Evil Dead (2013)

Mia's (Jane Levy) brother and three of their friends have brought her to the old family cabin out in the woods to help her kick her drug addiction by going cold turkey. Of course, what David (Shiloh Fernandez) doesn't know, because he hasn't been around for years, is Mia's tried this before. It never lasts. As in, less than half a day. So their friends are prepared to keep Mia there by force.

A short time into the stay, while Mia's already complaining about an awful stench permeating the cabin, they find a locked room in the basement, full of dead cats and a book bound in human skin. One friend, like a dumbass, decides he should while away the hours reading from this book, going so far as to use pencil rubbings to find the words that were on pages that are missing from the book, and then read them aloud. People get possessed, people get maimed, people die, but David is determined to save his sister.

Couple of things working against this movie with me. One, the channel it was on just finished showing the original Evil Dead and Evil Dead II back to back, so I was hoping for Army of Darkness. I got this instead. Booo. Second, gore is the least interesting thing about horror movies to me. I can roll with it if you use it for comedy, which is probably why Army of Darkness is my favorite of the original trilogy. But gore and brutality for shock value? Doesn't do much for me. It's gross, sure. Turns my stomach? Probably. But scary? No. Hence Saw being the movie I deemed the worst I've ever seen in theaters, since gore was the edifice that entire sorry sack of ape shit hung on.

Maybe if you can make it relevant to the plot, but when Natalie takes off her arm with an electric turkey trimmer, and it doesn't actually keep her from getting possessed, then it's gratuitous. Great, you got to spray corn syrup all over the place. I'm sure that was a lifelong dream.

I don't know, I thought the movie would do more with the idea Mia was the one most aware there was something wrong, but the others dismissed it as withdrawal talking. But she's the first one possessed, and things go to the extreme too quickly to waste time on that sort of uncertainty. Once she's scalded herself so badly her flesh is peeling off, they can't worry whether she's possessed or just jonesing.

Also, it seems weird this is apparently their family's cabin, and they spent enough time there for Mia to have photos all over a wall, but neither she or David comment on the rusted remains of Ash's car, and David seems completely stunned there's a door to a basement under the rug in the living room. Yet they both knew about the little hollow under the three that could let them climb into the tool shed.

That said, the complicated relationship between Mia and David is the strongest part of the movie. The others are really just there for plot reasons and/or to up the body count. They need Eric to be the curious idiot who unleashes forces he doesn't understand, and Olivia has the medical training and access to various drugs, but beyond that, it isn't as though the film lingers over their deaths.

But Mia and David have this whole thing where David is guilty about the fact he ran in the past, leaving Mia to deal with her grief alone, in self-destructive ways. Mia can't really bring herself to trust him because of that. The words are nice, the birchwood necklace is sweet, but will he actually be there when she needs him? And what would that mean? Certainly Eric sees David's unwillingness to give up on saving Mia when she's vomiting black bile and looking like she just popped over from The Exorcist as another example of him running away from things he doesn't want to face. Same as how he balked when Eric and Olivia said they were prepared to keep Mia here until she got through it, no matter what.

Also, yelling at David probably helps distract Eric from how this is his fault. Remember kids, curiosity is bad! Pursue knowledge and all you'll catch are suffering and death!

I could see David taking the most dangerous approach to getting rid of the spirit as another symptom. A live burial means he's got to go into the basement and fight his possessed little sister, and hope sedatives still work on her when something he doesn't understand is animating her body. The repeated shots of him getting thrown around the basement into stone walls somehow felt the most like the original films to me. They aren't meant to be funny, but there was something vaguely comic about it. I suppose because it sure looks like his big plan to save his sister has crashed on the reef of him getting his ass kicked. The over-confidence of Ashley Williams in quite possibly an even dumber vessel.

But he was willing to risk his own life to try that plan. Lighting the house on fire and bailing, as he originally planned, from his perspective, would have been him abandoning her again. Of course, if he'd failed, then the demon kills him, that's five souls, the skies turn red, DC runs another Big Event with the word "Crisis" in it. The usual apocalyptic shit.

The burning tree suddenly being snuffed out was a nice touch. One of thosethings that could be read glass half-full or half-empty. That lightning strike sure was ominous, the fire being gone is probably good! Or the fire was hope because it gave David the idea, and now it's gone, oh no! Or, the demon's playing a little joke, faking David out. That was my guess. He'd dig Mia up and surprise, still possessed!

As random note to close on, Evil Dead offered a very different perspective on the efficacy of nail guns as weapons compared to The Equalizer, which I caught most of the night before. Denzel pretty much removed the main bad guy, a hardened ex-Spetsnaz sociopath, as a threat with a couple of nails to his arms. In Evil Dead, Eric, who is definitely a nerd and a total loser, gets five nails in the chest and a bunch more in the arms, and he's still able to move around and use guns and whatnot. Maybe David's family cheaped out and bought a low-grade model that lacked oomph. Needed to get the exclusive S-Mart model!

Some of the emotional beats worked, some of the visuals were good - the blood rain was cool - it was just wrapped up in a level of mutilation I didn't enjoy.

If Chins Could Kill - Bruce Campbell

Campbell's first autobiography, following his interest in acting from making Super 8 movies with his buddies in Michigan, up to appearing in the first Spider-Man movie. He spends a little time on his personal life, mostly in his childhood and school years. After that, it's mostly to the extent his career intersects with his personal life (like how all the traveling helped bring about the end of his first marriage.)

I didn't realize how much other stuff related to movies he'd done, in terms of being a producer, helping with editing or filming second shots for movies, even directing several episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. The nice thing is, these aren't treated as simply parts of his resume. Campbell spends time describing the process and the work behind the different roles.

There are multiple chapters about he, Sam Raimi, and others' efforts to raise money to film Evil Dead. He details the process, breaking up paragraphs about who you ask with brief examples of phone calls he might have with old acquaintances, or how he asked his dad if he could put the family farm up as collateral to get a bank loan. Once the film is made, all the work that goes into preparing it for release, all the things you have to put together to convince a distributor they should want to sell your movie, the trailers and translated titles for release in other countries. In the chapters about Adventures of Brisco County Jr., he talks about the process of being selected for a role, the number of times you may have to audition, and how many different people you have to sell yourself to.

Kind of amazing to me that anyone gets anywhere in show business at all. 

The book has a lot of visuals. Photographs of him as a kid (still easily recognizable, although it was the brow line more than the chin), stills from the various films he and his friends put together - with names like Bogus Monkey Pignut Swindle - or a "Kiwi Primer", translating various American words to their New Zealand equivalent. "Body Shop" becomes "Panelbeater", apparently.

My favorites were the diagrams of the different rigs they came up with to capture some of the shots Sam Raimi wanted on the Evil Dead films. The "Vas-O-Cam" in particular, where the camera sat on a U-shaped bracket that could slide over over tape coated with Vaseline and stretched across two sawhorses. It's a poor man's dolly, as Campbell notes, but has the benefit of being portable, light, and cheap.

It's a quick read. Most of the chapters are short; some read more like a collection of brief anecdotes that a true narrative. This paragraph details something funny that happened, the next paragraph details something else funny, without any particular connective tissue or overarching theme other than this is stuff you may deal with in acting. But the anecdotes are funny, or failing that, informative. I went in expecting a standard autobiography, and learned a lot of things about acting I didn't expect, so I'd consider that a win. 

'Raising money for the Man with the Screaming Brain was a little like being trapped in a slow-moving elevator after someone farted - the ride took too long and the atmosphere was foul.'

Saturday Splash Page #167

"Light 'Em Up," in Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #4, by Bruce Campbell (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Kristian Rossi (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer)

I don't know what brought this mini-series about, but it's Sgt. Rock and Easy Company trying to stop a last-ditch plan by the Nazis to augment their forces by bringing their soldiers back from the dead, with enhanced strength and aggression.

The mini-series is essentially one long mission, except Campbell keeps having Easy Company locate some critical objective, only to withdraw and do further planning with the rear command. That's already where they spend most of the first issue, being alerted to the problem they're facing and given general directives on what to do, so it seems like a bad idea to keep stopping when they have some momentum. Especially as the chief scientist (and Hitler's personal physician) is aware he's being followed by issue 4.

Campbell writes in a lot of tough guy one-liners - one soldier with a flamethrower watches a pair of burning zombies stagger from a pillbox and asks, 'Is it just me, or is it hot outside?' - and despite all the planning sessions, keeps the action moving. As Rock and Co. chase the scientist all through issue 4, they have to take over a guard post, destroy the previously mentioned pillbox, crash another barricade and wipe out a couple of motorcycle-riding zombie Nazis. The last two issues are a big hand-to-hand fight with a Hitler pumped up on the revitalization drugs while bombers try to level the place.

Risso's Sgt. Rock, who a thick mop of hair on top and shaved close on the sides, and smoking cigars, more closely resembles Sgt. Fury to me, but he captures the horror aspects of the story. The leathery skin of the revived soldiers, that has drawn back to leave their teeth exposed in this massive grins. The casual indifference to being shot. Campbell and Risso get some dark humor from that in a scene where the revived soldiers are in a pub and one shoots the other, causing his beer to fountain out his stomach, while they all laugh about. But prior to that, Rock had shot one two or three times without it even pausing from strangling Rock's C.O.

The pages tend to be drenched in shadows, but that allows the occasional use of brighter colors by Rossi to have greater effect. The orange as gasoline ignites, or the bit of light in the trail of a bazooka shell as we watch its path reflected in a soldier's goggles. Risso and Rossi make a good team.

Campbell also makes the decision to start giving Rock caption boxes, but not until issue 5. It isn't a case where he's writing from other characters' perspective prior to that; Rock is the main character throughout. So I'm not sure why he waited until that point, but the narration does more closely resemble what I'd think of as Rock's "voice" based on my dad's comics, versus the action movie, profane dialogue.

Random Back Issues #115 - Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #1

Early attempts at "Five-Hour Energy" were declared crude and excessively invasive.

For just the second time, a Random Back Issue from the 2020s. I just with the dice would stop giving my comics that are mostly set-up. The comic opens, as the caption box tells us, in "Berlin. 1944." Hitler's receiving bad news, proving that sometimes the world gets it right. Germany's under attack on all sides, and bodies are running short. Hitler responds by tearing the general's head off and asking a Dr. Morrell what is the status of the regeneration plan?

An unspecified amount of time later, some U.S. Army soldiers at the front lines (I don't think anyone had gotten near Berlin by '44, but whatever) are attacked by a bunch of Nazis who don't care about being shot. Next day, Rock and Easy Company are ordered to report to "The Skipper" for a "Level 9 Assignment."

The GIs managed to re-kill at least one of the undead Nazis, though it's not yet clear exactly how the corpses got up and moving again. It involves a cocktail of steroids, amphetamines, and "epidermal growth factor", plus a doohickus stuck into the brain stem that maybe electro-shocked the nervous system into action.

Well that all sounds horrible. What to do about it? Command knows there's a morgue in the heart of the Nazis' manufacturing area, and that Morrell is the doc involved. Job like this requires some extra equipment, and Easy Co.'s getting the finest in 1940s personal communication - the handie-talkie!

Might need some breaking in. There's also binoculars with night vision capability, and a thermal scope. While Easy's getting armed, word comes in an undead Nazi was caught uh, undead. Rock doesn't think much of the drooling, slouching thing, until it bends the bars of the cell and starts choking the life from the Skipper. The zombie's able to throw the entire squad off him without taking a break from his officer choking, so Rock shoots him a couple of times. Then once in the head. Then the entire squad opens up on him.

Now, Rock's convinced these things are a threat, especially if Hitler's gonna have a whole army of them. I mean, the Soviets alone would probably still outnumber the Nazis, alive and re-alive, combined, but the point's well taken. No need to let the war drag out. Don't want Truman getting any ideas about dropping an A-bomb in Germany, too. All we need is a Berlin full of radioactive, undead Nazis.

{9th longbox, 210th comic. Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #1, by Bruce Campbell (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Kristian Rossi (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer)}

What I Bought 3/8/2023 - Part 2

The regional library had their annual used book sale last weekend. I'd been meaning to go for years, but something always came up. Picked up 8 books, two CDs and a movie for 10 bucks, so expect resumption of book reviews in the near future.

Sgt Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #6, by Bruce Campbell (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Kristian Rossi (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer) - Credit where credit's due: the interior of the book delivers what the cover promises.

This issue is basically Rock fighting Hitler (who is all hopped up on those revitalization drugs) in the bunker while Easy Co. calls in another saturation bombing. It's a seesaw battle with Hitler using weapons and misdirection, but Rock basically just powering through all of it. Kind of like a pro wrestling match that way. Hitler tries a bayonet, a pistol, a syringe full of those drugs, hitting Rock with a locker, gassing him.

Risso and Rossi illustrate the fight to good effect. Bent noses or bones protruding from broken wrists. They emphasize the difference in the characters' eyes. Rock with larger white ovals and dark pupils, while Hitler gets smaller, almost bird-like yellow eyes with pupils like dots. I like that in the panel I picked, Rossi even shows the outline of Hitler's messed-up mustache by where the blood is and isn't. It's a nice bit of detail.

Rock survives the bombing, but the Army would like him to deal with similar problems now, and that's pretty much the end of the comic. Feels a bit like Campbell's referencing that bit from the '90s Suicide Squad book that said Rock handled missions to that island with dinosaurs and whatnot. Could just be a coincidence. I'm still curious why Campbell started with the internal narration boxes in the last two issues, after not using them in the first half of the mini-series. They did have the effect of making Rock feel more familiar.

Rock keeps up a sort of steady string of one-liners during the fight, which I'm less into. If the fight is meant to be a grim, difficult struggle, the dialogue cuts against that. But it's a story about fist-fighting a Hitler doped up on drugs to bring the dead back to life, so that's probably not the effect Campbell's going for anyway.

Fantastic Four #5, by Ryan North (writer), Ivan Fiorelli (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - That's kind of trippy. Good work.

Nicholas Scratch and the Salem Seven show up to. . .mildly annoy the Four by spinning them around? Well, it turns out they've somehow reversed the "handedness" of the team's molecules, making them incompatible with life in their own universe. Their bodies could try to break down food, but the enzymes can't bond properly to do so. Slow death by starvation.

They get into the Dark Dimension and Reed does something to push his powers to the point where he can reverse the process. Spin everyone around in four dimensions so they're molecules are aligned properly. Something like that. They go home, Reed has Johnny burn some gunk off Ben because he fell in a pool of water and they don't want to carry any Dark Dimension bacteria over here, but completely ignores the puddle of water from where Ben landed. *sad trombone*

Of course, one of the locals of the Dark Dimension tried to chase them and its arm got lopped off when the portal closed. Sue just picked it up with a force bubble and tossed it in a dumpster. What if there are invasive bacteria in it? I guess they probably aren't photosynthetic if they live inside a creature, so they'll have the same "can't eat" problem the FF were going to. But it seems like something to be more careful with than that.

North seems to really like writing Reed Richards. Maybe something about the opportunity for creative solutions that comes with writing a genius. But at least in this issue, it feels like it reduces the rest of the team to Reed's supporting cast, which I'm not sure is the way to go. Certainly at some point Sue needs to get some spotlight,

Fiorelli kept the look of the book reasonably close to Coello's, although I see more 2000s Ron Garney is his work than I did in Coello's. Especially in some of the hatching and shading. Anyway, I assume Fiorelli got across what North was looking for with the thing Reed did with his body to do the rotating. 

He does draw Ben Grimm with closer to a normal human's proportions, however. Seeing the Thing with a body that tapers towards the waist is kinda weird. Plus he gave him a neck. The Thing is not supposed to have a neck! It was in the style guide and everything!

What I Bought 1/25/2023

I wasn't sure if the store in town would have both the books I wanted last week, but I lucked out. Even had the cover I preferred for one of them. I don't think that was the high point of last week - I got in a good run on Sunday with no major issues, and the feared Snowmaggedon turned out to be another dud - but it was at least in the running. Things are kind of at a low flow right now. Nothing terrible, but not much groovy either.

Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #5, by Bruce Campbell (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Kristian Rossi (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer) - That is quite the neck he's rocking there. Probably bust his tie if he swallows.

Having discovered Hitler's bunker at the end of last issue, Rock and Easy Company. . . withdrew to their Command Center? I guess you want to plan and outfit a mission like this appropriately, but this is the third time they've had a sit-down to make plans. Where's the urgency, especially considering they blew up the factory that was producing the re-gens? Doesn't this offer more time for the Nazis to dig in and prepare?

It does at least match Allied doctrinaire for the war, at least. Slow to move unless there's a shitload of airpower or artillery backing them up.

Anyway, Easy parachutes back in, and Campbell starts giving Rock internal monologue for the first time. Odd shift this late in proceedings, but it feels more like the character I'm accustomed to. The bunker gets bombed, but there are still plenty of re-gens, so Easy has to fight in. The sniper takes out Hitler's doctor while Rock, Jackie and Bulldozer confront a amped up Hitler and Eva Braun (who Jackie gives a shotgun blast to the gut.) Rock's fighting Hitler, and tells the rest of the guys to call in another bombing run and then get out.

I don't really follow that decision. Hitler's demonstrating he's pretty tough, but he's not bulletproof, and the few re-gens acting as bodyguards were in the process of being killed. Why do it this way? Rock's got at least one grenade, cram it it down Hitler's mouth and call it a day. Just kinda odd plot arc there.

Risso gets the chance to draw some more gore and severed limbs with the fighting here. There's also one panel where Eva pounces on Jackie and her outline is entirely filled in with black, except for her underwear, which are white. Not sure about the point of that, either. But there's also a panel of a green outline of a doorway, with the re-gens dark outlines in it, and the black space on either side of the door is filled with their laughter, colored red. That was a nice panel.

Darkwing Duck #1, by Amanda Deibert (writer), Carlo Lauro (artist), Jeff Eckleberry (letterer) - I went with the Mirka Andolfo cover. The blur effect of the cape on the right side of the cover seems unnecessary, but it's a nice image anyway.

So nostalgia won out for at least one month. St. Canard's dedicating a statue to Darkwing, but as everyone goes to take a picture of the unveiling with their cell phones, Megavolt somehow takes control of them and sets them after Darkwing. He escapes, pursues Megavolt, the jet crashes, Gosalyn tries to lure in Megavolt by using a lot of electricity pretending to be a band singing about Darkwing. Darkwing gets electrocuted saving her, but this overloads the city's power system and frees everyone from Megavolt's control.

It sort of recaptures the feel of the cartoon. It's a done-in-one, Darkwing's got a big ego that is punctured by certain circumstances (the first person to talk about how Darkwing helped the city is Herb Muddlefoot, who spends 2 hours on Darkwing helping him find a tupperware shipment he left under his bed). Gosalyn tries to help, there are some bad puns. Lauro's art is a little inconsistent but mostly on model, although he seems to struggle keeping eyes lined up. There's a couple where Launchpad in particular appears to be looking two different directions simultaneously. He's very good at giving the characters - especially Darkwing - expressive body language. He doesn't do the huge eyes or limbs stretching to comical degree approach, but they do visibly react to things in decently wide range.

No one actually captures Megavolt, though. He tries to electrocute the kids, Darkwing rushes to help them, gets fried, everyone is free of the mind control and Megavolt. . .just isn't there? No one even comments on if he got away or someone caught him. The issue ends with Darkwing reaserting to Gosalyn she can't have a cellphone, the mayor thanking Darkwing for saving the city again and him restating to the people preparing to take photos that every side is his good side. That ending isn't that out of place, bringing things back around to his ego and the dedication ceremony, but the villain of the week seems to have slipped through the cracks.

What I Bought 1/2/2023 - Part 3

One week down in 2023, and the world hasn't ended yet. To kick off another week, we're looking at a mini-series just past the halfway mark, and an ongoing series a couple of issues into it's next storyarc.

West of Sundown #7, by Tim Seeley and Aaron Campbell (writer), Jim Terry (artist), Triona Farrell (colorist), Crank! (letterer) - Dog soldier? Donkey soldier? Texas Chainsaw Massacre before there were chainsaws?

The merry band begins to fall apart. Finding the fellow they brought to Griffin for medical treatment last issue is now dead, Dooley and Mr. Manor suspect Griffin. Dirck offers a very lukewarm defense of his long-time traveling companion. So after pointing out a pair of punctures on the neck, Griffin grabs his captured creature and marches out of town.

Dooley, hoping Rosa will be able to offer a direction to seek the true killer in, is rebuffed when she insists she needs some sleep, because it's almost daytime, and she's meeting with Mr. Moreau this evening to discuss building her an opera house. They have a blow up and Dooley storms off. Also, Rosa mentions that if she'd fed on the man they brought in, she'd look much more rosy cheeked, which sort of blows my observation that she looks pinker, more human, when she's weakened, right the hell out of the water.

Out in the desert, Griffin realizes carrying around a big cage with a monster in it is a losing prospect and sets it free, before falling down a hillside and finding Moreau butchering animals in a train car.  There's one page in that sequence that looks very rushed, where Terry's lines are smudged and thicker than normal. Meanwhile, Dirck, Dooley and Mr. Manor go roaming the wilderness, and get their asses kicked by a bunch of Moreau's experiments. Also, the useless sheriff is having flashbacks to some earlier point in time, when he wore a weird a hood.

Kind of seems like this bunch can't stand still. Moreau makes a comment about making better predators, and maybe that's what all of them are. Rosa certainly, and Griffin. Maybe less so for Dirck and Dooley, but as they're tied to the other two, they get sucked into it. The nature of their lives won't let them stay within a small confine. If they try, their appetites or requirements for survival make them turn on each other.

Or it's the push-and-pull between chasing one's interests, but being alone, or staying with those they're fond of, but giving up on their passions.

Sgt. Rock vs the Army of the Dead #4, by Bruce Campbell (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Kristian Rossi (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer) - Rock's got himself to pots to piss in, but only enough time for one.

Rock and Easy Co follow the doc. They can't pass through a checkpoint normally, so they take it over, it loudly. Somehow the doctor fails to notice the fire and gunshots, but does notice the truck following him. So the truck comes under fire from a pillbox, and while most of the guys deal with that, Rock and the sniper, Four Eyes, grab a motorcycle and get back after the doc. This brings them to a warehouse in the middle of nowhere, guarded by a bunch of the re-gen soldiers. Must be something important inside, or someone.

Campbell throws in a few funny moments. Rock crashes through a barricade with a big "HALT" sign, and when Four Eyes questions him on it, replies, 'I can't read German.' At the checkpoint, one of his guys is translating the guard's orders, and when he demands papers, Rock rips a bunch of pages out of the truck's instruction manual and hands them over. Risso gets a silent panel of the Nazi just staring dumbfounded, before he starts screaming for the truck to be searched.

This issue does feel thin, though. The place where it ends feels like a decent stopping point for a chapter, but I'm wondering how much will happen in issue 5 and whether these two could have been squeezed together. The dialogue is pretty sparse, which gives Risso and Rossi room to work. There are a lot of nice details. Rock leaning slightly to his left to see around the bullet hole in the windshield.

There's two rows of three panels each where Rock stops their pursuers by rupturing a fuel tank. The top three are the set-up, him gradually getting the bazooka ready. The bottom three are focused on the lead pursuer, and start by showing the light of the shell being fired, then show its path reflected in the guys goggles. It's only in the final panel where the reflection of the tank appears, showing Rock wasn't just firing at the guys chasing them.

Black Friday (2021)

Look, it's a movie about, among other actors, Bruce Campbell and Michael Jai White as employees in a big toy store on Thanksgiving during an apocalypse. I'm not made of stone!

The movie takes a few minutes at the start to outline the broad strokes of a few of employees. The nervous guy in his early 20s with a crappy family who is germophobic. The divorced dad in his 40s that acts like he's 20. The useless manager (Campbell) and his kiss-ass assistant manager. It's not much, but it's enough to set up relationships and conflicts to come into play when things go wrong.

Which happens quickly. The movie's only 85 minutes, they don't have time to waste People waiting to get in already look sick, but the employees are used to that on holiday sales. But then someone attacks the germophobe and he dumps one of those 12-foot high cages they store the big bouncy balls in on them and things go south. The employees are in disarray, but the movie avoids too high of an initial body count by having the affected be up to something rather than rampaging and killing. It's not clear what or why, but none of these characters are the sort that would be able to figure that out.

All of that allows for the cast to try different approaches. Escape, then lockdown, then a different escape. Each of these splits the characters up into different groups, which allows them to bounce off each other in different ways, highlight their personality traits and how they act as the pressure increases. So it has elements of a zombie horror movie, in that the unaffected are sometimes the biggest threat to each other. Who starts pointing fingers, who turns coward, who does something shitty and tries to justify it after the fact?

It's also a bit of a comedy, in a Sam Raimi, Ash vs. Evil Dead sense (I'm the font Amazon Prime uses for the title on the menu screen is the same as Ash vs. Evil Dead). The characters sit around at one point, discussing how long they've worked at "We Luv Toys" and what the job means to them. They're alternately sad and funny, although mostly sad. People trapped in more than one sense.

The violence certainly has the Raimi excess to it. The affected gradually turning more horrible-looking, weird jaws and pointed teeth. Lots of corn syrup blood and people defending themselves awkwardly with whatever they can find. Whiffle Ball bats, bolt cutters, a broken champagne bottle.

What I Bought 11/23/2022

I tried, as much as possible, to stay the heck out of stores over the weekend. Can't deal with the Christmas surge. Had one comic come out last week, and not nearly as many books coming out this week as I was hoping, so let's look at what we got.

Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #3, by Bruce Campbell (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Kristian Rossi (color artist), Rob Leigh (letterer) - Oh, so now Rock's decided he likes the using the flamethrower against undead Nazis. You should be more concerned with process than results, man!

Last issue's nosing around was just recon. Now Easy Co. knows where the factory is, knows the layout, knows they need better weapons to deal with the revived Nazis, and know that Hitler's personal physician visits there. A couple of quick pages to introduce some new firepower, such as an automatic shotgun and a tear gas launcher, and we're back to the guys skulking around at night.

I expected that once they were in last issue, the story would just rush forward from there. Rock and the others trying to destroy the factory and adjust to finding Doctor Morell on the fly. But it makes more sense that they'd report back and get proper tools for the job. Can't afford to screw up the mission. I'm a little surprised the skirmish last issue didn't put the Nazis on high alert. Especially since they wouldn't have found any dead American soldiers. Wouldn't that be a concern, that someone saw your secret factory and lived to tell?

Anyway, the issue flips back-and-forth between the squad led by Bulldozer, responsible for making Morell rabbit and destroying the factory, and the one led by Rock, responsible for tracking Morell. Each run into their share of complications, so Risso and Rossi get a chance to draw Nazis get their heads and limbs pulped by shotguns, or having an entire brick smokestack knocked on them with a bazooka. Rossi's limited colors work pretty well with Risso's heavy use of shadows. Some nice panels of the Nazis emerging from darkness, only teeth and eyes visible, or Jackie Johnson grinning maniacally as he fires one of those shotguns.

I think the thing that feels off to me about this Sgt. Rock is I'm used to Kanigher or Kubert giving Rock almost a constant internal monologue. Their stories were essentially written from his perspective. Campbell's ditched that approach entirely. There's no thought balloons, not even any internal narration boxes. And this Rock's not particularly chatty, which might make sense, being a hard-bitten man of few words, and most of those consisting of barked orders, but it does make things feel a bit thin in places.

The part where he and Jackie find their truck surrounded by Nazis and Rock's order is to, 'lean into it!' while leaping from the truck with his shotgun ready, felt very appropriate to the character. The action scenes catch that desperation the old comics had, but in a different way.

What I Bought 10/26/2022 - Part 2

I didn't really plan to save the horror book for Halloween, it worked out that way because Friday's books were loosely, "concluding stories", and these two books are still in their first half.

Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #2, by Bruce Campbell (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Kristian Rossi (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer) - Rock is not happy with the festive burning zombie decoration.

Good news, everyone! Campbell and Risso did mostly get exposition out of the way in the first issue! By the time we see Easy Co. in this issue, they're already sneaking around the "industrial district" of Berlin, looking for the zombie-generating lab. They find a heavily-guarded place where bodies are being delivered, but their attempts to commandeer a truck fall prey to the rear of the truck being full of undead Nazis.

Dealing with that requires a lot of shooting and some grenades, which somehow doesn't attract immediate attention. So they're able to spy on the factory long enough to see Hitler's personal physician leaving (after receiving some drugs, which I'm sure implies something unpleasant with regards to the genocidal failed painter). But more undead soldiers show up, and fire doesn't kill them, or at least not quickly, so it's out the window, into a truck and chase that doctor.

The opening scene is definitely the creepiest part of the issue (not that the book is terribly creepy or scary). A bunch of the undead soldiers in a tavern, drinking. Then they start shooting each other, but it's all in fun as they laugh at how it doesn't kill or even really harm them. One of them gets shot through the back, laughs, drinks, and watches the beer pour out the bullet holes like he's Daffy Duck. Then they all laugh with these wrinkled, decayed faces, and Rossi colors the whole thing in a sickly grey-green that almost matches the undead's skin.

I don't know if it's more unsettling or less to think these guys still have some capacity for thought and understanding of their situation. The fact they understand and seem to revel in it is disturbing. When Bulldozer's stuck fighting one in close quarters later, he empties a revolver in the guy's gut, and said guy just keeps grinning (and drooling, these undead guys have all got permanent drool coating their chins) and saying he'll live forever. Reminds me a bit of the Letzses Battalion from Hellsing, although these guys are a bit goofier than that lot, who gleefully mangled and shredded human bodies at will.

X-Men Legends #3, by Ann Nocenti (writer), Javier Pina (artist), Jim Campbell (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I want Spiral to be throwing up some devil horns with her fingers to show she's enjoying this descent into a weird portal thing.

This is set immediately after the original Nocenti/Art Adams Longshot mini-series from the '80s. Longshot's captured by Mojo and dragged back to the Mojoverse, where Mojo plans - I use the term loosely - his next big cinematic piece with his incredibly lucky star. Dr. Strange may have stitched the portal shut, but Spiral reopens it and grabs Wolverine, Shadowcat and Lockheed, who came to investigate. Little reprogramming and recostuming later, and they're ready for starring roles in a big war picture. On opposing sides, naturally.

The heroes are almost props in this issue, as Nocenti seems most focused on Mojo, Spiral, and Major Domo. The resent the latter two hold for their boss, only thinly veiled (if that.) The contempt he holds for them, if even that. Mojo typically gets written as a comedy villain, maybe ever since the X-Babies thing. Just a big yellow blob that sees everything in terms of the entertainment value he can squeeze from it. Nocenti's the only one who seems to actually show that he's dangerous. Not just whatever it is about him that kills natural things by his mere presence. More the complete disregard for anyone or anything else.

He's a bit like a child, but an especially cruel one. Pain that happens to others, doesn't exist. Everyone is to be used by him, and you're only hope in getting him to listen is by appealing to his ego. He has no grasp of depth. As he puts it, characters change by being alive at the beginning of the story, and dead by the end. Major Domo argues in favor of creating real characters and giving them conflicts, but it only works because he points out that Mojo's ratings will plummet if they're bored for even a second. In panels where Mojo's the only character, he fills them, or close to it. A lot of those panels are close-up on his face. If he shares the panels with someone else, he still dominates it. 

Even in a full-page splash where Longshot briefly escapes and makes a speech while attacking Mojo, Mojo is in the foreground, taking up more of the panel than Longshot and Spiral (relegated to a small corner) combined. Even when Spiral and Domo plot betrayal, they're presented as greyed outlines, while Mojo's is this yellow shadow that looms in the background. He's got to be the star, the genius, the one everybody loves. Or else.

What I Bought 9/28/2022

The local store got shorted on their Marvel stuff for the week, but hopefully I'll have the second issue of Damage Control and the other 2 books from this month by the weekend. In the meanwhile, here's the first issue of a new mini-series!

Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #1, by Bruce Campbell (writer), Eduardo Risso (artist), Kristian Rossi (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer) - No worries, zombies can't digest Rocks.

This issue is basically all set-up. Establish Hitler has a program for reanimating corpses and sending them into combat, and that he wants more of them. Establish the Allies are aware of this, and that Rock and his guys are assigned the mission of finding a way to shut it down. Establish what the Allies know about how the corpses are reanimated (regenerating drugs, and a doodad at the base of the skull, that artificially stimulates the brain), who to look for, and where to look. 

Spend three pages on the nifty things they're outfitting Rock's guys with. Keep in mind, "nifty things" in this case involve walkie-talkies, night-vision goggles, and a thermal visor thing. We'll see how useful any of it proves to be. For example, do undead Nazis have a thermal signature? Even though one of the last bits is Rock and his guys getting an up close encounter with a captured undead, they didn't exactly try out any of that stuff. But it does establish how difficult this might be if they try to fight they way they do against living soldiers.

One can hope Campbell is getting the exposition of the way now, so next issue he can jump right into the action. He introduced a few of the other soldiers, to the extent of giving them names, but not much in the way of personalities yet.

Russo's version of Rock is hard for me to get used to. He's scruffy looking to be sure, but the haircut is odd (shaved on the sides but like a scraggly mop on top). Plus, he smokes a cigar. Does Russo think he's drawing Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos? Russo's also fond of shadowing soldiers' eyes with the rim of their helmets. Usually its just dark underneath, but in a few panels, one soldier's eyes are visible as tiny white circles with a dot in them. Not sure why, since he went the other way with Rock's face in the same panel. It could be for an expression of terror, which would fit some of the uses, but not that particular one.

Congo

Yet another movie I watched far too many times in the '90s. Which is funny, because I did not enjoy the book when I read it in junior high during my Michael Crichton phase. Took too long to get to the stuff I wanted to read, which was about struggling against the killer apes. I only decided to watch this again because in my Adventures of Brisco County Jr. set, there's a note for one episode from Bruce Campbell about getting to work with his buddy from Congo, and I was like, "Bruce Campbell was in Congo?"

A communications company sent people into the Congo looking for blue diamonds, which could be used to focus or improve their telecommunications satellite. The team, including the company owner's son, lose contact, so Laura Linney, as a member of the company (and former employee of the friggin' CIA), is sent to find out what happened. Quietly, so she latches on to an expedition by a behavioral scientist (Dylan Walsh) to return his gorilla, Amy, to the jungle where she grew up. The expedition runs into all sorts of problems, including political upheaval, border patrols, nighttime hippo attacks (I had completely forgotten that scene), unstable volcanoes, and, eventually, killer apes.

A lot of focus in the movie goes to Amy, who was taught sign language and outfitted with a glove that translates those signs into speech. Everybody repeatedly makes fun of Peter for interacting with Amy like they're married. Probably says something about those people's marriages, since the interactions come off as much more of a parent with their child. Peter seems to feel like the best thing for Amy is to return her to the jungle, that being isolated from other gorillas isn't healthy for her, but he still has that watchful air of a parent worried about sending their child off into the unknown. He has to trust she can look after herself, or learn to fit in.

Linney's arc is, I'm not sure. She explains at one point she left the CIA because she was tired of working for horrible people. By the end of the movie, she seems to realize her boss is also a horrible person. The leader of the first team he sent in was his own son (played by Bruce Campbell, which is why I didn't remember him), who was her fiance at one point. Linney wanted assurances she was going to make sure Charles was OK, not to secure the diamonds and learns, nope, her boss is a heartless asshole. Or a big spoiled baby. Early on, he gets angry and smashes a monitor in their communications center, then tells her to put the fire out. Kind of said everything right there.

I'm just not sure where she ends up, though. She very effectively filed her resignation, so maybe standing up to her evil boss on the way out the door rather than just leaving is an improvement, but I don't know what comes next.

It's one of those movies with no real star, just a lot of characters actors. Lot of That Guys. Bruce Campbell, of course (and it's such a waste he's only in the movie for like 10 minutes), but Ernie Hudson's in here as their guide. Tim Curry plays a crazy Romanian hoping Amy will lead him to King Solomon's diamonds. Hudson's character actually led his last attempt, yet he somehow doesn't recognize him until they've been traveling for over a day. The idea you wouldn't recognize Tim Curry speaking with that accent when you literally carried him out of the jungle once seems farfetched. Joe Pantoliano and Delroy Lindo are both uncredited according to IMDb, which is bizarre since they both have multiple lines of dialogue.

It's kind of nice actually, because no one gets to suck up all the oxygen. In Delroy Lindo's one scene, he's the one in control. The focus is on him, not the star. Everything moves off his demands. Sometimes Walsh and Amy are the focus. Sometimes it's Linney and her grey morality. Sometimes it's Curry hamming it up. Hudson is the sort of calm, faintly amused center of it. He bounces off all of them. Punctures Curry's nonsense, makes Walsh see sense, has enough experience doing unpleasant things he can coax some real answers out of Linney.

You never feel like there's only one character you're meant to care about, although I probably worried most about Walsh and Amy. Walsh is a generally decent guy in wildly over his head. He just wanted to take Amy home, and everyone else has used him for their own selfish purposes. Granted he would never have made it without them, but there's a lot of shit going down he didn't ask for.

A Prophesied One's Work is Never Done. Says so In the Prophecy.

Ash vs Evil Dead Season 3 popped up on Netflix in the last month, so I made a point to watch that. The season came out a year ago, but SPOILERS, I guess.

The addition of the previously unknown teenage daughter, Brandy (played by Arielle Carver-O'Neill) was an interesting choice. I guess by that point Kelly and Pablo are used to Ash's lazy, immature, disgusting ways, so you need someone else to react with fresh eyes. And it made a counterpoint to the awestruck Knights of Sumeria, with all their kneeling and pledging allegiance to the Prophesied One.

I feel like that one Knight, Dalton, was supposed to be a mockery of those brothers from Supernatural. He has the same haircut as one of them. The more scowly one, as opposed to the blonde with the "Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil 4" Memorial Dumb Haircut. I don't watch the show, and I'm not wasting time looking up their names.

Given how much of the season seemed to be spent undoing the rehabilitation to Ash's rep in Elk Grove that the conclusion to Season 2 brought, I wonder if they regretted that move. It makes sense not everyone would just automatically forget about all the years they thought Ash was some deranged serial killer, and it probably made it easier to show Brandy as having a lot of doubts about him. Still, it reminded me of all the times we see the regular citizens in the Marvel Universe turn on the Avengers or Spider-Man at the drop of a hat.

I was mostly just annoyed by the mind games Ruby was using and how that was playing out. Ash would try to do something to prove to Brandy her counselor was actually evil, and it would naturally just push her closer to "Mrs. Prevett". It's all supposed to build to the big moment when Brandy has to decide whether to kill Ash or not, and I was actually surprised at how that played out, but all the build-up felt like annoying filler.

One thing that I was curious about was, Ruby had her weird demon kid with the idea that if she could kill Brandy, then Ash, her son would inherit his power as Prophesied One and protect her from the Dark Ones. The son ended up dying before either of the other two, but they did die. So what happened with the powers? If Ash and his kid were both dead at the same time, did he get the powers back when he came back to life? Brandy technically returned first, so should they have gone to her instead?

Plus, it didn't seem like being Prophesied One did Ash much good when the Dark Ones made the scene. They tossed his ass aside and took the Necronomicon like he was as much trouble as a loose candy bar wrapper.

I liked them going back to Pablo's past with his uncle the brujo, even if in practice it mostly meant Pablo had whatever weird mystical powers were necessary to advance the plot. Although I can't shake the thought Pablo chose the wrong bowl during the test, and he isn't El Brujo Especial. His uncle certainly didn't seem invisible to Deadites.

On the other hand, it felt like they weren't sure what to do with Kelly. She was off somewhere else to start the season, showed up with Dalton, then got killed trying a revenge thing on Ruby, and spent most of the remainder of the season dead. I could see there being some point in there about Kelly needing to get past the reflexive anger and hatred still lingering from her parents' deaths, that drove her to try something stupid like kill Ruby, but then fuck around and talk a lot instead of just doing it. But that never materialized. My favorite exchange of the season came near the end of that fight.

Ruby: Charging in here like this, it wasn't a bad plan.
Kelly: You handing out gold stars now, teach?
Ruby: It was a terrible plan.

The end of the season was oddly paced. They go to the trouble of seemingly getting Pablo and Kelly together. Ash faces down some Kandarian demon with the help of a tank, and then he gets cryogenically preserved for some indeterminate amount of time. I admit I was curious about the alternate end to Army of Darkness (where he sleeps too long and wakes in the future), but it seemed like a strange move to spring here, at the very last moment in the season. Why would the Knights expect Ash to do any better X number of years in the future?

Then again, the Knights didn't have a great track record of knowing what they were up against. Or being able to handle even relatively minor tasks successfully, for that matter. Them putting a bad plan in motion and thinking it's a good plan would not be a surprise.

Intruder (1989)

I've relied on low expectations to see me through some lousy movies lately, but even that couldn't save Intruder. I picked it up for cheap at a store back in, February I think, because it said Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell were both in it, although neither is the main character.

It's closing time at a local grocery store, but work is disrupted by the sudden appearance of Jennifer's ex-boyfriend Craig, out of jail after accidentally(?) stabbing a guy. Jennifer hasn't been responding to his calls or letters, and Craig makes a scene, fights most of the staff, but eventually is bodily ejected. Shortly after that, and after the manager has announced he's closing the store in a month, people start getting murdered in gruesome ways. Lots of stabbing or impaling, but there's also a deli slicer and some sort of hydraulic press. Everyone else seems blissfully unaware as they go about their jobs, until Jennifer is the only one left, and the killer's after her.

The film is a little under 90 minutes, it takes about 35 minutes for anyone to die, and it still feels overly drawn out. There isn't enough here to maintain interest. I couldn't keep most of the guys distinct in my mind, and I couldn't tell you any of their names, other than there was a Danny, and also a Randy, but which face goes with which name, *shrug*. There wasn't any reason to care.

There's a brief stretch at the beginning where everyone is searching for Craig inside the store where there's some tension, because no one is quite sure what he might do, but once they toss him out of the store, everyone goes about their business. And since everyone is scattered, there isn't a point when they start to realize what's happening and try to escape or fight back, until there's just Jennifer. And at that point, it settles into a rather tedious back and forth of her trying to escape, getting caught, briefly gaining the upper hand and then running off to start the whole thing over again.

Still, Chainsaw For A Hand

A friend got me the first season of Ash vs. Evil Dead for Christmas. I may have some thought on it down the line (this is where you ask where those other posts about Steven Universe are, and I tell you to shut up), but I did have a different question for the audience.

When it comes to the events of Army of Darkness, is Ash an unreliable narrator?

The entire movie is presented to us as Ash relating the story to his coworker at S-Mart. Given Ash's tendency to try to avoid culpability for his screw-ups, or admit them only grudgingly, plus how much he likes to talk up his abilities, I wonder how much we can trust his version of things.

Most of my doubts stem from the preparations he makes to defend the castle. Teaching the remaining defenders some fighting techniques. Turning his car into a steam-powered mega weed-whacker, building explosive arrows with the aid of what looks like high school chemistry texts. You could probably even throw in his being the only one who can survive in combat against his evil duplicate. Although in that case, he was fighting largely on the defensive, and won through a fair amount of luck.

What brought the question mind was the Ash in Season 1 doesn't really show that level of ingenuity, but he does show the ability to try and bullshit about how much he has things under control. The bravado - I'm not sure whether it's false or not, because I think he might really buy into - is an integral part of his character, but it does make his version of events suspect.

Improbable Suggestions For Films That Are Never Happening

Probably because I've started rewatching my Brisco County Jr. DVDs, I was thinking about Bruce Campbell this weekend. More precisely, Bruce Campbell as a villain in a movie. I'm sure he's done it before, and I either haven't seen the film, or don't remember it*. I was thinking he can do charming, and it's the kind of charming where the audience can also be sucked in, rather than the kind where the audience sits there wondering how the characters are getting fooled. he can do brash, smug, and most importantly for where my brain went, grandiose. Thus, my brain concluded Bruce Campbell should be Dr. Doom.

I don't know if Campbell can do an Eastern European accent, but that didn't stop Julian McMahon in either of the recent FF flicks**. If Campbell can do the third-person stuff, the big speeches, the style, the accent isn't that big a stumbling block.

OK, so then my brain recalls this Morgan Freeman quote Roger Ebertused in his review of Red. Freeman said he liked playing villains because they're usually the most interesting characters, and you know they'll still be around at the end of the movie. Which means we need Super Villain Team-Up: The Movie, starring Morgan Freeman and Bruce Campbell. Hey, I like Bruce Campbell, but you know Morgan Freeman's getting top billing there.

I can't decide who'd be a good villain for Morgan Freeman to play, though I'm thinking Vandal Savage. I know, different comics company from Dr. Doom, he's just the first character I thought of that has the age that Freeman could play him. Vandal, in the comics I've seen him, is portrayed as having a good level of intelligence, and the ability to manipulate people, probably because he has thousands of years of observing human nature. He can be coldly sadistic and/or practical, but also be outright brutal. He might try intimidating someone, or tricking them into doing his dirty work, or even (as he did with the Ray) try to be their friendly mentor, but he might also decide to just kill someone if they're a problem. Morgan Freeman can easily do the "older mentor figure" part, but it might be fun to see him let loose and crack some impertinent underlings head open.

Hmm, maybe Bruce Campbell could be Count Vertigo? The Eastern European accent thing is still a stumbling block, but that's one classy villain.

* For example, he was in Congo, which I have seen at least a couple times, but I have no memory of him. Tim Curry, I remember, but not Bruce Campbell. I didn't remember he was in that Tom Arnold McHale's Navy movie either, until I was saw it while at Alex' over the summer, but that may have been my brain trying to blot out the memory of watching McHale's Navy. That also had Tim Curry in it.

** McMahon would be someone who plays the sort of charming that seems to work on the characters, but not the audience. At least, that was how it went on the few occasions I watched Nip/Tuck.

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

I didn't take full advantage of my access to movie channels while I was at Alex'. I mostly wound up watching parts of movies I'd seen before, like the first 15 minutes of Hancock, or Black Dynamite. I caught the second half of 9, which I'd never seen. That wasn't bad, didn't end how I expected, but the story felt thin.

The one movie I did watch all the way through for the first time was Bubba Ho-Tep. I'd avoided it previously, but that was because I was confusing it with 3000 Miles to Graceland, which has Kevin Costner in it. Hey, they both have people dressed as Elvis in them, don't judge me!

There's a rest home in East Texas, and it's become a feeding ground for a mummy, looking for easy (if not filling) souls to eat. The only two people who stand against it are Sebastian Haff (or is he Elvis, as he claims), played by Bruce Campbell, and Ossie Davis' character. Ossie's character believes he's really JFK, who was removed from power by the machinations of Lyndon B. Johnson. Ossie fully expects Lyndon and his cronies will send someone to finish him off one day, or else he'll perish some other way.

It takes some time for JFK to convince Sebastian/Elvis to help, but once he does, they set themselves to the task of defending their fellow residents from the mummy who's denying them an afterlife to prolong its own existence. John's the curious sort, willing to do the research, and Elvis is more the action-oriented type, because it's kind of nice to have something to do.

The rest home is a dreary place. It reminds me of the apartment building James Sunderland wanders through in the early stages of Silent Hill 2, just a little better lit. The walls of the home are stained, the fluorescent lights and tile floors make it all seem cold, and it's just a dreary place (except for JFK's room, which actually doesn't look too bad). Seeing what it's like there, one can see how Sebastian/Elvis would be ready to die, while being filled with regrets for lost opportunities, and how a threat like this would be welcome, simply as something more tangible to occupy the mind.

The film has some of the Army of Darkness feel to it. The fight scenes have a mixture of absurdity and clumsiness to them (as when Elvis threatens to show Bubba Ho-Tep his "stuff", which goes as well as you'd think for an elderly man with a bad hip). The mummy's dialogue is shown first as hieroglyphs on the screen, then a translation is provided beneath it, and it's comments are usually profane trash talk.

That tone clashes with much of the rest of the movie, especially Campbell's performance as Elvis. I'm not an Elvis aficionado, but most reviews I looked at say he captured the King well, which I can believe. He has the fire sometimes, and the showmanship, but there's also exhaustion, frustration, regret (lots of it), and questions about whether he made the right decisions, and if it's too late to change anything. I really enjoyed the performance, as it captured what I figure being old and stuck alone in a rest home would be like, but the tone of that clashes some with the stuff with the mummy, who wore the sort of hat you might seen in a Western* for some reason. I could argue the point was it would take something that severe to snap Sebastian/Elvis out of his funk, but I don't think I can convince myself of that.

I wonder if we're supposed to believe Elvis and JFK are who we say they are. I'm pretty sure we aren't supposed to think Ossie's character is really JFK, but I'm less so about the Sebastian/Elvis situation, as you've no doubt guessed since I've used that description a few times. It all seems a little far fetched, but it's a movie with a mummy eating people's souls, so I'm prepared to accept just about anything. Ultimately, it doesn't matter much, since they believe they are who they say they are, and maybe they even believe the other fellow is who he says he is. Either way, it's a story about two guys stepping up to save the day because there's no one else around who cares enough to try.

If you're unsure if it sounds good, I'll point out it's barely 90 minutes, so it's not a huge investment of time. Just be prepared for the things to shift once the mummy appears. It's not the same movie once they've set themselves to destroying their undead foe.

* Wide, round brim, the top sort of bowl-shaped, not real high. Not quite a sombrero.

I Talk Extensively About Brisco County Jr.

I'm sorry that yesterday's title didn't have much relevance to the post. It was going to refer to a set of thoughts I originally started in the post, then decided to save for today. Then i forgot to come up with a new title. Whoops.

OK, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. I was watching the DVD with all the special features on it this morning, and one of the things the writers and actors brought up was that with the series, they were trying to create of combination of the old Western serials, and the old sci-fi serials. Which might explain why I was struggling to figure out which Western hero Bruce Campbell's character Brisco County Jr. reminded me of. He's not a mostly quiet and grim person, ala Clint Eastwood. He's not an imposing authority figure like John Wayne, or a goofy singing cowboy like Roy Rogers*. He's not a Lee van Cleef, Charles Bronson, Gary Cooper, or I assume, Randolph Scott.

Assembled masses: Randolph Scott?! *all remove their hats as heavenly chorus sings 'Randolph Scott!'*

Yeah, that guy. Brisco actually reminds me of Zorro. Serious when it's required, but with both romantic and playful streaks as the situation allows. Maybe with Brisco that relates to those sci-fi serials, or maybe that's just Bruce Campbell being Bruce Campbell. It works, because the series isn't played too grim. One of Brisco's interests is seeking out 'the coming thing', as the story is set in 1893-1894, the dawn of the 20th Century nearly upon them. This works nicely with his stated motivations for pursuing John Bly (Billy Drago) and his gang. Even though they killed Brisco's father while escaping custody, Brisco is adamant he's after justice for them, not vengeance. If it was the other way around, it would imply Brisco was stuck in the past, concentrating on what's already happened, which is more High Plains Drifter in tone. Brisco takes the work seriously, but is determined to not be consumed by it.

While Brisco does meet people over the course of the series with whom he has past history, he also meets many new people, many of whom have new ideas. There's Sheriff Aaron Viva (Gary Hudson) of Hard Rock, with his idea of "day glasses" to address his sensitivity to light, and being able to walk up to the window of a restaurant, request food, and have it brought right out to you, so you can continue on your way. Or there's Professor Wickwire (John Astin), with his "inner space suit" and "lighter-than-air-ship". There's seemingly always something new being cooked up for Brisco to encounter, which encourages his positive outlook and tendency to roam.

There are villains of course, some menacing, others amusing, some that can be both. One of the major driving points for the story is the pursuit of John Bly and his gang, and in the first 20 episodes it's typical for an episode to focus on just one member. I get the feeling Bly's gang was much like the Defenders, with him as Dr. Strange: If he needed them, he'd put out the call and they'd show up. Otherwise, they might run amok pursuing their own interests. And every villain has his own style. There are counterfeiters, pirates, safecrackers, strongarm types, daredevils, gamblers and so on. There are also several unaffiliated (as far as I can tell) bad guys who show up for maybe one episode, like Frenchy Bearpaux or Utah Johnny Montana.

The two recurring villains are John Bly himself, and Pete Hutter (John Pyper-Ferguson). It's funny, in the commentary, all the other actors insist that Billy Drago is the nicest guy you'll meet, but that he is terrifying to be on screen with. Campbell says Drago can go long periods of time without blinking, and he does have an intense stare, plus his teeth seem sharp and narrow somehow, so when he smiles you get the impression he's thinking about ripping your throat out**. He moves with this loose-limbed gait, as though he's the most relaxed guy in the world, which I imagine is related to how confident he is he'll succeed at his plans. There's also something about his voice I can't place, a certain dead quality to it. He's gets emotions across fine, but it's like there's something missing from him. I may just be projecting, based on what I know about the character.

Then there's Pete. He's the comedy relief villain, but he also gets the best lines in the series, so he's like a little slice of the Earthworm Jim show set loose. 'I scoff at your moronic interpretation of hoosegow architecture!' being just the first one that leaps to mind. Despite being frequently at odds with Brisco (or Buuuuuh-risco, as Pete pronounces it), Pete's not totally evil. He's never killed a man***, and he's never violated any agricultural quarantine laws. Beyond that, he can be mixed up in nearly anything, but they never go as planned. Pete's the sort of character that gets tricked and used, but can't figure that out until he's already in trouble. Though he is very adept at surviving apparent deaths, to the extent his not being dead becomes a running gag, as does his attachment to his gun, called "Pete's Piece". Do not touch Pete's Piece! Pete, for all his bumbling, is a bit of a kindred spirit to Brisco, as Pete also knows about subjects you wouldn't expect an outlaw to be well-versed in, such as Impressionism and existentialism. He's not as focused on the future, but he he is well aware of the wider world.

Brisco has his allies, from Socrates Poole (Christian Clemenson) who serves as the go-between for Brisco and his employers, to Lord Bowler (Julius Carry) who starts as a rival, but later joins forces with Brisco, to Brisco's horse, Comet (which was actually five horses, each with specific purposes). With Poole, you have, to borrow from the Buffy universe, a Wesley figure. The uptight fellow out of place in the adventuring, but who slowly grows into it. Poole is never at home out in the wilderness, but he does get smarter about how much a horse can carry, and more eager to assist Brisco.

Bowler is good at his work, and the sort who tries to hide his better nature underneath cynicism. He might have come by that honestly, as Bowler's part Native American, part African-American, so I'd think he dealt with prejudice prior to meeting Brisco. Still, Bowler's a good fellow at heart, though he's less interested in the coming thing than Brisco is, but he does think of the future, just in more personal terms, such as what he'll do when he retires from manhunting.

I couldn't discuss the series without mentioning the ladies. There are quite a few women in the series, from traveling singers to mail-order brides, lawyers, sheriffs, blacksmiths, and spies. Yes, most of the swoon into Brisco's arms at some point in the episode (I'm not positive on this, but I'd say he kissed at least 7 different ladies in the course of 27 episodes), but he's the hero, and I guess that's to be expected. And they're typically good at what they do, and if they need Brisco's assistance, it's because the situation is beyond their normal experiences.

Not that it doesn't get him into trouble now and then, especially with Dixie Cousins (Kelly Rutherford), the recurring romantic interest. She's the traveling singer, but she has connections with more than one member of Bly's gang, and she's not above getting her hands dirty to deal with a problem. This means Brisco finds her on the opposite side of a situation from him, or there's at least the possibility she's playing him. Which makes her a bit of a wild card. She likes Brisco, Brisco likes her, but their goals aren't always compatible. Still, the chemistry is there, which is a plus. It'd be rough to have this recurring relationship and it doesn't seem genuine.

I'm not going to say much about the orb, because I don't know what to say. Whatever the plot requires, the orb can facilitate. It does tie-in with Brisco's looking to what's coming, though that isn't apparent for awhile. Watching the series, I was surprised to see the arc with Bly wrapped up before the end of the season. It seemed the sort of thing you'd end with. Then I heard during the commentary that the show was canceled off-season, so they hadn't realized one year was all they'd get, so they went ahead and started up another way for Brisco and Bowler to get involved in hijinks. It didn't come into play much, but there were only 7 episodes to use it, so it probably needed more time.

For some reason, the last two episodes had a bunch of NFL players as guest-stars****, including Terry Bradshaw. I was intially critical of Bradshaw's performance, but when I remembered I'm not supposed to be taking this completely seriously, it got better. Bradshaw helped that along by telling his elite crew of trackers to "huddle up" before an attack, and later giving a fiery speech about being winners, and how America loves winners, and so on. It broke my own attempts to view his as a serious, grim threat, and I sat back and enjoyed the show.

I don't know if that's as long as the post last June about The Invisible Man, but it felt like it. Comic reviews tomorrow, assuming the UPS guy doesn't screw the store over again!

* Perhaps Roy Rogers wasn't goofy. I don't really know. But you tell me he sang a lot, and wore sequined shirts, and I'm going to think goofy.

** See, I kind of hate saying that about a guy when everyone insists he's a swell guy. it sounds mean, but I guess it's credit to how good an actor he is.

*** Well, he's never been found guilty of murder, but I was sure he killed one of his guys in a botched attempt to gun down Brisco in a duel in the first episode. Maybe it doesn't count as murder since they both fired?

**** One of them was former 49ers linebacker Ken Norton Jr., playing an expert tracker. I think he says his first line in Spanish, and they provide subtitles. After that, he speaks in English, but they still provide subtitles. So he's ordered to follow Brisco and Bowler as they make an escape, and replies "That thing leaves no tracks.", while the subtitles say "The situation seems intractable. Don't you agree?" I was cracking up.

Well, It's A Funny Thing

You remember how I said yesterday that there was something else I was going to complain about (besides the guys handing out Bibles), but it kept turning into its own post, so I'd talk about it tomorrow, by which I meant Thursday. Today. Which is Thursday. Everyone with me so far?

Well, later that evening I remembered that I had a post already planned out for today, and it's somewhat Thursday-specific. Kind of has to be done tonight. So that other post is just going to have to wait until Saturday. But what could be so important as to delay me discussing something that bothered me?

Why, none other than my attempt at live-blogging the season finale of Burn Notice! That's right, I'm going to be typing my reactions to what's going on as it happens, even though you won't see the post until it's completely done, because I'm not going to keep publishing and editing the post over and over for two hours, why would you demand that of me? To hell with you! Let's get started. SPOILERS if you haven't seen the episode yet!

7:57 p.m. - I really don't care what the director of National Treasure was trying to do with the ending. I really do not. Why did they have to run this movie before the beginning of my live-blogging attempt?

8:00 - I like that at the same time Bruce Campbell does the Old Spice commercials where he's all suave, he's on this show dressed like I would be (a slob), and about as clean-shaven as me too. And he's still a ladies' man. How?

8:02 - As a lover of fried chicken, I do not appreciate Michael making fun of Sam for his 'bucket of fat', as Michael put it.

8:03 - And someone is leaving Michael notes with poems in them. Is this his version of the Riddler?

8:05 - Commercial break. I am already concerned about my ability to follow the plot if I'm typing my responses to things I'm seeing. They're advertising the new Resident Evil movie. I saw the second one for the first time last weekend. As expected, crap, but I do like that at the end the evil guy is stuck on the roof with zombies closing in, he's tries to kill himself before they can eat him, but oops, he wasted all his bullets already! Ha, ha! I am a schadenfreude kind of guy.

8:08 - I miss Fiona's Irish accent. I guess I found it exotic, and besides, it made her seem more feisty somehow. Or maybe just more trigger-happy, like I expect the Irish to be impulsively violent. Hey, I can say that, I'm part-Irish.

8:10 - Ah, the classic TV cliche of the woman falling for the wrong guy, and getting herself and her friend in trouble for it. Why do women always fall for the assholes?

8:11 - I could have done without an appearance by the gambling addicted brother. Michael's mom I like, but his brother, it's hard for me to understand why Michael doesn't just shoot him. OK, I know why he doesn't shoot him; he's family, but the dude is a pain. And now he's giving the gambler a firearm? Bugger. That won't end well.

8:14 - Sam and Fiona working together, without Mike involved? That should be good. There are travel guides to Madison, Wisconsin now? Why?

8:16 - Bruce Campbell is irresistible to members of all sexes. How unfair is that? The Hustler looks a bit like Viggo Mortensen. It's not though; his voice is too weak.

8:18 - How much do you think it hurts if Triple H doesn't control his swings with that sledgehammer? A lot, or a mind-numbingly huge amount?

8:21 - Had to step away for a moment to turn off the AC. It was making it hard to hear the TV. Of course, opening the windows may offset the noise - oops, show's starting again!

8:23 - I'm glad to see Mike's getting his car fixed. I was sad after he hit it with an exploding propane tank last week. And that still wasn't enough to stop Lucy Lawless. She is a force of nature.

8:25 - I like when Mike starts playing roles. "Green Beret" isn't much of a stretch, but it's a little more over-the-top than he normally is.

8:27 - Every time Mike drops a little knowledge about how to make an effective bug, or how to fry a person's laptop by putting magnet in the hotel lamp, I wonder, "Could I pull that off?" That's the kind of thinking that's liable to get me in trouble.

8:30 - I'm pretty sure Michael has two different smiles. He just gave his mom the insincere smile, where he shows his teeth, but doesn't really mean it. You can see it in his eyes - he's just smiling to seem friendly, so you're more likely to do what he wants, in this case leave his warehouse so he can go to a meeting. He's got another smile though, I'm pretty sure I saw it when he helped that man whose boss was trying to frame him for the theft of valuable art. It helped keep a family together, and he felt good, so he gave a real smile. I'd like to see that more often.

8:35 - Dr. Steve-O? We're all doomed.

8:37 - One thing that's always interesting about this show is how much the clients actually follow the orders of Mike, Fiona, and Sam. Some people are smart, and listen to the professionals. Some people have to get impatient, and do stupid crap, like the guy that house-sits and pretended to be rich, so his girlfriend got kidnapped. This lady seems like she's actually going to pay attention.

8:40 -What was shielding Sam's cell phone? His car? The building?

8:42 - Sam just said he was "Chuck Finley". Does this mean Sam was a fan of the California Angels in the late '80s-early '90s, or just a fan of guys who were married to Tawny Kitaen?

8:44 - Bringing Down the House, three nights in a row. Well, that's three nights in a row I won't be going near USA Network. That Quiznos commercial did not make me want Quiznos. It does however, make me curious about the possibilities of liquifying my favorite foods and taking them in intravenously. Do you think liquid brownies going directly into my veins would kill me quickly, or slowly?

8:47 - They put a bomb on her car, and she asks if they were trying to kill her? A little slow aren't you lady? Wait, this Gillian has people trying to kill her, Sam advises her to make plans to take a vacation, then lets her leave by herself? What the hell?

8:49 - Michael really believes in what he used to do for a living. I just figured he didn't know what else to do.

8:50 - I know who this Cowan is. It's Simon Peter Gruber, the bad guy from Die Hard With a Vengeance! That's what's with all the riddles and now he's making Michael run a distance in a short amount of time. Damn, Bruce Willis isn't as good at killing people as I thought. And while I've been making this lousy joke, Michael's friends are under attack by armed goons. Way to be, Calvin.

8:54 - And now Cowan's dead, and all Michael got was some vague warnings about him being on the edge of something big, and having powerful people interested in him. This development concerns me, because I'm worried this means the series is going to ultimately be Michael basically banging his head against a wall trying to make some progress against these dangerous, shadowy figures. That kind of futile struggle is why I gave up on The Dead Zone, because I got tired of every attempt Johnny made to block Stillson's ascension failing utterly. I know, it's way to early to be thinking like this, I'm just saying, that kind of thing concerns me.

8:58 - I realized a few days ago, that my Tuesday night class will cause me to miss the first half of the new season of House. And we're back to the show!

9:00 - That was it? They came back from commercial for two minutes, then back on commercial? Weak. Still, it was an interesting two minutes. Michael is seeing threats everywhere, no telling whether he's imagining it or not, and Fiona actually sounds scared, which is never a good sign. She struck as the sort of person who could look Darkseid in the eye and laugh at him.

9:02 - The St. Louis Cardinals' season is just getting depressing at this point. At least you can count on LaRussa to be a prick. Couple of nights ago, Brendan Ryan swings at a 3-0 pitch and flies out. This is the first inning. When he gets back to the dugout, LaRussa chews him out, then pulls him from the game. That's bullshit. He'd never do that to one of the veterans. And the next night either Yadier Molina or Skip Schumaker made a dumbass baserunning mistake, and neither one got benched. TLR needs to leave St. Louis. Thanks for the World Series victory Tony, not go back to the West Coast. As long as they don't sign Dusty Baker, I'll take my chances as a fan with anyone else. Well, maybe not Mike Hargrove, either.

9:06 - And now Fi's not only armed, she's got back-up. These goons are boned.

9:07 - Another commercial break? This is getting ridiculous. Still, in the episode thus far we've had two cars blow up, two other cars shot, another car narrowly avoid being blown up, and three people dead up to this point. Not too shabby.

9:11 - Tom Brady is not a "character"! He's not the next Joe Montana either. if anyone tells you that, punch them hard in the face. Repeat as many times as necessary to make them stop believing that. Use your own discretion on how many punches that is.

9:13 - I must remember the Bruce Campbell Rule of Being a Prisoner: Critique the technique of the man punching you in the face. Pissing them off is the smart thing to do. Just ask Max Payne.

9:15 - Now why did the bad guy have to promise to find Gillian? Now he'll have to die. Not that I'm opposed to that, mind you. It's just not a good idea on his part.

9:16 - I have to appreciate Fiona's attitude toward guns - more is better. Big explosions are fun.

9:18 - I was thinking Sam had some sort of escape plan hidden behind the imbecilic bravado. Not so sure anymore. And now I'm sure again. Good Sam. Or, maybe not. Bad Sam. Selfless doesn't suit you.

9:22 - Thinking about it, this may not technically be my first liveblog. I did a page-by-page run-through of the New Avengers Annual that came out last year (April 29, 2006 post). Of course, that was on a second reading, not a first, but it was kind of similar.

9:24 - Fiona really enjoys wearing sleeveless shirts. Do you think that's a mobility aid, like sleeves inhibit range of motion?

9:28 - I like that when Michael makes a 'We're friends or we're enemies' line, he's brought the guy out to a deserted pier. . . at night. Nothing like the subtle threat of killing you in a place where dumping the body is easy.

9:31 - Why does Michael think he can actually make his mother do what he wants? She's his mother, and just as I type that he gets her cooperation by expressing concern for her. Clever.

9:32 - Oh hell, even Fiona is advising Michael to be more cautious. And that's pretty ballsy move by Mr. Westin there. I don't think this drug guy looks like a "Carmelo"

9:34 - 'If you don't do what I want, I will rain down hell on you until one of us is dead. And I am really good at raining down hell.' I dub thee, Quote of the Episode.

9:35 - Whew, I'm starting to wear down. Need more soda. No wonder sports blog rise and fall so quickly, trying to do this kind of thing for every game could kill a man.

9:40 - Sam read a book once? The things that make you angriest are the things you know are true? I'm not sure I buy that. The things that make me angry are being stuck behind idiots while driving. What's the truth in that scenario?

9:42 - With all the looks between Fiona and Michael, I'm wondering if making bombs isn't like foreplay to those two. Probably is to Fiona. Aw, Michael stole a car to get his mom to a hospital when he was 10. Damn, he's making me feel like a bad son.

9:45 - Michael is playing it very ballsy. I approve. I do think it's funny all these guys pointing guns at someone pointing a gun at themselves. I know, he might shoot at them if they drop their guard, but it looks pretty funny. "Stop! Do not shoot yourself, or. . . we will be forced to. . shoot. . . you, I guess. That's not really much of a deterrent is it?"

9:50 - No, Fiona, you don't ever say good-bye, because that implies you might never see each other again! You have to keep the faith that love will bring you together again! Believe in the power of love, right Huey Lewis? Yes, I've used that line before, we're going on two consecutive hours of blogging here, cut me some slack.

9:54 - I find it hard to believe this guy will fall for the "I hear the cell phone I'm calling somewhere nearby, I better go check." But he did, and now he's kicking Mike's ass. Or not. Mike, I imagine Fi only has so many bullets, so you need to pick up the pace a bit.

9:56 - Slow-motion running = KA-BOOOM! I guess we have to add an exploded barge to the destruction list for the episode.

9:57 - The shadowy government types can hack OnStar?! Is nothing safe?!

9:58 - Do not drive up into the back of that truck Michael. It's dark in there, anything could happen!

9:59 - Next summer! I have to wait until next summer for new episodes? Damn the man who keeps us all down by hacking our OnStar Navigation systems!

10:00 - Show's over. Not bad. Not great, but not bad. I think this distracted approach to watching the episode detracted from my enjoyment and digestion of the episode. So it may not be a good idea to do this anymore. Or I may do this whenever the new season of The Shield starts. Who can say? Either way, we're done here. Night, everybody.