Up from Earth's Centre

Precious, directed by Lee Daniels, based on the novel Push by Sapphire and adapted for the screen by Geoffrey Fletcher, starring Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, and Mariah Carey (2009): High-octane melodrama in the Dickenisan mode, complete with complicatedly awful situations piled one on top the other and characters with improbable, descriptive names.

Terrible things happen or are described every few minutes, but the arc of the story is always upwards, to redemption or, to be all psychobabbly, to self-actualization. One can see why Tyler Perry and Oprah co-produced the movie: it's a feel-good story done in the broad strokes of a popular memoir; a schematic, life-affirming roller-coaster. Or maybe Haunted House ride.

Clareece Precious Jones (Sidibe) is an illiterate, overweight, sexually, emotionally and physically abused NYC teen. She's sorta like Little Nell or Little Dorrit, though she doesn't have to die like the former or be married like the latter to reach some sort of transformative apotheosis at the end of her story.

Pregnant with a second child created by incestuous rape, Precious finds hope in remedial schooling, a sympathetic teacher (Blue Rain [!], played by Patton) and a helpful counselor (Carey, deglammed to the point of unrecognizability). Lenny Kravitz wanders through as a sympathetic nurse's aide, to little effect, while Sidibe's classmates (all female) are cleanly and simply drawn, like Archie Comics characters -- each has a couple of defining character traits, but they aren't really characters.

The performances of Sidibe and Mo'Nique, as Precious's sad monster of a mother, sell the movie. Mo'Nique gets a couple of 'Big Speech' moments that helped earn her the Supporting Actress Oscar. She's a terrific, occasionally terrifying monster of a woman, her moral failings surpassed only by her Cyclopean self-pity. Sidibe's got a harder acting job that she pretty much pulls off, getting us to care about a character who initially shows almost nothing on the surface, her emotions hidden behind a mostly impassive face that will become more mobile and demonstrative as she gradually lifts herself up and out of her Dantean Inferno of a life.

Sidibe gives a marvelous performance -- she has the actorly reserve to pull off breakdowns without chewing the scenery. This is about as good as melodrama gets. Highly recommended.

This Ambush, This Bug

Comic:

Showcase Presents Ambush Bug, written by Robert Loren Fleming and Paul Kupperberg, illustrated by Keith Giffen, Bob Oksner and others (1982-92; collected 2008): Oh, Ambush Bug. From humble beginnings as a creation of artist Keith Giffen, he was a slightly nutty, teleporting villain in a 1982 issue of the Superman team-up book DC Comics Presents featuring the Man of Steel and the Doom Patrol, the Bug went on to become a postmodern superhero in appearances in other people's books and then in miniseries and specials of his own. His adventures were collected by DC just prior to his return in the 2008-2009 miniseries Ambush Bug: Year None.

While Ambush Bug's DNA clearly and explicitly shows the influence of Warner Brothers cartoon characters that include Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, he fairly rapidly became a vehicle for metacommentary on superhero comics themselves, with the Bug himself fully aware that he was a comic-book character. A typical Ambush Bug adventure can be pretty hit-and-miss, but Giffen and main writer Fleming keep things moving at a breakneck satiric pace. One will eventually hit something funny, though how funny depends a lot on how many comics one has read.

Most of the jokes are only funny for someone with at least some knowledge of the DC Universe and super-hero comics in general. The satire of the mainstream comic industry's growing obsession with continuity and quasi-realistic superhero universes rings truer today than it did in the 1980's (and it rang pretty true then!).

I think the whole thing's pretty funny, with the most telling standout being the repeated deaths and resurrections of Ambush Bug, either to finally remove him from continuity or to boost sales because death alway sells in comic books. Ambush Bug's boy partner, Cheeks the Wonder Toy, is also a surprisingly fertile source of parody, seeing as he's an inanimate baby doll that Ambush Bug confuses with a real baby. The Cheeks-centric parody of the then-ongoing Dark Knight Returns miniseries is spot-on ("The war is mine again. I feel alive again.") as are other short parodies of Rob Liefeld's drawing ability, war comics, DC's more bizarre characters, and even the Green Lantern Corps (herein spoofed as the Amber Butane Corps). Recommended for comic-book readers; mostly incomprehensible to others.

These Zombies Are Making Me Thirsty

Books:
World War Z by Max Brooks (2007): Oh, zombie, where is thy sting? Brooks' novel was a sensation a few years back, in part because it unfolds the story of the great Zombie war within a fictionalized oral history modelled on Studs Terkel's structured oral histories of World War II, the Great Depression and other major American events. It's a clever conceit, though moving from narrator to narrator (and country to country) works against the development of suspense at points, much less horror.

More than 40 years after George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead started our never-ending fascination with zombies, the rightness of some of Romero's choices related to the wrongness of some of the choices of other zombie chroniclers only stands out more. Brooks goes with what's now become the almost cliched viral/rabies model of zombieism -- zombieism is spread by bite or by zombie body matter getting into an exposed cut or otherwise somehow getting into one's bloodstream. This probably seems like a good idea, but the number of pandemics in human history spread through these means is, roughly, zero. It's just not that effective a means of viral or bacterial propagation, which is why we don't all have rabies right now.

Romero, of course, never explained what was actually causing zombies in his first two zombie movies. More importantly, there was no 'Patient Zero' style beginning point -- one day, everyone who ever died and had enough flesh left on his or her bones to allow for mobility rose from the grave. And everyone who died after that, regardless of cause of death, would also rise from the dead. Now that's a disease vector that could overwhelm civilization!

Brooks' viral model, on the other hand, doesn't bear too much hard thinking because one realizes that between the limits of propagation and the modest limits of his zombies' intelligence (they are, if anything, much stupider than Romero's slow-moving hordes), most of the book's apocalyptic scenarios would be impossible. How do these slow-moving hordes which have a tendency to fall off, into or over any obstacle in their way manage to form up into gigantic masses of tens of millions of zombies in the American Midwest and other locations? I have no idea. It seems to me that these zombies would probably end up at the bottom of every cliff, hill, overpass and canyon in the world. So it goes. Several weeks into the zombie war, one would imagine the Grand Canyon would be full of zombies.

There are a lot of pleasures in this book, and the verisimilitude Brooks achieves with his technical research into weapons and various survival issues is impressive, but the whole thing falls apart if one thinks too hard about those million-zombie armies. So don't. Recommended.



The New Lovecraft Circle, edited by Robert M. Price (1996): Gleaned from thirty years of the second wave of Lovecraft-inspired horror writing, Price's anthology is sort of Fundamentalist Lovecraft. Many of the stories follow the same first-person narrative model of many of Lovecraft's major Cthulhu stories, with one man recounting the zany events and evil tomes of forbidden knowledge that led him to some terrible revelation or other. I tend to prefer somewhat looser interpretations of the Cthulhu Mythos, but there are some genuine thrills and chills here, along with some early Ramsey Campbell Lovecraft pastiches that I'd otherwise have to pay a couple of hundred bucks to read in his out-of-print first collection.

One of the problems a lot of the writers have is their overwhelming desire to roll out one of the Big Guns of Lovecraft's evil pantheon of alien gods, especially sea-dwelling Cthulhu, who's supposed to be in the South Pacific but who pays visits to New England and California prior to being vanquished by the usual dodgy means. A lot of the stories fall more into the August Derleth Cthulhu mode, in which the Cthulhu Mythos becomes a source for modern high fantasy and not for horror. There's nothing technically wrong with this approach, but it does mean that wonder and terror are a bit thin on the ground at times. Recommended for completists.


Comics:


Daredevil: Born Again, written by Frank Miller, illustrated by David Mazzuchelli (1986; collected numerous times): Miller (300, Sin City) came to prominence as writer and artist on Daredevil in the early 1980's. After a few years away, he returned to team with Mazzuchelli on what remains one of the great 'reset button' narratives in superhero comics history. Basically, criminal mastermind Kingpin discovers Daredevil's secret identity and proceeds to destroy his life. And that's just the first issue.

There are small story-telling glitches here and there that the editor should have fixed at the time (why Miller makes super-soldier Nuke blind like Daredevil but without the radar senses makes sense metaphorically but not literally), but overall this is 'the' Daredevil story, or at least 'the' Frank Miller Daredevil story. The hero gets stripped down to his basics, losing a lot of accumulated psychological baggage along the way, and even gets his first girlfriend back (Karen Page), albeit in dire straits herself.

One can see Mazzuchelli's art develop from issue to issue, sloughing off standard super-hero tics and moving towards the more European style he'd use when he soon hereafter collaborated with Miller on Batman: Year One. It's really all about faces and mood with Mazzuchelli at this point in his career, suiting a book that has a lot of explosions but which relies on character development for most of its major kicks.

The Kingpin has never been more demonic, and Miller also manages the neat trick of making the Avengers god-like again when he briefly drops them into the narrative -- they don't really belong in Daredevil's urban vigilante world, and that's the point, though a world-weary Captain America does lend Daredevil a helping hand in the last two issues. This is grim and gritty stuff from a time before endless dark reimaginings of superheroes had made "grim and gritty" a pejorative. Highly recommended.



El Diablo, written by Brian Azzarello, illustrated by Daniejel Zezelj (2001): This four-issue miniseries sees Azzarello reimagine one of DC's obscure Western characters as a possibly supernatural avenger. We don't really know, in the end, because El Diablo (if it is him) is only onstage for about three panels and never speaks, though he does hiss. And kill a whole lot of people. Or does he? Yes he does.

The narrative provides us with two big shocks and a lot of little ones, playing out like an expanded version of an old EC or even Jonah Hex morality tale, complete with a blackly comic (and just) ending. Zezelj's artwork is suitably murky throughout, sometimes to the point of resembling woodcuts more than pencil-and-ink. Recommended.

Songs and Portents

Books:


Songbook by Nick Hornby (2003): This is a dandy little book of short essays by the author of High Fidelity, Fever Pitch and About a Boy. Hornby takes 31 songs he likes and explains why he likes them, with music and autobiography pretty much running neck and neck throughout. There are a lot of observational gems that will work pretty well with anyone who loves music, especially pop music in all its forms.

For example, Hornby observes at one point that his tendency to listen to a new song he likes over and over again amounts to an attempt to "decode" the song -- once the mystery has been solved, he can move on. My most recent foray int obsessive relistening was Arcade Fire's "Ready to Start", so I can relate, though unlike some people I've known, I generally don't subject others to my repetitive song-solving. That would be cruel.

Hornby also notes that if someone's favourite song is the song that was playing when some life-altering event occurred, that someone probably doesn't like music that much. You like the songs for the songs; all the other stuff is secondary or perhaps even irrelevant in most cases. If you've ever spent uncounted hours trying to make perfect mixed tapes/CDs/playlists, you'll understand a lot of what Hornby describes here. Highly recommended.


Shadows 7, edited by Charles L. Grant (1984): Grant's Shadows series of original horror-fiction anthologies were one of the high points for readers of dark fantasy in the 1970's and 1980's, each one crammed full of fine short horror fiction by writers well-known and unknown. This volume seemed half-familiar to me, but that's because at least half the stories herein have been anthologized elsewhere since their first appearance here.

Standouts include Tanith Lee's subtle, tragic "Three Days"; Ramsey Campbell's deceptively jolly take on the terrible boredom of watching other people's slide shows of their travels abroad, "Seeing the World"; and Dennis Etchison's cautionary tale about the dangers of meeting a writer one admires, "Talking to the Dark." There are some minor stories here, but no duds. Highly recommended.

The Vampire Sun

Comics:

Seven Soldiers of Victory Volumes 1-4, written by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Doug Mahnke, Simone Bianchi, Fraser Irving, J.H. Williams III and many others (2006): The original Seven Soldiers of Victory were a super-hero team of the 1940's whose members were pretty much all non-powered superheroes of the masked vigilante school of crime-fighting. Indeed, DC's gun-slinging Western superhero of the time, The Vigilante, was a charter member.

Morrison's modern reconfiguration of the team turns the Soldiers into a fairly powerful lot who manage to be the only super-team in history whose members almost never meet one another. Yes, they're the post-modern Justice League. Two framing issues surround 7 different miniseries, each focused on one hero. Put together, this somewhat odd configuration follows the Soldiers as they defeat an ancient enemy of humanity, the Sheeda, who periodically destroy all civilization on Earth. Why? Because they're hungry. And dinks.

Prophecy says that the Sheeda can only be defeated by a superhero team comprising seven members, so the Sheeda side-project involves tracking down seven-person teams and eliminating them. The bizarre nature of the new Seven Soldiers pretty much makes this Sheeda strategy unworkable, and while things look crazy for awhile, the Seven Soldiers remain cool in the face of a super-powered army of what initially appear to be evil, blue-skinned elves (Sheeda = Sidhe, get it?) but which actually aren't. Elves, that is. They are blue-skinned and they are pretty evil. Even the original Vigilante has to come out of retirement to help in the fight. Twice!

Among other things, this maxi-series was a run-up to Morrison's Final Crisis of a couple years later -- his reconfiguration of The New Gods will play into that series, as will mysterious government agency SHADE and SHADE operative Frankenstein. Well, the creature Frankenstein created, who also now goes by the name Frankenstein and is a mighty, sword-wielding force for Good. Frankenstein is joined by The Bulleteer, Zatanna, Klarion the Witch-boy, The Manhattan Guardian, Mister Miracle and The Shining Knight in the Seven Soldiers. I think it's a great series with great art, but your results may vary depending on how many obscure DC heroes and villains you know (Mind-Grabber Man? Really?). Highly recommended.


Books:


The Essential Conan: The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard (1935), edited and with commentary by Karl Edward Wagner (1977): This is the only Conan novel written by Conan's doomed creator, Texan Robert E. Howard, before his suicide in 1936 at the age of 30. And for a first novel, it's surprisingly well-constructed and tight. Howard would write several more Conan adventures after this one, but in Conan's chronology, this is the last adventure (though not The Last Adventure -- Conan is in his mid-40's and hale and hearty when we leave him).

Here, we find Conan as the King of Aquilonia, Aquilonia being one of Howard's imaginary pre-Ice Age European countries during the time called The Hyborian Age. Conan is a surprisingly fair and just king, but that doesn't stop intrigue against him, as several native and foreign enemies bring an uber-powerful wizard back from the dead in order to further their political aims. Conan's army falls in battle to the magically aided enemies, Conan is captured, and soon the wizard's plans put the entire world in danger of being plunged into a second age of darkness. Only a mysterious magical item linked to the wizard can be used to defeat him.

In a lot of ways, this novel resembles the later Lord of the Rings, only with Conan and a lot shorter. Howard excels in the creation of oddly imagined supernatural threats, bloody battle scenes and, of course, the character of Conan himself -- alternately morose and jovial, fatalistic but unbowed. Howard's Conan was always more like a hardboiled detective than a traditional fantasy hero. Editor Karl Edward Wagner did the admirable job of restoring available Conan texts to their original published form with some emendations derived from Howard's own final drafts, and with period illustrations throughout. Highly recommended.

Epic Zombie Fail

"But let's say there is an outbreak, like if one zombie was able to bite 30 people in the crowd at an Insane Clown Posse concert before they figured out it wasn't part of the show. "

Rag-and-Bone Shop

The Shining, written and directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd and Scatman Crothers (1980): While watching The Shining over the course of three nights on my PVR, I realized that, for me at least, I'd found the perfect way to watch it. The Shining has always been a movie of dazzling parts held together by a plot that shudders and jolts to a complete stop at points. It may be that Kubrick wanted to make a much longer movie, or it may be that Kubrick never intended the plot to work all that well in the first place. This was not a film-maker that gave a crap about pleasing an audience in a traditional way, after all.

The basic plot is this: failed writer Jack Torrance, wife Wendy and five-year-old son Danny take the job as winter caretakers at a Colorado hotel located in the Rockies. The hotel closes from November 1 to April 30 for the winter, leaving the caretakers the only people for miles. Danny has a psychic talent called "The Shining" which gives him premonitions of the future, causes him to see things, and occasionally results in his body being taken over by the benevolent but creepy "Tony."*

Overlook head cook Halloran also has "The Shining." He cautions Danny about the hotel's ability to show people illusions, and tells Danny to signal him telepathically should anything go wrong over the course of the winter. The Overlook Hotel itself has been the site of a number of murders and atrocities over the years, not least of which was a previous caretaker murdering his wife and twin daughters before killing himself. Over the course of the first five weeks or so of caretaking, hilarity gradually ensues.

Certainly, enjoyment of the film requires one to forget about Stephen King's novel. In the novel, Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson in the movie) is a good man undone by alcoholism and circumstances and, of course, by the hotel. In the movie, Torrance is a physically abusive nutcase barely hiding his unravelling psyche from his wife Wendy (Duvall) and son Danny (Lloyd) even as the movie begins. There's very little sense that Torrance actually loves his family, and his fairly rapid descent into a homicidal fury suggests a sub-text of family violence and monstrous fathers that doesn't exist in the novel. Wendy, a blonde beauty in the novel, becomes the awkward Duvall in the movie, and Torrance-POV shots at key moments in the movie are probably the least flattering shots of Shelley Duvall ever put on screen. Of course, that's the point: Torrance's real view of his wife, allowed to fester by the hotel, is that she's a hideous shrew.

Production design and camera work are key here, as they are in all of Kubrick's films once he had complete creative control. The interior of the snow-bound Overlook Hotel is subtly alien and off-putting both due to size and colour scheme; the rugs alone might drive almost anyone off the deep end. Certain things work really well as horror -- the looming hedge maze is an improvement over the novel's homicidal hedge animals -- while others seem to verge on parody. The red-and-white washroom is really pretty hilarious.

That line between hilarity and horror -- or horror and horror-parody -- is crossed and recrossed throughout the film. One of Kubrick's stated aims -- to make a horror movie in which the lights stay on as much as possible -- is pretty much achieved. Certain scenes and images (especially the blood-torrent-spewing elevator) play more like parody, and the revelation that 'Redrum' is 'murder' spelled backwards lands with a dull thump, as does the 'shocking' photographic revelation that ends the movie. I believe these thuds are intentional: Kubrick seems to be aiming to scare people and make fun of horror tropes at the same time, maybe never moreso than in the fate of Halloran in the movie, much altered from the novel.

Nonetheless, there are enough startling moments -- the revelation of what Jack's been typing for weeks, Jack's pursuit of Danny through the hedge maze -- to allow the horror to outweigh Kubrick's parodic play with the horror. Kubrick's film also serves as a companion piece to his own 2001: A Space Odyssey: rather than watching humanity evolve from killer ape to Star Child, we watch Torrance devolve back into a killer ape chasing his own son through the hedge maze, his urge to do violence ultimately destroying him while Wendy and Danny are saved by Halloran's altruism and Danny's cleverness. Recommended.

* Who, in the novel, is Danny trying to telepathically warn himself from the future, Danny's middle name being 'Anthony.'