Book:
The 13th by John Everson (2009): Everson's first novel, Covenant, was an interesting horror novel with a bit too much sexual violence for my tastes. His second, Sacrifice, was something of a bollocks -- the characters were paper-thin and annoyingly giggly and coy at the most inappropriate points in the narrative, and it seemed like the only two constants in the novel were increasingly grotesque yet oddly perfunctory scenes of sexual atrocity, and the construction of protagonists who were as banal as they were incompetent. 'People who get hit in the head a lot' seems to be Everson's second-favorite trope, right after 'Every female character will get sexually assaulted.'
There were enough flashes of originality in the first two novels (and especially the first) that I figured I'd give Everson a chance when his next novel came out. And for the first 200 pages of this 320-page novel, it seemed like I'd made the right choice. Oh, the heightened level of sexual violence was still there, but it at least seemed to be hitched to an interesting story that justified the events, if not the lengthy descriptions of some of them. And then, around page 200, The 13th went off the rails as completely and spectacularly as any novel I can remember reading.
The 13th is a gobbledegooky, supposedly Babylonian ritual meant to incarnate the Babylonian god Ba'al in human form. To do so requires human sacrifice. A lot of human sacrifice involving mothers and babies. Fun stuff. 25 years before the main narrative of the novel, a cult in a small town tried and failed to complete the ritual. Now, the cult is back, kidnapping and impregnating women in order to try again. And only a callow, Olympic-level bicyclist and a plucky but inexperienced female cop can, maybe, stop the ritual.
What threat does a completed ritual pose to the world? I have no idea. The novel never lays out the stakes. I have a feeling that it may guarantee a good corn harvest, but beyond that, your guess is as good as mine. And I READ the fucking novel.
Everson's most annoying tics throughout his three novels are that no major female character can be anything less than spectacularly alluring, male protagonists have great difficulty controlling their libidos, and the heroes, perhaps in a nod to realism gone horribly wrong, generally prove to be amazingly incompetent by the time the novel ends. The 13th adds a new toy to Everson's toybox: the 120-page climax.
Yes, more than a third of this novel can justifiably be called the climax. That's a lot of climax. And almost all of it takes place in basement of the evil hotel where an evil stem-cell researcher is attempting to finish the ritual of the 13th with the help of the evil cult which turns out to comprise pretty much everyone in the stupid small town the novel is set in.
During those 120 pages, which take place over the course of about 6 hours, the heroes get knocked out and imprisoned at least twice; they pretty much fail to save any of the imprisoned women and babies from being tortured, mutilated and killed; and the disembodied gods Ba'al and Astarte show up to spout dialogue that sounds like rejected wacky-god dialogue from Season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And the heroes run around in circles a lot, in the nude (don't ask), getting sexually assaulted by incorporeal gods and demons, while various awful things are described at great length. But really, once you get to the third or fourth sacrifice scene, not only is the power to shock gone, but the whole megilla starts to feel more like an outsized parody of your typical torture horror film than it does like serious horror.
Everson also gives us another relatively new trope that I reflexively blame on Buffy, specifically Season 7 -- that's the obligatory Half-Assed Internet Search Scene. Certain horror stories once relied on forbidden occult knowledge that one at least had to go to a library to access. Unfortunately, the age of the Internet has brought us the scene in which a character learns everything he or she needs to know by typing in a few terms on Google. I realize that if The Necronomicon existed it would be available for download on Project Gutenberg, but the search scene here rivals Buffy's Season 7 Google of 'evil' for 'search least likely to yield the results you need without further clarification.' Give me a moldy set of the Revelations of Glaaki any day.
On the bright side, the hero now drinks a lot of Guinness. Everson's protagonists in his first two novels spent so much time ordering Miller Genuine Draft that I began to wonder of the Miller Brewing Company was a sponsor. So I guess that's a step up. Really, not recommended at all except as a study in how a horror novel can go horribly, horribly, horribly, horribly, horribly, horribly wrong.
Comics:
Essential Captain America Volume 2 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, Gene Colan, John Romita, Frank Giacoia, Joe Sinnott and others (1967-70): Captain America becomes increasingly Spider-man-ized in this second collection of his early post-1960's-resurrection adventures. Translation: he's plagued by various self-doubts and woefully hung up over a woman. Thankfully, he also has a number of cool adventures with great art by Kirby, Steranko and Colan, though if you're like me, you're starting to wish Modok and the Red Skull would take a vacation for several years, and that the Cosmic Cube, one of Marvel's all-time Ultimate Plot Devices, would never, ever, ever appear in a comic book again. No such luck. Fun, though occasionally a bit grating.
Onslaught: The Complete Epic Volume 4 (2nd edition) by everyone at Marvel and their dogs (1996): Onslaught was meant to be the Marvel crossover to end all crossovers (well, at least for a year), as a villain born in the X-Men books would ultimately threaten the entire Earth. Part of the editorial mandate of the crossover was to set up Marvel's 'Heroes Reborn' titles, with new adventures of non-X-men Marvel heroes to take place on a new Earth sans X-Men. Marvel's top-selling books (basically the Spider- and X-titles) would steam along on their own in the regular Marvel universe along with all those Marvel characters deemed too minor to reboot (hey, Dr. Strange!).
Sometimes one can only evaluate a megacrossover constructed as much by marketing and sales decisions as by artistic decisions the same way Samuel Johnson evaluated a dog that can walk on its hindlegs -- one isn't amazed that it does it well but that it does it at all. The plot mechanism that creates two different Marvel universes doesn't make a lot of sense, and has the added misfortune of setting up a final battle that would be completely incomprehensible without an awful lot of captions to explain what's going on.
Oh, yeah -- Onslaught is an evil psionic being created when Professor Xavier's evil impulses collide with Magneto's evil impulses. So he's sorta like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, only nigh-omnipotent. As ultimate comic-book villains go, he makes the Anti-Monitor look and sound like Milton's Satan. Not recommended.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Conference Championship Weekend: Beware the Kicker!
What was supposed to be another wildly unpredictable playoff year is now only unpredictable because of the AFC's New York Jets, the only non-1 or 2 seed remaining. And those zany Jets and their rotund coach, Rex Ryan, have really grown on me. Well, any team that beats the San Diego Chargers is OK by me. The Chargers are the most hateable current team. Year after year, they're pissy and arrogant even though their current Philip Rivers-led configuration hasn't made a Super Bowl, much less won one.
Watching a red-faced Philip Rivers run around screaming at the officials after the Jets' Darrelle Revis hauled in an improbable interception of Rivers, I realized that Rivers is so annoying that I wondered if the Chargers get an extra penalty or two every game because the refs get so sick of being screamed at. Certainly, Vincent Jackson's kick of the challenge flag later on in the game didn't necessarily look like a 15-yard penalty, but who am I to judge? And if I'd been listening to the Chargers whine and complain all day, I'd probably have taken any chance to throw a flag too. They're just that hateable. So now the Jets move on to face another high-powered offence with no running game in the Indianapolis Colts.
Over in the NFC, the championship will be the Resurrection Bowl, for a player (Minnesota's Brett Favre) and a team (the New Orleans Saints) that also stands as a symbol of a city in the process of resurrection (New Orleans, natch). The Saints are a genuine feel-good story, while I guess Favre's a feel-good story if you're a Favre fan. I myself am not, though I do have to give him props for having the best statistical season of his career at the age of 87.
Minnesota Vikings at New Orleans Saints: I don't trust the Vikings because I don't trust Brad Childress to coach worth a damn. And the Saints have an actual Dome advantage if their fans can scream really, really loudly -- that should disrupt the Vikings' offence, while the silence during Saints' offensive plays should work to slow down the Vikings' line compared to their suffocating home-field performance against Dallas last week. Also, I don't think the Saints will miss what was it two, three field goals? WTF is up with field-goal kickers this post-season? They're playing like it's 1969. New Orleans Saints 38, Minnesota Vikings 27.
New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts: And here we have Irony Bowl. The Jets are probably in the playoffs because the Colts decided to take a knee on the remainder of their season during their game with the Jets in Week 16, pulling the starters midway through the third quarter with a 15-10 lead. The Jets came back to win and The Legend of Rex Ryan was born. Prior to The Longest Knee, the two teams had played close -- the Colts had required a return TD to go ahead. The closeness of this game, like pretty much every game this playoffs, will depend on turnovers or the lack thereof. The Jets' superior running game can beat a high-scoring team if the #1 defence creates turnovers and the offence avoids them. And the opposing team misses makeable field goals. I don't think the Colts are going to miss field goals from 40 yards and in the way the Bengals and Chargers did -- Matt Stover may be a hundred years old, but he's played well in the playoffs before and he seems automatic from 40 and in. Operative word this playoffs: 'seems'. I'd like the Jets to win, but they need a lot more things to break just right than the Colts do. Indianapolis Colts 23, New York Jets 16.
Record to date: 4-4 (1-3 Wild Card round, 3-1 Divisional Round)
Watching a red-faced Philip Rivers run around screaming at the officials after the Jets' Darrelle Revis hauled in an improbable interception of Rivers, I realized that Rivers is so annoying that I wondered if the Chargers get an extra penalty or two every game because the refs get so sick of being screamed at. Certainly, Vincent Jackson's kick of the challenge flag later on in the game didn't necessarily look like a 15-yard penalty, but who am I to judge? And if I'd been listening to the Chargers whine and complain all day, I'd probably have taken any chance to throw a flag too. They're just that hateable. So now the Jets move on to face another high-powered offence with no running game in the Indianapolis Colts.
Over in the NFC, the championship will be the Resurrection Bowl, for a player (Minnesota's Brett Favre) and a team (the New Orleans Saints) that also stands as a symbol of a city in the process of resurrection (New Orleans, natch). The Saints are a genuine feel-good story, while I guess Favre's a feel-good story if you're a Favre fan. I myself am not, though I do have to give him props for having the best statistical season of his career at the age of 87.
Minnesota Vikings at New Orleans Saints: I don't trust the Vikings because I don't trust Brad Childress to coach worth a damn. And the Saints have an actual Dome advantage if their fans can scream really, really loudly -- that should disrupt the Vikings' offence, while the silence during Saints' offensive plays should work to slow down the Vikings' line compared to their suffocating home-field performance against Dallas last week. Also, I don't think the Saints will miss what was it two, three field goals? WTF is up with field-goal kickers this post-season? They're playing like it's 1969. New Orleans Saints 38, Minnesota Vikings 27.
New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts: And here we have Irony Bowl. The Jets are probably in the playoffs because the Colts decided to take a knee on the remainder of their season during their game with the Jets in Week 16, pulling the starters midway through the third quarter with a 15-10 lead. The Jets came back to win and The Legend of Rex Ryan was born. Prior to The Longest Knee, the two teams had played close -- the Colts had required a return TD to go ahead. The closeness of this game, like pretty much every game this playoffs, will depend on turnovers or the lack thereof. The Jets' superior running game can beat a high-scoring team if the #1 defence creates turnovers and the offence avoids them. And the opposing team misses makeable field goals. I don't think the Colts are going to miss field goals from 40 yards and in the way the Bengals and Chargers did -- Matt Stover may be a hundred years old, but he's played well in the playoffs before and he seems automatic from 40 and in. Operative word this playoffs: 'seems'. I'd like the Jets to win, but they need a lot more things to break just right than the Colts do. Indianapolis Colts 23, New York Jets 16.
Record to date: 4-4 (1-3 Wild Card round, 3-1 Divisional Round)
Friday, January 22, 2010
2009: The 25 Things That Entertained Me Most
TV and film:
J.J. Abrams and company for Star Trek, Fringe and Lost: No previous producer/director has had the trifecta that Abrams had in 2009. He rebooted a moribund franchise (Star Trek) with a big-grossing film that most critics loved. His new show (Fringe) quickly earned a cult following and critical love. And Lost barreled towards its final season with a time-twisting penultimate season that I thought was its best since Season 1. That's entertainment!
Torchwood: Children of Earth: The Doctor Who spin-off only appeared in 2009 as a five-part miniseries. But what a miniseries! While the bleakness of the show's view of politicians may put some people off (and win others over, of course), Torchwood nonetheless holds out hope for the better angels of humanity's nature as well. In this case, a shock ending really does shock in the horror of its necessity.
Doctor Who: The End of Time Parts 1 and 2: Some Who fans found the end of David Tennant's run as the Doctor a bit self-indulgent -- he gets the longest goodbye in Doctor Who history. Actually, it may be longer than the goodbyes of all previous Doctors combined. Nonetheless, this two-part movie wraps up a lot of threads from the previous five years, and finally fills in more of the reasons behind the Doctor's trauma over the Time Lord/Dalek Time War that occurred some time just before the series rebooted in 2005.
NBC's Thursday night comedy block: Or at least The Office, Parks and Recreation, and 30 Rock. It's somewhat fluky that the three best network comedies are all set at dysfunctional workplaces.
Elvis Costello's Spectacle with...: The interviews are usually fascinating and the musical sequences quite good. The greatest episode of the debut year of Costello's music interview show had to be the Police episode, which demonstrated, if nothing else, how much Sting dislikes Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, and vice versa. Costello, who once upon a time mocked Sting for his "ridiculous [Jamaican] accent" on early Police songs, gets in some subtle shots.
Super Bowl XLIII: Not the best Super Bowl ever, but possibly the one with the most super-duper plays (Larry Fitzgerald's two 4th quarter TD catches that brought the Arizona Cardinals back from 13 down, Santonio Holmes' tightrope catch to win the game for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and James Harrison's epic 100-yard interception return for a TD to end the first half. Whew!)
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report: Losing George Bush as a rich source of laughs actually seems to have reinvigorated Stewart, Colbert, their writers, performers and most guests. The ongoing ridiculous acts and speech acts of politicians, pundits, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN and various celebrities provide enough fodder for a dozen satirical news shows.
Pushing Daisies Season 2: Brian Fuller's dandy, whimsical fantasy series lost all of its early traction in 2008's writer's strike and never reclaimed it. Still, a delightful romp.
Reaper Season 2: The funniest supernatural series since G vs. E seemed to be cancelled simply because the CW suddenly started trying to woo more of the Gossip Girl crowd. So sad.
Nurse Jackie Season 1: Edie Falco is terrific as a self-destructive, self-sacrificing, snarky and cynical nurse with a prescription drug addiction. Probably the densest half-hour on TV right now.
Up in the Air, directed by Jason Reitman, starring George Clooney and Vera Farmiga: A nearly pitch-perfect comedy for adults.
Watchmen, directed by Zac Snyder, starring Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley and a cast of dozens: Not nearly as great as the comic, but still the most thoughtful superhero movie ever made.
I Love You, Man starring Paul Rudd and Jason Segal: Goofiest buddy comedy of the year, with the added bonus of an extended Lou Ferrigno cameo and an odd subplot involving Canadian rock legends Rush.
Music:
Them Crooked Vultures, self-titled debut: An unholy synthesis of Led Zeppelin, mid-70's Bowie and a number of other 70's rock bands from Dave Grohl and friends.
Pearl Jam's Backspacer: They seem to have been around forever, but Pearl Jam has never rocked out quite so much as they do on this, their 300th album or so. "The Fixer" was fun, but so is the rest of the album.
The Beatles Remastered: Finally, and cheaper than the previous CD versions have been since they came out in the early 1990's.
CBC Radio 2: Pretty much the only broadcast radio station I listen to. The live material after 7 p.m. is probably the highlight of the programming day.
Print, comics, and web:
Slate: Yes, I use the Washington Post's web spin-off for a lot of my news and analysis. And you should too.
The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons. Hilarious and wonkily informative.
Unknown Soldier by Joshua Dysart, Alberto Ponticelli and others. The best war comic with a recurring protagonist ever created. I'm not even sure what I'd put second.
The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. Superlative metafantasy for ll you kids who've outgrown Harry Potter.
Cold, Hard Football Facts: The most incisive and occasionally sarcastic football analysis on the Web.
Batman and Robin by Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely and Philip Tan: Bruce Wayne seems to be dead, so the first Robin -- Dick Grayson -- retires his Nightwing persona and takes up the mantle of the Batman. And because he's got some self-doubt, Batman becomes human again. It's too bad Bruce Wayne is slated to return later this year.
Irredeemable by Mark Waid and Peter Krause: Revisionist superhero horror. The Plutonian, Earth's greatest and most-beloved superhero, goes on a genocidal rampage. Why? And how can he be stopped?
Urban Gothic by Brian Keene: One of the bloodiest, most grotesque horror novels you're likely to ever read, Gothic reinvigorates the 'dumb teens menaced by bloodthirsty freaks' subgenre.
Under the Dome by Stephen King: Well, I liked it. Also, it's superheavy so you can use it as a doorstop or a weapon.
J.J. Abrams and company for Star Trek, Fringe and Lost: No previous producer/director has had the trifecta that Abrams had in 2009. He rebooted a moribund franchise (Star Trek) with a big-grossing film that most critics loved. His new show (Fringe) quickly earned a cult following and critical love. And Lost barreled towards its final season with a time-twisting penultimate season that I thought was its best since Season 1. That's entertainment!
Torchwood: Children of Earth: The Doctor Who spin-off only appeared in 2009 as a five-part miniseries. But what a miniseries! While the bleakness of the show's view of politicians may put some people off (and win others over, of course), Torchwood nonetheless holds out hope for the better angels of humanity's nature as well. In this case, a shock ending really does shock in the horror of its necessity.
Doctor Who: The End of Time Parts 1 and 2: Some Who fans found the end of David Tennant's run as the Doctor a bit self-indulgent -- he gets the longest goodbye in Doctor Who history. Actually, it may be longer than the goodbyes of all previous Doctors combined. Nonetheless, this two-part movie wraps up a lot of threads from the previous five years, and finally fills in more of the reasons behind the Doctor's trauma over the Time Lord/Dalek Time War that occurred some time just before the series rebooted in 2005.
NBC's Thursday night comedy block: Or at least The Office, Parks and Recreation, and 30 Rock. It's somewhat fluky that the three best network comedies are all set at dysfunctional workplaces.
Elvis Costello's Spectacle with...: The interviews are usually fascinating and the musical sequences quite good. The greatest episode of the debut year of Costello's music interview show had to be the Police episode, which demonstrated, if nothing else, how much Sting dislikes Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, and vice versa. Costello, who once upon a time mocked Sting for his "ridiculous [Jamaican] accent" on early Police songs, gets in some subtle shots.
Super Bowl XLIII: Not the best Super Bowl ever, but possibly the one with the most super-duper plays (Larry Fitzgerald's two 4th quarter TD catches that brought the Arizona Cardinals back from 13 down, Santonio Holmes' tightrope catch to win the game for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and James Harrison's epic 100-yard interception return for a TD to end the first half. Whew!)
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report: Losing George Bush as a rich source of laughs actually seems to have reinvigorated Stewart, Colbert, their writers, performers and most guests. The ongoing ridiculous acts and speech acts of politicians, pundits, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN and various celebrities provide enough fodder for a dozen satirical news shows.
Pushing Daisies Season 2: Brian Fuller's dandy, whimsical fantasy series lost all of its early traction in 2008's writer's strike and never reclaimed it. Still, a delightful romp.
Reaper Season 2: The funniest supernatural series since G vs. E seemed to be cancelled simply because the CW suddenly started trying to woo more of the Gossip Girl crowd. So sad.
Nurse Jackie Season 1: Edie Falco is terrific as a self-destructive, self-sacrificing, snarky and cynical nurse with a prescription drug addiction. Probably the densest half-hour on TV right now.
Up in the Air, directed by Jason Reitman, starring George Clooney and Vera Farmiga: A nearly pitch-perfect comedy for adults.
Watchmen, directed by Zac Snyder, starring Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley and a cast of dozens: Not nearly as great as the comic, but still the most thoughtful superhero movie ever made.
I Love You, Man starring Paul Rudd and Jason Segal: Goofiest buddy comedy of the year, with the added bonus of an extended Lou Ferrigno cameo and an odd subplot involving Canadian rock legends Rush.
Music:
Them Crooked Vultures, self-titled debut: An unholy synthesis of Led Zeppelin, mid-70's Bowie and a number of other 70's rock bands from Dave Grohl and friends.
Pearl Jam's Backspacer: They seem to have been around forever, but Pearl Jam has never rocked out quite so much as they do on this, their 300th album or so. "The Fixer" was fun, but so is the rest of the album.
The Beatles Remastered: Finally, and cheaper than the previous CD versions have been since they came out in the early 1990's.
CBC Radio 2: Pretty much the only broadcast radio station I listen to. The live material after 7 p.m. is probably the highlight of the programming day.
Print, comics, and web:
Slate: Yes, I use the Washington Post's web spin-off for a lot of my news and analysis. And you should too.
The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons. Hilarious and wonkily informative.
Unknown Soldier by Joshua Dysart, Alberto Ponticelli and others. The best war comic with a recurring protagonist ever created. I'm not even sure what I'd put second.
The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. Superlative metafantasy for ll you kids who've outgrown Harry Potter.
Cold, Hard Football Facts: The most incisive and occasionally sarcastic football analysis on the Web.
Batman and Robin by Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely and Philip Tan: Bruce Wayne seems to be dead, so the first Robin -- Dick Grayson -- retires his Nightwing persona and takes up the mantle of the Batman. And because he's got some self-doubt, Batman becomes human again. It's too bad Bruce Wayne is slated to return later this year.
Irredeemable by Mark Waid and Peter Krause: Revisionist superhero horror. The Plutonian, Earth's greatest and most-beloved superhero, goes on a genocidal rampage. Why? And how can he be stopped?
Urban Gothic by Brian Keene: One of the bloodiest, most grotesque horror novels you're likely to ever read, Gothic reinvigorates the 'dumb teens menaced by bloodthirsty freaks' subgenre.
Under the Dome by Stephen King: Well, I liked it. Also, it's superheavy so you can use it as a doorstop or a weapon.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Angels in the Outhouse
In honour of the completely wacky looking Legion, starring Paul Bettany as the archangel Gabriel and Dennis Quaid as some guy with a shotgun (opening January 22), my list of favourite angels from the movies.
1. The Exorcist III (1990). Oddly enough, the novel the third Exorcist movie was based on was called...Legion. Hoo ha! A surprisingly effective horror movie that generated almost no box office, The Exorcist III has terrific acting turns from George C. Scott, Jason Miller and Brad Dourif. At one point, Scott's police detective has a weird dream set in what appears to be a departure lounge for the afterlife. There's even an angel playing a trumpet, which I've always assumed was a veiled reference to Jack Benny's angel comedy, The Horn Blows at Midnight. But that's not what makes this scene great. What's great is that Fabio and Patrick Ewing have cameos as angels, complete with white robes and giant white wings. Fabio and Patrick Ewing! That is fucking ridiculous!
2. The Prophecy (1995). This is one of those revisionist Christian fantasies for which the creators make a lot of shit up and hope it sounds plausible. But what makes it awesome isn't its out-of-left-field collision of fake Christian mythology and fake Native American spirituality. No, it's Eric Stoltz and Christopher Walken playing angels and Viggo Mortenson playing Lucifer! Christopher Walken is typically awesome playing Christopher Walken playing Gabriel. No dancing, though.
3. Dogma (1999). No, not for Affleck and Mattttt Daamonnn. For Alan Rickman as the Voice of God, Metatron, who's snarky and anatomically incorrect when it comes to his groinal area. Technically, Metatron isn't exactly an angel -- he's more like God's press secretary, and he used to be the prophet Enoch. Still, pretty funny.
4. Diablo II Expansion Version: Lord of Destruction (2001). OK, so it's not a movie. But the folks at Blizzard did some fine design work on Tyrael, the angel who occasionally helps your character out. And by 'occasionally', I mean 'not much at all, you lazy bastard. Even Deckard Cain gives me unlimited free identification of magical objects!' Basically, Tyrael's role is to bitch about you not arriving fast enough to save his angelic ass from imprisonment at the hands of Baal and Diablo, and to let you do all the dirty work fighting the forces of darkness while he chills in the Pandemonium Fortress. As a plus, he does finally do some heavy lifting by destroying the WorldStone in the awesome final animation sequence, and he also gives you 2 skill points for killing Izual. So I guess he's all right. Plus he has cool wings.
5. Wings of Desire (1988). Oh, those sad, compassionate angels wandering around Berlin and occasionally running into Columbo's Peter Falk. This is pretty much the only film directed by art-house legend Wim Wenders that more than ten non-Germans have seen, and it's occasionally gloomy, existential fun. The only really bad thing about this movie is that it got remade as City of Angels with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. Sweet fancy Moses!
6. Constantine (2005). I wouldn't call this a good movie exactly, but it does feature Tilda Swinton as an androgynous, somewhat loopy Gabriel. Yes, with the release of Legion, the archangel Gabriel has now been played by Christopher Walken, Tilda Swinton and Paul Bettany. That's got to win some sort of award for weirdest trio of oddball actors to portray the same character in three different movies.
1. The Exorcist III (1990). Oddly enough, the novel the third Exorcist movie was based on was called...Legion. Hoo ha! A surprisingly effective horror movie that generated almost no box office, The Exorcist III has terrific acting turns from George C. Scott, Jason Miller and Brad Dourif. At one point, Scott's police detective has a weird dream set in what appears to be a departure lounge for the afterlife. There's even an angel playing a trumpet, which I've always assumed was a veiled reference to Jack Benny's angel comedy, The Horn Blows at Midnight. But that's not what makes this scene great. What's great is that Fabio and Patrick Ewing have cameos as angels, complete with white robes and giant white wings. Fabio and Patrick Ewing! That is fucking ridiculous!
2. The Prophecy (1995). This is one of those revisionist Christian fantasies for which the creators make a lot of shit up and hope it sounds plausible. But what makes it awesome isn't its out-of-left-field collision of fake Christian mythology and fake Native American spirituality. No, it's Eric Stoltz and Christopher Walken playing angels and Viggo Mortenson playing Lucifer! Christopher Walken is typically awesome playing Christopher Walken playing Gabriel. No dancing, though.
3. Dogma (1999). No, not for Affleck and Mattttt Daamonnn. For Alan Rickman as the Voice of God, Metatron, who's snarky and anatomically incorrect when it comes to his groinal area. Technically, Metatron isn't exactly an angel -- he's more like God's press secretary, and he used to be the prophet Enoch. Still, pretty funny.
4. Diablo II Expansion Version: Lord of Destruction (2001). OK, so it's not a movie. But the folks at Blizzard did some fine design work on Tyrael, the angel who occasionally helps your character out. And by 'occasionally', I mean 'not much at all, you lazy bastard. Even Deckard Cain gives me unlimited free identification of magical objects!' Basically, Tyrael's role is to bitch about you not arriving fast enough to save his angelic ass from imprisonment at the hands of Baal and Diablo, and to let you do all the dirty work fighting the forces of darkness while he chills in the Pandemonium Fortress. As a plus, he does finally do some heavy lifting by destroying the WorldStone in the awesome final animation sequence, and he also gives you 2 skill points for killing Izual. So I guess he's all right. Plus he has cool wings.
5. Wings of Desire (1988). Oh, those sad, compassionate angels wandering around Berlin and occasionally running into Columbo's Peter Falk. This is pretty much the only film directed by art-house legend Wim Wenders that more than ten non-Germans have seen, and it's occasionally gloomy, existential fun. The only really bad thing about this movie is that it got remade as City of Angels with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. Sweet fancy Moses!
6. Constantine (2005). I wouldn't call this a good movie exactly, but it does feature Tilda Swinton as an androgynous, somewhat loopy Gabriel. Yes, with the release of Legion, the archangel Gabriel has now been played by Christopher Walken, Tilda Swinton and Paul Bettany. That's got to win some sort of award for weirdest trio of oddball actors to portray the same character in three different movies.
Friday, January 15, 2010
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