Reading diary.

- Love is love. An anthology of short comic book stories (all from one to two pages long) in response to the Orlando Pulse shooting of 2016, with all profits donated to assorted LGBTQA charities. Includes contributions from dozens of artists and writers. 

The stories are immensely varied. From deeply personal anecdotes to reflective essays to one-shots using licensed characters (DC, Archie comics, Harry Potter, and a few others) to illustrated poems and think-pieces. 

I found this entire comic powerful and very impacting to read. Enough so that it took me much longer to read than I thought —I had to read a very small number of entries at a time. Some of them *will* make you cry. And most of them will make you think. 

Truth be told, most of the stories using licensed characters were my least favorite —it’s hard not to feel that using fictitious characters to talk about a real life tragedy is a little inappropriate. And there are at least two entries that, while definitely well-meaning, they… well, they come across as the work of a straight person still struggling to understand Queer culture in general. But even those entries feel sincere —all are honest attempts to make sense of both tragedy and history. 

It’s a book I especially recommend, both for the stories themselves and for the humanitarian gesture. 

Film diary.

- The burning. (1981. Dir. Tony Maylam). A group of teenaged camp attendants seek to prank mean old custodian Cropsy —it goes horribly wrong. Cropsy, released after five years of intense physical therapy, attempts to pick up a prostitute —it ends in the worst way possible. And a new batch of campers take a canoe trip, unaware that they are heading straight into disaster…

One of the movies that best encapsulate 80’s slashers. While the plot has more than a few elements that you could either call “lifted from previous productions” or “clichés” depending how benevolent you feel, it is all pulled off with enough confidence to work. The script has essentially the internal logic of the campfire tale it’s framed as (that is, there are plot elements that don’t quite make sense if you think about them for too long, but which work perfectly in terms of being twists made up on the spot for a scary story); the acting ranges from pasable to surprisingly good and the score is more than a little effective. But as this is a slasher movie, the real highlight is the murder scenes —and they ARE good. The infamous raft sequence alone is as powerful and well-made as you have heard, and definitely worth the price of admission. 

All in all, an essential entry for genre fans. 

Film diary.

- Tourist Trap. (1979. Dir. David Schmoeller). Five young people on a roadside trip land in “Slausen’s Lost Oasis” —a ‘tourist trap’ of a wax museum. As they have been having car trouble, Slausen himself offers to drive to the nearest town for help. Just one rule —don’t disturb his brother, who lives in the house next door. But the house in question is filled to the brim with mannequins. Some of which appear to move on their own sometimes. And then, nobody who ever visited that house has come out of it…

What at first glance would seem to be a mis-mash of assorted horror clichés turns out to be one genuinely unique movie. While it’s true that it wears quite a few influences on its sleeve (“Psycho”, “The Texas chainsaw massacre”, “Carrie” and “Evil Dead” all spring to mind very quickly), said influences are used in a novel way: More than nods to the fans, they are used to set up situations that seem familiar, only to quickly turn them on their head. The storyline appears to be a by-the-numbers slasher movie at first —but then we get these seemingly living mannequins. Then it turns out that a few characters we had assumed to be dead might not be —and vice-versa. It all builds up to a genuinely delirious, truly oneiric (rather, truly nightmare-like) crescendo, complete with an appropriately surreal ending. 

Quite recommended, both for horror fans and for fans of offbeat cinema. 

Film diary.

(Slightly outside of the monthly challenge...) 

- Wreck-It Ralph. (2012. Dir. Rich Moore). Do your job with dedication every day. Be paid for it by ending every journey dumped from a building, and then sleep in a dumpster. Life is tough for a video-game villain. And for Wreck-it Ralph, it’s getting to be more than daily sessions with a villain support group can solve. Heck, if heroes get all the glory and adoration, why not just cross over into another game and make himself the hero? 

Of course, changing your very nature may not be quite as easy as it sounds…

A beloved latter-day Disney production that takes more than few cues from by then completely absorbed company Pixar —what with the concept of a different world just behind our own, problems that can’t quite be solved just by goodwill, and a lack of musical moments. But these influences paid off and the result is an entertaining animated movie that is also slightly unusual for Disney. 

Consider, for instance, the curiosity that of the VG words we’re shown, it’s the most seemingly sweet and simple (Sugar Rush; Fix-It Felix) that produce the most unlikable characters, while modern violent worlds (Hero’s Duty) wind up producing the more noble, determined characters. Consider, also, the message that ultimately you can’t quite change what you are —Ralph can only be useful if he does wreck things, most of the time. Felix can only fix things even if it harms him. Vanellope is uncomfortable when thrown into the role of a princess. Even Calhoun can never escape traumatic memories just because she knows they are merely a programmed story. 

You can’t quite change what you are, but you can use those skills to improve your situation. Vanellope chooses to remain a glitch, and this gives her an advantage over her adversaries. Ralph can find the adoration he wanted without changing his in-game role (and he can even help characters in an even worse situation than his). And Calhoun can find solace outside of her own game, going so far as to marry Felix, a character from an altogether different world. 

Generally, an enjoyable, well-made movie for all (or most?) audiences. 

Reading diary.

- Fritz the cat (The complete Crumb comics, vol. 3). Robert Crumb. A compilation of Crumb’s assorted comics and ephemera from 1964 - 1966, including the early adventures of his infamous “Fritz the cat”, rounded out with such curiosities as assorted designs for a greetings card company, sketches about Harlem and Bulgaria, attempts at other comic strips (The silly pidgeons; Roberta) and more. 

Crumb is, in a word, controversial. Also unique and also often irritating (which on second thought are both ways to define “controversial”), and certainly seldom something that leaves one indifferent. This collection of his complete works in chronological order allows us to see the evolution of his style and themes. As one can expect from any collection that includes bit of juvenilia and nearly private work, most of it is interesting, but not entirely up to professional standards. However, they offer a rather insightful context for the main pieces of interest, that being these —“furry comic strips”! 

“The silly pidgeons” (geddit?) would seem a little too precious were it not for the revelation that all are  entirely autobiographical. Capturing the lowest years of his first marriage (which soon ended in divorce), eroded by poverty and a general sense of malady, Crumb manages a rather sincere portrait of the era (if somewhat sanitized. These strips entirely omit the couples’ dabbling in heavy drugs, which would be left to the “Fritz” stories). 

And then there is Fritz, infamous figure of underground comic culture (only surpassed in the Crumb pantheon by the likes of his latter “Mr. Natural”) and subject of a couple animated movies —that Crumb disliked so much they led him to kill Fritz in latter years! 

So who is Fritz the cat? He’s —everything. In these first stories he can be a post-beatnik college student, a smarmy secret service agent, a street magician, a sleazy door-to-door salesman. He’s a lech, a picaresque hero (anti-hero, even), and he’s —funny. Thoroughly unsympathetic, yet funny. 

As the introduction from Marty Pahls informs us (and is repeated several times throughout the volume): “Robert (Crumb) dressed his less-than-Great society in animal skins, and into them he sent a cat named Fritz (…) a gilt talker, master of any situation (…). But Robert’s own satirical claws were out for Fritz. The cat was a poseur: As struggling student, sensitive artiste, self-assured cocksman, stemwinder salesman, even CIA operative supreme. His posturing was taken seriously by others because, first of all, Fritz took it seriously himself”. 

Fritz the cat is, in that way, the spirit of the quintessential American fantasy, and simultaneously its parody. The over-the-top adventures he gets into remain as entertaining and eyebrow-raising as they were back in the last century. 

Film challenge.

Film challenge, May: Comedies. 

- Juno (2007; Dir. Jason Reitman). Acerbic sixteen-year-old Juno finds herself pregnant after a one-night stand with a friend. Initially considering an abortion (and after being scared away from that plan by a self-righteous classmate), she decides on giving her baby up for adoption instead. She even finds an ideal couple for that, the upscale Lorings. But as Juno will come to learn during nine wild months, life is often anything but ideal, and compromises must always be made just to get what’s really important. 

A beloved teen comedy (some would say ‘dramedy’) that holds up remarkably well a decade later. The breezy, matter-of-fact treatment of the subject of teen pregnancy is still astoundingly rare in US cinema (naturally, as many people have taken the movie to be a pro-life as a pro-choice argument. As presented in the film, I would say it’s less interested in a moral position as it’s in staying true to the characters themselves). The characters are generally well-developed and feel drawn from life, with all their flaws and virtues. 

One criticism, though: In this movie we meet a rather judgmental ultrasound technician (who gets chewed out by Juno’s stepmother) and an air-headed anti-abortion classmate of Juno. These two unpleasant characters are pretty much the only non-white women we see. The latter even speaks in stereotypically broken English. And not a single reviewer seems to have noticed this! 

What some reviewers have noticed, on the other hand, is the typical fans with misplaced sympathies —for example, those that over-identify with childlike adult Mark and condemn level-headed Vanessa for pointing out his flaws. But that says more about the audience than about the movie, truly. 

Now the soundtrack and the use of rotoscoping animation have been praised, quite fairly. The cast itself is —generally good (to be honest, I found it uneven, in particular Michael Cera’s typically bland performance). All in all, a pretty good cult favorite teen movie; though I must insist that it may benefit from a more critical take beyond the obvious hot-button issues (pregnancy and manchildren) and more focused on its larger social issues. 

Reading diary.

- Amphigorey. Edward Gorey. A compilation of Gorey’s first fifteen books (1953 - 1965), all masterfully skirting the line between “comic book” and “illustrated book”, and all macabre in very different ways. The title of this collection, the author reminds us, refers to “amphigory”, meaning “nonsense verse or composition”. 

A classic both of the illustrated and the dark (in every sense of the word), with tales ranging from stories seemingly intended for children (“The bug book”, where the idyllic life of a brightly-colored bug family is menaced by a black intruder —and is saved by the bugs murdering their neighbor and making it look like a suicide! Or “The Wuggly Ump”, which would be a preschooler monster tale if not for the fact that this monster gleefully does devour the protagonist children) to Victorian and Gothic-tinged nightmares (“The Willowdale Handcar”, “The Insect God”, “The Listing Attic”, “The Hapless Child”). And there are oddities, too, such as the naughty adults-only tale “The curious sofa”. Or the first and last of this collection: “The unstrung harp”, which is a quiet, somber meditation on the process of creation and the thin line between reality and imagination; and “The remembered visit”, a melancholy tale of old age and broken promises. 

Each book included is a tiny marvel. Consider for instance the wordless, mysterious “The West Wing”, a tour through 30 rooms of a perhaps haunted house that culminates on the letter “U” and a picture of a lighted candle floating in darkness. Or “The Gashlycrumb Tinies”, an alphabet illustrated by 26 children who meet their end in various ways, ranging from the horrific (“K is for Kate, who was struck with an axe”) to the mundane (“E is for Ernest, who choked on a peach”) to the surreal (“N is for Neville, who died of ennui”). Or the meticulous examination of what goes into creating, writing and publishing a novel —only to then deal with irate fans and detractors —and then leading into a journey into the unknown (all in “The unstrung harp; or, Mr. Earbrass writes a novel”). 

In short: an essential title, particularly for fans of the unique and the weird.