Shotgun Reviews

What It Feels Like For A Girl (In Comics) Part 2 by Janelle Asselin

2012-02-22T14:00:00.039-05:00

Welcome to part 2 of “What It Feels Like For a Girl (In Comics),” my sharing of anecdotes about how we ladies experience the industry. In Part 1 you heard about some of my experiences, and now it’s time for you to hear from other women in the industry. Some of these are pulled from the survey I did as part of my thesis while others I solicited from a variety of women in the industry. All of them are anonymous, which means in some cases, you’re hearing stories that these women wouldn’t ordinarily tell.

· I was a comics critic several years ago, and in a comic-book shop for an event. When I went up to the counter with my purchases, the clerk remarked that I had extraordinary taste for a girl. I didn't want to tell him anything about myself, so I took it as a compliment, although it was an extremely back-handed one, and deeply insulting. He continued, however, to remark, loudly that I had really good taste and that he knew how hard it was for girls in comics. Of course he was flirting, but he did not also realize that he was being pedantic, protective, and silencing in an attempt to be charming and supportive. Then he suggested I look up my own work, as a critic, if I were interested in women in comics.

· I worked in a comic book store for 7 years and there were many male customers who refused to listen to my suggestions and could not believe that I would know anything about comics.

· Once when my boyfriend and I were babysitting his 9-year old niece and two older nephews, we decided to take them to our LCS. We were pretty excited to share our interests with the kids and just maybe get them interested too. The boys wandered off to look at toys and the niece, an avid reader, made a beeline for the week's comics. But my excitement quickly turned to dismay, because we couldn't find a comic that was both interesting to her and safe for her to read. "What about this one?" she asked, holding up a comic with Little Red Riding Hood on the cover--she knows what she likes, and fantasy and fairy tales are her favorites. "Nooo," I said, "I don't think so." I flipped through and my impression from the cover--that this was a T&A comic--was confirmed by the interior pages. She asked why not, and I know she's a smart kid, so I explained that I could tell by the way the girls on the cover were drawn, with big boobs and broken backs and tiny clothes. Just in case she ever goes to a comics shop with her mom, I want her to know what to look for and what to avoid. We grabbed a copy of Batgirl instead.

· On more than one occasion, a formerly SUPER friendly comics pro became frosty and distant upon meeting my husband. It happened enough times that I finally realized it wasn’t just in my head – these men were friendly to me when they thought I was an attractive single fan of theirs, but were less friendly when they realized I was taken.

· Not all publicity is good publicity. I have been making comics for the past four years and have recently been in a long-term relationship with another cartoonist who has a high public profile. Due to the professional dynamic of our relationship, we had spent countless hours discussing the importance of keeping the relationship private. To me, it was essential to ensure that I wasn't validated through proximity to his fame or relegated to side-kick status. Yet, even constant discussion wasn't enough of a deterrent to keep our personal lives separate from our comics lives. During an interview for a dating website he was asked, "Has being a cartoonist gotten you laid?" and I was his answer (why a dating website would consult cartoonists for sex advice or why an artist would consent to that is beside me) - "she's beautiful to look at" and "I guess you could say she was a fan". In other words, I was rendered a googly-eyed fangirl. Perhaps he could have mentioned that we met through an event that I had co-organized or that I was a fellow cartoonist whose work he also purportedly respected, or that I was the one editing the book that got him the interview in the first place.

· I sort of took for granted the fact that I always bought my comics at the bookstore and grocery store growing up, assuming it was because the closest comics shop was 45 minutes away. But recently, while discussing women and comics, my mom explained to me the real reason. First some backstory: My mom and I have always been close and have similar taste. In middle school I made quick work of her sci-fi/fantasy novel collection (aside from the ones she made me wait until high school to read). She had read a lot of her older brother's comics growing up, so when I showed an interest in manga and comics around the age of 13 she didn't freak out like some moms might. She planned a day at the comic book store, looking one up in the Yellow Pages (this was before our family acquired the internet) and driving me out there herself. But she was uncomfortable from the moment we walked in until we left 30 minutes later. Not because of the hot anime girl posters and figurines--she knew to expect that. But because of how all the grown men in the shop wouldn't stop staring at her and her 13-year-old daughter.

· In my time in comics, the only person to ever accuse me of using my gender to “get my way” was a female creator, who said I’d manipulated the men involved and that they would eventually figure out what I was. It was extremely disappointing to have another woman attack me in such a way, not to mention unwarranted and unfair.

· Before Twitter, I had never met another woman who read comics. I knew that they existed but I had never personally encountered one. It was incredible to find a community of women who not only love, create, and support comics, but urge other women to read them. I'm a big fan of sword fights, epic gun battles, and comics of a more violent nature. Finding other women who enjoy these things as well has been a great experience! They've also opened my eyes to a whole new world of comics written and drawn by women. Blogs like Girls Read Comics, Too spotlight women creators and showcase their amazing work. We are creating a world where little girls can grow up knowing that they are not alone in their nerdy interests, and it's wonderful.

· When I'm talking to men about comics, it's a common occurrence that they'll re-cap the story as if I didn't actually read it. It's really weird and happens pretty often.

· There are a lot of awesome things about being a chick in comics. One of the main ones is the access it gives you. In a mostly male-driven industry, being a girl, and being able to hang and joke with the boys (creators, we'll get to editors in a minute) has been invaluable. I know being a girl has opened certain doors for me as far as meeting people and making connections go.

As far as the editorial side: forget it. Maybe it's just my particular company. but I feel like, if you are a girl, and look and act a certain way, it is frowned upon. And forget promotion.

It's a double-edged sword, and to be honest, it's part of what's driving me out of this industry.

· I suppose the only problem I've had is the assumption that I don't know comics. My dad basically raised me on comics and I started actively buying them when I was about 12, so I'd say I'm pretty knowledgeable when it comes to what's what.

But if I go to a convention or a comic shop with my boyfriend (who's new to comics), I get immediately ambushed by people trying to "teach me" stuff. That's annoying because my bf is the one who needs help and can be seem aimlessly walking around not knowing his CrossGen from his IDW and I have to make it known that I don't need help. But even then, there are people who hover around me "just in case."

I kind of hate admitting this, but there have also been those who think I'm gay because of my open love of the medium. When I started reading comics, I'd get the name-calling and my mom questioning why I'm reading some of the things I read. I had to explain to lots of people that I just love comics and I don't feel I should have to explain something I enjoy.

· Fuck, I don't think men realize how incredibly intimidating it is to walk into a supremely male dominated space, that is filled with male dominated products, or products of females that are intended to hit the male gaze target. It. Is. Awful.

I've been treated like an idiot. I've been instantly directed to the manga section - because that's all girls want, right? - and asked if I need any help understanding the characters. I've been pressured by male staff members to listen to their endless fanboy rants about whatever, I've been ridiculed for my title choices, etc etc.

Comic book shops are the worst.

· A higher up at my former employer once told me that I needed to fire my artist because we needed an artist with a little more… and then he made a gesture that looked like he was pantomiming boobs, with his hands curving from his clavicle to his ribs. I looked at him and very calmly said “You REALLY need to stop making that gesture.” He said he didn’t mean anything by it; he was just talking with his hands. He got his way, I fired my artist and more boobs were added to the comic. Because there was really no other recourse for me. If I’d spoken up, accused him of sexual harassment or whatever, the job would’ve become miserable.

· I actually had more difficulty as a new reader of comics than I have as a female reader of comics. I had to research and search out comics on my own as there were few people who wanted to engage with me and my interests. I was told what was popular, but not asked my own preferences. I was sometimes looked down on for my choice of comics. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable in a comic book shop, and that was as a result of getting to know the industry and products on my own, never with any help. As a woman, I am occasionally overlooked and ignored, still dismissed for some of my comic preferences, and excluded from some comic related activities but I have become used to being alone with my interest. I would prefer a more welcoming comics market so that I could meet more people like myself, new to comics, with alternative interests.

· I often hear or, more often, read on the internet, aspiring artists discussing art style in terms of gender. The most depressing thing is to listen to female artists lament that people might "guess" that they were a woman based on their art. I once read someone on Tumblr say that their biggest goal is to have someone think they were a man when they saw their picture. There was no reason given. The entire discussion was pretty cissexist too, if I might add.

· I used to go to a comic shop where no one every said a word to me. No, "Hey how you doing" or "Anything I can help you with?" - nothing. When a guy walked in he'd a get a "hey".

I hated it. I didn't have another LCS at the time so I stopped going for awhile and got a mail subscription.

Later I found a shop where they were happy to see me and one of the guys would save me stuff like miniseries that I might like and Batgirl figures. It was such a difference. I think back on the first shop and it makes me sad. The other shop is bit of hike now but I still try and visit it because they were so welcoming.

· ‪I was at Chicago Comic-Con with friends, and like most every other professional or semi-professional, I hit the hotel bar afterward. As I leaned against the railing with my drink, I was approached by a guy--generic dude--who started to tell me about his comic shop. He stood about a half-step too close for my personal comfort and asked me which books I read. When I named one, he started to explain that creator's books to me, finishing up by telling me that he'd just done a signing at his shop.

I politely nodded, waited for him to wander away, then checked my BlackBerry to find a new text--from that same comic creator. Laughing, I texted back, "I think I just got hit on by a guy namedropping you at me."

· I've always been torn about hot girls in comics because I'm bisexual and heck, the pretty girls are part of why I got interested as a hormonal teenager. In fact, my sexuality has always been closely tied to my geekery. As a little kid I would tell myself fanfics to help me fall asleep, which turned into fantasies once I was a little bit older. Then there was one time in middle school when my mom caught me watching an anime with naked girls ("What, Mom? It's not like it's something I've never seen in the mirror."). In high school I was a member of the Anime Club, along with several girls I had a crush on--we'd sit on the floor watching the week's anime, while I braided their hair and worried whether I'd have to stop that kind of thing if I ever came out. I started writing my fanfiction down in high school after reading Harry Potter, and discovered the vast fanfiction community online. It was a relief to find that other people online had the same perversions (at least at that point, that's how I thought of them) as I did. There were even a couple of girls at school who also wrote fanfiction, of the chaste variety. And it was a big moment for me in college when I finally started writing and posting my own slash fanfics. So thank goodness for geekdom, or else I'd still be a sexually confused little girl. Of course now, as a somewhat feminist woman, I understand that a lot of what I appreciated as a teenager was never meant for me, a girl, and is actually degrading--so in a way I'm right back to feeling small and confused.

· I used to own a comic book store for 7 years. My biggest issue was not being taken seriously in the business community because I was female in a niche market that generally caters for men. People really need to get over themselves and become less judgmental.

· Girls love sleepovers. Whether you're 10 or 32, there's something wonderful and comforting about hanging out with a great group of like-minded ladies in your pajamas and tauntaun sleeping bags. I was lucky enough to be part of two sleepovers with some fantastic comics-loving women. One of my favorite moments from the sleepovers was a conversation over who would win in a pillow fight: Superman or Batman? Most everyone said Batman because... well, he's Batman and he always has a plan to take Supes down. Personally, I think you've got to go with Superman. Pillow fights aren't about strategy and battles and winning. They're about fun and silliness and friendships, like sleepovers with your besties. And Superman would totally get that.

· A cool thing was I was at a family cookout with my nephew who is 20 and he introduced me to a bunch of his friends as his aunt "who knows everything about comics." And I spent the afternoon being peppered with questions by a bunch of young guys and not once did they think they knew more than I did. They were great.

· Once a comic publisher employee mentioned the fact we were moving to the same city and that they really wanted to talk about the future of their company. While I thought I was getting hired, they were actually looking to date me. No thanks!

There you have it. Not every woman in comics will have these experiences or even these kinds of experiences. But they are, for better or worse, part of what makes our community within a community. Many thanks to Troy for reopening the old stomping grounds and for being an ever-supportive friend when it comes to everything I do in comics, but especially in regards to women and comics.

THE LEMUR RISES! with J. Caleb Mozzocco

2012-02-22T13:00:00.000-05:00

Can't really do this without a proper explanation. As Matt Brady and I were pitching story ideas (that would eventually lead to us writing "Short Straw" in the Batman 80 Page Giant 2011), we got to joking about pitching totally unlikely Batman Inc. candidates. Among those suggested, due to my love of the strategic value of Madagascar in "Risk", was . . . THE LEMUR. Matt and I quickly had a one-page story that we thought of turning in just for fun as a paver-of-the-way on the actual pitch. We got the awesome J. Caleb Mozzocco to draw it. Caleb was an early member of Best Shots, has a great blog at EverydayIsLikeWednesday and has written with distinction for sites like Newsarama, CBR, and Comics Alliance. In one of those weird bits of luck, we ended up getting to do "Short Straw", and "The Lemur Rises" never had its day. Until now. Here, with art and color from the mighty hand of Caleb, THE LEMUR RISES!

Change or Die by Jeff Marsick

2012-02-22T11:00:00.006-05:00

Jeff Marsick, Best Shots team member, wrestling contributor, film guy, lover of fast cars . . . he's an interesting cat. He's also a fine comics writer, knocking out Z-Girl and the Four Tigers, Dead Man's Party and Wendover. Here, he holds forth on the comics industry . . .

When Troy asked if I wanted to write a piece for Shotgun’s phoenix-like emergence from its ashes, I think my brain imploded: “Sweet! I’ll bloviate about the comic book industry—no, wait, Shotgun has too much wrestling with not enough motorsports and being the resident auto racing nut(job), I’ll discourse about NASCAR! No no—the OSCARS! Yeah, that’s the ticket. Oh, but then I do have some thoughts about the current crop of “The Voice” contenders (surely I’m not the ONLY one who thought Erin Martin in Round 1 wasn’t so much Feist-y as much as warbling like a garroted cat, right? Right??).”

So many choices to pick from. It took some time to pick a direction, but I finally went with ~~the Oscars~~ ~~NASCAR~~ ~~why Michele Bachmann is underappreciated~~ barking about comic books:

1) Now is the time for indie creators. Speaking as one of said creators, I don’t think there’s ever been such a wide field of opportunity for us “little people”. And thanks goes to the digital domain whose horizon extends from Comixology at one end to webcomics at the other, with Kindle and Nook in between. Self-publishing in all forms is riding the digital wave, all of us aspirants following in the footsteps of standard bearers like John Locke and Amanda Hocking who paved the way, ninety-nine cents at a time, for our dreams to possibly someday see reality.

BUT, just because it’s easier now to get your comic book out there doesn’t mean a) anyone’s going to care or b) that enough people will hear your message no matter how many hours you’re Tweeting or booking Face. One thing that needs to change is…

2) We need more indie comic reviewers. More respected websites and writers to put their name and rep behind a book they stumbled upon at a convention on their way to get a pretzel. I smirk when a reviewer says “Oh, come on. I review indie comics. I read Image, Dark Horse and BOOM! all the time.” This is probably going to incite hate mail but y’know what? Those ain’t indie, folks. Let me throw some NASCAR on it: DC, Marvel, Dark Horse and Image are the Sprint Cup Series of comic books. Top tier. IDW, BOOM! and Dynamite are the Nationwide Series. Second tier (Minor League to the bat and ball crowd). You want INDIE, step off the reservation and find The Camping World Series West division of comics: Big Dog Ink, Studio Z, ComixTribe, Blacklist Studios, et al. Trawl the Small Press aisles at conventions and seek out diamonds buried in that there rough.

There is some GREAT stuff out there that people are putting blood, sweat, tears and the fullest limits of their credit cards into (there is some awfulness, sure, but I’m in the driver’s seat right now, so hush). Yet no comics journalist out there seems to want to take a chance. The mentality seems to be, if it ain’t in Diamond, it’s dead to me.

Diamond. Ah, yeah. Therein lies the crux.

So maybe the answer is…

3) The little guys need to consolidate. Instead of a dozen different “studios” putting out a dozen different books, combine everyone under a single banner. One publisher with a catalog of a dozen books. Keep your identity, like an imprint, but make a united front, a force with numbers that would be attractive to Diamond. Stronger titles will pull weaker titles up (sure, a slew of weak titles can kill the strongest of titles, but I’m going glass-is-half-full right now so leave me my moment, willya?).

I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, dummy. That’s been kinda done before. It’s called Image.” And my response (after “Uh, DUH. I KNOW.”) is “Well, why can’t it be done again? Image Mk II?”

Us little indie creators are all a bunch of floating island states, bemoaning in our best Rodney Dangerfield how we don’t get no respect, that the Small Press area of SDCC has over the years become the Smaller Press area and in a couple more won’t even be inside but will be outside surrounding the Porta-Potties, and that we’re so fringe we’re most comfortable at our own special small press expos where attendance is measured in the hundreds. Dozens of disparate voices ignored like noseeums.

Banded together, however, as a collective, a cabal, a horde…maybe we make enough noise to be noticed and change the face of indie comics. And the “mainstream” market should WELCOME this because the indie realm provides new voices and talent to titles that month after month seem to be stuck in neutral.

New talent, though, can only be cultivated if…

4) Editors are held more accountable to their books. Look, a writer can write anything they want (hells bells, even OJ wrote a book) and an artist can draw anything they want. Editors, however, are the gatekeepers of publishing. They are the skippers of their titles. If a title is languishing, it should be on the editor to fix the problem: axe the writer, deep-six the artist, make the artist the writer and vice versa, do SOMETHING to inject life into a book. And if the editor can’t…

They’ll be replaced with someone who can.

I used to berate writers and artists, even intimated a couple times that pursuing a new line of work would be best for everyone involved, but I don’t so much anymore. Someone is letting average or subpar work slide by and it’s THAT person who needs to be called on the carpet.

An editor’s job, however, might run smoother if…

5) A creative type isn’t allowed to work on more than one title per universe. (Yeah…this one’s gonna win me no friends, I’m sure.) If you’re working on a book for the regular 616 Marvel universe, you shouldn’t be allowed to work on a second title in that same world. An Ultimate title? Fine. But not two Ultimate titles. A DC title and a Vertigo title? Carry on. Two DCnU titles? Flag on the field.

I feel this especially with writers. Typically there’s one title where they just nail it, while the second one feels phoned in and after that, well, I think there’s osmosis involved. Focus all of your energy on ONE task, on ONE title and make that your best effort.

Oh, you can rotate teams or individuals around for an arc or two, sure. But I think all of us fans would be blown away by the quality that would come out if everyone had their niche, their explicit focus and nothing more.

I love comic books. I love reading them, love creating them, love talking about them. And while I won’t say the current system is broken, I think it could use some shaking up and in some instances, tough love.

Change or die isn’t just a storyline in Stormwatch, y’know.

Forgetless: A Review by Vanessa Gabriel

2012-02-22T09:00:00.001-05:00

FORGETLESS TPB
Written by Nick Spencer
Art by W. Scott Forbes, Jorge Coelho, Marley Zarcone
Lettering by Johnny Lowe
Published by Image Comics
Review by Vanessa Gabriel

Different things propel one to decide to start reading a comic. Often times it is word of mouth, the following of a long-loved character or the creative team is appealing. But it was the art that drew me to Forgetless. At the time of release, I had seen the single issues of Forgetless at my comic shop a time or two. The cover art was striking. As these things go, I had enough on my pull list, and I passed on purchasing. Little did I know that when I got around to reading the collected edition of Forgetless, the artists who made those covers so striking would soon reign as rulers of my aesthetic.

I first experienced Marley Zarcone’s art in Madame Xanadu #24. She was only on that one issue, but her clean, unique style is unforgettable. That sealed the deal for me and Forgetless. I had to have more Marley, who is one of the three very talented Forgetless artists. Jorge Coelho, W. Scott Forbes, and Marley Zarcone combine to create a powerful aesthetic rarely seen combined into one book; each artist explicitly unique, but all of them as vibrant as the story being told.

There is nothing typical about this book, except for the hipsters. I kid. Nick Spencer writes a provocative and relevant story that just so happens to boast the debauched youth culture of New York City. I am the first one to loathe a ranty teenager. Spencer freshly presses the foolish arrogance of teenage years, and spins it in into various incarnations to give us truly memorable characters. His story examines the alarming, entertaining and sometimes intertwining roles that each of them play in the greatest city on Earth.

In only five issues, Forgetless does what I think comics can do best: act as a social commentary. Models aspire to appear on the cover of Vogue and work as killers for hire on the side, all whilst tweeting vagaries of said hit jobs. You see that perception is everything, and apathy rules the day in the world of social networking. Meanwhile, all three South Jersey teens can think of is getting to a party in the city. It’s the only thing that matters. And one young man gets hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube … by fucking a building, the Empire State Building. It’s an ode to the idiocy and freedom of being a teenager and a poignant example of the Age of Celebrity, as it explicitly illustrates the narcissism consuming our youth culture.

Forgetless is not for the faint of heart. Gratuitous language, Pulp Fiction-style pacing, and NC-17 antics from people not yet 17 years old may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But, if you revel in cynicism, laugh at dark humor, and live for smart references, then I invite you to the biggest party in New York City. Wickedly smart writing, beautiful art, and unforgettable characters make Forgetless stand apart from a sea of books. It is a brilliant addition to any library.

Vanessa Gabriel is a co-founder of girls-gone-geek.com and a member of the Best Shots team.

Ghost Rider 2: Nicholas Cage Jumped the Shark by Nicole Christian

2012-02-21T22:41:00.001-05:00

The artist formerly known as Nicole Timmons claims a spot as one of my favorite students. Nicole was in the first Freshman Writing class that I taught at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, and the level of her work impressed me right away. As I got to know Nicole, I found out that she was wickedly deadpan funny on top of being markedly intelligent. She was among the first of several of my students that would write or work for Shotgun in some capacity, typically commenting on film. These days she's married (Hey, Cody) and works in signage (great word). Today, she's here . . .

I approached the second Ghost Rider movie with the same trepidations that I had when the first one came out. But after watching the original film—and deciding that it wasn’t all that bad, really, when you thought about it—I figured “Spirit of Vengeance” would be about the same. Nothing that raises your spirit or challenges your cerebral cortex, but a decent way to kill a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, I cannot give Ghost Rider 2 even that much credit. It was difficult enough the first time around to digest the idea of Nicholas Cage as a demonic superhero badass, but I had accepted the illusion and the character construct. Then someone decided that the Crazy Nicholas character that has surfaced in several of Cage’s more recent films was more important than the essence of the Ghost Rider. I was repeated jerked out of the movie action because I was too busy thinking, “This guy’s nuts!” It was funny in “Matchstick Men,” but this movie reminded me a little too much of “Drive Angry.”

I feel like the devil/demon-child cliché mixed with the classic “bad guy working against the forces of darkness” plot is a deadly boring mix. Both can be creatively used; they weren’t here. Moreau was a cool character, and Blackout’s powers were artfully produced, but these were a momentary respite from everything else.

The softening of Johnny Blaze that we see as he becomes attached to the Anti-Christ and his mother is another distracting element. I will admit that I have not read the comics, but even if the Ghost Rider is getting in touch with his angelic side, I’m not sure why he’s almost crying about it.

What you really want here is the special effects. And this is one thing that the movie did deliver on. I saw “Spirit of Vengeance” in 3D, and I thought it made great use of the medium. You had the flames and chains wheeling around the theater, and explosions coming at your face and rumbling your chair – I mean, what’s cooler than a flaming bucket-wheel excavator? And when it comes down to it, that is the only reason you’re going to go see “Spirit of Vengeance” – just make sure you go see it in the theater, where you can get the most visual bang for your buck.

Troy Warms Up Part 2

2012-02-21T17:00:00.049-05:00

Allen Owes: Cash and team-challenged Allen Iverson owes an amazing $850,000 in jewerly debt alone. I didn't even know that "jewelry debt" was a phrase. I know that 850,000 is an impressive total, but it took 23 million attempts to get there (wait for it . . . everybody that's gonna get it, got it? okay . . .). Overall, Iverson blasted through $150 million to get where he is now. You know what it takes to go through that much money is so little time?

Lindsay Lohan: Lindsay Lohan will be hosting Saturday Night Live again. The best part of this was that I heard a radio news tease for it that began with "Guess what Lindsay Lohan is going to be on?" I could imagine people all over the city, driving their cars, shouting, "Meth!" "Cocaine!" "Oxy!" "The Pole!" Yeah, Lohan's become an easy target over the years, not the least of which is because she now looks about the same age as her mother. But I have to say, Lohan's generation of starlets has a fairly impressive bounce-back rate. She came up through Disney (via the "Parent Trap" re-make) in proximity to Britney and Christina, and they both had periods where they went off the rails. The question though is whether everyone SHOULD attempt a comeback. There's no law that says you have to STAY famous after you get famous. That's a separate kind of addiction, really. It would nice for Lindsay if she could resume a productive acting career. Then again, maybe she should start a step-down center for people to transition out of fame and into reality; I can think of three sisters that'll probably need her help some day . . .

Mitt Romney: Former Massachusetts governor and current rich guy Mitt Romney went through over $18 million campaigning last month. You know what it takes to spend that much money in that short a time? You guessed it . . .

We Live in Interesting Times . . . For Corporations by Kevin Huxford

2012-02-21T15:00:00.002-05:00

Ah, Khuxford. I know that Kevin Huxford of Schwapp Online has been a controversial cat over the years. However, he's also been my friend. Another Best Shots guy that came over to Shotgun, Kevin felt many years ago that he had to split both because he'd become something of a lightning rod. He promptly founded his own blog and enjoyed his gadfly role ever since. One thing that you need to know is that Kevin has a rigid code of principles. And even if you don't agree with it, you should respect it. Today, he takes a hard look at something that affects all of us.
Union membership has waned.

Reality TV, populated by talentless gloryhounds, has supplanted a lot of (openly) scripted entertainment.

The Supreme Court says corporations are entitled to all the rights of personhood.

And the electorate is brainwashed into believing that leaving more money with rich folks and corporations leads to new jobs and trickle down even more than they were in the 80s, it seems.

There's two recent developments where this has become more disturbing to me on a personal level.

Gary Friedrich sued Marvel to try to obtain ownership of Ghost Rider. The merits of his case are, at best, debatable. The Ghost Rider name existed prior to his involvement and testimony says that a lot of editorial direction went into the creation. But there's no doubt he played a significant role in the creation, leading some to believe it would be the right thing for Marvel and/or the studio behind the movie to throw a sum (insignificant to them, but significant to the destitute Friedrich) for his past contributions.

And in come all the folks defending the corporations blindly. The only moral obligation Marvel has is to shareholders (i.e. it is a moral imperative that they maximize profits). If they pay this guy, what about the other contributors? What about cases where it is more difficult to break down contributions? It's not the corporations fault that it's too complicated for them to pay anyone something in consideration of how their past work has now manifested into unforeseen millions of dollars.

Doing the right thing would just too complicated and, besides, all the creators signed those horrible contracts without a gun to their head back in the day. Because, you know, it'd have been easy to refuse to sign away rights on everything, forego payment for that work and be blackballed by at least one publisher going forward. We've all done that countless times, amirite?

We have this lovely contradiction of folks who tend not to see the moral consequences of illegally downloading (I'm not trying to throw digital stones here; I don't justify my downloads), yet try to defend corporations trying to make and keep as much money as possible. It's confounding.

More personal to me is the current state of unions and how much the public is being turned against them.

I guess it shouldn't surprise me that folks rail against a democratically run & elected organization meant to protect their rights, seeing as how so many seem to hate our system of government these days. Any failings of either largely can be laid at the feet of the voters. We've all become an odd combination of busy and lazy where we make all of our judgments on a cursory knowledge of the subject, the hottest sound bites and then often fall short of actually voting.

But the latest round of attacks on unions is particularly galling.

Take the Employee Rights Act (http://employeerightsact.com/), for instance.

Nearly everything they suggest openly to the public for this legislation is already enacted on the union level. They complain about money spent on politics; you have to select to donate to the campaigning arm of a union or else none of your money is used in that manner. There are already laws against threatening workers to coerce their vote (though this is normally needed to keep businesses from intimidating their workers, not the other way around).

But the main point they really want is that will force unions to have to recertify every three years. This will start by effectively decertifying all unions as soon as the legislation passes: it forces a recertification vote at the start. Why would they do this? Because it would make nearly all unions be put up for a vote simultaneously. Gee, wouldn't a targeted ad campaign at that very moment (with a lot of lies and half truths that would have very little time to be corrected) be terribly effective at tearing down a good number of unions? And then the surviving unions would be available for targeting again in three years? A war of attrituion that corporations are in a great position to win.

This campaign is put together by Rick Berman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Berman), the man behind movements in past years to stop laws requiring restaurants to have non-smoking sections, to defend high fructose corn syrup from detractors and to keep the minimum wage from being increased.

People are being led to the slaughterhouse by corporations, while dragging unions with them. Corporations are arguing they have the interests of the worker more at heart than unions do...and folks are believing them. And they'll keep believing them, because they have far more interest in seeing if the fellas are still doing their "GTL" thing, who gets a rose and what emaciated idiot wins the next immunity challenge than they are at researching the political movements that might keep them from being able to afford their cable bill next month or their electric bill next year.

If you have the moment, you should check out REAL Employee Rights (https://www.facebook.com/realemployeerights) so you can learn more about the lies the PACs and legislators are trying to pass off to eat away at your rights. But most will never stop to question what $10 million ad campaigns from corporate interests tell them is the truth.

We live in interesting...nay, EXCITING...times for corporations.

Film/Cinema/Movies Since 1999

2012-02-21T11:48:00.000-05:00

Eric Barker

A friend of mine who regularly waxes philosophical in film discussions likes to ask “What, exactly, are people looking at when they watch a movie?” That is, he’s curious about where a person’s concentration lands, moment-to-moment, as a film is unfolding: what part of the theater or TV screen they are looking at now, and now, and now again, as cinema’s complex array of imagery and sound flows over, around and at them.

I like my friend’s question a lot, for several reasons. First, it says to me that he’s fully engaged himself when he watches movies; they aren’t just a distraction for him. Second, as a screenwriter and inveterate moviegoer myself, I’ve often wondered the same thing, and I know for a fact that the people who make the movies are in constant dialogue with the question. Filmmakers of all stripes, from producers to editors to script readers would love to know the definitive answer, or at least the median answer, to my friend’s musings, so they could create more sure things for the cineplex, even in the arena of so-called independent film. Making a movie is an expensive proposition, period. Any clue about how it might be made more profitable, or at the very least less risky, would be greatly appreciated.

But for my friend and me, the curiosity is less mercenary (most days): in retrospect I can always tell you where my mind was focused during a particular movie, or during the most memorable scenes; I know how a particular film made me think or feel as I was watching it, and after. But I don’t know how it affected the woman or man sitting ten rows back, or the couple seeing it for the first time in their living room a few months later, their kids finally tucked in and just a couple of hours, if that, to relax.

I wonder about these things because, often when I talk to people about a given movie, it feels as if they didn’t see the same one I did, especially if we disagree. This is a sensation I’m sure everyone has had. People whose opinions baffle me no doubt feel the same way about my likes and dislikes – although they often frame it differently, as when they insist that I didn’t get what a film was really doing or “saying” – and in a very real sense we’re all correct: They didn’t see the same movie as me, nor did I see the same one as them. Taken frame-by-frame, the film itself doesn’t change, it is what it is. But as viewers we change the film as we are watching it, and in our memories of it afterward, and we change it again with every subsequent viewing.

This is why we may never come up with the foolproof Movie Consciousness Algorithm. People are free to absorb movies in their own way, scanning images big and small according to their personal customs and belief systems, processing dialogue and action in the privacy of their own minds, drawing a dozen inferences per minute and more, all of it based not just on what the film is presenting, but on their own life experience – personal memory, specialized knowledge, unavoidable feelings about certain subjects, willingness to indulge sentiment and when – and their own impressions of genre conventions, acting styles, and human behavior.

So: I’ve become more and more reluctant as I get older to declare that film A or B or C is “the best” of its year, or the last decade, or the last decade-and-a-third. I will declare that I believe movies are better than ever, especially if we look beyond the seasonal cycles of hype, which let’s face it have always been there and always will be. In the last decade the medium itself has morphed almost completely from film to digital, and though there are still holdouts resistant to that change, new technology has made the cinema a more malleable art form than its founders ever dreamed it could be. Meanwhile, film storytelling is more sophisticated than ever, with more stylistic variety; the ghetto genres of my 1960s youth have gone mainstream (while some others, alas, have played themselves out); the art of acting is more psychologically acute, more subtle than ever in its 2,500 year history; and at last the documentary has surged into popular awareness as a form of art and entertainment equal to the fiction film.

Rather than a single giant annotated list of what I think has been the best of film/cinema/ movies since 1999, I’m offering up several different categories of exceptional/provocative/ great films of recent times, which I hope reflect what most of us have gone through, cinematically speaking, since the days when Bill Clinton was acquitted of all charges by the Senate, Stanley Kubrick died, DVDs took over the home video market, and we learned the words al-Qaeda, improvised explosive device, Facebook, Twitter and credit default swap.

I don’t mind saying that some of the films listed below provide better experiences than others, depending upon your ‘druthers, but the most any critic or commentator can really hope for is to simply be honest about which films moved him/her, which ones didn’t, and to be clear in both cases about why.

You’ll find eight lists below. For easy perusal they are, in order:

10 Highly Influential Films/Cinema/Movies, 1999-2011

12 Great Cinematic Experiences in English, 1999-2011

10 Great Cinematic Experiences in Languages Other Than English, 1999-2011

10 Exceptional Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movies, 1999-2011

10 Exceptional Mystery/Suspense Thrillers, 1999-2011

13 of My Favorite Little-Seen Movies, 1999-2011

20 Great Performances, 1999-2011

10 Highly Recommended Documentaries, 1999-2011

10 Highly Influential Film/Cinema/Movies, 1999-2011

Not necessarily films that were great, or even particularly good, but films that shifted the multimedia infrastructure here or there, frequently giving viewers something they didn’t know they wanted, movies that influenced everyone in the culture. Ranked chronologically.

The Matrix (1999), The Wachowski Brothers (Andy, and Larry, who has since become Lana).

A wildly entertaining, R-rated sleeper hit that made William Gibson’s musings on cyberspace palatable for a mass audience (without crediting him), permanently altering expectations for the tone and texture of sci-fi movies. Henceforth, the cinema of the fantastic had to be darkly baroque in design, crammed with aphorism and surreal on the plane of Dalí and Magritte. Though the sequels to The Matrix were markedly inferior, nothing could diminish its initial impact on the audience and filmmakers, like an 18-wheeler running a red light at rush hour. It then became the first smash hit on DVD, bringing the new home technology’s price point into affordable range and transforming video forever.

The Blair Witch Project (1999), Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez

Mostly a shaggy dog story, but its clever economy, nausea-inducing camerawork and a shrewdly mounted Internet campaign inspired a whole generation of people to believe it was possible to make a great living as an indie filmmaker. It isn’t, but there was nevertheless no better advertisement for the democratization of filmmaking tools in the 21st Century.

Memento (2000), Christopher Nolan

Now this is non-linear storytelling, owing more to Pinter than Tarantino. Not just a gimmick, Nolan’s breakout indie hit draws the viewer inside the disjointed consciousness of a man with no short term memory, his fear, confusion, ingenuity and desperation, ultimately showing how closely human morality is linked with our understanding of the past. As if that weren’t enough, Nolan would soon parlay his modest success here into the kind of Hollywood career that all indie filmmakers secretly dream about.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring / The Two Towers / The Return of the King (2001-3), Peter Jackson

The epic film of our time, from the best-selling novel of the 20th century. Yes, I said film, because like its source material, it’s a single story broken into three parts for 1) marketing reasons, and 2) its exceptional length. Jackson’s New Zealand companies Weta Workshop and Weta Digital permanently raised the bar on every known technique of filmmaking, not to mention demonstrating how far movies can really go in creating a believable, unforgettable world of the imagination. The final chapter has too many climaxes, and some of Jackson’s flourishes throughout are inspired more by his Bad Taste days than Tolkien, but LOTR remains one of the extraordinary film achievements of the last decade.

Avatar (2009), James Cameron

As we all know, the film that made Hollywood think 3-D was coming back, and I have to admit it has hung around longer than expected, or at any rate, longer than the last time it was revived. Avatar itself is ruthlessly derivative of 60s print science fiction, as innocent of its clichés and sources as The Matrix was ironic and transformative, but it is astonishingly beautiful to look at for two and three-quarter hours. The top box office attraction of the 2000s.

Also worth mentioning:

Fight Club (1999), David Fincher: a brilliant satire of contemporary manhood that no one “got” until it was a hit in Europe; anarchic and just plain dangerous.

Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi; 2001), Hayao Miyazaki: One of the most beautiful animated films of all-time, it allowed even Pixar to raise their game.

Bowling for Columbine (2002), Michael Moore: The documentary form finally hit a nerve, while showing that, ultimately, it ain’t about the objectivity, it’s about how you say whatever it is you’ve got to say.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Quentin Tarantino: The medium at last becomes the message, a triumph of cinematic formalism and style as content. [watch a scene from movieclips.com: "Your Mother Had It Coming"; violent R-rated content requires login, but they get the aspect ratio right so...]

The Dark Knight (2008), Christopher Nolan: see Great Cinematic Experiences in English below.

12 Great Cinematic Experiences in English, 1999-2011

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Joel Coen (and Ethan Coen, uncredited)

The Coen Brothers’ most extraordinary comedy, happily riffing on the modernist conceit of retelling ancient literature in 20th century garb, and all the while steering George Clooney into a super-decade as a thoughtful, A-list movie star. Ostensibly we’re retracing the plot of Homer’s Odyssey as a journey through the Depression Era South, but with copious references to the music, film and culture of the time, including Robert Johnson and the Crossroads, Preston Sturges, the Bible and the Ku Klux Klan. Not as intricate with cross-references and suggestion as Joyce, but only because it’s relatively short by comparison. Never mind all that: it’s damned funny whether you spot the references or not, with humor and wit that sticks to your ribs.

Mulholland Dr. (2001), David Lynch

Originally meant to be the pilot for a Twin Peaks-style TV series, Mulholland Dr. was rethought by its creator until it became a jaw-dropping excursion through the twilight zone between fantasy and reality, a.k.a. Los Angeles. Like the Coen Brothers’ film above, it teems with suggestion and allusion, layers of possible meaning in every spoken word, and enough disturbing Lynchian atmosphere for a whole decade of films noir. The movie, you may remember, that gave us Naomi Watts, plus the infinitely strange and wonderful Club Silencio sequence that divides the two worlds of the film – one of them a dream of the other.

Brokeback Mountain (2005), Ang Lee

The media called it a “Gay Western” out of convenience, because things have to be pigeonholed, don’t they? And supporters used that phrase, generally, as a shallow critique of a great American art form, but let that go. Brokeback Mountain itself is apolitical, a blank slate for the viewer’s own projections, the most profound and shattering love story of our time. In future decades, its controversy will wane and viewers will wonder what all of the hand-wringing was about, but they’ll appreciate Ang Lee’s beautifully evocative imagery and the wrenching tragedy of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist who, like all the great lovers of literature and film, were born into an ignorant and repressive world.

There Will Be Blood (2007), Paul Thomas Anderson

A masterpiece by the most original American filmmaker of his generation, and an unsparing journey into the dark soul of human ambition. The peerless Daniel Day-Lewis creates an historic personification of evil (for the movies) in the film’s central character, Daniel Plainview, whose primary bargain with the devil is simply accepting the worst in himself whenever necessary. Because of this, he believes everyone else is just as spiritually and ethically empty as he is, allowing him to crush any object of affection or trust the moment they appear. At the time of the film’s release I wrote, “There Will Be Blood plots the horrifying character arc of a man rising from nothing to the top of the heap, acquiring responsibilities along the way and then, once he has reached the summit, ridding himself of those responsibilities one by one until the film’s last, excruciatingly funny line, ‘I’m finished.’” My vote for film the decade.

The Dark Knight (2008), Christopher Nolan

The apotheosis of the comic book adaptation, wrenching a new sub-genre of the blockbuster from the hands of adolescents and elevating fantasy to startling drama. There’s still a ways to go, as they say: Batman and his troubles may never attain the heights of Oedipus Rex, or Paddy Chayefsky, but then again, Heath Ledger’s DC-inspired Joker out-Marvels Marvel, and every other performance in the genre, for a three-dimensional portrait of evil, overflowing with anguish, self-absorption and misanthropy. On top of that, an exemplary action-suspenser that should be the gold standard for many years, though it probably won’t be.

The Social Network (2010), David Fincher

What used to be known as the Eternal Verities make a forceful comeback in a most unlikely place, the contemporary story of a Web site that changed human interaction almost overnight. Let others fret about so-called accuracy, which is always in the mind of the beholder, and anyway one of this film’s central themes; The Social Network is drama in the grand tradition, unfolding a tale of class, ambition, greed, the bond of friendship and its subsequent betrayal, with dazzling portraits of a group of 20-somethings who reached for the moon and surprised themselves most of all. [Great moment @ movieclips.com: Zuckerberg Throws Down ]

The Tree of Life (2011), Terrence Malick

Pretentious it may very well be, which is what its critics chiefly assert, but then, so were Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in their day. Malick’s long-gestating, eminently ambitious rumination on what it means to be born in this universe at least addresses an issue from which lesser filmmakers shy away, defeated before they begin, and he attempts to do so with cinema – with imagery – instead of merely adding to the ocean of words we’ve had on the subject since words were invented. I believe the film is a great success, and not just because it took giant balls to make; others disagree. But really, it’s far too soon to tell.

Also very much worth the mention:

American Beauty (1999), Sam Mendes: gorgeously photographed by the legendary Conrad Hall, a multilayered satirical drama about real suburban life.

Lost in Translation (2003), Sofia Coppola: deeply influenced by classic European cinema, a delicate confection about cross-generational loneliness. ["The Most Delightful People You'll Ever Meet" @Movieclips.com]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Michel Gondry: The most accessible tale by postmodernist screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, an exploration of dream states and true love with a marvelous cast.

No Country for Old Men (2007), Joel and Ethan Coen: A darker-than-dark adaptation of Cormac McCarthy, and the greatest, most horrifying, deconstruction of thriller motifs since The Grifters.

The Wrestler (2008), Darren Aronofsky: Not just Mickey Rourke’s masterpiece but the beautifully measured, insightful journey of a man learning to accept himself and his destiny.

10 Great Cinematic Experiences in Languages Other Than English,

1999-2011

Talk to Her (Hable con ella; 2002, Spain), Pedro Almodóvar

Almodóvar’s best film to date is a bold, unflinching comedy about the strange friendship between two men, each of whom is devoted to a woman who happens to be in a coma. With his typical insight into the extremes of human behavior, Almodóvar goes further than perhaps any filmmaker of our time in portraying the male psyche in love and lust, tenderness and rage, without judgment or apology.

City of God (Cidade de Deus; 2003, Brazil-France), Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund

Frenetic and shocking, City of God recalls Luis Buñuel’s lyrical 1950 film Los Olvidados (The Forgotten Ones) in its clear-eyed portrayal of the life led by children in a crime-ridden slum, but this is the uncensored version Buñuel could never have made. Covering the rise and fall of several families during the brief reign of a psychotic young drug lord, it’s somehow more visceral and disturbing than the typical gangster film, perhaps because we expect adults to behave badly and even kid ourselves that murder is an acquired skill. But that isn’t always so. [Watch The Story of Li'l Ze @Movieclips.com; violent R-rated content requires login]

Downfall (Der Untergang; 2004, Germany), Oliver Hirschbiegel

Inspired by the memoirs of Traudl Junge, who was a personal secretary to Adolph Hitler, Der Untergang is the most compelling fictionalized portrait of the German Chancellor ever made, a must-see drama of life in the Führerbunker during the last few months of the war in Europe. The great German actor Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire) becomes Hitler before our eyes, nailing his peculiar Austrian accent (I’m told) and humanizing history’s most monstrous shadow, not by glorifying the madman but by showing all of his sides, the soft spoken charmer as well as the explosive demagogue.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 septamâni si 2 zile; Romania-Belgium, 2007), Cristian Mungiu

Like all great films with a simple structure and minimalist style, the plainness of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is deceptive, hiding great depths that may sneak up on the viewer only after fade out. The story of a young woman who helps a friend to get a forbidden abortion in the days of Communist Romania, the action centers on the obstacles that the two friends face during a two day period at a shady hotel while the protagonist tries to maintain her family relationships in the outside world. The title refers to the length of her friend's pregnancy.

Pan’s Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno; 2006, Spain-Mexico), Guillermo del Toro

A landmark fantasy film, as rich and densely layered as a novel, about a young girl living under the fascist regime of 1944 Spain who discovers a possible escape from her cruel, inhuman stepfather: a labyrinth leading to the underworld. As is del Toro’s wont when left to his own devices, the film plumbs the deep connections underlying childhood, politics and the horror genre, while employing state of the art movie magic to create a wholly believable, often terrifying alternate reality. Far beyond most practitioners of horror, del Toro draws on all the storytelling arts to give us something more than a few pleasurable gut reactions, lifting his tale into the realm of tragedy, which is where all the great tales of the genre reside. The ones I know, anyway.

Also worth mentioning:

Amores perros (2000, Mexico), Alejandro González Iñárritu: A beautifully made international hit, challenging our notions of time and fate, which weaves together three separate love stories connected by a terrible car crash.

Nowhere in Africa (Nirgendwo in Afrika; 2001, Germany), Caroline Link: This story of a German Jewish family taking refuge in Kenya during WWII pulls off the magic trick of being both unsentimental and deeply moving.

The Best of Youth (La meglio gioventù; 2003, Italy) Marco Tullio Giordana: Wonderful, subtle portrait of recent Italian history (since 1960) through the eyes of two brothers, one a revolutionary doctor, the other a tough police detective suffering from depression.

The Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de motocicleta; 2004, Argentina-USA-Chile-Peru), Walter Salles: A great film, adapted from Che Guevara’s memoir, chronicling a life-changing trip across South America during his youth. A must-see.

The White Ribbon (Das weiße Band – Eine deutsche Kindergeschicte; 2009, Germany-Austria-France-Italy) Michael Haneke: As always with this director, an icy disapproval of the human race permeates. A dramatization of how terrorism initially takes root in daily life – in this case, a small German village on the eve of world war.

10 Exceptional Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movies, 1999-2011

I was weaned on sci-fi/fantasy movies, the youngest of genres and one that has been slower than others in adopting the forms and ideas of its print sources. But film Sci-Fi/Fantasy has gotten smarter since ’99 and The Matrix, thanks in part to more discerning audiences, in part to a new generation of moviemakers who believe, at last, that it can be about more than just BEMs (bug-eyed monsters), scheming wizards, and Joseph Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces. It can in fact wrap itself around any other genre and make us see reality anew, while still entertaining our socks off.

28 Days Later (2002), Danny Boyle

The man who gave us the indelible Trainspotting back in the mid-nineties turned to edge-of-your-seat horror with this bedtime story about survivors of a plague that, essentially, turns people into zombies on amphetamines. There’s no running and stumbling away from these monsters. But the film’s substance emerges from its harrowing portrait of the evil that men get up to when forming a new society, and it ain’t pretty.

Children of Men (2006), Alfonso Cuarón

Cuarón (Y tú mama también) also imagines a near-future world wracked by plague and social collapse, but his film’s epidemic renders humanity infertile, save for one woman who must be saved at all costs. Proving that it’s not the story you tell but how you tell it, Cuarón relies on minimal visual effects and virtuoso camerawork to fashion a sci-fi chase thriller which roams across an utterly believable, devastated world in search of new life. [Check out astonishing animatronic baby in "It's a Girl" @Movieclips.com; childbirth and language requires login]

Star Trek (2009), J.J. Abrams

The hypercreative Abrams boldly (yes, boldly) reimagines the most beloved and contentious sci-fi franchise in media history, and if you’re not on board, well, the old stuff will always be there for you. Uproarious, audacious and perfectly cast, Abrams’ Star Trek jumps headlong into an alternative history for Kirk, Spock, et al, giving us the chance to meet the characters as if for the first time and all the while playing expertly with the standard tropes and themes of Gene Roddenberry’s familiar universe. It’s the reboot of the decade, if you ask me, because it really came out of nowhere, defying every known expectation, good and/or bad.

Inception (2010), Christopher Nolan

A genre-bending, Hitchcockian chase thriller using the very structure of consciousness as its Mount Rushmore. Some folks found it a little too cerebral for their taste, but it’s really not that hard to follow once you understand Nolan is juggling parallel actions happening in different time frames, while the film’s team of experts moves deeper into a man’s unconscious mind. Okay, I admit it: potentially exhausting. But if you don’t mind paying a little attention during an action movie, it’s engrossing and provocative, like all of Nolan’s work, and even if you do mind, the eye candy is mind blowing.

Midnight in Paris (2011), Woody Allen

Woody’s first real foray into fantasy since the 90s may seem like a featherweight entry compared to other films I’ve listed here, but in spite of its seeming ethereality Midnight in Paris is a lovely rumination on the mystery of a great city, the nature of creativity, and the downside of nostalgia, transporting its wistful 21st century protagonist back to the storied Paris of the 1920s. While he’s at it, Woody also pokes good fun at the Lost Generation, which created one of the most influential literary movements in history, and teases our culture’s fascination with a) celebrity and b) romance. His finest comedy since Bullets Over Broadway. [Just a taste of Owen Wilson Meets Hemingway @Movieclips.com]

also worth mentioning:

Minority Report (2002), Steven Spielberg: An action-packed paranoid journey through a near future where the state can arrest you just for thinking about murder.

King Kong (2005), Peter Jackson: The remake many of us wanted, gloriously over the top perhaps, but a labor of love nonetheless, emphasizing a giant ape with a multidimensional personality.

WALL-E (2008), Andrew Stanton: One of many superb Pixar films of the last decade, it begins as an extraordinarily affecting silent movie and ends in knee-slapping satire of consumer culture on board a generation starship.

District 9 (2009), Neill Blomkamp: An excellent allegory of human injustice against the Other, using Apartheid as its starting point. Does a wonderful job of slowly-but-surely making its fearsome aliens sympathetic.

Moon (2009), Duncan Jones: Essentially a one man show, with the great Sam Rockwell manning a lunar outpost, appearing to crack-up as his tour of duty expires. Terrific world building on a small budget.

10 Exceptional Mystery/Suspense Thrillers, 1999-2011

Another genre on which I was raised, and for which I maintain an intense interest. Sometimes confused with straight drama or comedy because its concerns overlap, the key elements of the Mystery/Suspense rubric seem to be intricate plotting, confused protagonists whose pasts are either catching up with them or at least haunting them, and fierce action motivated by the story (that is, lasting no longer than necessary). Within these limits, there remains a world of good moviemaking to fill your Saturday nights.

The Bourne Identity (2002), Doug Liman

Halfway through watching this high speed roller coaster adaptation of Robert Ludlum, I thought it was the best Bond movie in four decades, meaning that it captured the sheer storytelling thrill which made the earliest Bonds a success. Later on, Paul Greengrass, Mr. Shakycam himself, would take over directing the Bourne sequels while Liman merely produced, spawning the usual unfortunate imitators, but here at its beginning the series is lean, mean, sensuous entertainment which stays within the realm of physics, and a sensational thriller that bears repeated viewing. [One of the quieter moments, "Why Would I Know That?" @Movieclips.com]

Oldboy (Oldeuboi; 2003, South Korea), Park Chan-wook

Extremely influential on both sides of the Pacific, based on a Japanese Manga, Oldboy is no-holds barred Asian revenge opera (which I personally think is a close relative of Greek tragedy), blood-drenched and pervaded with gloom. The quest of a man named Oh Dae-su to discover why he has been imprisoned for 15 years, the film swerves through several disturbing twists and revelations on its way to a body-strewn climax. This sort of heightened crime drama began with John Woo’s Hong Kong epics in the late 80s and influenced many filmmakers, but Park Chan-wook has given it a stylishness and depth few imitators can match.

Match Point (2005), Woody Allen

Just when reviewers and audiences had written him off, Woody upended all expectations with this unblinking tribute to Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, via James M. Cain and then set in Britain, the chilling tale of a social climbing tennis pro who plots to kill his needy mistress when she threatens his marriage to an heiress. Like Crimes and Misdemeanors but without the parallel comic plot, Match Point reveals the real Woody: a stone cold misanthrope who wishes human beings were better than they are but who knows that, alas, they’re not.

Munich (2005), Steven Spielberg

Spielberg’s best film of the 2000s is a post-9/11 study of the toll which retaliatory vengeance takes on the purest hearts. Stripped of Bond-style glamour and employing the matter-of-fact realpolitik of the Middle East in the 1970s (and maybe now, too), Munich is about various attempts by the Mossad to assassinate those responsible for the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Mostly seen through the eyes of the fictional team leader Avner, Spielberg emphasizes not only the difficulty of bringing off each killing, in some of the best set pieces of his career, but the crushing monotony and emptiness that sets in when good people become warriors for extended periods of time. Vastly underrated in the U.S., a popular hit overseas.

The Departed (2006), Martin Scorsese

A splashy, brutal epic of crime and corruption in America filled with non-stop plot twists, breathless suspense and great acting from an ensemble cast of three generations of movie stars (including a very un-Bourne-like Matt Damon), it’s Scorsese’s most entertaining film since Goodfellas. Paced like a runaway train, The Departed stuffs more narrative juice into its two-and-a-half hours of hopeless moral labyrinth than a dozen other crime movies.

also worth mentioning:

The Insider (1999), Michael Mann: Riveting true story of Jeffrey Wigand, a chemist who blew the whistle on the tobacco industry. Unremittingly tense, superbly acted by Russell Crowe and Al Pacino.

U-571 (2000), Jonathan Mostow: Everything a WWII submarine adventure should be, a bald-faced edge-of-your-seater by a talented director, generously mixing fact, fiction and suspense. [Eavesdrop on Tyler's Life or Death Strategy @Movieclips.com]

Gosford Park (2001), Robert Altman: The final masterwork of a great director, a sumptuous blend of Altman’s “Life is a Carnival” vision with an upstairs/downstairs murder mystery set in a 1930s English country house.

A History of Violence (2005), David Cronenberg: A master of suggestive style invokes an implacable minimalism for this straightforward drama of a former mobster confronted by enemies from his past, including his sinister, heartless brother. Based on a graphic novel.

The Ghost Writer (2010), Roman Polanski: The old Roman resurfaced with a vengeance for this creepy, uneasy thriller about the second ghost writer assigned to write the memoirs of a Tony Blair-like figure, after the first dies in a *cough* accident. Steeped in post-9/11 politics everyone wants to forget.

13 of My Favorite Little-Seen Movies, 1999-2011

You Can Count on Me (2000), Kenneth Lonergan: Exquisitely written tale of a harried single mother (Laura Linney) dealing with her bad-penny brother (Mark Ruffalo) on top of everything else. Casually insightful, one of many, many fine performances by Linney in the past 13 years.

The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), Joel and Ethan Coen: Willfully lackadaisical film noir tribute (in gorgeous black-and-white by the great cinematographer Roger Deakins), mixing 1950s barbershop techniques, adultery, murder, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. For Coen fans, much more than meets the eye.

Far from Heaven (2002), Todd Haynes: A high point of the postmodernist aesthetic by a great practitioner, exploring the institutional racism and homophobia of 1950s America through the lens of Douglas Sirk’s melodramatic films from the same period, which often tackled the same themes. Includes yet another criminally overlooked performance by Dennis Quaid. [The 50s medical view of sexual orientation is outlined in "I Can't Let This Thing Destroy My Life" @Movieclips.com]

The Quiet American (2002), Phillip Noyce: Perhaps the best Graham Greene adaptation ever; the deadly subtleties of romantic and political jealousy in 1955 Vietnam, East not only meeting West, but the West fighting with itself. Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser at their best.

Matchstick Men (2003), Ridley Scott: First-rate performances enhance a very un-Ridley-like character study of a con man whose long lost daughter shows up out of the blue, begging to learn the craft. The kind of film Nick Cage should do all the time; Ridley, too, for that matter.

Cinderella Man (2005), Ron Howard: Highly fictionalized portrait of boxer Jim Braddock (Russell Crowe), whose comeback from hard times inspired millions during the Great Depression. Superb recreation of the era, a beautifully done, old fashioned movie-movie.

The Family Stone (2005), Thomas Bezucha: I’m not in the habit of recommending holiday-themed romcoms, but this one is extremely insightful about families and outsiders, often in uncomfortable ways, which is why it received mixed reviews.

The Squid and the Whale (2005), Noah Baumbach: One of the best indie films of the 2000s, very close to being a masterpiece if it isn’t already there, uncovering the private war of divorce in an upper middle class family of the 1980s. Exceptional on every level, but especially in the semi-autobiographical writing and the outstanding ensemble acting, particularly by Owen Kline (son of Kevin) as the confused baby of the family. [Watch Frank Decides What He Wants to Be @Movieclips.com; R-rated language requires login]

The Painted Veil (2006), John Curran: Edward Norton and Naomi Watts as W. Somerset Maugham’s warring newlyweds, discovering themselves and each other in a remote area of pre-revolutionary China. Fans of the novel may balk at changes, but this is a wonderful film about how love – sometimes – happens.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), Andrew Dominik: Great adaptation of Ron Hansen’s 1983 novel about the notorious outlaw’s final years, underlining the sad allure of fame in American life, even back in the 1800s. Scrupulously realistic and perceptive; more fine photography by Roger Deakins; brilliant cast.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Tim Burton: A long simmering labor of love by the director and Johnny Depp, bringing Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 Grand Guignol musical to the screen with all its mad, operatic, horrific force intact. Not for the faint of heart.

The Hurt Locker (2008), Kathryn Bigelow: An apolitical, episodic war film without a moral, mostly focused on the leader of a bomb disposal unit who is addicted to conquering his own fear. No attempt is made to explain the title, but the film opens with a quote from a real war correspondent: “The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” [A probable clue to the title, "Stuff that Almost Killed Me" @Movieclips.com]

The Visitor (2008), Thomas McCarthy: Terrific indie drama by the director of The Station Agent (also worth seeing) about a shy professor who, purely by accident, finds himself befriending a sweet Middle Eastern couple who are fighting deportation. A spare, emotional powerhouse.

20 Great Performances, 1999-2011

I’m in agreement with Meryl Streep, who recently told Morley Safer that she thinks the art and craft of film acting is better, overall, than it was in the classic studio era. As much as I love the old days and continue to study them in every aspect, as much as I believe we could not have the cinema we have if it hadn’t been for them, acting is indeed better than ever.

The downside is we are more likely to see a great performance than a great movie, but that’s in the nature of art, perhaps, and the requirements of a collaborative art form. Some of the best acting I saw in the last decade-and-a-third, ladies first:

The Women

Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry (1999): A groundbreaking performance in a groundbreaking film that helped bring to light the reality of the transgender life, including its mortal dangers. Swank, who had struggled primarily in minor TV roles for a decade before this opportunity, made real life murder victim Brandon Teena come alive in all of his charm, naiveté and tragic desire, epitomizing a new kind of protagonist for American drama.

Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr. (2001): Close to being the female performance of the decade; certainly no one else quite matched Watts’ additional achievement of turning her big break into a career as a bankable star. In any case it’s an actress’ dream to perfectly essay two roles in one film, demonstrating a complete mastery over her instrument, and after 15 years of obscurity in minor roles Watts pounced on Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn like a lioness on an antelope. She’s also been known to do a hilarious impersonation of David Lynch.

Amy Adams in Junebug (2005): It’s a gift to portray childlike innocence without allowing even a trace of self-consciousness to seep into the performance. The camera will reveal the lie, even if the performer doesn’t. Amy Adams’ portrayal of this film’s Ashley Johnsten, a struggling pregnant woman who’s never seen a day she couldn’t love, might lead us to suspect she couldn’t possibly be acting; no one is that delightful through pure artistry. If you have doubts, compare Adams’ turn in The Fighter (2010) as Charlene Fleming, a working class chick who’s been around the block several times.

Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia (2009): I’ve known detractors to remark that, with Marvelous Meryl, they too often see the wheels turning. I propose that this is baloney. Every film actor knows that the camera reveals what they’re thinking, or hiding, and uses it to shape their characters scene by scene. Meryl only lets us see what she wants us to see. In this masterfully pleasant comedy she pulls off one of her most convincing transformations in three decades on-screen, radiating the humor and humanity of Julia Child, the most famous American chef ever. [see "I'm Growing in Front of You" @Movieclips.com]

Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone (2010): As Ree, a backwoods girl fighting desperately to keep her family together in the midst of adult corruption and life-threatening violence, Ms. Lawrence disappears inside her character and dominates an experienced cast of character actors. She achieves this, as all great screen actors ultimately do, with her eyes, plus the body language of an old soul. I haven’t seen such a wise performance by a teenager since Leonardo DiCaprio in This Boy’s Life (1993).

Also worth mentioning:

Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary (2002)

Charlize Theron in Monster (2003)
Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose (2007; as Edith Piaf)
Penélope Cruz in Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008)
Mo’Nique in Precious (2009)

The Men

Paul Giamatti in American Splendor (2003), Sideways (2004), Cinderella Man (2005) and HBO’s John Adams (2008): Giamatti has become the great character actor of our time, turning his unusual appearance into its own virtue. With his stage-trained voice and ability to find the emotional center of seemingly any character, Giamatti creates neurotic artists, crafty fight managers and fiery political legends with equal plausibility, and all while adding an extra spotlight to the likes of Russell Crowe and Laura Linney. He doesn’t steal scenes, he enriches them.

Bruno Ganz in Downfall (2004): Many actors have tackled the portrayal of Adolph Hitler – he’s as irresistible to thespians as the Joker or Iago – but none have captured his brooding reality quite like Bruno Ganz in this career-capping tour de force. He is Der Führer whether he’s in a thundering rage, the part most actors look forward to, or more often, filling a room with quiet malevolence.

Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain (2005): You can see the wheels turning inside Ennis Del Mar from his first moment on screen, the subtle hints of a lifetime of emotional pain, and frustration and terror and overwhelming drives that he could never articulate even if he wanted to. The timbre of his voice reveals the profound self-consciousness of a man who must make the world believe he’s macho to the core, for to be anything else in his place and time is a death sentence and, unlike his lover, he knows it. [Heath as Ennis in "See You Around" @Movieclips.com; R-rated language requires login]

Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon (2008): Langella can’t help infusing his characters with great size and commanding presence, so he would seem to be an odd choice to portray the altogether average 37th POTUS, Richard M. Nixon. But Langella’s performance cuts through decades of parody and impersonation to make Nixon larger than life again, recreating his last public meltdown during a famous round of televised interviews. David Frost got Nixon to betray himself with the statement “I’m saying that when the President does it, it’s not illegal.” It was a moment that sank whatever credibility the former President may have had, but really, was he wrong? Has anything happened in the past decade to discredit ol’ Tricky Dick’s vision of the office?

Colin Firth in The King’s Speech (2010): Throughout his three decades on-screen, Firth has been most comfortable portraying emotionally stunted men who rarely triumph over their neuroses, so it was really no surprise that he was perfect for the role of Britain’s George VI, the man who never wanted to be king. Thanks to an exceptional script by David Seidler, Firth finds a brilliant showcase for his full range as an actor, not only making us feel the terror of an unwanted international spotlight, or the insurmountable burden of leading an entire nation, but doing so with vast wit, charm and intelligence (while his co-stars, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter, also score personal bests).

Also very much worth mentioning:

John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich (1999) and Ripley’s Game (2002)

Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood (2007)
Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler (2008)
Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network (2010)

10 Highly Recommended Documentaries, 1999-2011

In the last decade-and-a-third, the documentary has risen into the collective consciousness as a powerful art form all its own, and as a surprising vehicle for news reporting in an age when media conglomerates perpetually squash information and ideas that are counter to their interests. Or their owners’ interests. Ah, monopoly. Documentary filmmaking is the fastest growing cinematic genre, and unlike any other time in film history, it’s suddenly possible to make a documentary and get it seen. Any kid with a few bucks and a camera can get a documentary made. Meanwhile, certified masters are also turning to the form as a parallel means of expression.

9/11 (2002), Jules and Gédéon Naudet, and James Hanlon

I thought I was indifferent to any further retelling of what happened on September 11, 2001 until I saw this riveting, horrifying, unforgettable chronicle of how the day unfolded for the FDNY’s Engine 7/Ladder 1, the first responders who arrived at the World Trade Center just minutes after the first plane hit the North Tower. Originally meant to be the record of a rookie fireman’s first weeks on the job, the filmmakers suddenly found themselves more than mere witnesses to history; they became unwilling participants in a real life disaster. This is what it’s like. Easily one of the greatest documentaries ever made, eyewitness accounts do not come any more immediate or harrowing. First broadcast on CBS in 2002, it was updated and re-broadcast this past year as 9/11: Ten Years Later, adding new interviews with the remaining survivors.

Grizzly Man (2005), Werner Herzog

A breathtaking chronicle of ordinary madness by a filmmaker who has been known to flirt with the edge of sanity himself, Grizzly Man unfolds the tragedy of Timothy Treadwell, an unemployed actor who loved bears so much he tried to become one of them and was killed and eaten by one in 2003. Using Treadwell’s own video journals, plus interviews with his family and associates, Herzog develops a fascinating picture of a man who lost touch with reality, and with the very Nature he thought he knew. A frank and unforgiving film you can’t stop watching.

An Inconvenient Truth (2007), Davis Guggenheim

Mostly a straight-on record of a presentation Gore has been giving about climate change for more than thirty years, so you’ll either love it or hate it depending on your willingness to believe in science or the unending benefits of petroleum. [A brief explanation of The Science of Global Warming @Movieclips.com]

Food, Inc. (2008), Robert Kenner

A dazzling work about the ruination of our food system over the last two decades through the overproduction of corn and the criminal abuse of livestock, chemicals and patent laws by the food industry. And it is an industry, every bit as dangerous to the environment and your well-being as Big Oil.

Inside Job (2010), Charles Ferguson

The origins of the Great Recession, including major players, and the complete failure of the current administration, or Congress, or you or me, to hold a single Wall Street pirate accountable. The film will not make you feel good, but you will understand what happened a whole lot better.

Also recommended:

Touching the Void (2003), Kevin Macdonald: Electrifying survival tale of mountain climbing in the Andes, with re-enactments narrated by the original participants.

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005), Martin Scorsese: The education of a musical legend, from his obscure origins to sixties superstardom.

Sicko (2007), Michael Moore: The provocateur’s best essay, a ruthless critique of the failed health care system.

Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), Alex Gibney: Using the case of a luckless Iraqi taxi driver who died in American custody as a starting point, a sickening journey through America’s not-so-secret torture program.

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008), Marina Zenovich: The vagaries of US justice, Southern California-style, plus modern trial by the media and the terrors of Polanski’s early life.

Sweaty B F’n Rocks Us

2012-02-21T11:00:00.012-05:00

Ryan Williams IS The Bass Geek. That's not any kind of insult; it's a well earned title. The man runs, wait for it, TheBassGeek.net and is considered an authority on the Indianapolis music scene by no less than CNN, who interviewed during the Super Bowl run-up. Aside from playing in a number of bands and authoring books on subjects like learning to play bass, digital music, and MySpace, our man in Fountain Square co-hosted the IndianapolisMusic.net podcast for years, may or not have been Sweaty B in seminal Indy-scene band No*Star, and worked with Troy, Russ, Li, Oseye, Jonathan and others in the day. Today, he looks back, and he just might f'n rock us.

My first (and probably only, that I can remember) contribution to Shotgun Reviews involved a review of D'Angelo at the Murat Theater, notable both for the stellar live band backing him and for the woman of ALL ages (yes, Grandma, you too) trying to rip off his leather pants and finally see little D'Angelo.

13 years later, it's just like old times. Shotgun Reviews is helping launch a webcomic about music in Indianapolis in the early 2000s, and D'Angelo is just NOW starting to play shows again. Those were some fierce women.

He totally doesn't know I'm running this. -- Troy

In the intervening years, I wrote a lot about local music and played a lot of music locally (and some elsewhere). Both Troy and I also left the hellhole where we worked and did some more meaningful and pleasurable things with our lives. So we've got that going for us. But it's the time for reminiscing, and that always involves weird stories that seem funny now, but may have taken a darker turn. So, I give you the story of this audition.

I'd just played a pickup rockabilly gig on a flatbed truck somewhere near Ravenswood for the 4th of July. I'm not saying I'll turn down a gig now, but I was new in town back then and certainly didn't have anything better to do, so my standards were ever so slightly lower.

That doesn't apply to the rockabilly gig, by the way, I'm just setting the stage.

A gentleman approaches me after said show is finished and wants to inquire about my bass-playing services. I get a time and place, agree to meet him there, and it all seems legit.

As legit as rehearsals in the back of formal wear shop could be, I suppose, but I didn't have to bring an amp. That's a bonus.

The shop is closed when I arrive, but the guy is waiting for me and lets me into the back room. Well, series of rooms. The front of the store belies the labyrinthine structure lying behind that nondescript door.

A narrow hallway splits off two ways, and the right leads to the rehearsal room. There's a set of drums, but no drummer. He's on his way, I'm told. In the meantime, I'm invited to look at the art in the rehearsal room.

Can you call stick figures art? I suppose the many, many illustrated stick figures tried to prove this fact through repetition, but I'm not sure it worked. And the slogans under the stick figures (such as "You Get the Pick, I'll Get The Shovel") didn't help much, either.

Having taken this in, we go look at the other rooms. The room on the left of the split holds . . . a wrestling ring. Not full-size, mind you, but certainly the quality of what you might see in a county fair or something. And in the middle of the wrestling ring? A tea set. Four chairs, dainty table, full service, the works. I'm sure this didn't fit into the first blood/strap match framework I was used to, but I didn't inquire further.

A door in this room led to bunks. The guy explained that this is where he was staying while he worked out some . . . unpleasant legal maters with his wife. His kids sometimes came over and stayed as well. Perhaps they enjoyed tea after working on their Scorpion Deathlocks.

Another door in this room led to a closet with the type of cosmic black-light scene you'd expect out of a Halloween haunted house, and it's presence in this place creeped me out. Especially when the guy tried to shut me in "for the full experience."

Did I mention that I haven't put my bass down yet? There was a scene in Spinal Tap where the manager lauded the benefits of holding a large, heavy slab of wood during negotiations, and that advice stuck with me. As much as I love my instruments, it was the only thing keeping that door as open as it could be.

The guy relented finally, and we moved back to the rehearsal room. The drummer's arrival signalled that this wasn't a fever dream, and we got the playing . . . what he called his songs. I'm wondering if CCR minded having their songs ripped off to recount a man's remembrances of past Cub Scout triumphs (seriously, that was the subject matter - frickin' badges!), but they probably had bigger things to argue about.

I excused myself after a few tunes and ran. Unfortunately, they would have to find another bassist.

Anyway, congrats to Shotgun Reviews and the continued success of all those involved. I'm glad we're no longer where we were.

5 Things That Will Never Go Out of Style in Pro Wrestling: #4 by The Russ

2012-02-21T09:01:00.020-05:00

#4: Weddings Gone Awry

Vickie Guerrero & Edge

Stephanie & Triple H II

Stephanie & Triple H I

Miss Hancock & David Flair

Miss Elizabeth & Macho Man

Paul “The Butcher” Vachon & Ophelia

unless you’re pretending to be gay:

Billy & Chuck

Four Ladies That Inspire SPARKSHOOTER

2012-02-20T23:45:00.000-05:00

Troy here. As you may know, my new webcomic with artist Sarah Vaughn, Sparkshooter, starts Wednesday, February 29th. It follows an Indianapolis band circa 2003 and how their new female lead singer turns them on their head. While much of the tale is rooted in and inspired by my own experiences working with bands, here are four ladies of music that I feel inside the story. They had crazy boys to deal with, too.

Debbie Harry of Blondie: I became aware of Blondie when I was six years old. Debbie may have accidentally triggered my puberty early.

Toni Halliday of Curve: Shawn Delaney, Todd Shoemaker, Kim Companik and I saw Curve open for The Jesus and Mary Chain in 1992. There's a couple of good stories there that a beer can buy you.

Margot Timmons of The Cowboy Junkies: My favorite female voice in music. One of the songs that Becky and I danced to at our wedding.

Shirley Manson of Garbage: Yeah, they're more than a little inspired by Curve. Still love this.

Who are your favorite female front-persons? You can't front on Janis, but she's not one I particularly connect to this story. Pat? Gwen? Belinda with an asterisk? Let's hear it.

Is it 1984 All Over Again? by The Rev. OJ Flow

2012-02-20T17:00:00.018-05:00

The Rev OJ Flow joined ShotgunReviews.com many moons ago and was one of the original members of Newsarama's Best Shots team. In addition to kicking in on Newsarama's Super-Articulate column to writing for outlets like Life During Wartime, The Rev has been a staunch supporter of all things Shotgun, including covering music and collectibles. Here he opines on the return of Van Halen.

While my first real Van Halen memory dates back to the late 1970s and hearing “Jamie’s Crying” on Dad’s car stereo in Dearborn, Michigan, by way of Detroit’s WRIF, my true passion for the band developed a few years later. If you ask me whether I’m a “Dave man” of a “Van Hagar guy,” I usually reply that I’m a “VAN HALEN guy.” What the brothers Eddie and Alex do is always the constant and the most irreplaceable. Among my peers, in 1984, Van Halen’s album of the same name was as much a staple in our day-to-day lives as Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Huey Lewis and the News’ Sports. Those albums dictated the way I and my fellow sixth graders walked, talked and dressed.

Fast forward to the first two months of 2012. Michael Jackson is now almost two whole years removed from his mortal coil, and by the time he passed away in June of 2010, a whole generation or two were oblivious to the enormity of the pop megastar’s wattage, how guys wanted to be him and girls wanted to date him. By 2010, the frail single parent of three was a shell of his former self, never fully living down charges of sexually inappropriate behavior with children that never did stick to him in terms of criminal convictions. Any quirks that Jackson displayed back in 1984 were just that, quirks that the masses would gladly oblige a supremely talented singer and performer who’d charmed and dazzled audiences since his age was in the single digits. But for years before his death due to prescription drug abuse and living beyond his means, the quirks became more and more unsettling to any rational, albeit average, American not remotely immersed in global celebrity of Jackson’s level. While he was actually prepping a world tour that was supposed to re-light his star, no one knows how well it would have played and how long it would have lasted considering that he didn’t even survive the preproduction.

At least Huey Lewis’s story is anything but a precautionary tale. While the hits have been but a distant memory for going on three decades, I’ve personally been happy to see Huey Lewis on a couple of occasions already in 2012. Like it was the 1980s all over again, Lewis and his longtime backing band turned up in their native San Francisco to sing the National Anthem at the 49ers’ first of two playoff games at Candlestick Park in January. And not long after that, Lewis was on hand, as he has been for years, actually, at Pebble Beach for the golf course’s annual pro-am event. Safe to say the roots rock and roll band’s most commercially successful days are behind them, but there is certainly nothing objectionable about their current musical trajectory, still touring and recording.

But returning to what actually brought me back here, courtesy of our host, Troy Brownfield. Of the three musical acts I cited dating back to 1984, Van Halen has undeniably returned with a vengeance and is in prime position to dominate the rock and roll landscape, this year and quite possibly beyond. 2011 saw a lot of hints, rumors and allegations that we’d hear from this band in a big way, but considering the fact that the band’s last full-length album dropped in 1997 (and the less said about Van Halen III, the better), most fans were in “I’ll believe it when I see it” mode. Never mind the questions of what particular “version” of this band could we expect. Since the ill-fated Gary Cherone era came and went after one and only one CD, Eddie and Alex Van Halen have rotated through their singers and bass-players like so many packs of cigarettes. We may never know what original bassist Michael Anthony did to get on Eddie’s bad side, but the fans are the only ones slighted less by his expulsion years ago. On that note, I’ve always enjoyed the fact that Anthony was the only original VH member to attend their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Sweet justice, indeed.

Then the day after Christmas of last year, a proverbial snowball was rolled down the mountain, and to date it’s done nothing short of become a full-blown avalanche. On December 26, 2011, an e-mail went out to all subscribers of the official Van Halen website showing new footage of the same band lineup that’s been together since 2007: David Lee Roth singing in front of Eddie and Alex, and on bass, Eddie’s 20-year-old son, Wolfgang. While the black and white footage was clearly new (weeks prior, publicity photos set the scene when it was announced that anything new from Van Halen was going to be released by Interscope Records after a decades-long relationship with Warner Bros. Records), the accompanying music was straight out of the last Diamond Dave era, 1984 (“Panama,” “Jump”). What followed since 2012 began has been nothing short of a tidal wave, even more remarkable considering the bands aversion to musical proficiency since the mid-90s. Even in this age of internet speed, it is still pretty unheard of to see a big musical act announce their reemergence with tour dates to boot, roll out a new single immediately after and release the full album less than a month later. Clearly Van Halen was busy as hell in 2011, but they were brilliant in keeping things under wraps and only going public in less than six weeks.

Lord knows that Van Halen can return to the music scene with David Lee Roth and be under no obligation to release new music. Acts like the Eagles, Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney do it all the time and all their fans do is clamor for the classics when they see them in concert. Van Halen did just fine on their reunion tour in 2007 without so much as a newly packaged greatest hits collection to satiate fans. But Van Halen went and did the unthinkable: they made an album that stands on its own and will likely be played over and over by fans for years to come. Maybe this is what they were referring to when they named their new release “A Different Kind of Truth”? Up front, I was wary of this new album from the onset, mainly because as great a band as Van Halen remains, they haven’t come up with a truly listenable complete piece of work since the early Nineties. There’s been some flashes here and there – even Van Halen III had some chunky riffs that I don’t mind hearing now. But even the most diehard fans could not be blamed for apprehension when the overall VH brand has been tarnished for so long. Go figure that the band goes and cranks out an album that, in its entirety is not like anything we’ve heard since, Women and Children First and Fair Warning.

It doesn’t take a scholar with a degree in musical theory to realize that a lot of this has to do with the fact that Van Halen opted to dust off a lot of material that went unused once they started recording for Warner Bros. I myself got a hold of what was called the “Gene Simmons Demos,” (1976) tracks that Van Halen laid down after Simmons “discovered” them and shopped around for a record deal. Other music was worked on later and didn’t make the cut in their earliest albums. It was excellent for this longtime fan to hear, and interesting to catch bits and pieces of riffs that ended up on their self-titled debut and subsequent LPs. Point blank, there was some great unused stuff, and the idea that any of it could go unused seemed insane. Plus, other than Eddie’s son, Wolfgang, these guys, all well in their 50s, have either laid down fresh instrumentals or doled out all-new lyrics. And let’s be honest, every worthwhile band leading up to the Beatles did similar things during their time. It’s a practice as old as rock and roll. Anyway, Eddie & Co. must’ve agreed, and it’s proven to be a splendid, inspired way to get back in the groove with David Lee Roth, for potentially a whole new audience as well.

I could pick out of a hat any one of the thirteen tracks (13?? Van Halen NEVER produced that many tracks for a full-length before!!) where it’d be appropriate to declare “Eddie wails!!” With all the negative press Eddie’s been more reliable for with failed stints in rehab, it’s heartening to hear the greatest guitarist of the last quarter century playing with such abandon while remaining technically sound (same can be said for his brother Alex, though he’s not been known for making headlines in general). Honestly, no matter what you think you know about Van Halen, “A Different Kind of Truth” is unquestionably the most unrelenting album they’ve ever produced, in any incarnation. There is literally no letup, no ballads, no poignant, pop-tinged moments where things are “taken down a notch.” From beginning to end, the stereo’s meant to be turned up full blast. And the band’s also gotten back to more economically paced running times on their songs. Five- to seven-minute songs have made way for four minutes and under, and it suits the material. I’ll let other fans with a more encyclopedic knowledge of the back story of each track dissect them and expand on the differences between old and new (go to Van Halen News Desk, really, for the best take -- http://www.vhnd.com/2012/02/07/van-halen-a-different-kind-of-truth-the-vhnd-review/). It’s a pretty damn good start to the new year, and if Van Halen’s not being mentioned positively and often in the general media’s “Best of 2012” recaps, it might mean that it’s 1985 all over again. That’s when Diamond Dave and his Van Halen colleagues first parted ways. Let’s hope the guys “stay frosty.”

Super 8: Recapturing Child-Like Joy by Erika D. Peterman

2012-02-20T16:00:00.012-05:00

Super 8
Rating: PG-13
Director: J.J. Abrams
Starring: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler
Grade: A

Between outrageous ticket prices and patrons who can’t stop texting/Tweeting/yapping for even two lousy seconds after the lights go down, I’ve often wondered whether it’s still possible to experience child-like joy at the movies. Then along came the wonderful J.J. Abrams-directed thriller "Super 8," which is now on DVD. Seeing on the big screen last summer was like time travel. Just seconds into this film, I could feel myself turning back into that 12-year-old girl who was watching "E.T." for the first time.

Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, "Super 8" is an obvious homage to his late ’70s and ’80s classic films. Though it’s been widely praised, some critics have called it an emotionally manipulative Spielberg knockoff. Well, duh. Expert emotional manipulation is one of Spielberg’s superpowers, and I wouldn’t have him any other way. Abrams proves to be an A+ student of Spielberg’s style, but "Super 8" stands firmly on its own. It’s a sentimental, affecting, and frequently frightening story with a geeky soul.

It’s 1979, and middle-schooler Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) has just buried his mother, who died on the job at the town steel plant. He’s got a distant relationship with his dad, Jackson (Kyle Chandler), a stoic deputy who isn’t thrilled about his son’s hobby. Joe’s been shooting a zombie movie with a pack of misfits, led by his hilariously loudmouthed friend, Charles (Riley Griffiths). He’s also got an ulterior motive, which is getting close to Alice, the guarded girl next door (Elle Fanning).

This was when a kid could get on a bike and disappear for hours, with no cell phone as a parental GPS, and inhabit a world free of supervision or adult micromanagement. Trust me when I say that "Super 8" nails the era, clothes, furniture, and all. Joe’s room is cluttered with Star Wars action figures and other period-appropriate tchotchkes. The movie is blissfully free of the hyper-intelligent, snarky banter that child actors trade in so many modern movies and TV shows.

While the young filmmakers shoot a night scene at the train station, there’s a devastating, metal-twisting crash that leaves hundreds of white, Rubik’s cube-like items on the scorched earth. Charles’ trusty camera is still rolling, and this is where "Super 8" takes a turn onto Oh, Snap! Boulevard. The kids are completely freaked out by the incident and its aftermath, but they can’t breathe a word to anyone. Even Joe is forbidden from telling his dad, who soon has the impossible task of reassuring the townsfolk as the disturbances escalate. It’s what we don’t see that scares us most, and I jumped in my seat more than once. Anyone can show a bloodbath, but for genuine chills, nothing beats a shadowy creature behind rustling tree branches.

The movie's real triumph, however, is in its endearing characters. Courtney, who I swear is channeling Henry Thomas from 1982, is teriffic as the vulnerable but spunky Joe. I loved his scenes with Fanning, who plays Alice with such quiet, convincing melancholy. Griffiths steals many a scene as a tyrannical film director-in-training, and the movie audience laughed every time he opened his mouth.

"Friday Night Lights" fans already know this, but Chandler should play everyone’s dad in everything. He’s completely believable as a man who’s grieving and overwhelmed, but will be damned if he lets anyone see it. Chandler’s weary, WTF? demeanor throughout "Super 8" reminded me very much of (Spielberg reference!) Roy Scheider’s Police Chief Brody in "Jaws."

I’m not going to give away the mystery of the white cubes or what dragged that poor, screaming sap through a convenience store window in the movie trailer. Cinematic things that go bump in the night are best experienced firsthand, and "Super 8" serves its fright with a nostalgic side of sweetness. Savor it, and make sure you watch the closing credits.

— Erika D. Peterman is co-founder of Girls-Gone-Geek.com and a member of the Best Shots team.

What It Feels Like For A Girl (In Comics) by Janelle Asselin

2012-02-20T14:00:00.031-05:00

Janelle Asselin pretty much rocks. Best Shots crew member and a co-host of Shots in the Dark, Janelle went on to be an Assistant Editor at Fangoria Comic, an Assistant then Associate Editor at DC Comics, and a Magazine Editor at Disney (for their Marvel kids' line). Troy and Matt swear that she's one of the best editors around, especially since she worked on "Short Straw". Janelle recently completed her Master's Thesis, which she'll soon be turning into a book. Her particular interest lies in the different ways that women participate in and are represented by the comic book industry.

What It Feels Like For A Girl (In Comics) by Janelle Asselin

Sarah Jaffe and Janelle Asselin, Chicago 2008. You're welcome.

Every person who loves comics has a different experience. We all have different opinions on where the value is in the industry – is it in the graphic novels that do well beyond our industry’s borders or is it in the superhero books the industry is known for? My favorite characters are not your favorite characters and if we were those kinds of people we’d probably fight about it on the internet (and maybe I’ve even done that in my younger days).

Within this geeky stew we call comics are the subset of geek ladies. We are probably rarely what you would expect. Stereotypes need not apply. We are young, old, curvy, thin, girly, tomboyish…you name it, you’ll find a geek gal like that. I think that’s easy for people to forget. Just like the men in the industry are not all like the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, neither are women in the industry exactly what you’d expect. And while the fight rages on for equality and acceptance for my gender in comics and beyond, we are also often blessed and cursed with experiences that male geeks will never encounter.

So here are some of my favorite and least favorite moments of being a geek woman, so that those of you who may never know what it’s like to be one can maybe spend a minute walking in my shoes. In part 2, you’ll get to hear from geek women all across the industry who wanted to share THEIR geek experiences with you (anonymously, no less, so expect some scandalous revelations. That’s probably not true, but who knows what will happen when it’s anonymous?!). Take a minute and keep an open mind.

· When I was 10, I went on vacation with my parents. I’d been reading comics I bought at gas stations and got for free at my local Pizza Hut (wooo X-Men Adventures!), but I’d never been in a comic shop. In the middle of the town we were visiting was a comic shop. I was SUPER excited. I went inside, and I looked around, and I even made eye contact with the guys working there, but no one said anything to me. They made frequent conversation with the four or so men in the store, though. All six of them spent at least a few seconds each staring intently at me, as if wondering what a 10-year-old girl was doing in that store. I browsed the racks, looking confused (frankly, I was – no one had really explained comic numbering and crossovers to me.) yet no one offered any help. I spent 20 minutes in there, laboring over what comics to buy. I finally picked out a Rogue miniseries, all of Maximum Carnage, and some pretty X-Men comics with holograms on the front (Fatal Attractions). By the time I exited the store, the only words that had been spoken to me were the total of my transaction. I was terrified of ever going into a comic shop again, because everyone there had made it quite clear I did not belong. I didn’t buy a comic again for 9 years.

· When I was 19, I was dating a fellow geek. We shared an interest in video games and genre fiction and he’d gotten me interested in anime. One day I apparently said five magical words: “I think comics are cool.” Within the week we’d gone to the comic shop and set up a pull list. I even tried those new-fangled manga things. The look in his eyes at those words had an implication—in the words of the immortal MJ: “Face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot.” This was my first taste of what being a unicorn was like. It was tempting for a long time to embrace that feeling (more on that in a second). Part of the struggle I’ve had as a geek gal is dealing with my own love of attention (yes, I admit that) versus knowing that being put on any sort of pedestal or being made into someone’s manic pixie dream girl is not actually of any value.

· Shortly after I got back into comics, I got sucked into the vortex known as Talk@Newsarama. The unicorn feeling grew and grew and grew, fed by the shock and awe demonstrated at me being a GIRL who actually wanted to talk about COMICS (and other geeky things). At the time, there were only three women active on the ‘Rama boards. We were all variously praised and insulted, people acted as if you had to “pick” one of us, and in general much of the time it seemed implied that we were all in competition. I’m not sure what for, honestly, because I certainly didn’t have a need for a harem of dudes and I don’t believe the other two women did either. It was my first experience with the world of comics beyond the friendly folks at my local comic shop, and it was definitely weird. What made it weirder was the implication (sometimes outright stated) from multiple corners that I was only “safe” from getting hit on because my significant other was also active on the boards. As if I was inviting that sort of thing simply by talking about comics or movies or music or whatever.

· Also around this time, I decided that perhaps I wanted to learn to draw things – in a manga style. (I can’t draw to save my life.) So, I went to the only resource I knew of for such a thing…my local comic shop. I asked the woman behind the counter for help in picking out some art books. She went over the pros and cons of a few different options with me, offered up her opinion, and left me feeling quite positive about the whole experience. I felt like this was a person who didn’t assume what I was interested in based on my gender or judge me for my lack of knowledge or the fact that I was only then branching out beyond superhero comics. And even better, she was another woman who was really into comics and she knew her shit. I didn’t realize at the time (again, because I was only just then branching out beyond super hero comics) that I’d just gotten art advice from a talented indie comics artist. (Thanks, if you’re reading!) And no, I still can’t draw to save my life. I might still have the drawing books, though.

· This might be my favorite anecdote about my time in comics. So I apologize if I go overboard in my enthusiasm for this one. One of my best friends is Sarah Jaffe, who some of you might know as the first woman on the Best Shots @ Newsarama team and others might know as a talented political journalist today. Sarah and I met after I became a member of the Best Shots team (Thanks, Troy!). At Wizard World Chicago 2008, we were lounging on a bed in my hotel room (this is not getting dirty - where else is there to sit in a hotel room?) and I was reading New York 4, which I had just purchased from Ryan Kelly. We took the above picture and then we hatched a plan. That plan was for a video podcast (to be hosted by Shotgun Reviews and as part of the Shots in the Dark family) called “Who’s In Bed With Sarah and Janelle?” The idea was an interview show where we talked to comics creators at conventions…in bed. But to make things totally ridiculous, instead of being sexy or cute or anything like that, we’d do said interviews in super conservative flannel PJs that totally covered us up and we’d make it clear this was not going to be flirty or sexy, it was going to be smart interviews with awesome creators. We’d draw people in by playing on the many conflicting views of women in comics – were they sexy booth babes who knew nothing about comics? Were they smart but unattractive geeks? Were they all super serious “feminazis” that hated superheroes? We wanted to show that like most women in comics, we were none of the stereotypes above – but thankyouverymuch for the hits. We talked to a handful of creators (male and female) that weekend, who all agreed to come on the show. Thanks to a grueling shooting schedule already in place for Shots in the Dark that weekend, we never shot even so much as one in-bed interview. And within two months, I was hired at DC and “Who’s In Bed With Sarah and Janelle?” had to be abandoned.

· Within my first month at DC, every single woman in DCU editorial asked me to go out to lunch individually AND in groups. As more women joined the department, we all welcomed them with open doors and more lunches. I suppose as the minority in the department we all opted to work together rather than fight it out alone or work at cross-purposes. It’s not that we all agree on everything. It’s that having a community of support is more important than the differences in how we view the world or the problems before us. I count every single one of them as a friend to this day even no longer being in the same office.

· A pretty well known male creator who I got along with very well once asked me on a visit to the office “do you read comics? I mean, like, really read comics, as in outside of work?” No, I moved across the country and accepted a fairly low-paying entry-level job in comics for funsies. I wonder how many of my male coworkers were ever asked if they “really” read comics? My guess is zero.

· A few months ago I went into a comic shop with my boyfriend for a casual browse after dinner. We separated once we were in the store, as we tend to do. As I was browsing the aisles, a guy walked up to me and stood quite close, looming over me with his 6’4”-ish frame. “You read comics?” he asked. “Yep,” I replied, clearly not looking for a conversation. “Cool. What sort of stuff do you like?” “Um, just a little of everything…” “Awesome. I really like the Batman books, you should check out Batman and Robin, it’s that one there.” “Ha-HA…great! Thanks for the tip!” I edged slowly away from him and fled to my boyfriend’s side. And no, the dude did not work at the shop and yes, he was standing closer than most people do in polite conversation.

· Some friends and I started a tradition a couple of months ago. Basically, it’s a recurring sleepover with geek girls. We gather at one of our apartments with booze and snacks in hand, and we do geeky and/or girly things. At the first such event, we watched Anne of Green Gables (and decided, BTW, that clearly Anne and Diana were in love and Anne only liked Gilbert because he looked like a dude version of Diana). The talk inevitably turns to comics because most of us are into comics. But some guests have been into politics or video games or other things that they are geeky about. It’s a really good feeling to sit in a room of women who are passionate about similar things as you and feel like you belong. So often in this industry, we are outsiders. But when we’re together, and you hear one conversation about Batgirl and another about SDCC, it’s a really good feeling. It feels like home.

Those are just a few of my experiences as a woman in comics. What are yours? Feel free to share in the comments. Part two will be posted in a few days, so keep an eye on Shotgun!

Our Queen Hails Whitney Houston

2012-02-20T11:00:00.026-05:00

Pop Culture contains an abundance of queens. Queens of Soul, Queens of Rock, Queens of Pop, Queens of the Stone Age . . . but at ShotgunReviews.com, our Queen is Oseye. As noted in previous posts, Oseye worked with me and a number of other early Shotgun writers. She and Jonathan Birdsong put together the Lyrical Lounge section, and between themselves and the crew they built, they did terrific work covering hip-hop and related genres. Oseye went on to work elsewhere in journalism, and she's as regal today as she was in the day. Hail to the Queen as she hails another . . .

I’m Oseye, better known as The Queen, and I used to write hip hop music reviews in the Lyrical Lounge section of Shotgun Reviews. When Troy asked me to write something for this re-launch, I couldn't think of what I wanted to write about. Should I write about one of my favorite albums? The best album of the last decade? Or even the best new artist or groundbreaking artist? I couldn't decide. Eventually, it was decided for me. The untimely death of Whitney Houston could not be ignored. I had to write about her. She, like Michael Jackson, died way too soon. She, like Michael Jackson, was an 80s icon, her music touching the souls of many, often the backdrop of life’s most memorable moments. Her career, much like Michael Jackson’s, had seen better days. The new millennium hadn’t been good to either; their star power somewhat dimmed, but never totally extinguished. While she may have struggled in recent years, it can’t erase all that she accomplished.

My first introduction to Whitney Houston was the “You Give Good Love” video on Friday Night Videos. It was 1985 and I was 11 or 12, depending on the month the album was released. There wasn’t much to the video. A singer rehearsing in a club. That singer, Whitney, was on the microphone. A guy at the bar is messing his camera and then focuses in on Whitney. Pretty simple, concept, but it allowed the song and Whitney to shine. I remember my sister and I singing our hearts out to this song, and thinking the singer was so pretty. Who is Whitney Houston? We would soon find out.

Whitney could sing ballads. She could sing fun songs, i.e. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)”. She could sing the torch songs like “Where Do Broken Hearts Go.” She could sing inspirational songs like “Greatest Love of All.” She could do it all and make it look so effortless. Some singers have a difficult time hitting notes. Not Whitney. Probably no song showed this more than “I Will Always Love You,” a song written and first recorded by Dolly Parton. Whitney knocked her version out of the park. That song became Whitney’s. While I do like Dolly’s version, Whitney Houston's version is now the standard.

That’s another thing Whitney did so well. She took songs, recorded by others and did them so well that the original version is but a distant memory. Who remembers that “Greatest Love of All” was first done by George Benson? What about “I’m Every Woman” first sung by Chaka Khan, a legend in her own right? In fact, Whitney sang background on the original version. Whitney’s version has a special meaning in my life. Sure, I loved the Chaka Khan version, but I began to understand what the words meant. It was definitely an empowering anthem for me. I was 20-something, growing into a woman, learning who I am. I remember playing it over and over, the words becoming a mantra. Plus, the Whitney version was so fun; the video featured TLC, Chaka Khan and Valerie Simpson, who co-wrote the song with her husband Nick Ashford.

You expect death to come to everyone, even 80s icons. But when that death comes unexpectedly and before your icons reach old age, it’s surreal. Whitney Houston’s music, just like Michael Jackson’s, is part of the soundtrack of my life. Important events in my life are forever tied to their music. For these reasons and more, I’m so thankful that she shared her amazing gift with me — and you.

5 Things That Will Never Go Out of Style in Pro Wrestling by The Russ

2012-02-20T09:00:00.025-05:00

5) We love to watch fat guys dancing.

“The Funkasaurus” Brodus Clay

Rikishi… or RA-Kishi, if you’re Jim Ross

Too Cold Scorpio

PN News

One Man Gang/Akeem

Koko B. Ware

unless you’re this guy:

Big Dick Johnson

Troy Warms Up . . .

2012-02-19T23:36:00.000-05:00

Aside from many Facebook posts that carry the flavor of my old Shotgun Reviews column, I haven't written a full-on SGR in a while. I feel like I need to warm up a little.

Congressional Birth Control Hearings: I heard a great joke the other day. Three priests walk into a Congressional hearing and . . . wait, that was a real thing? I could have sworn it was a joke.

Danica Patrick in NASCAR: Everyone knows that I'm not a big racing fan, but I know that Danica Patrick moved to NASCAR. We know that she knows her way around a car, but how will it work out in a new series? Well, I've been hearing a few things here and there that run from the harmless to the ridiculous, like comparisons to Hitler (that's insane: he was much shorter). But the one that I seem to find kind of hilarious are the muttered assertions that she's drawing all of the media attention. Really? What did you expect? Have these guys never the seen the "No Doubt" episode of "Behind the Music"? Any time that you insert a pretty woman into a male-dominated field (rock bands, racing, Congressional hearings on birth control), she's going to draw some attention. It's the nature of the beast. I suppose in the long-run it doesn't matter. I can't name ten current NASCAR drivers after Tony Stewart, but I also can't remember the name of the guitar player from No Doubt. Drivers, you are not alone.

Linsane in the Membrane! Linsane in the Brain!: I have nothing further to add here, except that I can now file for a fifteen cent kickback from the Knicks PR office.

File Under "Duh": After it turned out that the second "Ghost Rider" movie sucked (Editor's Note: Big fucking shock), I noticed a couple of threads here and there lamenting its failure. One poster asked, "Why must they keep making bad comic book movies? What's the point?" Look, I'm a fan, most of my friends are fans, and I know lots of fans, but are people still this naive? Answer: Money. Money money money. MUH-NAY. Dough. Benjamins. Gap. Cabbage. Cheddar. Bread. Loot. Coinage. Bucks. Jack. Swag. Even the bad ones make money, kid. And it's easy to make a bad comic book movie. It's hard to make a Dark Knight or a Spider-Man 2. It's much, much easier to piss on a reel of film and call it Catwoman. That doesn't make it right (it sure as hell isn't right), but that's the answer to Why. The solution? Well, YOU WENT TO A MOVIE THAT YOU KNEW WOULD SUCK. Think about it for a bit. We'll wait.

All right, the muscle memory is kicking in . . .

The Digital Comics Essay by Michael C. Lorah

2012-02-19T22:40:00.000-05:00

Michael C. Lorah happened along in 2004, joining the Best Shots team early in its existence after I saw the incredible sharp and frequently witty observations he made about comics on the Newsarama message boards. Michael's worked at DC Comics and these days works in the business world. But he's still cool. Aside from that, Michael's a whale of a writer, and you'll be seeing several things from him this week. Here is an essay Michael dropped on the subject of Digital Comics . . .

The Digital Comics Essay

Dear Makers of Digital Comics, I have a few things I’d like to briefly (I know you’re busy) discuss with you.

Firstly, I don’t entirely trust you. I promise it’s not personal; I’d like to trust you, but when I hand you my hard-earned money, I’d prefer to own the file I’m buying from you. If you go belly-up tomorrow, I’d like to still have the stories that I’ve paid for. Personally, I promise to not do any pirating with those files, and I’m sorry that I can’t speak for anybody else on that particular matter.

But on to my main points. I can divide the rest of my thoughts into three easy categories.

1. Omnibuses

Some of us aren’t big fans of the twenty-page-installments plan to reading. While I’ve no objection to the serial format, it’s not for me and, in twenty years of anecdotal experience at lending comics to people, it doesn’t seem very popular with potential comics readers.

For print collections, considerations including weight, binding, cost and shipping place certain limits on the dimensions of trade paperbacks. Yes, in digital files weight can be a factor, but not an insurmountable one. Print collections and digital collections don’t need to exist in a 1:1 ratio. Two or three five- or six-issue print volumes can easily fit into a single digital compilation.

Readers want a meaty reading experience. Give it to us. Make no mistake that there is a reason I’ve purchased the Planetary Omnibus or Scud, the Disposable Assassin: The Whole Schebang digitally. They’re offering what I want – hundreds upon hundreds of pages.

Manga publishers, you’re already giving us 200 pages, but you can go farther in digital. A seven-volume print series could be a one volume digital series. Marvel, how about Amazing Spider-Man by Lee and Ditko, all of it. DC, Swamp Thing by Moore, all of it. IDW, those Transformers and GI Joe Classics lines would look good in just a few digital sets. Hey, Fantagraphics, all those Complete Crumb books you have – how about just one Complete Crumb!

And will somebody put out a complete Maze Agency digital collection? Thanks.

2. Playlists

Despite my devotion to the digital omnibus notion, I still believe that there is a place for the sale of single issues – particularly of back issues. Many of us recurring comics fans have our favorite serials from days gone by. Perhaps our issues are deteriorating (shame on us for not storing them in a temperature controlled, moisture-sealed-out vault!) or taking up too much space. Perhaps we simply like the ease of use of digital reading. Whatever the scenario, many of those old comics have certain wrinkles in their reading experience that mattered to our younger selves: a crossover, an Annual, a tangential storyline that enhanced the reading experience.

I suggest that digital comics sellers create the digital comics playlist – where, as with an mp3 playlist, readers can sort their favorite comics into a readily assembled sequence, creating a more enjoyable reading experience. No more looking for the next issue in that cluster of digital comics you own (a better way of sorting our books would be helpful also).

Dark Horse, you know some Star Wars fan would go nuts creating his definitive EU timeline of comics. Marvel, some X-fan might never be seen again when she starts threading those storylines together. DC, I’ll spend way too much time assembling the triangle-era Superman titles (along with a few spinoffs) into an extended reading sequence.

3. Print to Order

Digital’s a nice thing. I’m pretty okay with it being the future, but I’ve got to admit that I’m not entirely ready to let go of print. Certain art-based projects are hard to imagine digitally. Wednesday Comics would totally lose its scope. The beautiful newspaper strip volumes from IDW/Library of American Comics and Fantagraphics would lose much of their gravitas and majesty (I shudder in revulsion at the thought of Prince Valiant reduced to Kindle-sized). And sometimes, honestly, it’s really nice to have your favorite storyline on your bookshelf, because, like me, you’re got just a little bit of Luddite in there demanding the feel of paper.

This last notion of mine, it’s a ways off. I know it. But one day, perhaps only a few years from now, for a standard fee of some cents per page, readers can create (from their omnibuses or, with minimal effort, their playlists – with original cover gallery and a cover image using their favorite cover art from the run of issues collected within) their very own print-to-order, real-true-paper trade paperback. I’ll pay extra for a proper sewn binding, please.

When this technology happens, rest assured, the complete Karl Kesel Superboy is the first book I’ll be rolling off the printer’s line, with both of Karl and Tom’s runs on the main series (and likely the issues inbetween), Karl’s Ravers spinoff, at least the first two Annuals (and the Adv. of Superman Annual that tied into Annual 1) , some crossovers and maybe a few other Superboy-featuring one-shots.

FINALLY . . . THE RUSS HAS COME BACK TO SHOTGUNREVIEWS.COM!

2012-02-19T18:00:00.000-05:00

Top 5 Favorite Shotgun moments

by Russell Ray

I'm Russ. I used to write pro wrestling articles and was the managing editor for Shotgun for a while. If you want to know more, go bug Troy. He will probably write a blurb about each of us because I am too LAZY to write my own bio.

Anyway, I think I was the third or fourth person who came on board after the site initially launched in '99, and that period to 2002 was probably my favorite time on the site and what I would consider to be my heyday. At the time, I went through 3 jobs that I hated and wrote as much as I could while on the clock just to get through the day. Here are my top 5 favorite memories of that time:

5) Free schwag. Before the internet economy tanked and then the rest of the economy afterwards, people would throw free stuff at us with just the mention of the word "press". It's only recently with the advent of social media and the resurgence of blogs that this has picked back up again, but if Troy was good at two things, they were the best things to be good at: hiding dead bodies and scoring free (fill in the blank).

In the wrestling boom, we got the trifecta: ECW, WCW Monday Nitro, and a WWE house show. The house show was my favorite wrestling experience ever. I would rather watch a house show than Raw/Smackdown.

ECW was... well, it was ECW, and I guess it's one of those things that at least I could say I did it. The Indianapolis house show was cool from a historical standpoint because it was Mike Awesome's last appearance before running off to WCW (the crowd was about to lynch the guy) and Taz came back from WWE for one night to win the ECW Championship.

WCW was where Troy got to hand a business card to the possible next future Mrs. George Clooney, Stacy Keibler. This was when they were doing Nitro Girl auditions all over the country. Who knew that he would pick the one that would become the most famous? (Troy's Note: Yeah, I was really going out on a limb there . . .)

Also, I got a complete set of the Royal Rumble Anthology 5 years ago... I guess I still owe WWE that review.

4) Meeting the famous (and infamous). Like I said, we got fairly close to Stacy Keibler that one time... I also got an interview with another of the Nitro Girls: Fyre. She was at Wizard World one year promoting some crappy comic book with her as the main character (she probably got the idea from Sable) and I went there to do the worst interview ever recorded. I'm not sure which of us was less interested in doing the interview, but it was a train wreck all around.

I also got to meet several comics guys through Troy: Chuck Dixon, Grant Morrison and Mark Waid all stick out to me. Dixon especially, because I got a personal introduction, but also because the guy should be teaching at a university somewhere. Is there a school where you can major in English and gun ballistics?

3) The Wizard World conventions. I'm like a segue machine! Lots of hilarity ensued the two years that Shotgun set up shop in Artist's Alley to promote the web site. Well, let's be real... we didn't really promote so much as lease a little bit of real estate in the back to chill at while we waiting for the next panel. This could be a top ten on its own, so I'm just going to spit out a bunch of stuff that you may or may not know or remember or may be too inside for this crowd.

Windy City Wrestling, and their wrestling Star Trek redshirts. Me and Birdsong walking through the convention with our lucha masks on. A Mexican guy calling me "El Santo" when I was clearly NOT wearing Santo's mask. Birdsong screaming at me after about 15 Birdweisers while I pretended to be asleep (yes, I worked everybody and you heard it here first). Crapping my pants when I saw Kevin Nash for the first time because he was so tall. Lou Ferrigno trying to work me into buying his stupid merch. Meeting and hanging out with the Battle Pope guys... and now I realize that one of them created the Walking Dead, so I wonder how many other famous people I met before they became famous. Me making an idiot of myself in the La Parka mask because I FORGOT THE FREAKING DANCE. Going Stone Cold on the people at the Hyatt Regency because they jerked around our hotel reservation, and stomping through the baby boomers in the lobby that were there for the Beatles convention that same week.

I haven't been up to the convention in about 10 years, but I think I would be sad if I did... I've heard that it's all CCGs and lameness and even more offensive self-promotion now. And, it wouldn't live up to the memories either.

2) Express it on the X. We have a free paper in Indy called Nuvo, and their editors had a weekend talk show on X103 on Sunday nights for an hour. Troy got us hooked up to go on the radio to talk about the web site and I tagged along to answer a question about wrestling. It was fun and I wish podcasting had come along sooner, because we could have had a lot of fun with it. It also made me wish I had a career in radio, but I don't know if I could fill an hour of talk, let alone 3 or 4. The best part is that it was the segue to get us into a semi-regular rotation of writing for Nuvo, including an article on WCWO, the indy wrestling company I worked in.

1) My pro wrestling initiation. My dad had an accident at work in the spring of 2000, and I had to take about 3 months off from wrestling while I took care of him. When I came back, Don Basher (who runs WCWO) had an idea where I would get beat up by his female valet. We were running monthly shows in a bar, and he wanted to build to a tuxedo/evening gown match since it was an adults-only show, so the idea was for me to get in the ring, attack me, strip me down to a T-shirt and boxers, and then challenge her to the match for the next show.

I couldn't tell anyone though, so it was a surprise to the rest of the crew, and to me... I was afraid that I couldn't pull it off, but it was amazing to me how much you can do in wrestling with so little work. That night, it was just a few chops and a clothesline out of the ring. Later in my “career”, I would work battle royals, receive chair shots, and go through a table… it’s amazing how great people made me look with so little effort on my part. Wrestling also afforded me the opportunity to meet a lot of names in the business: Big Show, Marty Jannetty, Bushwhackers, Johnny Grunge, Tracy Smothers, Matt Borne, Rikishi, Buff Bagwell and Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

Well, that was only supposed to be 500 words, so if you’re still reading this, leave some comment love, okay? And I promise the rest of the week will be shorter…

The Russ, Russell Ray, was the Managing Editor of ShotgunReviews.com, the architect of The Rasslin' Ring section, and served as the ring announcer for Wild Championship Wrestling Outlaws. More than any of that, he's our pal. And we're just glad that he got back into the ring with us again.

The Return of Madame Li: Modern Astrology

2012-02-19T16:00:00.009-05:00

Li Rapkin held the title of Senior Writer in the original configuration of ShotgunReviews.com. That was mainly because her writing ability was more mature than most of us. She also pioneered the delightfully demented Shotgun Horoscopes, something that we didn't know we needed until we had them. As Madame Li, she prognosticated and used other big words. More importantly, along with The Queen Oseye, Li will always be a sworn sister of the Shotgun because we all worked in the Stygian pits of tech writing hell together. Take it, Li . . .

Modern Astrology

Astrology isn't what it used to be; most of us live in areas with lots of light pollution and never see the stars anyway. The constellations associated with the zodiac have been drifting apart because of the precession of equinoxes. The zodiac calendar is out of sync with the months of our calendar. Not to mention that, according to the IAU---the ecliptic now officially passes through thirteen constellations and Pluto is no longer a planet (I assure you, I am not making this up!). And who wants to self-identify as a goat or a scorpion?

Sometimes, a system is too broken to fix. This is one of those systems. Accordingly, I have discarded the old Greco-Roman astrological rubric (so last millennium!) and propose that we move forward with signs that we can all enjoy and remember. And so, I am pleased to bring you the very latest pioneering advances in astrology, including the handy conversion table below.

Old Style			New Style
Name	Constellation	Dates	Name	Month
Aries	Ram	3/21-4/19	Killer Rabbit	April
Taurus	Bull	4/20-5/20	Bacon	May
Gemini	Twins	5/21-6/20	Alien	June
Cancer	Crab	6/21-7/21	Pirate	July
Leo	Lion	7/22-8/22	LOLcat	August
Virgo	Virgin	8/23-9/22	Jedi	September
Libra	Scales	9/23-10/22	Slinky	October
Scorpio	Scorpion	10/23-11/21	Angry Bird	November
Sagittarius	Archer	11/22-12/21	Ninja	December
Capricorn	Goat	12/22-1/20	Robot	January
Aquarius	Water Bearer	1/21-2/19	Zombie	February
Pisces	Fish	2/20-3/20	Sushi	March

Killer Rabbit

Element: Fire

Ruling Planet: Mars

Favorable Colors: Scarlet, crimson

Lucky Gemstone: Spinel

Compatible with: Pirate, Angry Bird

Famous Killer Rabbits: Russell Crowe, Otto von Bismarck, Maria Sharapova

You are impulsive, vicious, bloodthirsty, murderous, underhanded, duplicitous and fluffy. This month is a good time to review your finances, or if you're feeling really ambitious, start your own hedge fund or Ponzi scheme. You are resolute and will not only plod along on a task until it gets done, you will probably overdo in your enthusiasm. You enjoy taking things apart to see how they work, but are rarely able to either figure them out or put them back together. Avoid hand grenades, knights, and wizards named Tim until after the next full moon if you wish to remain calm and undisturbed.

Bacon

Element: Salt

Ruling Planet: Mercury

Favorable Colors: White, Red

Lucky Gemstone: Topaz

Compatible with: Everything

Famous Bacons: Tina Fey, David Beckham, Ho Chi Minh

You are adventurous, yet down to earth. People either love you or think you're an abomination, but everyone knows who you are. Although you may find yourself with unlikely partners, your popularity will soar to new heights as you explore new social circles and adventures. Bacons are the life of the party, and even those who profess to dislike you may secretly find you attractive. Drink plenty of water and avoid nitrites and celery for the rest of the week.

Alien

Element: Selenium

Ruling Planet: Kepler-22b

Favorable Colors: Green, Glow-in-the-dark

Lucky Gemstone: Pyrite

Compatible with: Nobody

Famous Aliens: Alannis Morisette, Jefferson Davis, Dr. Ruth Westheimer

You are good at math, awkward, tongue-tied, perpetually uncomfortable and neurotic. Your ideas make sense to you, but you are unable to communicate effectively with others. You often feel as though nobody understands you, and most people would rather shoot you than make the effort. You are terrified of making a mistake. You spend most of your time at home, alone, in the dark, despite the fact that you are supremely uncomfortable with yourself. Try to schedule more aerobic exercise and cut down on saturated fats and sugars

Pirate

Element: Water

Ruling Planet: Venus

Favorable Colors: Gold, Silver

Lucky Gemstone: Diamond

Compatible with: Killer Rabbit, Ninja

Famous Pirates: Princess Diana, Franz Kafka, Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino

Pirates are nonconformists with a weak moral compass. You are the life of the party, always up for a good time no matter how far you have to travel. However, you lack healthy boundaries and tend to become boorish and greedy after a few drinks. You are most comfortable in groups of like-minded people who are likely to get you into a great deal of trouble with the law. You surround yourself with material gains and sensual pleasures, mostly so you can show off for your enemies. Relax a little, perhaps with yoga or a good book.

LOLcat

Element: Tuna

Ruling Planet: LOLcats rule planets, not the other way around

Favorable Color: Russian Blue

Lucky Gemstone: Shiny

Compatible with: Sushi

Famous LOLCats: Jerry Garcia, Billy Bob Thornton, Percy Bysse Shelley

"I desire" sums up the LOLcat personality. You are self-centered, lazy, sarcastic, and prone to casual substance abuse...yet inexplicably popular. You never hold back, often wallowing in excess to the disgust and amazement of those around you. Avoid overly impulsive behavior in your love life, and get off your ass and clean up that pigsty you live in. If possible, do not leave the house on the 28th. In fact, I would stay in bed with the covers pulled over my head if I were you.

Jedi

Element: Ether

Ruling Planet: Naboo

Favorable Colors: Beige, Brown

Lucky Gemstone: Amber

Compatible with: Robot

Famous Jedi: A true Jedi does not seek fame

Jedis are deeply intuitive and overly sentimental. You have a forceful personality, and a mystical connection to the universe, but your fashion sense is abominable and you have unrealistic expectations for yourself. You tend to see everything in terms of black and white, and are unsympathetic and skittish when you find yourself with others who do not share your ideals. Jedis tend to cling to the status quo and stagnate intellectually. Try to put yourself in someone else's shoes once in a while.

Slinky

Element: Plastic

Ruling Planet: Sedna

Favorable Colors: Purple, Fuchsia

Lucky Gemstone: Turquoise

Compatible with: Other Slinkies

Famous Slinkies: Buster Keaton, Rutherford B. Hayes, Julie Andrews

Your give the appearance of being mentally flexible, but you have only a few tricks and people tire of you quickly when they realize you are largely lacking in substance and. You often feel unbalanced and hollow inside. Your work life will reflect your inner emptiness for the foreseeable future, while your home life slowly becomes a sick parody of itself. You'll find the spring in your step comes back after rededicating yourself to working out.

Angry Bird

Element: Air

Ruling Planet: Jupiter

Favorable Colors: Red, Blue, Black White

Lucky Gemstone: Tanzanite

Compatible with: Ninja, Pirate

Famous Angry Birds: Jenny McCarthy, Marie Antoinette, Dennis Miller

You are fearless and single-minded in defense of what is important to you, but you often miss your target and hurt yourself or others. You have a tendency to "keep score" and hold grudges. You cooperate well with others when you feel threatened but are rarely the leader. You need to get out of your high-stress job, slow down, and find a healthier comfort zone. Avoid relationships with Bacons.

Ninja

Element: Void

Ruling Planet: Saturn

Favorable Colors: Black

Lucky Gemstone: Onyx

Compatible with: Pirate, Angry Bird

Famous Ninjas: Unknown

You are paragon of dignity; distant, elusive, untouchable, arrogant, and aggressive. You have a great many impulsive urges and long to give in to them, but are chronically unable to allow yourself to loosen up and have a good time. Unsurprisingly, your sex life is and always will be repressed to the point of nonexistence. Ninjas are not ones to worry about making friends on the job scene; rather, they prefer to see the task accomplished well. Try adding some color to your wardrobe, and vary your route to and from work.

Robot

Element: Metal

Ruling Planet: Saturn

Favorable Colors: Safety Orange, Fluorescent Yellow

Lucky Gemstone: Zircon

Compatible with: Zombie

Famous Robots: None

You are versatile and can adapt to a number of tasks, but most people find you predictable and easy to manipulate. You are tend not to show your emotions, and are serious and literal-minded. You prefer routine, repetition, and regular maintenance. the Robot . are an introvert sign, often to the point of recto-cranial impaction Generally you have excellent judgment about financial matters, but today may be the exception.

Zombie

Element: Earth

Ruling Planet: Uranus

Favorable Colors: Gray, Off-white

Lucky Gemstone: Quartz

Compatible with: Robot

Famous Zombies: Boris Yeltsin, Shakira, Gertrude Stein

You live a life of quiet desperation, going through the motions and numb to your own feelings as well as those of the people around you. You are inarticulate and your eating habits are terrible and your table manners are worse. You can sit on the fence for a little too long when it comes to serious choices, so get off your ass and tackle that to-do list. Consult an etiquette manual, get in touch with your inner child, and brush your teeth once in while. This is an auspicious week for making slow and steady progress.

Sushi

Element: Water

Ruling Planet: Neptune

Favorable Colors: Pink, Salmon

Lucky Gemstone: Sapphire

Compatible with: LOLCat

Famous Sushi: Justin Bieber, Alexander Graham Bell, Dr. Seuss

You are artistic, colorful, exotic, and have a cult following; perhaps even your own cult or talk radio program, if you've been ambitious. Even people who don't like you recognize that you have a certain je ne sais quoi. You are very creative and enjoy making things with your hands. A group with which you're affiliated might want to take a trip together, perhaps to a place associated with artistic or spiritual traditions. Take plenty of money with you; you're expensive but so worth it.

Shoe's Music: Top 11 Albums of the Shotgun Reviews Era

2012-02-19T14:00:00.000-05:00

Shawn Delaney rocks the house. He and I have been friends since 1983. As I've always said, I'm an only child, but I know what it's like to have brothers. Shawn's one of the reasons why. Since the early days, one thing has held certain: Shawn's got excellent taste in music. When I got Shotgun rolling, Shawn wasn't only the original webmaster; he wrote the Shoe's Music column, covering everything outside the middle. Here, he opines on the Top 11 albums from 1999 to now, the Shotgun Reviews era.

1. 1. Idlewild – 100 Broken Windows
-A tour-de-force of mind-bendingly great songwriting elevates this angry and furiously catchy Scottish rock band’s greatest effort.

2. 2. My Vitriol – Finelines
-Best of the neo-shoegaze from the early 00’s. All the better (and tragic) for being the only album from this band. Find the double disk if you can, which includes a terrific batch of b-sides.

3. 3. Bloc Party – Silent Alarm

-Somehow simultaneously raw and polished, Bloc Party’s debut record demands a thousand spins.

4. 4. Coldplay – Parachutes

-Although a bit “been there” now, in 2000 Coldplay was just what the doctor ordered. Fresh and earnest, Parachutes is still their best.

5. 5. Mew – Frengers
-Featuring rock’s greatest opening three tracks, this is Danish art/noise-pop masters Mew at their finest.

6. 6. Phoenix – It’s Never Been Like That
-Relentlessly catchy, this is Phoenix’s most compelling and consistent record.

7. 7. Longwave – The Strangest Things
-The high-point of American neo-shoegaze.

8. 8. Interpol – Turn On the Bright Lights
-They are cooler than you, and prove it time and time again on their dark, brooding and rewarding debut.

9. 9. The Strokes – Is This It
-Seminal and effortlessly groovy indie-rock. You know em, you love(d) em.

10. 10 Keane – Hopes and Fears
-Exceptionally well-written piano-based pop tunes, every song is a sing-along worthy anthem.

11. 11. Nada Surf – Let Go
-This is the shining example of what guitar-based indie-pop should aspire to be.

Honorable Mentions:
Super Furry Animals – Rings Around the World
The Cinematics – A Strange Education
Doves – Lost Souls
The Stills – Logic Will Break Your Heart
The National – Boxer / Alligator
Band of Horses – Everything All the Time

Shotgun Reviews: A Welcome

2012-02-19T12:01:00.022-05:00

Shotgun Reviews: A Welcome

I can hear it now. Some of your are saying, “How the hell did I get hear?” Some are saying, “Why does Sparkshooter link here?” And others are saying, “Not this shit again.” Well, those are all fair points I suppose. Whatever the reason, whether you remember or whether you’re new, welcome to ShotgunReviews.com.

Who the Hell are These People?

My name is Troy Brownfield. In 1998, after several years writing for my high school and college papers, booking a ton of musical festivals and one-off shows, and getting a job in Indianapolis, I started writing for Comic Kingdom, the website of my friend Nick Jankowski. I put together two columns: The Big Question, which was an interview column wherein the subject would answer only one, frequently complex, question. The other column was based on one of my regular college paper concepts. I called it Shotgun Reviews because it spread out and covered a wide area. I usually would throw in a movie, a comic, and a CD, maybe a TV show or something else. As things kept rolling, I thought that maybe I should just put together my own site, maybe with the aim of giving other aspiring writers a house.

Troy and Shawn in 2004

In June 1999, with the help of original webmaster Shawn Delaney, that’s exactly what I did. And really, it went pretty well. The site kind of took off, more or less, and before we knew it, we were putting up booths at Wizard World shows, getting quoted on things like volumes of “Dragonball Z”, doing radio and TV appearances (ah, the great Jordana Green crowning) and generally having a great freaking time.

One of the great things about the site was the flexibility it gave everyone. If you were into something, you could build on it. Russ branched out and became the ring announcer for WCWO in Indianapolis. Jonathan Birdsong and Oseye Boyd put together a great crew of reviewers in the Lyrical Lounge section. Shawn, always a musician, played in local bands like The Shivers and Samsell, and I brought back my old booking skills by having the site sponsor or host package shows with Indy indie bands. And that was just the tip.

My own writing stretched out, and I started contributing to places like Comicon.com’s The Pulse and Newtype USA magazine. I wound up writing for Newtype more or less after meeting Ken Wiatrek of ADV in Chicago, and he was one of the forces behind my becoming acquainted with Corey Henson. Corey was one of the early “second wave” Shotgun gang, along with The Rev. OJ Flow, whom I first “met” (along with Jim Beard) on the DC Direct boards at DCComics.com. OJ and Corey would soon join me in another crazy endeavor.

In January of 2004, I began writing for Newsarama under PRIOR SITE EDITOR Matt Brady. If I knew what it was like to run a site and a crew, Matt knew what it was like, times ten. I started contributing there regularly, and it’s no exaggeration to say that it changed my life. From there, I got to do things like write for WIRED, write trading cards for Topps, covered the convention that led me to writing for Fangoria, reported from the set of “The Dark Knight” and met dozens of friends. In March of 2005, with my two month old son Connor in a baby bjorn on my chest, I wrote the first installment of Best Shots for Newsarama; it included reviews by me, Corey and OJ.

The Rev. OJ Flow, Sarah Jaffe, Troy, Janelle Asselin, Lucas Siegel and Kevin Huxford in 2008

The Best Shots column (which said “brought to you by ShotgunReviews.com “ for years) attracted some rock solid writers almost instantly. We got the likes of J. Caleb Mozzocco, Michael C. Lorah, Kevin Huxford, Sarah Jaffe, Lucas Siegel, Janelle Asselin, and Jeff Marsick early on. Some of those names might seem a touch familiar today. The team has grown exponentially over time. And though I left the running of it to David Pepose in 2010 after deciding that my ongoing actual writing of comics would be too big a conflict, I still think of it as an inextricable child of ShotgunReviews.com.

But, the downside of us all spreading out and doing our own awesome things was that, more and more, fewer and fewer of us had time for the old girl. I had planned to make a move with Shotgun of another sort, but had to table that. Things, as they tend to happen, got in the way.

Where Are We Now?

Good question. I’m 13 years older than when I started Shotgun. Since its founding, I married my long-time girlfriend Becky and we’ve had two kids that are now shockingly seven and five. I taught college for seven years. I worked for Fangoria Comics and have written for Zenescope and (with Matt Brady) Dynamite and DC. And on February 29^th, artist Sarah Vaughn and I launch the Sparkshooter webcomic at Sparkshooter.com.

Troy, Becky, Connor and Kyle

As I was working toward the launch, I thought more and more about the good times that we had here with the simple mission of News, Reviews, Comedy and Commentary. Express yourself. Be funny. Be smart. Be what you can. That’s what we tried to do. And as much as it amazes, some people still say that they miss it.

So here we go, back for one eight-day week. A few dozen people that either took part or wanted to take part are here, putting the band back together as we usher a new (fictional) band onto the stage. We’re going to kick some of the rust off, shake some of the dust off, and hopefully have a great time for the next week or so. If one of us makes you laugh or think, mission accomplished.

Guys? Turn on the lights and open the bar. ShotgunReviews.com is back in business.

We Open at Noon . . .

2012-02-19T08:25:00.001-05:00

Noon EST.

New Posts Begin . . .

ahem

2012-02-15T11:40:00.000-05:00

SUNDAY!
SUNDAY!
SUNDAY!

SHOTGUN REVIEWS RETURNS

2012-01-25T11:16:00.001-05:00

FEBRUARY 19TH.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Shotgun Reviews

What It Feels Like For A Girl (In Comics) Part 2 by Janelle Asselin

THE LEMUR RISES! with J. Caleb Mozzocco

Change or Die by Jeff Marsick

Forgetless: A Review by Vanessa Gabriel

Ghost Rider 2: Nicholas Cage Jumped the Shark by Nicole Christian

Troy Warms Up Part 2

We Live in Interesting Times . . . For Corporations by Kevin Huxford

Film/Cinema/Movies Since 1999

Sweaty B F’n Rocks Us

5 Things That Will Never Go Out of Style in Pro Wrestling: #4 by The Russ

Four Ladies That Inspire SPARKSHOOTER

Is it 1984 All Over Again? by The Rev. OJ Flow

Super 8: Recapturing Child-Like Joy by Erika D. Peterman

What It Feels Like For A Girl (In Comics) by Janelle Asselin

Our Queen Hails Whitney Houston

5 Things That Will Never Go Out of Style in Pro Wrestling by The Russ

Troy Warms Up . . .

The Digital Comics Essay by Michael C. Lorah

FINALLY . . . THE RUSS HAS COME BACK TO SHOTGUNREVIEWS.COM!

The Return of Madame Li: Modern Astrology

Killer Rabbit

Bacon

Alien

Pirate

LOLcat

Jedi

Slinky

Angry Bird

Ninja

Robot

Zombie

Sushi

Shoe's Music: Top 11 Albums of the Shotgun Reviews Era

Shotgun Reviews: A Welcome

We Open at Noon . . .

*ahem*

SHOTGUN REVIEWS RETURNS

ahem