R. Kikuo Johnson illustrates Anthony Lane’s New Yorker review of the Korean horror film The Host. Lane liked the movie quite a bit, though bona-fide horror buff and ADDTF pal Jason Adams was not that enthusiastic; the problems he cites lead me to believe that Lane’s enthusiasm stems from the typical zeal non-horror-buff critics display for films that “transcend the genre.” “Transcending the genre” is, of course, bullshit, so color me skeptical–though it is a water monster, so I’ll probably see the damn thing myself at some point.

If you’re all aflutter about the deluge of official casting information for Clive Barker’s Midnight Meat Train film–and I know I am!–you might want to keep the antici…pation high by reading my essay on the original short story. Or hell, my series of essays on the entire Books of Blood collection.

Tales of Mystery and Terror by Edgar Allan Poe, from the Great Illustrated Classics series, adapted by Marjorie P. Katz, illustrated by Pablo Marcos Studio. I found a hardcover copy for three bucks at Michael’s craft store this afternoon and couldn’t pass it up. I had a purple paperback copy of this when I was a kid, and “The Cask of Amontillado” blew me away.

“For the love of God, Montresor!”

“Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”

If the sheer volume of responses is any indication, this week’s Horror Roundtable topic is apt to strike a nerve with pretty much any horror fan: Name a horror movie you didn’t or couldn’t watch all the way through. Almost-walkouts were also accepted, and that’s where my entry came in…

I love Frank Miller–he’s my favorite cartoonist–but I’ve never deluded myself into believing his comics have a lot to say politically. Since 9/11 he’s obviously been more tuned in, though he’s careened wildly from doing “bloodied but unbowed” Captain America portraits for Marvel Comics’ benefit book to doing a fairly vicious anti-patriotism and anti-religion thing in another benefit book to rewriting the third and final installment of The Dark Knight Strikes Again so as to play up the similarities with the real-world attack to slowly but surely working on a Batman vs. al Qaeda comic. But before then, you could essentially sum up his political position by saying he likes stuff that is good and doesn’t like stuff that sucks. Politics in his pre-9/11 work–cf. the liberal and conservative stereotypes in The Dark Knight Returns–were of an equal-opportunity angry centrist stripe and served mostly as another source of potential mayhem to play with.

That’s why I find the entire debate over the politics of 300, Zack Snyder’s “this one goes to eleven” film adaptation of Miller and Lynn Varley’s late-’90s graphic novel, ridiculous beyond words. So the following conversation, culled from an email exchange with my old Comics Journal message board running buddy Jim Treacher (of The Daily Gut, Blowing Smoke, and Mother May I Sleep with Treacher fame), is about as seriously as I’m gonna take it. Spoilers, saucy language, and snark abound, so caveat lector.

———-

“Sean T. Collins”

to jimtreacher

I was waiting for this.

http://www.slate.com/id/2161450

DOUBLEPLUSUNGOODTHINKFUL

—–

jimtreacher

to me

Yeah, I read that. How is it she didn’t slit her wrists during Lord of the Rings?

Here’s my review.

—–

“Sean T. Collins”

to jimtreacher

It’s like all the lily-livered liberal film critics in America put the same nine criticisms in a hat (video game, comic book, homophobic, white skin good/dark skin bad, warmongering, misogynist, too loud, too slow, too serious, Godwin’s Law violation), drew them out in random order, and made that their review.

—–

jimtreacher

to me

And I’m not sure how this little dork typed up his review with a baby bottle in one hand and his own bleeding heart in the other [chomps cigar].

Of course, when I Googled that guy, he served in the Gulf War so I’m not allowed to call him a little bitty sissy baby.

—–

“Sean T. Collins”

to jimtreacher

Another Nazi comparison! Did they go to film school with Charles Krauthammer?

“I mean I had an M16, Jacko, not an Abrams fucking tank. Just me and Charlie, man, eyeball to eyeball. That’s fuckin’ combat. The man in the black pyjamas, Dude. Worthy fuckin’ adversary.”

—–

jimtreacher

to me

Also, all that man-heat on one screen could totally cause global warming!

How about that Queen Whatserface? I’d like to [colorful euphemism deleted–ed.]

—–

“Sean T. Collins”

to jimtreacher

She’s a looker.

I saw it at a Warner Bros/press screening at the IMAX on monday, and I was surprised that the part where she gutted the evil councilman was the single biggest applause moment of the film.

—–

jimtreacher

to me

Yeah, that was good. Historically accurate too I’m sure, just like the rest of it. I liked the bit about standing up to the Persians’ “mysticism and something else I can’t remember.” The Spartan Abe Lincoln, I’ve seen him in a bunch of other stuff, can’t think of his name.

—–

“Sean T. Collins”

to jimtreacher

He was Elaine’s shrink on Seinfeld, who ordered her to date him. “You can and you will.” If Lifetime ever picks up my spec script for Artificial Person: The Lance Henriksen Story, he’s my lead.

—–

jimtreacher

to me

http://blogs.nypost.com/movies/archives/2007/03/300_gay_spartan.html

http://blogs.nypost.com/movies/archives/2007/03/go_tell_the_spa.html

http://blogs.nypost.com/movies/archives/2007/03/bush_is_not_leo.html

—–

“Sean T. Collins”

to jimtreacher

I AM pretty amazed that they kept the boy-lover insult line, considering that Frank was still responding to letters pointing out that it’s the most wildly historically inaccurate part of the book (and that’s fucking saying something) like nine years later.

Honestly, who gives a fuck if it’s “fascist”? On a purely aesthetic level fascism was pretty rad, and considering Bush’s approval rating in the country it’s not as if we’re in danger of actually going Fuhrer these days. This movie is utterly divorced from a political program–it’s just Frank’s innermost macho fantasy. No one actually thinks he’s advocating infanticidal eugenics, do they?

—–

jimtreacher

to me

On a purely aesthetic level fascism was pretty rad

“Was”?

and considering Bush’s approval rating in the country it’s not as if we’re in danger of actually going Fuhrer these days. This movie is utterly divorced from a political program–it’s just Frank’s innermost macho fantasy. No one actually thinks he’s advocating infanticidal eugenics, do they?

It’s like people who want to ban The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because of Nigger Jim.

And they’re all missing the mordant humor. I only read the first issue way back when so I don’t know how that stuff played on the page, but Leonidas had some great laugh lines. And when they’re huddled under their shields against the rain of spears and all start laughing, I wanted to stand up and cheer.

—–

“Sean T. Collins”

to jimtreacher

To be fair, I don’t think Frank is critiquing this way of life. At all. In a way 300 is like Starship Troopers, in that if this more-or-less imaginary warrior culture could make a war movie about itself, this is what it would look like, but unlike Starship Troopers, I don’t think Frank wants us to look at Spartan society with bemused horror. He doesn’t like everything about that society, obviously, but overall he thinks it’s cool, whereas the guys who made Starship Troopers don’t think that society is cool.

It’s definitely aware of how over-the-top it is, though. I mean, walls of dead bodies, you know? Actual fascist art is either oblivious to or contemptuous of or desirous of the ability to exterminate the notion that there’s any other way of doing things–that’s what makes it fascist. 300 knows it’s completely bombastic and ridiculous and doesn’t give a fuck–that’s what makes it fun!

You’re right about the laugh lines. Another thing I liked about the movie is that you really get the sense that these guys LIKE each other–they enjoy hanging out and working together, they respect each other’s abilities, they believe in what they’re doing, they enjoy the fact that they do it well, etc. It’s a celebration of cooperation and competence, two very adult values that don’t get celebrated nearly enough because not enough actual adults cooperate or behave competently.

—–

jimtreacher

to me

Totally, totally, totally.

“Kneeling to you, that might be a problem. See, killing so many of your men this morning gave me a nasty cramp in my leg right here, so…”

I forgot my favorite moment! When the bald giant monster guy was watching the battle and straining against his chains, I wanted Joel Robinson and the bots to yell, “Put me in, coach!”

—–

“Sean T. Collins”

to jimtreacher

This movie will make an awesome RiffTrax.

—–

jimtreacher

to me

And if they’re going to slam this movie for showing Spartans without a lot of clothes, they might as well slam a Western for showing people riding on horses instead of in cars.

—–

“Sean T. Collins”

to jimtreacher

I also wonder if it is EVER acceptable to have a film in which light-skinned beings fight dark-skinned beings and the light-skinned beings happen to be in the right. Critics called freaking Lord of the Rings racist because of the orcs, fer chrissakes.

—–

jimtreacher

to me

Yeah, I miss D.W. Griffith too.

Another idiot…

http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=5135&IssueNum=196

—–

“Sean T. Collins”

to jimtreacher

It’s like they’re working from a script!

—–

jimtreacher

to me

And you know, Leonidas had a good point throwing those guys down the well. That dude rode into town grinning and holding up the skulls of conquered kings, he dissed the queen, he threatened Sparta with slavery and ruin, and in general he was just a dick.

Also at Wizard: Jenny Peters interviews 300 star Gerard Butler, focusing primarily on his hot, hot, hot body. Seriously.

Battlestar Galactica‘s James Callis has evolved over the course of the series from a smarm machine of the sort who’d play the heavy on Relic Hunter to delivering, on a weekly basis, one of my favorite television performances of all time. My Wizard chum Andy Serwin interviews Callis here; look for insights into the many shades of villainy his character Gaius Baltar embodies as well as into what it is the character really wants out of life.

Turns out the movie is double-plus ungoodthinkful.

I come both to bury and praise Captain America, as well as discuss the latest issues of The Authority, Mighty Avengers, Civil War: The Initiative, Cold Heat, Fantastic Four, 52, Incredible Hulk, Sheena: Queen of the Jungle, Supreme Power: Hyperion vs. Nighthawk, and Ultimate Spider-Man, at this week’s Thursday Morning Quarterback.

Well, you’re off to the right start, I’ll give you that.

(Hat tip, plus lots more info: Ain’t It Cool.)

My favourite movie when I was a little, little boy was Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein. It

If you care about filmed violence as deeply as I do, then for God’s sake do not miss this movie!

If you enjoyed Children of Men, take a gander at this montage of the fake commercials and advertisements created for use within the film’s fictional world by designers Foreign Office. You’ll note the animals-as-children theme right off the bat, among many other fascinating dystopian cultural tidbits. Also, you’ll note that King Crimson is awesome.

(via Heidi MacDonald)

A man suspected of killing and dismembering his wife was captured Sunday as he fled searchers, running through snow in northern Michigan, police said.

Stephen Grant had been the subject of a manhunt since police discovered what they believe to be the torso and other body parts of his wife, Tara Lynn Grant, in and around the couple

Big interviews with some genre worthies up on the Wizard site this week…

Andy Serwin talks with Battlestar Galactica‘s Tricia Helfer.

Jenny Peters talks with 300‘s (and Lost‘s) Rodrigo Santoro.

A human rights group said Thursday that Saudi Arabia violated international law when it ordered the beheadings earlier this week of four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh.

—Activists blast Saudi Arabia beheadings,” James Calderwood, Associated Press

(via Charles Johnson)

“…We were getting prisoners from the navy SEALs who were using a lot of the same techniques we were using, except they were a little more harsh. They would actually have the detainee stripped nude, laying on the floor, pouring ice water over his body. They were taking his temperature with a rectal thermometer. We had one guy who had been burned by the navy SEALs. He looked like he had a lighter held up to his legs. One guy’s feet were like huge and black and blue, his toes were obviously all broken, he couldn’t walk.”

—“Confessions of a Torturer: The Story of Army Interrogator Tony Lagouranis,” John Conroy, Chicago Reader

(via Andrew Sullivan)

When good movies happen to good bloggers, part one: Bill Sherman reviews Cemetery Man/Della’morte, Dell’amore.

When good movies happen to good bloggers, part two: Stacie Ponder reviews The Exorcist.

My single favorite music writer, Fluxblog’s Matthew Perpetua, interviews my single least favorite music writer, Rolling Stone‘s Rob Sheffield: Part One / Part Two / Part Three.

Fantagraphics, the best comics publisher in the world, needs your help.

Loren Coleman, the best cryptozoology blogger in the world, needs your help.

You can see my favorite horror comics at this week’s Horror Roundtable. And that’s not the only things of mine you can see there.

Good news/bad news: Scientists have discovered a vast ocean of water deep beneath the surface of the Earth/All that water is trapped within solid rock rather than forming a contiguous body of liquid, so it’s not like there are any pleisiosaur/icthyosaur battles going on all Jules Verne style. (Hat tip: Carnacki.)

Here’s a long-overdue link to Eve Tushnet’s latest post on Eyes Wide Shut, a film we’ve been discussing for a while now. In it she clarifies her take on the character (or lack thereof) of the Harford’s daughter Helena (it’s not that she thinks there’s some sort of crucial moral or religious component lent a marriage by the children it produces, but basically that if you show a kid in act one, it better go off by act three), as well as the difference between her sin-based approach to Bill’s misadventures and my guilt/shame-based ones (sin accounts for the possibility of redemption, so an ending where that isn’t wrestled with is disappointing; shame doesn’t, so it isn’t).

Here’s the thing, though, and this just occurred to me as I was driving back from the oil change place: Doesn’t Helena play a major, if subtle, role in the film’s denouement? As I’m fond of pointing out, there are no accidents in Stanley Kubrick films, and the final scene of this one takes place in a toy store where the Harfords are shopping for and with their daughter. The part she plays in their rapprochement doesn’t get spelled out, of course, but setting the scene in this environment Kubrick appears to be saying that their marriage has produced something that will out-last and out-love the temptations and degredations Bill has come across. Right? I remember thinking that the setting gave Alice’s final prescription for their marriage’s woes–“Fuck”–an extra, naughty, earthy frisson, and that wouldn’t have been the case if the scene took place in the self-help section at Barnes & Noble.

To shift gears to the not safe for work portion of this post, Eve also links to critic and sock-puppeteer Lee Siegel’s take on the film. Siegel argues that the sequences in which Dr. Bill pictures his wife in flagrante with her sailor fantasy-man are the most erotic in the film; Eve disagrees, and I’m with her:

…I didn’t find the Alice-fantasy scenes erotic at all. The black-and-white felt cliched; the whole thing did. That actually worked for me–I’m thinking that jealous fantasies, like most projections of the self onto the beloved, are usually cliched.

That about nails it. (The sailor was in his dress whites, for pete’s sake!)

Looking back, I find Eyes Wide Shut to be a very sexy film (beautiful, nude women are beautiful, nude women), but not a very erotic one–and that’s fine, for all the reasons I’ve enumerated before. There is one exception, though, and I’m wondering what exactly it is that makes it so. Why is it that in a film chock full of images like these…

…the most (indeed, perhaps the only) truly arousing scene looks like this?

Dr. Bill’s encounter with Sally, the roommate of the prostitute named Domino he met early in the film, is hot. Not to put too fine a point on it, but in my case it’s the only scene in the film that elicited the physical response sex scenes are supposed to elicit, with nary a nipple in sight. At least one other friend of mine reported the same basic reaction to the scene. Why? It’s probably a vain exercise to try to nail down or (over)analyze–you know hot stuff when you see it. But if we’re going to be all close-reading about it, this is probably the only sexual encounter Dr. Bill has that’s spontaneous. It’s certainly “casual,” to use the pejorative term applied to sex without emotional commitment, but there’s nothing cold or transactional (or illegal, for that matter) about it. Bill and Sally have chemistry–even without watching the scene again I can still hear her sultry breathing and speaking as they slowly-but-speedily melt into a touch-but-not-too-much clinch. And I think the chemistry comes from the fact that, however little, Bill and Sally have to work for it. She’s not a prostitute whose services he can purchase, let alone a child prostitute offered as a gift by her father, let alone a masked and dehumanized orgy participant served as a party favor. However you may feel about her seeming readiness to hit the sack with a total stranger who’s actually there to see her roommate, it’s a decision she’s making with her mind and her body, not a customer-service decision. She’s a woman, which is to say she’s a person.

The fact that so many of the other sexual encounters in the film lack that resultant heat has a moral dimension.

—–

Postscript: While digging up images for this post I came across a wonderful essay on the film by Reverse Shot’s Michael Koresky. Koresky puts a little too much stock in the role Bill’s profession plays in the film, I think (some of that is there, but I think ‘Doctor’ is mainly a talismanic title connoting privilege and power here–he could easily have been called ‘Sir’ or ‘Prince’). But a) he give the business in a big way to American Beauty, a film that deserves a kick in the junk whenever it is possible to dole one out (“The closest it comes to a moral insight is that it answers the ‘To fuck or not to fuck the teen virgin?’ debate with a conciliatory ‘No!'”; b) he calls out the film’s use of the uncanny, and amen to that; c) he says this:

A common criticism leveled against Kubrick

This and other insights can be yours if you click over to this week’s Thursday Morning Quarterback and read what I had to say about the most recent issues of Runaways, Doctor Strange: The Oath, 52, Conan and the Midnight God, Daredevil, The Exterminators, Jack Staff, and The Walking Dead.

In an absofuckinglutely fantastic, why-didn’t-I-think-of-doing-that post, Stacie Ponder calls out some of The Descent‘s visual homages and references to other classic horror films, including a couple even I hadn’t thought of, with oodles of photographic evidence. PLEASE go and see!