Smitty 
Nick Smith lives in Chicago, IL. He enjoys poetry, science fiction, travel, and burritos. He is man enough to admit crying during at least two Doctor Who season finales.
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By Hunter Dixon, on January 2nd, 2012
<<Heavy spoilers for The Adjustment Bureau follow. Minor spoilers for Doctor Who as well>>
The Adjustment Bureau has been sticking in my mind since I watched it a few days ago. It wasn’t life altering but I really enjoyed it. In conversation last night Nick pointed out that it was tonally odd to him and I think he’s right; that’s what actually made it memorable. In trying to suss out exactly what emotional range it hit I realized that it reminded me of Doctor Who.
It’s humanistic science fiction that is more concerned with emotional truths and outcomes than meticulous world building (something doesn’t make sense? In Who it’s time travel! In Bureau it’s the plan being changed!) and while both certainly confront and examine big weighty issues (predestination and free will being some biggies) they almost always back away from a real complex examining of those issues in deference to the emotional payoff for the characters.
Which is not meant as a criticism but simply to point out why my mind has started associating these two fairly different pieces of film.
Matt Damon and Emily Blunt running through New York City holding hands and being chased by evil forces brings to mind the Doctor and… well, every companion ever, really. But for some reason it is during the climactic chase through NYC with the pair using doors that jump them all over the city- go through a door in a subway and come out into Yankee Stadium- that I really felt the Who vibe. The stakes were high but there was still a sense of… I dunno, the fantastic (9th Doctor!) as they used this sci-fi conceit to take a whirlwind tour of one of the most famous cities on Earth. I laughed out loud when they came through the door at the base of the Statue of Liberty- not because it was funny, but because it was just plain awesome.
Matt Damon’s performance does a lot to help this vibe too. His great strength as an actor is how normal he is, how natural. For that matter Emily Blunt (who I can’t recall seeing in much else, honestly, although I obviously know who she is) accomplishes much the same thing. Instead of the mannered, neat performances that seem to plague serious science fiction movies they delivered naturalistic, relaxed performances. They talked and acted like actual people even when confronted with the unreal. Their conversations were exactly that- conversations. They weren’t scenes or chances for the screenwriter to drop in exposition.
The movie’s goal seems to be to raise the big questions about free will and religion but it is not particularly interested in looking at them too closely. Probably because some of the premise falls apart a little bit. The big speech about how the Adjusters took humanity to the height of the Roman Empire and then stepped back and BOOM the Dark Ages bitches! That’s a pretty Western take on world history and pretty much ignores all the terrible things that happened along the way. Basically it makes the Bureau look like a bunch of dicks, which I suppose could be the point.
The other thing that keeps sticking in my head is that the argument isn’t about free will vs. predestination- it’s about following one version of the plan over another. When Matt Damon and Emily Blunt are fighting to be in love they aren’t forging their own path, they’re just reverting to a previous version of the plan. But at that point you’re rooting for them so heavily that it gets glossed over. Same with the issues of sacrificing personal happiness for the importance of the world or even career fulfillment.
But in a lot of ways The Adjustment Bureau isn’t really about all of that. It’s about big simple images like dudes in hats who walk though doors that taken them not into another room but across town, like water and rain protecting against being seen by the Adjusters, like running for your life through the outfield at Yankee Stadium because corporate angels want to make you not love a ballerina.
The same way Doctor Who is not (for me) about season-long meta-plots or the intricacies of how this alien relates to which incarnation of the Doctor (which is all a nice side- curly fries, or something) but about how seeing a bigger world effects people. When confronted with a larger world do they grow or do they shrink from it?
(Quick Doctor Who side note- this is why although the most recent seasons may have amazingly high production values ((and probably the best actor in the role of the Doctor)) they still can’t compare to the ninth Doctor fighting for Rose’s life at the end of season one. The emotions were earned and even though the whole thing was set against evil robot pepper pots screaming about extermination and wacky laser battles on a space station and the Doctor doing electrical wiring for like a thousand years plus Mickey & Jackie saving the world with a really big truck, the emotional payoff- which had been building for the entire season– was really about the Doctor coming back from his PTSD and the effects of living through war to see that sometimes individuals are the bigger world. Anyway, I’m a sucker for emotional change and growth being the big pay-offs of a season ender as much as Oh hey these scene ties back to three seconds from the season premiere!)
(That was not a quick note. This one is. Speaking of tying back in- upon re-watching the Steven Moffat-written “The Girl in the Fireplace” from the second season of Who I noticed that Madame de Pompadour says something like “Doctor who? It’s not just a question, is it? It’s a secret.” Which has big resonance to the sixth season. But to drive my point into the ground, it will be much less cool to me if there is no emotional or character payoff to it. If it’s just fitting pieces of a plot together into a puzzle then it’s ultimately lifeless.)
(I have a lot of thoughts about the current incarnation of Doctor Who, clearly.)
So go watch The Adjustment Bureau, and Doctor Who for that matter, and watch out for dudes in hats and statues of angels.
By Nick Smith, on August 10th, 2011
Lights up. Center stage is a large, four-poster bed with mounds of pillows and drapery, basically a bed straight out of pre-war Gone With The Wind, covered by a white bedsheet. A man and woman, as SOOKIE and BILL, stand on the bed facing each other. SOOKIE holds a ketchup squeeze bottle upside down in her upstage hand.
SOOKIE: My name’s Sookie. I’m a good Southern girl.
BILL: Sookie! I’m vampire Bill. And this is the dirty South.
BILL goes to bite her neck passionately. SOOKIE tries to act all innocent but clearly can’t stop herself enjoying it; she starts shooting ketchup down from beside her neck to the sheets.
Blackout.
Lights back up, SOOKIE remains standing on the bed but turned toward audience, as though lost in thought or post-coital bliss. BILL has been replaced in his spot by a new male player as ERIC. BILL is upstage of them both behind the bed. Because maybe he likes to watch.
SOOKIE: I love vampire Bill!
BILL: Sookie!
ERIC: Hi, I’m Eric. I’m a more dangerous and sexy vampire!
SOOKIE (turning to Eric): I’m a good Southern girl!
ERIC goes to bite her passionately. She concentrates really hard on not liking it but can’t help herself, I mean it’s Alexander Skarsgard am I right ladies? Inevitably she shoots more ketchup on the bedsheet.
Blackout.
Lights up, ERIC has exited, SOOKIE remains in her place, BILL has moved up next to her and faces her, while a new female player, as LORENA, has replaced ERIC. Sadly for Bill and possibly a majority of HBO viewers we are not in for a threesome, despite the fact that LORENA also holds a ketchup squeeze bottle.
BILL (to Sookie): Vampire blood is a powerful aphrodisiac!
LORENA (to Bill): I’ve loved you for centuries!
BILL (turning to her): YOU MAKE ME WANT TO DIE!!!
BILL mimes breaking her neck. She shoots ketchup onto the bedsheet and all over Bill, collapsing in death. BILL bends down and swipes some of the ketchup with his fingers, wipes it on SOOKIE’s mouth, because that is apparently totally erotic these days.
SOOKIE: I’m such a good, good Southern girl! Oh YES!
(Underneath this BILL is muttering “Dirty, dirty girl,” etc.)
They both put their hands on the ketchup bottle and spray it all over the bedsheet for several seconds, moaning. Audience is probably doing the same.
Blackout.
Lights up, BILL and SOOKIE facing each other.
SOOKIE: I’m a fairy now!
BILL: Sookie, fairy blood is delicious!
SOOKIE: And so good!
Bites her. They take turns with the ketchup bottle, gyrating, spraying ketchup in each other’s mouths, on the sheets, shaking it up and down in the air and letting it fall where it may, variously muttering about how “hot” and “dirty” it is, etc. If you need to take a few minutes to yourself and come back to read the rest of this play, we understand.
Blackout, and hold for a bit.
ANNOUNCER (from offstage): Coming next week …
Lights up. SOOKIE is in her place, hands behind her back, facing audience. In BILL’s place is another male player as ALCIDE, who even the author has to admit on a completely objective level is like crazy hot.
ALCIDE: I’m a werewolf.
SOOKIE gets a huge grin, takes hands from behind her back to reveal a full, much larger ketchup bottle to the audience.
The chorus of “Sweet Home Alabama” starts playing. ALCIDE remains onstage and is joined by the rest of the players, who all pick up the bedsheet and start waving it out at the audience. SOOKIE takes her new ketchup bottle and sprays the sheet wildly. All the players sing the “Lord I’m coming” line from the song, straight out to the audience, including SOOKIE. Then she goes back to shooting ketchup on the sheet.
There are probably other plotlines going on behind the bed this whole time but let’s face it we all know what you like to watch. The author, meanwhile, will be waiting for Jason to come back on screen.
Curtain
“True Blood” Seasons 1-3 are now available on DVD.
By Nick Smith & Hunter Dixon, on August 8th, 2011
Dixon: I’ve discussed my love for hardcover books as objects previously but I also have great affection for the other end of the spectrum–ratty old paperbacks. The trashier, pulpier, crazier-looking the better.
Smitty: I’m there with you, but the first, obvious question is: Why? Because they’re from a time before our awareness of literature became really conscious? Have they taken on a bizarre kind of status, like weird artifacts of our ancestry?
Dixon: I like the idea that the books people paid no more attention to than we now do to rows of paperbacks by King, Clancy and Crichton have taken on this weird totem-like symbolism of times past.
Smitty: Hmm… I wonder. Are any of the authors of these old pulp books as famous as your examples? I just wonder if the comparison is really apt. Then again, the blinders of my cultural era may be coming down here. I’m well aware that insanely popular authors of their era are virtual unknowns in our own, and the same could happen with those three. Still, those three (not to harp on a point, OH WAIT TOO LATE) seem to have remained at least recognizable names even over 30 or 40-year publishing histories. Maybe the closer comparison would be to names like Kellerman, Meltzer, Stuart Woods. Guys who always seem to hover around the middle of the bestseller list for a couple of weeks, then vanish til their next book comes out. Those strike me as popular authors that could easily slip through the cracks as time moves away from them.
Dixon: I take your goddamn point and you’re right except that really you’re as wrong with your examples as I was with mine. I think we’re actually talking about old school versions of Warren Ellis or Andrew Vacchs or John Burdett. Genre writers (whatever the hell that means) who are actually saying something about the world they live in. Now I can’t really speak to this one hundred percent since the only thing I’ve read by the dudes you mentioned involved a superhero’s wife getting raped on the Justice League’s satellite and then Robin’s dad getting boomeranged to death and also Superman knowing about the rape and ignoring it plus also the Atom’s wife going crazy and tap-dancing on someone’s brain… so I guess yeah Meltzer gets a pass because he truly understands our times.
Smitty: Man it is seriously all rape and boomerangs out here in the big city. It’s like we’re living in goddamn Australia.
Dixon: It’s been nice knowing you, theoretical Australian readers!
Smitty: Let’s meander back to the central point you began with. The appeal of abused old paperbacks.
Dixon: Sometimes you can get lucky, stumbling across a treasure trove of them, past the countless old Star Trek books and romances that usually line the shelves of the average used bookseller.
Smitty: This kind of discovery is, I think, the sort of thing that could help used bookstores survive as the big box, “first run” booksellers crumble away around us. There’s a real thrill in shuffling through the shelves and spinner racks of a good used bookstore. There’s an utter lack of concern for timelessness, or for book as object of art. Publishers knew they had a choice position at the newsstand for what, a month, and books were written and designed with that in mind.
Dixon: I straight up judge these books by their covers first, their synopsis on the back cover second, and actual content in far third place. Seriously–scroll back up there and take a look at the cover for The Gorgon Festival. The thing is, that book is legitimately great. Even the ones that aren’t great are still interesting, revealing something about the era in which they were written. I think you often get a clearer snapshot of a time and place by reading its fringe or cult literature–sci-fi, crime, comics.
Smitty: I think that’s what I’m getting at by talking about that lack of concern for timelessness. A lot of these books, no matter how sci-fi or fantasy they get, are very much of their time.
Dixon: When items marketed as disposable culture survive they begin to acquire that totemic power. They’re from before.
Smitty: Absolutely! And the fact that they’re able to make their way back from virtual oblivion to us, and by extension our thousands of readers except probably not in Australia anymore sorry mates, gives them a kind of magic, and that provides a window into the time in which they were written. Philip Jose Farmer’s Flesh, for example, is ostensibly science fiction, centered on a starship captain returning to Earth, and yet it is so totally a response to the free love ethos of the 60s that it might as well have shacked up on Haight-Ashbury.
Dixon: Yes! Gorgon Festival explores nearly identical themes … although through a lens that seems like it was made from equal parts Walk Hard, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Caligula.
Smitty: Yes, but did your main character grow antlers when he got horny? Because that happened.
Dixon: Nah man my dude became a black man so he could infiltrate an old lady’s sex resort and use his African-based sexual prowess as a proxy for detective skills. Private dick indeed.
Smitty: Check and mate.
Dixon: So here’s a (hardly original) thought: Does the evolution of digital books offer the tantalizing promise that none of these lost gems need be lost any longer? Nothing need ever go out of print again.
Smitty: Honestly? I hadn’t really thought about the implications of this until you brought it up. Nothing need be lost? Assuming things don’t get all Skynet up in here nothing CAN be lost anymore. It’s mostly good, for sure, but I do sort of wonder if there’s something that future generations will be missing out on. (Right there? That’s where I just got old.) It reminds me of that Wendell Berry poem, “To the Unseeable Animal,” which talks about the most interesting creature being the one we haven’t discovered yet, and maybe don’t want to. Literature can no longer be forgotten … does that mean it can also no longer be re-discovered in the same way?
Dixon: I don’t think so because the signal-to-noise ratio will continue to be a challenge. There’ll be a ton of shit out there but existence doesn’t guarantee discovery. The gatekeepers may change–have already begun to change–but the difference will be that once an author appears on your radar it will be easier to locate them. The search won’t be for discovery any longer; it’ll be discovering the search terms.
Smitty: I am jealous of that sentence.
Dixon: It’s funny though. A central problem remains whether we’re talking physical or digital: actually finding this stuff. A quick look at the top 100 digital titles from a couple of major players reveals that people are buying pretty much the same things they buy in physical form.
Smitty: On the positive side, less trees are dying to supply the James Patterson thrill-by-numbers factory. I wonder if, as more people come to e-readers and pricing becomes a bit less of a worry, people will branch out and experiment with different stuff. (Spoiler: probably not.)
Dixon: I really don’t know. Some people will I suppose. The lower price entry barrier will help; personally the price of “free” has encouraged me to read some stuff I never would have thought twice about previously, most recently the uniformly brilliant The Blue Light Project by Timothy Taylor. But in my cynical mode (which is like all the time) I agree with you–people are not likely to branch out. And who is to say that’s a problem? We all take our comfort where we can get it. My love for Batman doesn’t trump another person’s love of Jack Ryan, you know?
Smitty: True. I’m the first to admit that some of my tastes may be deemed questionable by others. For example, at some point soon I’m going to go on for like a couple thousand words about how awesome Savage Dragon is and you’re all going to have to pretend to read it and understand where I’m coming from. But that comic, I will maintain til my dying breath, is the modern pulp superhero comic, and is therefore glorious. But weren’t we talking about classics?
Dixon: I did recently discover a publisher called Classic Pulp that puts out digital editions of, well, classic pulp. You get those great covers and every word of the lurid interiors. Most of them seem to go for $.99, so that’s a pretty good re-creation of the used bookstore experience.
Smitty: Hard Case Crime is my favorite new hard copy publisher for virtually the same reasons, excepting price of course. But the publisher you mention is certainly one of the ones I’ll be frequenting when I make the switch. And here we come back to what we’d been talking about: physical vs. digital. Here we have two equally great publishing houses with markedly similar warehouses yet selling to very different markets.
Dixon: I’ve heard the physical vs. digital debate several times. It’s usually framed as a black or white proposition which is disingenuous to say the least. One doesn’t preclude the other.
Smitty: Hear hear. I love that you can now be a voracious reader and yet not have the physical clutter of that existence. I don’t use an e-reader myself; it’s going, eventually, to be my reward for getting through and getting rid of the physical books in my house. But I’m sold on the idea of the e-reader, for sure.
Dixon: One is certainly on the decline and one is on the rise. But enjoying one doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the other. “I love the feel of a book.” “I love the way the book smells.” These seem like automatic responses that don’t necessarily reflect the entirety of the reading experience. Do you really love the way all books smell? Are you particularly married to the feel of your George R. R. Martin paperback? Is it fun to try to hold it open with one hand while shoveling a sandwich down your throat with the other? Maybe you do, maybe you are and maybe it is but I think a more accurate phrasing would be to say you like the way some books feel, the way some books smell. And that’s not really going to go away.
Smitty: I’ll cop to taking this stance, with feel if not with smell. I do like holding books, any book. Now that doesn’t mean I like holding thousand page hardcovers on the train to work, but the idea of holding it in my home while relaxing is still appealing. The smell thing? I dunno man. Some books smell like ass.
Dixon: Not The Gorgon Festival, man. I just reread that thing and it smells dirty. But dirty in a good way. But you’re right–holding a book can be a distinctive pleasure. But for all that I hear about the cold, technological aspect of digital, so too can holding an e-reader. The idea of having an entire library that fits into your pocket is the stuff of science fiction. And when you read on a tablet-style device you have the bonus pleasure of listening to music, annoying your friends by sharing quotes, immediate access to research particular plot points… there’s an experience to be had there. It may not be an experience to your liking, and it may not fit your notion of what reading should be, but it is still an experience. Although I do think that some books can be diminished when read digitally.
Smitty: Point of curiosity here then–is there an example you can think of? I guess there are the obvious examples of art/children’s picture books/graphic novels, but what about a book that is primarily text-driven?
Dixon: Your examples are essentially my examples. Here’s something though–with physical books there is that feeling (you can only say it in French) when you have less pages in your right hand than in your left. The sensation you get when you physically feel that you’re near the end of the book. It’s not quite replicated by glancing at page numbers on an e-reader.
Smitty: Excellent point.
Dixon: And there are some books that gain nothing by being experienced physically. It’s like the difference between watching a movie in the theater or on a television–with some movies it matters, with some it doesn’t.
Smitty: So metaphorically some books have great 3-D effects and explosions, and some books are about people fighting in their apartments. I like that. It seems like, just as those two very different types of movies can play in the same cineplex at the same time, both types of books are equally valid; further, just as Loews and Netflix can co-exist and serve different needs for the same audience, so can physical books and e-books.
Dixon: What really drives me crazy about the rise of the e-reader is this either/or proposition. And god knows it’s not limited to this particular debate–it seems to drive every single bit of discourse in our world right now. You’re either with us, or against us. You fit in box A or box B. It’s either “0” or “1” and that’s it. There are no overlaps in any Venn diagram any longer. No nuance of position is allowed.
Smitty: You’re either nuanced like us, or you’re not. Or possibly you’re Australian.
I have waked deep in the woods
in the early morning, sure
that while I slept
your gaze passed over me.
That we do not know you
is your perfection
and our hope. The darkness
keeps us near you.
By Hunter Dixon, on August 4th, 2011
 Dreamcatcher by Stephen King is a weird old book and the film adaptation, written by William Goldman and Lawrence Kasdan and directed by Kasdan, is fucking nuts. This was the first novel King wrote after being knocked all to shit by a van and it has about a thousand different themes shoved into it at weird angles. There are childhood friends tied together by a formative supernatural event, the mentally challenged as extra-perceptive vehicles of The Other, an alien invasion, military black ops, psychic abilities, mental subjugation, and an amazing epilogue in which two main characters hang out at a barbeque and summarize what happened in case the reader didn’t catch it. Which, make no mistake, is entirely possible because that’s one dense book.
The movie manages to be even denser. This is a classic B-movie with a cast that brings their A-games; the remarkable thing is how many insanely talented people are in this movie and how completely they commit to the batshit crazy plot. Four childhood friends stop a group of bullies from making a young mentally challenged boy eat dog shit and are rewarded with psychic powers. Years later the four friends gather at a remote cabin in wintry Maine to do some hunting and bonding. This is interrupted when an alien craft crash-lands nearby and some of the critters start infecting the humans. How do these creatures work? See, a tiny worm works its way into a human body and gestates there, slowly moving down the intestinal tract whilst it grows–causing the host to let out thunderous belches and farts–and ultimately eats its way out of the host’s asshole.
 "What about the shit weasels? The ones blasting out the basement door." Then the military shows up and things manage to get even more ludicrous. So now there is a black ops military unit operating in the woods of Maine, quarantining civilians and having internal power struggles and expositing the hell out of the background of the alien race. As a bonus there is a handgun that once belonged to John Wayne and the obligatory shooting of a subordinate to maintain discipline. Meanwhile an alien has also possessed (the mind not the colon of) one of the friends, leading to inevitable scenes of death, maiming and drunkenness. Amidst all of this military attack helicopters find time to mount an assault on the downed alien craft in a scene that manages to evoke Apocalypse Now, Independence Day and Starship Troopers in a special effects extravaganza that is as awesome as it is totally out of place.
 "See, I'm practically priasmic." Jason Lee plays Beaver, the blue collar member of the group. He is saddled with some of the most annoying dialogue from the novel–King’s cutesy made-up slang like “fuck-a-ree” and “fuck-a-row” and “Jesus-Christ-bananas” which no one would ever say out loud ever… but to Lee’s credit he makes it work. This is not a comic relief role; in fact all four of the main characters veer from comedy to drama with ease. Lee hints at a deep sadness within Beaver, maybe something that Beav himself doesn’t understand, particularly in his opening moments drinking alone at a bar. It’s nearly too nuanced for the character, who is good-hearted but also reveals himself to be criminally fucking stupid when he confronts one of the shit weasels. It speaks to the level of work that Lee does as the character, though, that you still root for him even when his behavior is so abysmally lacking in logic that his reward should be a horrifying death.
 "I don't know. I think I'm gonna have to shoot you. Just to be sure." In many ways Thomas Jane has the least rewarding job in this film. He plays Henry, a psychiatrist who finds himself using his mind-reading powers to violate his patients’ privacy and force unwanted therapeutic revelations on them. Which, you know, funny, but probably not board-approved. Henry is suicidal at the beginning of the film but his reasons are never quite revealed nor does that depression play out as a character arc. Instead events quickly push him to the center of the alien invasion story and Jane plays the humor, desperation, sadness, and heroism that Henry cycles through equally well. He simply doesn’t have as interesting a characterization or motivation as his three friends and so stands out a little less.
 "Talkin' shit about the only perfect person I ever knew." Oh Timothy Olyphant. You are so handsome.
Wait am I supposed to say more here? Okay. Olyphant plays Pete, a used car salesman who uses his magical-psychic-finding-lost-things power (with the bonus power of locating the highway super easily) to pick up women who show up on the lot. Pete is supposed to be a little schlubby, a little sleazy, but decent-hearted enough. Not quite Paul Giamatti-level, but probably not as handsome as Timothy Olyphant. But will you catch me complaining about how handsome Timothy Olyphant is? No sir or madam you will not. Particularly not when he imbues Pete with a hilarious and boozy self-awareness that makes him the guy to beat in this movie of scene-stealers. Pete delivers a monologue, drunk and alone and freezing his ass off in the snow, that is the highlight of the movie. This speech encompasses his alcoholism, his womanizing, his shitty job, his powers, his friends, and his will to keep living; Olyphant delivers it with an amazing combination of pathos and humor.
 "And Beav... sit tight, buddy." Damien Lewis is a fantastic actor with a great track record, from Band of Brothers all the way through the tragically underrated Life, and this performance is no different. He plays Jonesy, the teacher who gets hit by a car (King had some shit to work through, okay?) and eventually gets possessed by an alien they call Mr. Gray. Lewis swaps between American and British accents to play the dueling personalities. There are no special effects used to denote the changes, just the voice, posture, and facial expressions. This effect is particularly chilling when Lewis smiles; he looks like someone is test-driving his face and doesn’t quite know what a smile is supposed to look like. Which is, in effect, exactly what is happening. Part of Jonesy’s gift is manifested in his “memory warehouse”: he visualizes a vast physical space in which he can catalog and recall all of his memories. There is also an office in the warehouse and this is where Jonesy’s mind is trapped, safe from the Mr. Grey personality but forced to watch helplessly as the alien hijacks his body and uses it to do terrible terrible things.
 "Those poor schmucks... they drive Chevrolets, shop at Wal-Mart, never miss an episode of Friends. These are Americans. The idea of slaughtering Americans... it just turns my stomach." Then there is Morgan Freeman continuing his streak of playing white dudes from Stephen King novels. His character is about as subtle and sane as his eyebrows. Seriously look at those eyebrows! That’s the wildest special effect in the movie. King threw nuance out the window (and delightfully so) in the novel, straight up naming him Kurtz. The film pulls back a little and renames him Curtis but the core of crazy is intact. Colonel Curtis leads the black ops military unit that has been fighting alien incursions for years. Nearly everything he says is an action movie cliche. He’s an amalgamation of a half dozen Claremont-ian vocal tics- “boyo” and “schmuck” and “laddie” and “capice” all emerge from his mouth like it’s the United Nations scene at the end of Batman. Freeman is completely self-aware in this role, playing it with a wink and a nod and a helicopter-piloting hair trigger.
 The first half of the movie unfolds fairly leisurely, letting the audience spend time with each of the main characters and doing some nice world building. Then the second half gets all crazy compacted and suddenly there are these Star Wars-style screen wipes for transitions happening every three minutes and things start speeding up like mad. It feels like plot elements are being flung aside or left out entirely by the sheer speed of the advancing plot. Characters start dying off rather perfunctorily and then Donnie Wahlberg shows up for like five minutes plus two CGI alien creatures have a wrestling match. I feel like there’s a four hour director’s cut out there that we’ll never see. The last half of the movie plays like a highlight reel for a much longer movie. Don’t get me wrong- it’s a delightful highlight reel but ultimately I’m left wanting more. There are enough ideas in this movie to fuel an entire television show of mind readers and shit weasels. In the end, sadly, those possibilities must be stored away in the memory warehouse.
By Hunter Dixon, on August 3rd, 2011
Sir Ian McKellen invites you to join him as he makes faces at the camera!
Bonus Jimmy McNulty Smirk!
Richard III ends with McNulty and Gandalf fighting each other with tank-mounted machine guns. This is what Branagh’s Hamlet was missing.
You can find more smirking here.
By Nick Smith & Hunter Dixon, on August 1st, 2011
“As children we made a complete circle in some way I don’t understand even now. I think that, if we agree to go ahead, we’ll have to try to form a smaller circle. I don’t know if that can be done. I believe it might be possible to think we’d done it, only to discover–when it was too late–well … that it was too late.”
Smitty: I’ve never been much of a re-reader when it comes to novels. As a self-professed slow reader, I find I’d rather spend my time delving into a new story and getting to know new characters instead of working my way through a novel a second time. (I’ve never had this issue with TV shows, movies, or comics, so I have to believe that it’s purely the time commitment that keeps me from re-reading books.) So it’s kind of a big deal for me to go back to a book I’ve read before. An even bigger deal when it’s a thousand page doorstop like Stephen King’s It.
Dixon: I’ll cop to being pretty surprised when you told me about this. This is a big change in habit for you.
Smitty: It is a book I’ve always had an inordinate fondness for–as longtime Shelfbound readers will undoubtedly have committed to memory, I picked it as one of my three desert island books. That pick was based on the one and only time I read it, toward the end of high school. Because I’ve been going through some hard times lately, part of trying to get myself back on the right mental track has been making an effort to reconnect with pop culture that is important to my life, that I’ve genuinely enjoyed.
Dixon: It is a book I have read many times, but not in several years. I have a fear that it will lessen through the eyes of Adult Dixon- that I wouldn’t like it as much and it will sour my previous experiences. You want to reconnect with pop culture that’s important to your life; I’m positing the theory that it will retroactively destroy all joy. I am a terrible friend.
Smitty: Is the act of re-reading, particularly returning to a book after a long time away, of necessity a little disappointing? What makes a book even better the second time around? This is what I need you for, Dixon, as you are a much more experienced re-reader than I am. Thoughts?
Dixon: Buddy. I love re-reading. Love it. I can’t quite explain my habits, though. I can get caught up in how a plot unfolds despite knowing the ending, as with the Harry Potter and Dark Tower series. Other books I love to revisit for the language and style on display, The Rum Diary being the primary example. On the other hand I rarely revisit suspense books.
Smitty: That’s interesting, because my first thought was that suspense-driven books would be the type of book it’d be much easier to go back and re-read. But then thinking about it, it’s almost never plot that brings me back to a particular work. What does that is character, or style, or structure. Is it because so much of the suspense novel’s power lies in its surprise, which is of necessity diminished on a re-read? It seems that if the primary motive of an initial read is the plot, it would be difficult to experience that reading again, since you know all the steps. That doesn’t stop me from, for example, re-reading the same comics over and over, but there are many other aspects to that kind of re-reading, significantly the visual component.
Dixon: You are absolutely correct. Unless there are elements- the prose style, the characterization- that stand side-by-side with the mechanics of the plot I’m not really going to want to reread them. Dennis Lehane does a great job of providing such emotional depth to his characters that I would be amenable to rereading his stuff despite already knowing the ending. On the other hand I love Michael Connelly but I almost never reread any of his stuff (The Poet being the sole exception). Which is not to say that Connelly is bad at those other things. His characterisation of Harry Bosch is lean, mean, and bleak. But I don’t feel that Bosch particularly changes from book to book, which means there’s no point in rereading to revisit his journey. Then there is something like Ball Four which benefits by being both very anecdotal, so I can read bits and pieces randomly, and also hilarious.
Returning to King, The Stand is a novel that I reread about every two years.
Smitty: That’s one I’d like to revisit, another major life favorite that occupies that place in my mind purely through the rose-colored glasses of the one time I read it in–you guessed it–high school. Of course now with my reaction to It I’m a little bit afraid to do so.
Dixon: What was your reaction to It?
Smitty: At first I thought, what better way to reconnect with myself than to re-read a book that has always made me smile.
Yes, a book about a killer demon clown that kills children makes me smile. You know what I mean.
 "Oh I know what you mean, young Smitty." Having spent eight weeks chiseling my way through that rock of a book, I’ve now come to the funny part: I just don’t think it’s all that great anymore.
 "What?!?" Dixon: This breaks my heart.
Smitty: Funny ironic, not funny ha-ha.
Don’t get me wrong, It isn’t bad, or even just mediocre. It’s good with occasional bursts toward greatness. Overall I enjoyed it. I still think there are parts of it that absolutely sing, particularly the opening death of George Denbrough and any scene that takes place in that creepy house on Neiboldt Street.
Dixon: I think a tiny flaw in It is that the Neiboldt Street scenes are so scary that everything else, including the finale in the tunnels, pales in comparison.
Smitty: But what I once thought of as a sort of Book of All Terrors–a thousand page encyclopedia of monsters that somehow contained a fragment of every horror imaginable, including the horror of growing up–I’m now coming to think of as a book that is just too damn long. By like, a third.
Dixon: I thought that the length was one of its assets. Succumbing to an indulgent rambling narrative is a criticism levied at King often, and often with good reason, but for works like The Stand, Under the Dome and It, I’ve traditionally disagreed. If the world building is successful, I always want more time in the world. What would you cut out?
Smitty: As the grown-up Losers go back to the sewers, this time not only to kill It but also rescue Bill’s wife and defeat Bev’s husband, I’m mainly wondering what the deal is with all the distractions. Bill’s wife and Bev’s husband are such tiny parts of the story–after their opening scenes, they don’t appear again until halfway through the book, and then not again til almost the end. Why does the climax of this giant novel involve them so directly?
Dixon: I always took Audra and Tom to represent threads from childhood that grow, distort and reflect during adulthood. The Losers can’t escape from their past even if they can’t remember it.
Smitty: You’re not misremembering that: Audra looks remarkably like Bev, to the point where even Bev thinks so, and Tom is alternately said to be like Bev’s father (by her) and like their childhood tormentor Henry (by Ben, I think?). I don’t really have a problem with the thematic elements of these characters, but their role in the book feels forced to me: Tom kidnaps Audra and brings her to It, and then his head basically explodes and he dies. This all happens “off-camera,” though, so Tom ends up a total cipher.
Dixon: Is it just me or does King revisit the Tom character to far greater effect with Norman Daniels in Rose Madder? That novel explored domestic violence in a more layered way, as opposed to Tom’s henchman role in It.
Smitty: Based on my admittedly slim memory for that book, you’re probably right. Of course, I remember that book being saddled with an overlong denouement. But we’re getting off track here. I think asking the audience to care enough about Audra to devote the last part of the book to saving her is asking too much. We know Bill loves her because, well, King says so, but he also cheats on her just before the end and she is actually a less well-developed character than, say, Eddie’s mom. Saving Audra is important because it’s what happens, not because it has to happen. If the book is, in some ways, about finishing the unfinished business of childhood, how is Bill’s saving of his Bev-wife a reflection of that–he didn’t need to or fail to save Bev in the past. Similarly, if Bev needs to throw off the abusive men of her past, why does Tom die in between scenes, killed by It? These are the doubts I have about these characters.
Dixon: I can see your point about Tom’s fate. I think I still disagree about Audra; there is something there about having to use childhood to save adulthood, about putting the past to bed and embracing the future. Usually the future is unknown and the past is history; in It the past has to be discovered as well.
Smitty: I think the rescue of Audra is a weird way to end the book plot-wise. I think thematically the fact that childhood fades out (quite literally at the end) and adulthood takes back over is good, but the way it’s structured makes it ultimately just Bill’s story, which I think does the other six an injustice. Ben and Bev, for example, just kind of disappear altogether.
Dixon: Fair point, although I think you could make a case that It is Bill’s story.
Smitty: But Jesus Fucking Christ those last ten pages of that book are an absolute monumental achievement of writing. I mean, I remembered it as a good ending, but I’m not sure King’s ever been better than here, with the possible exception of the end of The Green Mile. If this was a short story (and, I guess, you didn’t need all the background of the preceding 1080 pages) it would be a masterpiece. So there is something to be said for coming to the end happily.
Dixon: Yeah the ending is boss. Stephen King’s next book, 11-22-63, is about a dude who goes back in time to prevent JFK’s death. I’m curious to see how he handles the nostalgia aspect in that one; will he also continue his recent return to suspense form a la Under the Dome, which had a strong vein that skewered American foreign policy and small town culture?
Smitty: Sadly, for both JFK and us, we cannot predict what will happen. But as we’re on the topic of nostalgia, how do you think re-reading relates to that feeling? Do you ever re-read with the primary goal simply being to achieve comfort in the familiarity of the story?
Dixon: I do a fair amount of comfort reading, which seems to be what prompted you to re-read It. I think I focus on comics to fulfill this, the seventh of my eight emotional needs. Any Grant Morrison super-hero comic will do; all I need to do is see Superman defeat Darkseid by singing, or Green Lantern envelop an exploding sun with only his willpower, or Batman say “Hh” and I feel better.
Smitty: Comics are definitely my comfort re-read as well. I love to pull out my run of The Invisibles every two or three years and see how it changes. What’s great about that particular work is that even Morrison thinks every reading should be different, and indeed I’ve come away each time noticing different things. I even love reading other peoples’ take on that comic: I’ve devoured Anarchy for the Masses during one reading and will be purchasing Our Sentence Is Up during my next read. I’m really never disappointed by a re-read of any Grant Morrison comic, and I also re-read Watchmen and Sandman pretty regularly. (Boy I’m really a rebel with my choices there.) And Dark Knight Strikes Again, though curiously, not Dark Knight Returns. One I’ve been dying to re-read lately is Akira; I keep talking myself out of investing in the six volumes of that series.
Dixon: Akira is a fantastic candidate for re-reading. Given that thematically it rose out of World War II and the post-war world, it would be interesting to examine it through through the lens of post-tsunami Japan. Alternately you could just ignore the story and stare at the beautiful beautiful art for hours at a time.
Smitty: But TETSUOOOO!!!! There must be an instance of re-reading that has left a sour taste in your mouth, too. Don’t let me be any more depressed about my disillusionment with It than I already am.
Dixon: I can only think of one time that I’ve been really disappointed when revisiting a book and that was with the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series by Tad Williams. I made it through the first book but flamed out near the beginning of the second. I was disappointed because- and this is I think central to the point- like you with It I had not read these books since high school. In my mind it had grown in importance and quality. I did begin to suspect that it would maybe not hold up as well as I hoped after reading Williams’ Otherland series. Those books are about twenty-eight thousand pages combined, meandering as hell, mostly entertaining and completely infuriating come the last half of the final book. Williams not only didn’t stick the landing, he crashed that fucker into the trees six miles away from the runway. After that disappointment I had a premonition that Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn might have actually sucked and that my high school self was an idiot. Check and check.
Which leads me to think that it’s the books that we wait the longest in between reads on that fare the worst. Books that are re-read more regularly are allowed to grow up with us; our readings of them mature more slowly and gradually, and the perceptions are not so jarringly different if there hasn’t been fifteen years between exposures.
Smitty: I think this is probably exactly right; of course the standard of It grew in my head as years went by without a re-read, so perhaps it’s unfair to think it will mean the same thing to me now. On the other hand, I’ve gotten relatively close to the two settings of the book–the characters are alternately about 11 and 38, and I’ve worked through my two readings a few years to either side of that. Something to think about.
Ultimately what I’ve maybe learned from this experience is that nostalgia isn’t quite good enough of a reason to re-read something. There needs to be something more specific, something to learn from, to make the investment of time worth it. So much of It is about recollecting a forgotten past and using that recalled knowledge to enhance the present. Maybe the real issue is that I hadn’t forgotten It and so couldn’t re-learn it; I’d simply remembered it through the eyes of a child, which are less well-developed. But also purer. And it’s that purity that I’m nostalgic for.
“Disquiet and desire. All the difference between world and want–the difference between being an adult who counted the cost and a child who just got on it and went, for instance. All the world between. Yet not that much difference at all.”
By Nick Smith, on July 13th, 2010
The Royal Historian of Oz #1
Written by Tommy Kovac
Illustrated by Andy Hirsch
“Can’t you make up your own characters, and your own made-up crazy-ass fantasy world? At least then people wouldn’t want to kill us.”
I’m no particular fan of Oz. Sure, I saw the big movie growing up and liked it well enough, and I remember being one of the only people on the planet who enjoyed Return to Oz, but that’s the extent of my connection to L. Frank Baum’s fantasy world. Hell, I haven’t even read or seen Wicked. It wasn’t Oz that drew me to this book; it was the dollar price tag. Marketing at its shrewdest. And I’m now glad to know there’s another four issues of this really wonderful series to go.
Mop-headed Frank Fizzle is the practical, beleaguered son of a true believer. His father Jasper wants desperately to become the new “Royal Historian of Oz,” the title bestowed upon the writer continuing the Oz series in its most “official” form—problem is, he’s apparently not a very good writer. Jasper’s a dreamer whose time and money are running out, and Frank wishes he’d renounce his dream and find a real job so they can pay their bills.
Jasper goes to an estate sale to get his mind off the very real issues that Frank is bringing up, and ends up finding the pair of slippers once worn by Dorothy. He then disappears for three days … and when he returns, he brings a storeroom of artifacts from Oz with him. Yes, apparently the “Wonderful World” is real and open to those who wear the slippers. Unfortunately, Jasper has stolen whole chunks of their culture, and the citizens of Oz are ready to reclaim them.
As you’d expect any Oz story to do, this one wrestles with what it means to really believe in a fairy tale, what it brings into your life and what it takes away. Jasper Fizzle’s obsession keeps a smile on his face while his house crumbles around him, but he’s never just a loon—there’s the matter of Frank’s deceased mother somewhere in the background, and Jasper’s very obvious love and respect for his son. Then, in finding the place he’s always believed in, he becomes a criminal, looting Oz with the rather thin excuse of “giving a bit of magic to our world, which has none!” He’s a remarkably dexterous character after one issue, matched by his son. Frank’s anger at his father’s inability to engage with the real world is finally bubbling over, despite his sincere wish for Jasper to be a successful writer. It’s a great relationship at the center of this book.
What’s also fun is setting up the familiar cast of Oz—Scarecrow, Tinman, and Cowardly Lion—as the villains of the story. Their mission is to reclaim that which has been stolen by Jasper, and they’ll use any method they need to … including kidnapping Frank as a bargaining chip.
The only negative so far is the slightly off-color treatment of gay themes; I’d hesitate to call it gay-baiting or homophobic, but there’s definitely something weird going on with this subject. That the book doesn’t ignore gay culture’s connection to the story of Dorothy is nice, I suppose, but when we meet the representatives of the Official Oz Society, they’re ham-fisted gay stereotypes played for laughs. Further along in the book, Frank finds his father wearing the slippers and freaks out, returning later to tell his father that he “can learn to live with” this new facet of his dad’s “weird.”
In fairness, either scene on its own probably wouldn’t have merited an askance look from me, and Frank’s concern for his father is obviously based more on his latest Oz obsession than on cross-dressing. But with the two scenes barely ten pages apart, they create a level of discomfort around issues of sexuality and gender roles that I hope, if it persists, is utilized to say something important about these themes in relation to the grand social construct of Oz.
(Since I wrote this, I’ve visited the writer’s website and discovered that he is, in fact, a gay man. This doesn’t necessarily change my reading of these moments, but in the interest of full disclosure, it’s a good thing to know. There’s probably a whole other post in there somewhere …)
Despite this small sticking point, the plot, characterization, and storytelling are very strong here and I’m eager to check out where the book goes next. The creators have a lot going for them, including a great ear for dialogue and clean linework. The level of craft is high here, and I hope it continues to climb. In the meantime, you can get in on the ground floor for just four quarters. Whether you’re an Oz fan or not, I think you’ll find a lot to like here. I certainly did.
By Nick Smith, on August 5th, 2009
What: The Cornelius Chronicles by Michael Moorcock, a tetralogy starring British spy (amongst other things) Jerry Cornelius. Published in the US as The Cornelius Quartet.
Why: The adventures of Jerry Cornelius have been influential on a generation of sci-fi writers and graphic novelists; in particular, Shelfbound favorite Grant Morrison, who relied heavily on the character and his mythos for King Mob’s origin in The Invisibles.
(Check out Part One here.)
“He shouted in Jenny’s ear, ‘You can’t tell the men from the women, can you?’
“She seemed to hear and shouted something back, which he missed the first time. She shouted it again. ‘Not these days, no!’”
This Week: The Final Programme, “Phase 2,” “Phase 3,” and “Phase 4″ (Chapters 6-18 and “Terminal Data”)
First Impressions: Are pretty much all I have at this point. This is due to burning through the rest of the first Cornelius book and having more questions … or perhaps, questions of intent. On a quick flip-through, Phases 2 and 3 are about the same length as Phase 1 and present fairly discrete “adventures,” each building off the last. Phase 4, the last part of the book, feels like an addendum in its brevity–even with the epilogue “Terminal Data” attached, it’s about a fifth of the length of the other parts. But it contains, as we’ll see, the crux of the argument. What that argument is is still a bit unsatisfactory. (As this Project contains, of necessity, SPOILERS, you get a warning here if you want to read the book blind some day. So. WARNING. There ya go.)
Text: It turns out that “The Final Programme” is this weird alchemy of hippie “love-in” and fascist mechanization of society, which in a way seems like the two great sci-fi societies–utopian and dystopian–combined into a Chinese finger trap. But before I address it, I should talk a bit about Phases 2 and 3. Each of these parts begins with a long section of “down time,” Phase 2 with Jerry and various companions out in the streets and bars trying to get away from their own lives, Phase 3 with Jerry throwing a massive, months-long party at his house. These chapters aren’t just space fillers, dealing as they do with Cornelius in the real world and how immensely part of it he is while simultaneously disconnected: “He never felt really comfortable unless he had at least fifteen miles of built-up area on all sides ….” And make no mistake, it is the real world of the 1960s, with the Beatles, the Kennedys, Jung, and all sorts of other pop and psychological references popping up. That sci-fi trappings are placed over this world without any kind of explanation makes the boundary between fiction and reality pretty nebulous, as Cornelius himself states: “Jerry no longer had any idea whether the world he inhabited was ‘real’ or ‘false’; he had long since given up worrying about it.”
But eventually, Cornelius must rejoin the adventure, and that involves a secret cave base in Sweden built by Nazis during World War II, a final nail gun battle with his brother Frank, and a supposedly important document that contains 203 pages of the word “ha.” Cornelius leaves the plot behind again for a while, but is inevitably drawn back into Miss Brunner’s web, his will slowly dissolving under her project and control. Soon he kills for her, and attempting to avoid whatever may be coming, flees for the final time, assuming a false name and marrying a woman named Maj-Britt (this happens over the course of about 3 pages, by the way) until he and his wife, along with the professor he was talking with in the Prologue, are manipulated back into the project for the final time.
And what is that project? Let’s let Miss Brunner explain it to you:
“‘We have been working, ladies and gentlemen, to produce an all-purpose human being! A human being equipped with total knowledge, hermaphrodite in every respect–self-fertilizing and thus self-regenerating–and thus immortal, re-creating itself over and over again, retaining its knowledge and adding to it. In short, ladies and gentlemen, we are creating a being that our ancestors would have called a god!’”
This “secret of ‘Crying Game’” moment was brought to you by the 60s. But seriously, it’s an intriguing premise that doesn’t shy away from the negative side of its achievement. When Jerry Cornelius and Miss Brunner (do we ever learn her first name?) are placed in the “large oval metal chamber,” have sex, and become one being named Cornelius Brunner, the moment could quickly spin out into speculative hogwash … which Moorcock swiftly undercuts by having Cornelius Brunner’s first words be “Hi, fans!”
And then the really unsettling thing happens. Borne up on the shoulders of the scientists who created him/her, C.B. marches across Europe and erases the individuality of everyone, leaving cities decimated in its wake:
“The thousands became millions as the new messiah was borne across the continent, whole cities abandoned and the land crushed in its wake. … The millions did not march along–they danced along. Their voice was one melodious song. … All the great cities of Italy. All the great cities of Spain and Portugal.
“And then, with a slight note of boredom in its voice, Cornelius Brunner gave the last order:
“‘To the sea!’
“Within six hours, only one head remained above water. Naturally, it was the head of Cornelius Brunner, swimming strongly back towards the beach.
The book ends with C.B. contemplating what area of the world it’ll move to next, and sending a stray missed individual galloping happily into the sea. What the heck are we supposed to make of this ending? Due to Cornelius’ vampiric nature (he is said to live off the energy of others) and Miss Brunner’s habit of somehow consuming her companions, their hermaphroditic union may incorporate every individual they swallow up and sacrifice to the tide. But as an “all-purpose being,” Cornelius Brunner already has all the information and personality he/she needs, so may just feel that the rest of humanity is unnecessary and induce mass suicide. C.B.’s flippant tone at the end is both joyous and creepy, and I’m left wondering which judgment Moorcock expects us to render–is this evolution or devolution? (Of course, there’s the obvious answer that he doesn’t expect either judgment and is just posing the question to us.)
Regardless, all that culture, all those ideas, all those silly and fantastic characters that once populated the world of The Final Programme are already gone or endangered, and in their place stands something more like a god. It is the end of times, as the Prologue suggested. Or as Miss Brunner would have it:
“‘This was a gift-wrapped, throwaway age, Mr. Cornelius. Now the gift-wrapping is off, it’s being thrown away.’”
See? Creepy.
Questions: There are lots of little questions, and things of note I’ve not even touched upon here. (Like the implications of the great line “‘The secret was saved by overinterpretation.’” Don’t I know it.) But I guess the big question now is, seeing as this is the first of four Jerry Cornelius books, where the hell do we go from here? Join me next week to find out!
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Dixon 
Hunter Dixon lives in Louisville, KY. His days are a cavalcade of music, movies, television shows, books, and graphic novels. His drink of choice is bourbon.
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This is actually mine and Smitty’s back story. We eventually overcame our enmity to form Shelfbound.
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