I know, I know, I have been away from posting my normal movie previews and reviews for a while, that is my fault!
But I’ll be back to posting my normal movie previews/reviews soon!
Until then here are some things you can look forward to me previewing and reviewing:
A Perfect Host
Alien OutBreak
Covenant
And last, but not least, You might have been…
Hope you all enjoyed my tour through my movie screeners I get to watch this month!
Comprehensive in scope and immersive in its presentation, Brooklyn’s finest comic shop, Desert Island, has done a bang-up job in putting together Wildest Dream, a compact little hardcover collection of Gary Panter’s sketchbook drawings from 1973 through 2018 printed (at the tail end of last year) in suitably garish neon purple on paper that either is, or may as well be, newsprint — but, as with all things Panter, it’s as much an intriguing puzzle as it is a legit piece of art history.
And now that I’ve “spoiled” this review right from the outset, let’s examine why this book will appeal to more than just the hardest of hard-core Panter fans and troglodyte “process junkies” —
By and large the “running order” here appears chronological, but so many pages are undated that it’s hard to say for sure, and Panter’s attention has always been split in so many…
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As a follow-up to his breakthrough 2018 graphic novel The Winner, illustrator supreme Karl Stevens has chosen a curious project — a deliberate throwback to the “solo anthology” comics of the 1990s, his new (-ish, the first issue came out late last year) Kilgore series, Floppy, is both nostalgic on its face and self-aware in the extreme, as the cover shown above makes plain. So — are we looking at a purely tongue-in-cheek exercise here?
If you know Stevens, you already know that’s not the case, and even though this can strictly be classified as an autobio work, it ventures into the surreal with enough gusto to even call that easy categorization at least temporarily into question. Our guy Karl seems, then, to be looking to cleave more to the template and maybe even the temperament of, say, Peep Show or Yummy Fur, but without anchoring himself…
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Let me begin by writing that I love watching Netflix and I REALLY love livetweeting with Lisa and the rest of the Shattered Lens staff. We can coordinate times well and it’s easy to sync up. This time, I was given the movie choosing authority and perhaps it will be my last. I heard that The Perfection was a bit gory, but I figured come on, this is Shattered Lens- we Rocktober the October over here with our Horrorthon! When I saw that Steven Weber was in it, I felt like ok, this is going to be like a Tales From the Crypt experience. Well……….not so much.
The Perfection has trashy components to it and some cheaply built sets and the director REALLY wants you to know that they splurged and actually filmed in China! The best way to describe The Perfection is as an unaware, pretentious, and boring episode of Tales From the Crypt. It had the victim goes to victimizer TFTC theme and the over the top gore, but it was always trying to be serious and important when it was just an overly long TFTC episode without any humor.
The plot is pretty straight-forward: Charlotte is a prodigy Cellist who left her art to care for her dying mother for ten-years. When she tries to return to her life, she finds that a younger classmate Lizzy has attained the Cello fame that she sought. She sees her old Mentor Anton (Steven Weber) and Charlotte is now the clear has-been. Charlotte executes a plan to destroy Lizzy forever. Charlotte meets Lizzy, seduces Lizzy, drugs Lizzy, and convinces Lizzy to chop her hand off. Yep, another Hollywood girl meets girl, girl drugs girl, girl gets girl to chop her hand off story. The Perfection was actually the original script for Love Actually. The “To Me You Are Perfect” scene was just going to be Andrew Lincoln throwing severed hands at people – “To Me you are a perfect…Target” *throws hand at Juliet*.
Just when you think this movie will be a fun version of Black Swan it takes a turn for the dumb, gross. Yes, I get that this was made by a post-Weinstein Miramax and it was showing how fame could encourage and condone horrible behavior, but it was done with so much exposition that it really caused the film to jerk from long explanations to gore and long explanations to gore and long explanations to trying a Subway Cold Cut Combo – even terrible movies get hungry.
I’m not sure if I should spoil this piece of trash or not. It’s really not worth your time. Instead of watching this film you could eat a sandwich, do your taxes, plot revenge. However, it is nice to see that Steven Weber is still working – there’s that.
The SAG Awards were held tonight. I did not bother to watch them but apparently, a good time was had by all. Parasite won the award for Best Ensemble, which is the SAG equivalent for Best Picture. (1917, which won at the PGA Awards earlier this week, was not nominated for the Ensemble award.) This might mean that Parasite is the new front runner for Best Picture or it might not. Do you remember what won last year? Black Panther.
(I’m a little bit surprised that SAG didn’t go for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, which is is a film about actors. I mean, Birdman won a prize it didn’t deserve by appealing to the ego of actors. Then again, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood centers on an actor whose career is going downhill so maybe it hits too close to home.)
Joaquin Phoenix, Renee Zellweger, Brad Pitt, and Laura Dern won the acting prizes and I imagine that they’ll repeat at the Oscars. To be honest, it’s hard for me to remember who else is nominated in any of those categories.
Avengers: Endgame won for Best Stunt Ensemble. Why isn’t their an Oscar category for Best Stunts? Seriously, that’s messed up.
Anyway, here’s your list of film winners. They also gave out some TV awards but, to be honest, who cares about that in January? The Emmys are over! If you want to see a full list of winners, click here or do a google search. Whatever works for you.
Best Ensemble — Parasite
Best Actor — Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
Best Actress — Renee Zellweger, Judy
Best Supporting Actor — Brad Pitt, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Best Supporting Actress — Laura Dern, Marriage Story
Best Stunt Ensemble — Avengers: Endgame
Disease and sickness are constant themes of Japanese cartoonist Tetsunori Tawaraya’s work — the worlds he depicts are mutated hellscapes populated by mutated hellspawn, after all, but even still : this one takes the concept to literal extremes. And the “this one” I refer to is 2018’s Dimensional Flats, a harrowing, fast-paced, hallucinogenic nightmare that’s freakishly funny, richly-rendered, and downright agaonizingly imaginative.
Our ostensible “hero” in this story is one Dr. Horsey, a kind of “medical cop” who battles mutated viral infections with a “disease ray” and has accrued to himself a loyal group of fellow “officers” who would go to to any lengths to assist him in his germ-killing — and good thing for that, because that’s exactly what they’ll have to do when a visit to an afflicted patient living in a kind of surreal tower block ends up transporting the poor doctor to an…
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I would never consider myself a “jaded” reader by any stretch of the imagination, but in point of fact there really is very little I haven’t seen done before in comics. I may have seen it (whatever the “it” we’re talking about is) done better or done worse, but that truly “out of left field” reading experience that one at least occasionally yearns for? It simply doesn’t happen for me all that often.
And then I came across Tetsunori Tawaraya.
The Tokyo native who spent some time in the US playing in various west coast punk bands before returning home has the kind of imagination that is best described as utterly unique, and the sheer artistic skill to bring his dystopian, hallucinatory visions to life on the page, but there are plenty of cartoonists you can say that about — what sets his work apart, besides its subject matter, is…
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It seems rather appropriate that, while we spend this year celebrating TSL’s 10th birthday, we’ve taken the time to recognize the birthdays of so many of our favorite directors and actors. Earlier today, Jeff already paid tribute to Andy Kaufman and Donald Cammell.
Well, today is also James Earl Jones’s birthday and there’s no way we’re going to let that go unacknowledged. James Earl Jones is 89 years old today and he’s still working. Everyone, of course, knows Jones’s voice and the story of how, when he was a child, he suffered from a stutter so severe that he refused to speak. (Jones has described the years before he entered high school as being his “mute years.”) What’s often overlooked is just how good of an actor James Earl Jones is. Jones has played everyone from villains to mentors to heroes. He’s appeared in every possible genre and his presence has never not been welcome.
James Earl Jones made his film debut with a small role in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satire, Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Jones played Lt. Luther Zogg, one of the men aboard the B-52 bombardier that eventually causes the end of the world.
Jones has often said that he didn’t really care for either the role or the film. Lt. Zogg is a small role and it is true that, if not for the fact that he’s played by James Earl Jones, you probably wouldn’t remember much about him. For the most part, Jones spends the majority of the movie listening as Maj. Kong (Slim Pickens) talks about following orders and doing their patriotic duty.
And yet, I think Jones is a bit too dismissive of the role. It’s a small role but the undeniable authority of Jones’s voice provides a nice contrast to the country drawl of Maj. Kong. Without Lt. Zogg calmly following orders, it would be too easy for the audience to dismiss Maj. Kong as an outlier as opposed to a representative of what the film viewed as being the military’s blase attitude towards the possibility of nuclear war.
Add to that, Jones’s delivery of “Hey, what about Maj. Kong?” is absolutely perfect.
So, with that in mind, here’s James Earl Jones in two scenes from Dr. Strangelove!
When it comes to all things Marvel, the name Morbius is vague to me. I remember Todd McFarlane’s final run for Spider-Man back in 1991 which had a 5 to 6 issue story arc on the character. Basically, Morbius (not to be confused with Moebius, the great Jean Giraud) is kind of a vampire, or as Blade would say, he’s something else. Personally, I think Sony’s scraping near the bottom of Marvel’s barrel, but maybe Sony’s on to something here.
If they have the same success with this as they had with Venom, they should be on good footing to create their own ongoing story arc with The Sinister Six. Anyone who’s ever read any of the Marvel Comics or played the last rendition of Sony’s Spider-Man for the PS4 knows of a set of Spidey’s villains that joined forces to take him down. The trailer below looks like it ties itself into Spider-Man: Homecoming with a cameo by Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes (a.k.a. The Vulture).
Morbius stars Jared Leto (Blade Runner 2049) as Michael Morbius, a biology genius afflicted with an illness. In his efforts to come up with a cure, he becomes a supervillain with powers and a thirst for blood. Morbius also stars Jared Harris (Chernobyl), Adria Arjona (Good Omens), Tyrese Gibson (Black and Blue), and Matt Smith (The Crown)
Morbius premieres in cinemas this summer.
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.” – Mark Twain
I wasn’t entirely sold on William Eubank’s Underwater after leaving the theatre.
I’d seen that kind of film before in movies like Alien, Resident Evil, The Abyss, Leviathan, Deep Rising and Deep Star Six. It didn’t feel like it was giving me too much of anything new (especially when compared to last year’s genuinely jumpworthy Crawl), but I have to admit I did spent quite a bit of the film watching it from between my fingers. I’ll give it that. Additionally, I have to give the movie credit for taking no time to get things moving and staying pretty even throughout. Within 5 to 10 minutes of the movie’s start, you’re thrust right into a mix of terror from the unknown and claustrophobic environments. For someone with an attention span as short as mine, it’s impressive to see a film hit the ground running like that. It’s the kind of opening one would expect from one of the John Wick films. Longtime readers here on the Lens know that January really isn’t the month for the greatest films, though every once in a while, you’ll have one or two that dowell.
I think enjoying Underwater may be dependent how much comparing is done between it and older films. If you walk in blind, not expecting anything and are just looking to be entertained, you may enjoy the film more than I did. Do you absolutely have to rush to a movie theatre to see it? No, I don’t feel you do. Give it 3 months and you’ll have it on Digital/Blu-Ray. Would I run back to it in the theatre? Nah. If you’re a Kristen Stewart fan, or if the film’s something you’re genuinely interested in, have at it.
A group of miners find themselves struggling to survive after their rig suffers intense damage. Their goal is to reach a set of escape pods that can take them to the surface, but reaching it poses a set of challenges. The team comes to find that they may not be alone in the depths, which adds to their problems.
Kristen Stewart navigates the ocean depths in William Eubank’s Underwater.
The cast does well as can be expected, with Kristen Stewart (Charlie’s Angels) taking the lead as Norah, the team’s engineer. Joining her are Vincent Cassel (Eastern Promises) as the Captain, Jessica Henwick (Marvel’s Iron Fist) as the biology scientist, John Gallagher, Jr. (Hush), Mamoudou Athie (The Get Down), and JT Miller (Deadpool) as the comic relief. JT Miller in particular voices what would be the audience’s take as a fellow who just wants to get out of the situation. It’s Stewart and Henwick that carry the most weight with the film, and they handle it well. Their characters are smart and try their best to make it through the situations presented to them.
Visually, Underwater’s deep sea sequences have an interesting feel to them. Some of them feel more like the shaky cam shots from As Above So Below. There’s a bit of claustrophobia with watching certain scenes from behind the helmets. The monsters themselves are reminiscent of the ones you’d find in Cloverfield or The Mist with a number of jumpscares throughout. There’s very little in the way of blood and gore, since the film is PG-13.
I would have liked a larger body count. For the size of the rig, part of me expected to see more then just the 6 or 7 characters we have. Seeing more individuals face the creatures or the crumbling buildings could have added a bit of weight. That’s just a nitpick. The Nostromo was huge, yet only had a crew of seven.
Overall, I enjoyed Underwater more than I thought I would. It spends a lot of time doing things that other films already did, but does so in such a way where it’s not entirely wasted.
Through the Shattered Lens 