kick things up a notch with some solid political/ religious commentary along the way. The script is a bit weak, with too many scenes ending on silence or a questionable line. So I'm guessing it was rushed. But still- a perfectly functional action film.

Defending Your Life

This was a childhood favorite. Albert Brooks dies and goes to Judgment City, a perfectly pleasant place where he's essentially put on trial and has to look at scenes from his life and get his defendin' on. It's a bit slow by modern standards, but still a delightful comedy and drama. Meryl Streep is a gem as the manic pixie dream girl.

Deathgasm

Overrated. Some cool practical FX and a funny moment or two, but Todd and the Book of Pure Evil and Metalocalypse handled this metal/gore/craziness stuff much better.

Predestination

Near-flawless, mind-bending, gender-bending, reality-bending thriller. Comes together perfectly and really, saying anything about it would spoil it.

Captain America: Civil War

A better Avengers movie than most Avengers movies. Great use of Spider-Man. Film Crit Hulk can over-analyze it all he wants, it's still fun.

Hannibal Rising

The film implodes when young Hannibal affixes a mask to his face. It's intended to foreshadow the mask that famously gets strapped on Hannibal's face in Silence of the Lambs. But it makes no sense- the mask they strapped on Hannibal's face wasn't his choice. Plus, in the Silence of the Lambs book- it was a hockey mask!

13 Hours

Benghazi bonanza! Jim Halpert from The Office fights alongside the warehouse guy who also dated Pam on The Office. Also the redhead guy from The Unit.

They Look Like People

Yeah, they do. Another thriller that's hard to describe without spoiling it, but it's about the power of friendship and support and belief and madness and evil.

I Love You, Man

Delightful, hilarious, ribald bromance about a guy looking for a friend to be his best man at his wedding. Everyone's in this movie, too. Name a comic actor, they're in here. Unless they're not.

Where to Invade Next

Michael Moore travels to various European countries looking for new concepts that would be helpful for our American society. That was nice of him.

Tiny: A Story About Living Small

Cool documentary about living in micro-houses. Beats paying a mortgage.

Vacancy

Surprisingly suspenseful thriller about a couple in a sketch motel room. They get hunted by motel owners that want to cast them in a snuff film. I can't blame them for resisting because I wouldn't want to be in a snuff film, either.

Bridge of Spies

I'm pretty sure Spielberg made a great film here, but it looks pretty mundane. Maybe it's effortless brilliance?

Regression

Pretty tough to sit through. It's a story about that false-memory ritualized Satanic sex abuse epidemic from the 80's. If you're not aware of this phenomenon, Google it. Don't watch this.

Annabelle

Mediocre semi-sequel to The Conjuring. A few cheap jump scares and it's over.

The Rundown

The Rock runs through the jungle. Surprisingly well-made and hard-hitting. Credit director Peter Berg for that.

Hush (2016)

Deaf woman is hunted at night in a house in the woods. Not much to it. I don't get why the killer was stalking her. He seems intelligent, but his target seems random. A bit of suspense here and there, admittedly.

Ted 2

Laughed uncontrollably almost the whole time. No apologies.

The Walk

Robin from Dark Knight Rises (spoiler!) walks a tightrope between the good ol' World Trade Center buildings.

The Yes Man

Jim Carrey says yes to everything. Mild hilarity ensues.

16 Blocks

A grizzled Bruce Willis tries to keep Mos Def safe. Most def.

Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice (Ultimate Edition)

Didn't like the theatrical version. Too grim, catastrophic, and senseless. Adding 30 minutes to the experience didn't sound appealing. But those 30 minutes actually add context, characterization, and even gives Lois Lane a purpose. Plus, seeing it a second time makes it easier to accept its severity and the fact that it's burning through about six movies' worth of material. Sure, there's still a baker's dozen plot and logic holes. But all in all, this extended cut turns is far less reckless and more interesting. It makes an unwatchable film perfectly watchable. Also- BATFLECK FOREVER!!!

The Forsaken

Fun late 90's horror. Cheesy FX, hammy dialogue, and a surprisingly original take on vampires.

Holidays

Surprisingly cool horror anthology. Hit-or-miss, absolutely, but lots of hits.

All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records

Sad but thoughtful and elegant documentary about Tower Records. Title of movie tells all. Directed by Tom Hanks' kid, who was also awesome as the lead actor on the show The Good Guys.

The Fundamentals of Caring

Paul Rudd does a solid job as the sad care-giver who grows and learns from his care-receiver.

Black Cadillac

Solid low-budget thriller with three boys getting chased in a snowstorm by the title vehicle. Randy Quaid's pretty creepy in here. Nice to see him, especially since HE WAS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN IN THE INDEPENDENCE DAY SEQUEL!!! Sorry about that outburst. I'm still pretty upset about this whole thing. I'll be fine by my next review.

Volcano

Okay, I'm fine again. Anyhoo, this stars Tommy Lee Jones. And there's a dude who gets half his face burned off by a heat-blast in the opening sequence. So I wondered if that was a clever homage to Tommy Lee Jones' performance as Two-Face in Batman Forever. And I further wondered if Jones was in on the joke. Or if it was a prank and he didn't get it. I must know. Find out for me, please.

Ghosts of Mars

Another film that holds up way better on a revisit. Originally intended as the third Escape from New York film- Escape from Mars- but that was canceled after Escape from L.A. bombed. They retooled into this perfectly fine supernatural/siege/war film.

Phil Spector

Pacino kills it as the grim Spector of death.

The Invitation

Smooth claustrophobic horror film with constant twists.

The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?

A forensic analysis of Tim Burton's never-filmed 1999 Superman Lives. Makes great use of production art, costume tests, behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with everyone involved along the way. Funny and fascinating to realize what could have been.

The Gambler

Marky Mark does okay. Some good lines here and there. There's a gambler in this film, so can't say there's false advertising.

Snake Eyes

Didn't care much for it when I saw it in the theater. On a revisit, it's above average. A bit sluggish and random here and there, but well-constructed suspense and decent characters.

MST3K: Santa Claus

MST3K is always good.

Stoker

Eerie stuff about a guy who stokes.

Speed Racer

This is the film by the Wachowski Brothers (though they're not brothers anymore- just "the Wachowskis" now?) that nobody talks about. I understand why. It's kind of a departure. A PG-rated candy-colored non-stop stylized CGI-fest. The tone is all over the place. And most of the cast is unfamiliar. Also I never followed the Speed Racer cartoon so I have no idea how much of it made sense by the show's standards. Did I mention its wafer-thin plot stretches out to 135 minutes?

Eden Lake

Hard-hitting thriller about a hapless British couple on holiday that ends up getting hunted by local hooligan kids. To its credit, the lead male (Michael Fassbender, in a pre-fame role) is taken out of commission and it's about a strong female fighting to stay alive and defend her husband. The man gets put in the fridge for a change, how about that?

Hush (2008)

Another hard-hitting British thriller about a couple being stalked. This time the women gets put in the fridge like she always does and it's up to our wimpy and annoying male lead to grow a pair and save her. It's okay.

David Cross: Making America Great Again!

It's not that he's offensive- he is, and spectacularly so- it's that he just comes off as 200% miserable and 300% condescending towards everyone and everything during every second of every performance. A few laughs here and there, but his misanthropic act is wearing thin.

Black Roses

Another 80's heavy metal cinematic gem from the guy who made Rock n Roll Nightmare. This one is just as "good" as that one.

Wrath of the Titans

A mediocre sequel to a mediocre remake. "Release the Kraken" remains the only memorable thing about either film. And even that was just lifted from the 1981 original.

Sinister 2

The first Sinister left a burn on me that lasted weeks. Unbearably creepy. So I only partially paid attention to this one to avoid re-traumatizing myself. Some super-ooky images that I won't soon forget, but just doesn't have the original's kick. That one was a nightmare with no way out. This one is just about a kid getting seduced by evil and the only stakes are whether he'll succumb. He's not very interesting, so it's hard to care. Everyone's pretty miserable the whole time. Not much to it. See the first one instead.

Standoff

Simple, straightforward thriller about a hitman on the ground floor of a rural house trying to convince the guy on the second floor to sacrifice an innocent kid who wandered into his house. Tense, man.

The Mark

The main photo for this film is a barcode tattoo on a wrist with the "666" mark on it. There's an exploding plane, too. But in the actual film: there are no barcodes, tattoos, or "666"s. It's about a guy who gets an implant in his arm and has to transport it home on a plane. No explosion on the plane, btw. Mild turbulence, at best. With Eric Roberts. Four stars.

Rattle the Cage

Unpredictable one-room thriller about a dude in jail and a crazy cop. Would work better as a play, but still interesting.

We Are Still Here

Yeah, you are! Crazy-creepy movie about these insanely creepy things that are just crazy-creepy. Mucho spooky imagery.

We Are Twisted F***ing Sister

Yeah, you are! Cool story of the making of the band behind that one song you know, "We're Not Gonna Take It."

Patton Oswalt: Talking for Clapping

Devastatingly funny stand-up special, more profound for coming out the week his wife abruptly and unexpectedly died.

Spectre

Cool opening sequence at the Day of the Dead, but pretty slow otherwise. Not bad, but not great.

Bad Influence

Accurately titled! Fun to see Rob Lowe play a despicable bad guy instead of a lovable funny moralistic lawyer for a change.

I Am Thor

Totally compelling documentary about the guy who fought the rubber Satan puppet and his rubber starfish in Rock and Roll Nightmare. Had no idea there was so much to the guy.

Sphere

It has a sphere! Pretty decent adaptation of Michael Crichton's book that he wrote right before Jurassic Park. Unfolds and plays out well. Sam Jackson is always fun.

Brothers Grimsby

New "comedy" from the Borat guy is about a soccer hooligan reuniting with his secret spy brother. It's more of a horror movie as it mostly exists to push the envelope off the table and be as obscene as cinematically possible. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing- see the Jackass movies- but for one problem: it's just not funny.

Moneyball

I read the Michael Lewis book and was surprised to find I liked the movie better. But I don't really care about baseball, so there you go. Well-told tale of the rise of statistics in baseball recruiting.

Village of the Damned (1995)

Not a bad remake, but a letdown by John Carpenter standards, because he doesn't leapfrog and blow away the original like he did with his The Thing remake.

Pixels

Have you ever heard anything good about this? Anyone? Anything? Okay, fine. I'll try. The movie's basic idea is fine. That's the best I can do.

Kuffs

The most interesting thing about this is the explanation of San Francisco's weird police system. Check it out on Wikipedia. Weird, right? Anyhoo, Christian Slater is very Christian Slater-y in this proto-Deadpool fourth-wall breaking cop drama.

Escape Plan

Stallone and Schwarzenegger pull a high-tech prison break! And the main guy from Person of Interest is the warden! It's okay.

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine

So I guess he was kind of a jerk?

Crimson Peak

Guillermo Del Toro tells a pretty straightforward haunted house tale. It's a GIANT haunted house, but that's really all it is. Some jarringly violent moments keep it from a PG-13.

Macbeth (Patrick Stewart)

P-Stew kills it! Literally!

Concussion

Sparks don't fly. Will Smith discovers football is bad for the brain. Feels like it should be more hard-hitting than it is.

Chuck Norris Vs. Communism

Fantastic documentary about how people drew hope and inspiration from American cinema while living under Communism in the 1980's.

Special Correspondents

Ricky Gervais writes, directs, and stars in a movie that's surprisingly unlike his past work. It's unpleasant, but not constantly cruel.

The Hateful Eight

Tarantino is being seriously serious here. Halfway through the film screeches to a halt and basically becomes John Carpenter's The Thing in a winter lodge.

Cop Car

Kevin Bacon is fantastic as the villain hunting down two boys who steal a...cop car!

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stoppin'

Non-stop hilarity. Don't watch it, though. You'll just encourage them.

Steve Jobs

Yeah, the guy was a jerk.

Headhunters

Clever thriller about workplace drama taken to dark extremes. The scene in the outhouse is unforgettable. No matter how hard you try to forget it.

Margin Call

Superb fictional dramatization of the financial crisis, from the perspective of the investment bankers that dumped toxic assets on the public during the

Indigenous

Redshirt kids go in the woods. Bad stuff ensues. A bit slow. Not much to it.

High-Rise

Loki from Avengers goes super-bonkers in this equally bonkers adaptation of the bonkers 1975 classic J.G. Ballard novel.

American Ultra

Stoner comedy about a guy who doesn't realize he's an undercover CIA sleeper agent. With the Twilight girl.

Goosebumps

Some cute moments. Not unwatchable. Would've been way stronger if R.L. Stine's daughter in the film was actually dead and being kept alive by Stine's curse. Check the movie out and you'll agree with me.

I Am Road Comic

Cool documentary about a non-famous traveling comic. Neat glimpse into an unfamiliar world.

The Blind Side

Another Michael Lewis adaptation I like better than the book. A young Black man is adapted by a white family and becomes a football superstar and there's much drama.

Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

I feel like this would be my favorite movie if I was 13. As is- yeah, it has its moments. A few laughs. A ton of zombie mayhem. I'm not the target demo anymore. Gimme my AARP card!

Poltergeist (2015)

Pointless remake. Interesting things: a more extensive glimpse of "the other side" and a surprise jolt in the last 10 minutes.

Cancer: The Emperor of Maladies

Depressing, yo.

Underworld

Finally saw it. Yeah, it sucked.

Maggie

Schwarzenegger has a zombie daughter. This film is a far cry from the "Schwarz Vs. Zombies" extravaganza you're expecting. It's a deliberately paced, melancholy art film.

The Phantom

Bruce Campbell was originally supposed to play the lead. That would have been cool.

Torque

Like a Fast & Furious film without speed or ferocity. The director went on to make the stunningly bizarre, hilarious, pitch-shifting Detention, so he's got that going for him.

Pee-Wee's Big Holiday

Pee-Wee is still in fine form.

Slingshot

Great documentary about the future of clean water. And innovation. And having a meaningful life. All are probably important things.

Cold in July

Solid adaptation of the classic Joe R. Lansdale novel. Twists like a bunch of pretzels tied in knots.

The Do-Over

Adam Sandler keeps making movies. He tries to give this some thematic depth, but it's a mess.

The Experiment

Inspired by a German film that was inspired by the infamous prison experiment, this is a brutal psychological thriller about a group of folks pretending to be prisoners and prison guards. It effectively shows what happens when men are given power. And what happens is not good.

Fantastic Four (2015)

Nah. Notable for the bad guy walking around and blowing up people's heads. Graphically. Blood flies everywhere. In a PG-13 movie.

Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Adam West rules.

Firewall

Harrison Ford vs. high-tech criminals. Guess who wins?

The Green Inferno

The SJW social satire in the first half hour is kind of interesting. Then it's a generic trapped-redshirts cannibal potboiler where people are tortured and killed without an iota of interest and suspense. It's all been done before- much better- in Italy in the early 80's.

All the Way

The guy from Breaking Bad gives an outstanding performance as LBJ in this made-for-HBO movie.

The Revenant

Leo fought the bear and the bear won. The rest of the film drags hard. Tom Hardy is cool, though.

Cooties

Zombie outbreak in an elementary school. Teachers under siege. Pretty generic stuff at this point, but zippy-paced and some original gore.

The Resurrection of Jake the Snake

Pro wrestling: not my jam. But I like a human interest story. And this is an interesting human story. In a nutshell: Man fights alcoholism.

Rock Star

Surprisingly funny and fun tale of life in a rock band starring Marky Mark. Much like his other film The Gambler, it delivers on what the title promises: there is a rock star in here.

Unconditional Nope:

Dracula Untold
Shark Lake
Zoombies
Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru
Drive-In Massacre
Rampage
Van Wilder (20 minutes in and not a single laugh to be found- why is this a classic?)
Graduation Day
Ali G Indahouse
Cowboys Vs. Dinosaurs (Eric Roberts is fantastic in here, though!)
Funeral Home
Jack the Reaper


-Phony McFakename

* * *

Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Comical Books: "Splinter of the Mind's Eye"

This is a 2016 review of a 1996 graphic novel adaptation of a 1978 cash-in sequel book to an obscure 1977 movie (Star Wars).

THIS...is Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

Author Alan Dean Foster did the Star Wars novelization and George Lucas asked him to go ahead and also write this thing as an outline for a low-budget follow-up film. Just in case money was tight for the sequel. You know, just in case the first film wasn't a huge hit. Well, guess what? It was a huge hit. So this thing was tossed off on the marketplace as a book. Now ya know.

Nutshell: Luke and Leia crash-land on a random planet with the droids and discover the Empire is mining for a Force-amplifying Gem MacGuffin. Our heroes get captured and Darth Vader comes down to regulate on them. And then there are some chases and fight scenes.

There's also a generic Obi-Wan Kenobi-ish wise old Jedi master. This person is not interesting.

Han Solo never appears. At all. No Chewbacca, to boot. Did Foster think that the best way to keep costs down on this sequel was to cut the cast in half? (Harrison Ford couldn't have been THAT expensive in 1978!)

Speaking of cutting in half- that happens here.

People are pretty murder-hungry throughout this book. A guy threatens to beat our heroes to death.

Not to mention Darth Vader, who constantly threatens murder and torture on two people he knows are his CHILDREN.

Though I doubt Foster or even Lucas knew Vader was the father at the time. Vader hadn't appeared on Maury yet. (Now that I think about it- Vader brutally tortured and interrogated Leia in the first film, too. Bad daddy.)

Also worth noting- Vader is ridiculous throughout. He doesn't talk AT ALL like he does in the movies.

They used elements of this book in future films, like escaping from a bad guy and realizing they're on a giant worm.

Also crash-landing on a planet of fog and swamps. Not to mention ending up in a net and experiencing confusion with the natives.

There are a bunch of monsters and aliens and stuff happens and it all ends on a pretty silly WA-WA, WAH-WAH note.

I don't know how much of this is due to the source material and how much is comic-only. (And I'm not going to investigate any further.)

Either way- this is an interesting artifact, but it doesn't fill me a gnawing hunger for more Star Wars franchise fiction.

But hey, it's better than the Star Wars Holiday Special.


-Phony McFakename

* * *

Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.