See, Your Tuesday Is Already Better Than You Know...

Hallelujah! We've averted another potential catastrophe!

James Cameron unveiled the coffins, and the world did not end.

I need say no more.

Some of you frequenting this blog may recall

I didn't have much use for Neil LaBute's atrocious remake of The Wicker Man,

and despite the promise of an "alternative ending not seen in theaters!", I've had no desire whatsoever to revisit LaBute's atrocity on DVD. The only way to revisit the film, or sample its hilarity, is to do what CCS student Penina Gal does, and laugh heartily every single day at

this hilarious condensation of The Wicker Man remake highlights, including footage not in the theatrical cut I saw (the ludicrous bees-over-the-head sequence: "Not my eyes!")

The beehive-over-the-head bit is truly ludicrous.

I was still zonked with this cold yesterday, though by about 4 PM I was doing much better. Still in the zone earlier in the day, I caught The Number 23 matinee in Lebanon, and wasn't particularly impressed. Full review to follow as part of the ongoing Cine-Ketchup column, but suffice to say it's essentially a Hollywood

revamp of Lance Weiler's Head Trauma,

with family ties attached for optimum loss/redemption options in the final act.

Having completed prep for Peter Money and my big CCS Wednesday field trip (completing said final prep with Marge's help at our dining room table, studiously avoiding dining), Marge and I also darted out last night at her urgent request (she had a rough day at work yesterday) to see The Snake Pit (1947) at Bruce Posner's Cine-Salon screening series at the Hanover Library, and that was big fun. If nothing else, it put Marge's tough work day in stark relief as being a lot better than having a nervous breakdown over and over and waking up after repeated shock treatments to find months had passed and -- well, you get the idea. Marge claims not to know the function of horror movies, but whenever she needs a weepie like this one, it's clear she does understand fully, she just refuses to engage. Anyhoot, Olivia deHaviland's performance still engages, even if the sanitized view of big-city asylums (the 20th Century Fox madhouse still shocked audiences of its day; Frederick Wiseman's Titicut Follies exposed the real conditions of such institutions two decades later) and streamlined Hollywood take on psychiatry pitch into the risible when seen today.

I awoke this morning not wearing a water balloon filled with A-number-one snot on my neck, so the cold is at last passing.

On to Marge.

No playing hooky today -- full day of work, off I go!

Oh, Christ!

Hang on to your crosses,

producer James Cameron and director Simcha Jacobovici are about to rock the Christian boat, big time.

Cameron is holding a New York press conference today, at which he will reveal three coffins, supposedly those of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary, and none other than Mary Magdalene.This is either going to prompt incredible outrage or simply be dismissed as a publicity stunt -- only time will tell.

Just a heads up, folks, for your Monday morning coffee.

Cine-Ketchup, Monday Installment

Three remarkable documentaries and one long-suffering cat this morning, and I hope it's a good one for you...

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* Euthanasia (2006) - Where's Toonces, the Driving Cat when you need him? This sardonic 17-minute short from writer/director Adrian Grenier (of Entourage) isn't for all tastes, or audiences. Two teenage girls (Hannah Mets, Stella Maeve) dash out for a 15-minute joyride, savoring the freedom one of them having just acquired her driving license brings; distracted by futzing about with plugging in their music, the neophyte driver accidentally runs over the family cat -- and thereby hangs (literally) the tale/tail. Paul Mantel's animatronic cat puppetry manages to be realistic enough to be agonizing, cartoony enough to be funny, but cat-lovers will simply flee the theater, especially as the mayhem escalates. And oh, does it ever escalate.

The ditziness of the teens confronting this situation is sadly believable, but rest assured a couple of guys wouldn't have handled it much better (though they'd have likely just backed over the cat to put it out of its misery). The Official I Hate Cats Book indulged similar sadism for laughs, but thanks to Skip Morrow's cartooning skills there was a comfortable distance kept from the implicit sadism; a similar subject rendered this naturalistically is a tough act for some to stomach. Sick puppy that I am, I laughed, though. Four times. Score, Adrian!

* Iraq in Fragments (2006) - This didn't win the Academy Award it was nominated for (it was Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth's evening in the documentary field), but don't let that sway you for a moment. James Longley's intimate, three-part portrait of the current situation in Iraq lives up to its title, as we spend time with Sunni, Shiite and Kurd individuals, each in their own corner of their war-torn country. The view, however, is from the ground, sans polemics other than those manifest on the streets, in garages, in the city centers and mosques.

The first and third chapters are from the perspectives of children: a barely-literate Baghdad 11-year-old boy repeating 1st Grade for the fourth year in a row, fatherless (his father was imprisoned under Saddam's regime and disappeared) and under the casually brutal dominion of an employer the boy speaks highly of, but who berates and humiliates the lad; the final chapter focuses on the handsome son of an elder Kurdish shepherd and farmer intent on his studies, but the teenager is soon resigned to working as needed so that his father (who supports the US intervention, as it has improved the Kurds lot) doesn't have to -- and on the boy's best friend, who works in the nearby brick kiln. The second, central chapter presents a disorienting & harrowing snapshot of the southern Shiite region, rallying for elections even as devout Sadr followers enforce repressive Islamic law at gunpoint, seizing, blindfolding and imprisoning 'outlaws.'

Amid the turmoil, Longley captures glimpses of the Iraqi view of America, via street conversations, TV reports overheard in cafes, and the occasional onscreen conversation. "They took out Saddam, but brought in 100 new Saddams!" one man exclaims; the Kurdish farmer content to live out his remaining years praying in mosques notes, in a despairing but accurate parable, that "God is on the side of the winner," whoever or whatever that may be. Longley's meditative, poetic exploration of post-2003 Iraq through the faces, plight and eyes of its people is inherently fragmented, but the often breathtaking collision of an unexpected intimacy with the breadth of its scope cannot be overstated. A quiet intensity builds, rises, and never subsides, despite the relative placidity of the third chapter. The smoke from the brick kiln fires evoking those of the first chapter's burning buildings and ruins: the storm, it seems, will never end. Necessary viewing.

* Manhattan, Kansas (2006) - Filmmaker Tara Wray returns to her hometown of Manhattan, Kansas for a cautious reunion with her mother -- and with a personal agenda. I think this is an excellent film, and emblematic of its current breed of documentary-as-self-therapy, and hence significant.

We're clearly amid a generational shift in documentaries, and thus far this kind of introspective, exploratory work has been reserved for only those with some measure of celebrity on either end of the generational lens: non-celebrity offspring dissecting relations with celebrity parent(s), or vice-versa (most often the former). Tara Wray has neither in her court, only her reckless, fearless determination to reunite and confront the troubled relationship with her estranged mother using the camera as her shield and her sword. Thus, the implicit compact with the audience most documentaries rely upon -- the illusory 'cloak of invisibility' the camera indulges, a voyeuristic window and scalpel -- is inherently denied: Tara makes it clear onscreen, in monologue to the viewer and dialogue with a therapist, what she is doing, why, and what she hopes to accomplish. The resulting intrusive intimacy essential to the whole of Manhattan, Kansas therefore serves a very different function from that usually reserved for documentaries: unlike, say, Ed Pincus's seminal Diaries (arguably, the wellspring of this entire genre), Tara is not so much observing her own life and that of her family as willfully using the camera as mediator, where no human mediation would likely function. Unlike An American Family (the second wellspring, the PBS docu-series about the Loud family that opened this can of worms for the masses), there's no pretense of clinical distance or objectivity; and unlike almost all others of its current breed (e.g., Tarnation, Tell Them Who You Are, Hand of God, 51 Birch Street, etc.), Tara is not trying to uncover or probe any secret aspect of her life or that of her mother. She's seeking to reconcile the visible, remembered life with her mother, seeking some common ground as an adult for the raw, loose ends of a difficult childhood and teenage relationship.

Unexpectedly, the path she sets upon proves to have a cumulative, positive impact for both Tara and her mother -- thus, the creative impetus that fueled this project, and Tara's unflinching decision to act upon that impetus and persevere, resulted in real, visible change in their lives, together and apart. This refutes the illusory passivity of the camera most documentaries are still dependent upon fostering. Could anyone but an amateur, working on her first film, have accomplished this?

The final edit crystallizes this process beautifully, retaining the key moments captured amid the days worth of footage shot (the visit to the geographic center of North America among them, though we don't realize that until the final act). If I had any doubts about the quality of this effort, the introspective passage in which Tara picks her way through the ruins of an abandoned high school gym while sorting out her own intentions put my fears to rest -- but not my ongoing dis-ease with the nature of the film itself. The discomfort this arouses is essential to the process as well as the intent and content of the film, though that unease may be too great for some.

These documentaries continue to revolve around seeing/showing/sharing that which we feel should not be seen/shown/shared, emotional terrain between estranged mother/daughter or son/father that formerly were privileged, private. There's no resolving this conundrum: at its best and its worst (e.g., reality television), the genre thrives upon, and is indeed built upon, transgressive intrusion into, and revelation of, that very real, personal space. If filmmaker and subject/parent invite, permit or tolerate the intrusion, what are we to do as viewers? Indulge, explore or retreat? The choice is as personal as the films.

This is an ideal companion feature to Shot in the Dark and 51 Birch Street, particularly Adrian Grenier's Shot in the Dark (see following review). They are perfect compliments, in terms of gender (mother/daughter, father/son), dynamic (present parent/absent parent), and filmmaker orientation (non-celebrity/celebrity), and both are first features, by young filmmakers based in NYC exploring their roots in mid-America with parents who'd embraced alternative lifestyles in the '70s -- there's much rich material to be explored here.

* Shot in the Dark (2002) - A pleasant surprise, indeed, and a neat piece of work all around. Director & actor Adrian Grenier and his pal Jon Mol construct this documentary around Adrian's search for his absent father, John, who he hasn't seen in 18 years. As they drive closer to the planned birthday reunion, intercut with interviews with Adrian's mother, family and circle of friends, questions over who his biological father might really be emerge, along with exploration of who his 'real' father was (Boris, who raised him with Adrian's mother, aggressively posits himself in that role), and what father/son relations can be, should be, and too often are.

What emerges also functions as concise autobiography, biography and a semi-parody of its genre (given the clever double coda, "Reunion: Scene One" and "Reunion: Scene Two"). It's all compulsively watchable thanks in part to Grenier's onscreen charisma and celebrity. Jon's candid rapport with Adrian keeps subject and context in perspective: when Adrian (and the film) somewhat romantically muses over the possibility of his having been a "love child" of two briefly 'in-love' hippy parents, Jon candidly says, "maybe it was just -- they met and boned." Maybe so. Nevertheless, the emotional and real-world ripples (entanglements, estrangements, self-exile, etc.) were and are quite real, and Grenier is unabashed about keeping himself, as the flesh-and-blood incarnation of that consequence, center stage. He remains in playful but genuine confrontation mode until he can sort out the reality of his birth and his parents's relationship. He laughs openly at the conceit of the film's concept and title ("...that's all I am -- all I am is a shot in the dark..."), but there is much that is sad and touching here, too, sans pretentions.

This is a fascinating companion piece to Tara Wray's Manhattan, Kansas; together, these offer a pretty remarkable portrait of the current culmination of this vein of autobiographical documentary genre. Both are at times too painfully self-introspective, too intimate; what's compelling, though, is how utterly discomforting either the complete presence (in Manhattan, Kansas) or absence (in Shot in the Dark) of the primary parent is to the now-adult child -- and to the audience/viewer. This is undeniably primal stuff Grenier and Wray are tapping at considerable risk and with considerable courage. There is no comfort zone, and that is clearly characteristic of this genre, and perhaps this generation of filmmakers. The contrast between father and son, mother and daughter relations is compelling, as is the contrast between non-celebrity (Tara) and celebrity (Adrian) in this milieu; one cannot help but wonder, for instance, if the on-camera reconciliation with the once-antagonistic stepmother in Shot in the Dark would have occurred sans Adrian's celebrity. In Manhattan, Kansas, that simply isn't a factor.

But the ever-present factor, of course, is the intrusion of the camera, the filmmaking process, in these streams of life and lives now preserved and shared on video -- and that, I dare say, is the meat of an amazing and increasingly necessary discussion.

That's all for today. Have a great Monday, one and all...

Sunday Moaning

I'm feeling under the weather completely today. My online session this AM to post early crashed, but I managed to rescue much of my original attempt to post -- here 'tis, then back to moaning and feeling miserable for this lad. My first real cold of the season -- I'm going to let it soak through.

The final word is in at last on the Mario Bava boxed set from Anchor Bay -- and Tim Lucas has posted it all

here at the Video Watchblog.

Alas, no English/AIP (American International Pictures -- the original US distributor) prints of the key '60s trio of films (Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, The Girl Who Knew Too Much/The Evil Eye) -- so reckon I'm hanging on to those old vhs versions. Still, I'm eagerly anticipating this purchase!

Thanks to Tim, an early birthday gift of the Dark Sky edition of Kill, Baby... Kill!/Operazione Paura joined my collection yesterday morning. Can't wait to screen it! I have stolen a little time to view the bonus documentary by David Gregory, in which Mario's son Lamberto tours the original locations the film was shot in over 35 years ago; astounding, really, though sections of the ancient Italian village are succumbing to decay and finally crumbling into rubble. The transfer of the film itself looks fantastic -- come dark, I'm savoring the experience of this, among my favorite of all Bava films, anew.

And speaking of screening --

CINE-KETCHUP, Part the Later

* Absolute Wilson (2006) -- Katharina Otto-Bernstein's bio-documentary of innovative theatrical director Robert Wilson (The White Raven, Einstein on the Beach, The Black Rider, etc.) is a real treat. To my eye and ear, Wilson's brand of theater makes for lively viewing -- the stark, iconographic imagery and movement; the inventive play with sound & music; the imaginative use of color, costume and body language -- and is, once integrated with the interview/'witness' format and use of archival home movie and film clips, completely cinematic.

The presentation of Wilson's life is deftly communicated in broad strokes, from his childhood in Waco, TX (with a black child, Leroy, his best friend in a segregated community and Wilson's further isolation due to his stuttering) to his early outing of his gay life & escape to New York City and exposure to the work of Merce Cunningham, John Cage, and others. The chronology moves quickly into his university, architecture, film, dance and directing theatrical career, touching on his innovative movement therapy work with brain-damaged children (a mere 15-20 minutes into the running time). The tantalizing, too-fleeting glimpses of Wilson's film The House (1965) is tied to his suicide attempt and hospitalization after his return to Waco, after which Wilson returned to NYC and his blossoming thereafter, from his ongoing non-verbal movement & dance therapy work (with paralyzed patients) to his theatrical work he is now renowned for, emerging from the hotbed of 1960s countercultural experimentation.

The expansive, playful and sculptural (in terms of movement, objects, and use of space) variety of Wilson's theatrical creations showcased throughout the film's running time makes for always engaging viewing, and director Otto-Bernstein's insistence on contextualizing every aspect and phase of Wilson's personal and creative life makes this a very satisfying experience. The onscreen presence of Susan Sontag, Philip Glass, Tom Waites, Trudy Kramer, John Rockwell, David Byrne, Jim Neu, Earl Mack, and many others is integral to the biographical tapestry Otto-Bernstein effectively weaves, further enhancing the viewing experience. A terrific documentary, highly recommended!

* The Grandfather Trilogy (1978-81) -- I'm pretty well versed in underground and experimental film history, but this trilogy from filmmaker Allen Ross was new to me. This is comprised of three short films: Papa (30 min, b&w, 1978), Thanksgiving, 1979 (color, 20 min., 1979), and Burials (color, approx 10 min., 1981). The first and third were shot in South Carolina, the second in Illinois, and these are hardly your typical 'family portrait' films. If anything, Papa isn't so much a portrait of Allen Ross's grandfather as much as it is an obfuscation: the camera is almost always on its side or akimbo, or focusing on Ross's grandfather's feet, or some other person or feature of the room or landscape, peppered with erratic sound (sometimes silent, sometimes ambient) and precious little of his grandfather really emerges. The most extensive passage offering tentative connections for viewers features Ross reading a passage from the Bible at his Grandfather's urging, and a brief exchange of words after: the camera, resting on the tabletop on its side, again captures this askew in the frame. We see a black woman walking with Grandpa, sitting alone in a car -- who is she? What's her relation? We don't know, and Allen doesn't tell or even hint. All this may have had meaning for Ross, but it conveys little but frustration to the most patient or indulgent of viewers.

Thanksgiving, 1979 has a perverse appeal in that it captures, by and large, the utter tedium of family holidays, comprised in part of shots of Grandpa and other family members sleeping (on chairs, couches) in their holiday best clothes. Everyone waves as they drive off to church; the family assembles before an (offscreen) TV, where then-current news of the Ayatollah, the hostages and Iran is heard offscreen. Same as it ever was! Burials presents Grandpa's burial, period, with a deliberately irritating soundtrack of harsh, grinding white noise (the clatter of the camera?). Together, these indeed are a coherent trilogy, but I can't admit to having gleaned much from the whole or parts.

* The Messengers (2007) -- Hard to believe my generation had so few ghost movies as reference points -- The Uninvited (1941), The Haunting and The Innocents (both 1961), and little else of note outside the Topper-like ghost comedies of the '30s and '40s were on TV (along with reruns of Topper, the TV series), and aside from 13 Ghosts, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and Mario Bava gems like Kill, Baby... Kill!, the big screen was rarely haunted by ghosts. The largest quantity of ghost films my generation experienced were the made-for-TV movie-of-the-week outings, peopled by the likes of Hope Lange or Dennis Weaver, often produced by Aaron Spelling and/or directed by John Moxey, and rarely providing more than 90 minutes of distraction (though there were gems, including Steven Spielberg's Something Evil).

Alas, The Messengers, for all its J-horror flourishes, is the rough equivalent of one of those made-for-TV exercises, right down to its family-in-jeopardy scenario, ominous flocks of crows and remote North Dakota sunflower farm (yep, sunflowers) setting. Since the popular success of The Sixth Sense and the transoceanic import of J-horror and seemingly endless remakes of Japanese and Asian contemporary spins on the venerable genre, we old-timers can barely keep up with the plethora of almost weekly ghost flicks the current generation have been inundated with. This is the latest Ghost House Pictures opus, which I made a point of catching due to the involvement of co-directors Danny and Oxide Pang, whose Bangkok Dangerous (1996), Gin gwai/The Eye (2002) and sequel I quite enjoyed.

The Pang Brothers bring their usual eye and ear for the uncanny to bear here, but the formulaic strait-jackets simultaneously defining and confining this contemporary vein of ectoplasmic antics prevents the film from ever transcending its TV-movie premise or feel. The cast is TV-movie perfect, including Northern Exposure and Sex and the City's John Corbett's turn as the wanderer-turned-handyman so integral to the plot and a red herring appearance by ol' X-Files Cancer Man himself William B. Davis, but I'm happy to report that Kristen Stewart (Panic Room, Cold Creek Manor, Undertow, etc.) almost elevates this up a notch thanks to her sympathetic performance alone as the unhappily displaced teen daughter. The visualizations of the malignant spirits plaguing the remote farm house and grounds will seem like just more Grudge residue to the casual viewer, but the fact is these spidery, spastic wraiths clinging so tenaciously to the ceilings are lifted from William Peter Blatty's underrated The Exorcist III, which was where I first saw this kind of imagery evoking a real chill. Thanks to CGI, the crow massings and attacks are worthy of The Birds; Ub Iwerks would have been proud. The Pangs do all they can with the material they've been given to work with, managing to mount a couple of effective setpieces and maintain an integrity of visual design and pacing worthy of better source material, but it all succumbs to the unfortunate over-familiarity of the narrative, which wouldn't have worked up a sweat back on 1973 ABC-TV's lineup. I wish I'd have made the extra ten minute drive to Blood and Chocolate instead; at least the premise of that flick (werewolves and -- cartoonists!) rings a bell closer to home.

* Music and Lyrics (2007) -- A Marge movie choice, and a painless way to pass the time... though I'm no fan of this kind of sitcom-style romantic comedy fluff, so take whatever I have to say here with a vast vat of salt. Writer/director Marc Lawrence (Life With Mikey, Miss Congeniality, etc.) maintains the light touch of all his work, and the matching of Hugh Grant (as 'washed up' '80s music star Alex Fletcher) and Drew Barrymore (as surprise freelance-plant-caretaker-turned-lyricist Sophie Fisher) seemed to work for the audience we saw it with. I perversely couldn't forget that Grant was in Maurice roughly the same time Drew was in Babes in Toyland (1985/6) -- that kept things in perspective, especially once they were coupling (offscreen) under the piano. The core of this confection revolves around lovely but (intentionally) vacuous Haley Bennett, neatly sending up the 21st Century pop scene playing teen pop sensation Cora Corman, a tidy conflation of every blonde teen pop starlet of the past six years. You see, Cora is a fan of Alex's MTV-era band "Pop" and gives Alex mere days to compose a new tune for her upcoming CD and tour, and ol' Alex sorely needs the career resurrection this might provide. Enter Sophie, filling in for Alex's usual apartment plant-caretaker (someone to water his plants -- I know, I know, it didn't make a lick of sense to this backwoods fella, either. Water your own fucking plants!), thus our two star-crossed lovers-to-be meet "cute," and begin the unlikely lyricist/composer relationship this whole chick flick revolves around. And around. And around.

This inherently coy tease of a genre depends eternally on deferring, delaying and waylaying the inevitable union of its protagonists -- when will they get together? What will seperate them? What will the reconciliatory moment be? -- and Lawrence juggles those requirements and expectations skillfully enough, though it's usually sheer agony to me. The oddest aspect of this film that kept distracting me had to do with how little the New York City locations looked like New York -- is it just me? Thankfully, the clever framing conceit (the film opens with Pop's 1984 music video, "Pop Goes My Heart," and closes with the Pop-Up Video reboot of same) and satiric collision of 1980s pop music conventions with 2006 pop music conventions is neatly maintained stem to stern; it ain't deep, but it is entertaining enough for this one-time music video junkie. I'm not vulnerable to either Grant's patter or Barrymore's perk, but there are a couple of laughs at Grant's expense, passages of clever dialogue and exchange, and all ends happily. A nice evening out -- nothing more, nothing less.

* The Other Way Back: Dancing With Dudley (2006) -- This is an excellent regional VT/NH documentary on Contra Dance populist Dudley Laufman (aka William Dudley Laufman) from local filmmaker/teacher David Millstone, a followup to his first documentary on New England Contra Dancing, Paid to Eat Ice Cream. Made with considerable more polish and skill than Paid to Eat Ice Cream (which was a solid piece of work, nonetheless), Millstone once again brings his passion for the contra dancing tradition to bear, composing an affection and thorough portrait of poet/Quaker/musician/caller Dudley Laufman of Canterbury, NH.

Laufman's career dates back to 1953; he was a Quaker who registered as a conscientious objector, a 'back to the land' poet with roots in Brattleboro, VT, Concord, NH and his home in Canterbury, NH, and he emerged as the keystone of the Contra Dancing revival of the '70s. Laufman's devotion to the tradition, and the passing on of that tradition, is manifest, from his 1965 Newport Folk Festival participation and subsequent workshop to his absolutely vital, pivotal leadership of the 1970s Contra Dance revival, which also had its political and social dimensions, fully articulated herein. Millstone's integration of on-camera interviews with Laufman himself along with Vince O'Donnell, Dillon Bustin, Jack Perron, Randy Miller and many others is compelling, gracefully orchestrated with an abundance of archival concert footage (the earliest dating from 1964, though the most extensive archival material dates from 1974-75), onscreen use of clippings, posters, flyers and other artifacts of Laufman's career, and plenty of contemporary footage. Millstone doesn't shy away from Laufman's reputation as a womanizer (including comments from charmed women), or his 'fade' from the scene as other contra bands blossomed in the wake of his mid-'70s popularization of the dance; this culminated in Laufman's decision to mount family dances and work with local schools, passing the core traditions on to new generations of youth as he saw others (to his mind) modernize and dilute those original traditions of music and dance. It's all here, and we're the richer for it.

Have a great Sunday, what's left of it...

Inkslingers, Assemble!

Compliments of curator Idoline Duke of

the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe, VT

comes this tasty portrait from

this past Wednesday's VT cartoonists gatherum in Burlington.

From left to right, back row: Jeff Danziger, James Kochalka, and yours truly; front row: Harry Bliss, Ed Koren, James Sturm. A fine time was had by all, and the dinner afterworks (at the Pacific Rim eatery) was delish and great fun.
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Zombies Bios

Here's the lineup of fellow American cartoonists I appear alongside in the upcoming Accent UK Zombies anthology. More info & images as May -- and the anthology's publication -- approaches!

Daniel Bissette is a native Vermonter (b 1985) and has been drawing, writing and making music of one kind or another (drums, guitar, etc.) all life. His art appears in an Italian book on Lucio Fulci, onscreen in Lance Weiler's new feature film Head Trauma, on its companion alternative soundtrack CD Cursed, and his first self-published zine was Hot Chicks Take Huge Shits (2006). He lives in Brattleboro, VT, DJs for the local radio station, and he and his dad Steve jammed on a piece for the mini-comic Trees & Hills and Friends before re-teaming for this anthology.

Chuck Forsman currently attends The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont where he researches how to sleep less and draw more. Visit

http://mcbuck.wordpress.com.

Jaci June is a student of the Center for Cartoon Studies, and a former resident of southern California. Comix for Jaci are what brains are for zombies: vital sustenance.

Sean Morgan: Born a cowboy, raised a Creole, forever a Yankee. There's no button Mr. Morgan won't push. His artwork (including the monster cover/splash) graces the “Jersey Devil” minicomic packaged with the Heretic DVD release of The Last Broadcast.

Bob Oxman was born in Ohio and raised in New Hampshire where he discovered his three loves: comic books, skateboarding, and beer. Bob started drawing comics in math class using graphing paper. At the University of California Santa Barbara, Bob and Mark Smith cofounded the Comic Book Creator’s Co-op, creating comics published in both campus newspapers and teaching a popular colloquium on graphic novels during their senior year. After college, Bob drifted through a series of uninspiring occupations (temping at a gel implants corporation, working for an insurance company, etc.), eventually moving back home to NH to attend classes at The Center for Cartoon Studies. Bob is currently hard at work on Smuttynose, a macabre retelling of the infamous Smuttynose Island, Maine axe murders of 1873, and he brews several fine beers featuring comic labels, as he works professionally in art crime prevention at the Hood Museum of Art for Dartmouth College.

Against his wishes, Morgan Pielli was born in Connecticut. Here he began creating comics of dubious quality from the tender age of seven. At age twelve his cartoons began appearing in the school newspaper; and the tragic course he had set was clear. But in an unexpected moment of weakness, Morgan decided that a classical art education was needed. After four years of painting pictures of squares bigger than his head, Morgan physically pried a BFA from the cold unfeeling hands of Bard College president Leon Botstein. Dr. Botstein shook his fist and cursed Morgan, vowing to someday have his revenge.Currently Morgan resides in Vermont where he attends the Center for Cartoon Studies. His cartoons “The Dancing Paperclip of Tormented Souls” and “Morgan's Guide to a Fruitful Life” are read by several people world-wide and enjoyed by nearly as many. Morgan's work can be found at

http://morganpielli.rated-arr.net

if you're into that sort of thing.

Jeremiah Piersol is a 2002 graduate of Art Center of College of Design, Pasadena , California (Bachelors of Fine Art). He is currently studying cartooning at The Center for Cartoon Studies, White River Junction, VT. His past endeavors including interning at the The Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA, and volunteer work at The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA. and The Water Street Rescue Mission, Lancaster, PA; he was born in Lancaster. Jeremiah’s interests include Art in all forms, comics, quantum physics, paranormal research, post-modern theory, and popular culture.

Denis St. John (b 1981) heralds from most of the United States (California, New Orleans, Washington D.C., the Midwest, etc.). Denis was a local children’s show host in Indiana and co-host for a midnight horror show, often playing the creature for the creature feature, alongside the very real and cranky Dr. Calamari. Denis is currently a student at the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont, and is trying to move on with his life after the glamour of children’s show host fame has faded.

B.C. Sterrett was born and raised in Ogden, Utah. His ongoing comic strip "The Sweetest of Dreams" has been published by Young American Comics, in entertainment rags like Melting Music and The Salt Shaker, and various other school papers, zines, and newsletters. He acts as founder and current director of the Lost Media Archive Museum and Library, salvaging and saving forgotten and obsolete media formats. Previous host of the long running "Oddity Rock Radio Show" on KWCR, he and has produced and hosted various broadcasts of rare and unusual music throughout the years (i.e. "Outsider Music" on live365.com). He is currently a student at The Center For Cartoon Studies, in White River Junction, VT. Contact: bcsterrett@gmail.com

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BTW, speaking of Blair and his creative and archival endeavors, the January 13th Lost Media Archive Museum and Library event I noted

in my January 13th post on this blog (scroll down to that day's posting, just below the glowering Varnae art) yielded photos by Blair's friend Janean Parker,

which are posted online here -- check 'em out!

Check it all out, please, and savor the beauty of it all.

Have a Great Saturday, One & All!

A Peek at the New Digs

I'm usually up by 5:30 AM -- but I was so fried from this week, and from the fourth drive up to and back from Burlington in a week, that I conked until almost 10:30 AM this morn. We drove home last night in falling and blowing snow the entire way, and I managed the drive comfortably until we were 40 miles north of White River Junction -- by then, I was just too exhausted to safely continue driving. Fortunately, Marge was wide awake and happy to take over, and we were definitely through the worst of the snow, so she drove the final stretch of I-89 and the 15 minutes of I-91 home. I barely stayed awake that final haul; had I been driving alone, I would have pulled over more than once to rub snow on my face to keep myself wide awake.

So, Marge is safely home from her trip to visit our grandchildren in Texas, and I savored our first night and (today) day together since last week.

Still, got some work done. Just wrapped up part one of the multi-chapter interview with Bryan Talbot (links to be posted here soon!), and finally have some time to post -- sorry I missed my usual AM arrival.

Photos today -- this is the shelving done thus far on our new home by David Gabriel, who (along with his brother Mike) completed this chunk of the renovations needed for my collection and library about a month ago. We're eagerly looking forward to Dave's return, as the construction of the basement library/office begins at last.

Dave and Mike did a stellar job; Dave not only fulfilled my hopes for the viewing room shelving (which, thankfully, houses all my DVDs -- finally, the library in easy reach, and in a single room!), he consistently improved upon and enhanced every aspect of the project.



Walking you around the viewing room, the first evening after Dave and Mike had finished their work on this space, you can see here the door to the room and the first bank of shelves. These extend from floor to ceiling, across the span of the interior wall and around the top of the back window --



-- which is framed on its other side by another bank of shelves.

Standing at the window, this is the view of the shelving that Dave constructed on the interior wall to the right of the window. Note the angled roofline cutting into the room; Dave's shelving perfectly follows that form, wrapping around to the inside area, and continuing alongside the door -- which is across the room from the entryway we began this room tour with.

(This door, BTW, presently opens up to the unfinished room over our garage. This will be, by summer, by writing/mailing/office space, once it's finished.)

The two doors leaning against room door are from the closet (which we'll be getting to soon enough). At this stage, the double-sliding-doors have been removed -- ostensibly for Dave and Mike's easier access to the closet work area, but these hanging doors may remain off. Time will tell.

Note, too, the small rounded corner shelving Dave created for that corner beneath the angled interior wall. This was Dave's idea, and I dig it -- it provides some shelf space for my monster figures and movie collectibles (like my drive-in speaker!), as well as one of the surround-sound speakers for the final viewing room set-up.

We've removed the two detached closet hanging doors from this shot: that's the same interior door (facing the entry door, across the room) you saw in the last photo.

This angle gives you a good view of the bank of shelving to the right of the interior door, which is the first portion I racked as I began unpacking after Dave and Mike's work was done, and I was free to begin setting up the room. All my animation collection neatly fits this space, including my beloved collection of King Kong, Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen films.

Now, this is a little difficult to describe here, but if you continue looking to the right of these shelves, there's another angled wall that cuts down into the room. That angle runs the length of the wall (which is directly opposite the window, which is visible in the first and second photos I've shown you here).

That leaves precious little space for shelving, further compromised by the heating baseboard extending across almost half the length of that end of the room.

However, Dave did make optimum use of what little wall we do have to work with beneath that angled interior wall. This shot doesn't give you as clear an orientation to the layout of the room as the previous shots do, but it's the best we could get at this time.

This floor-to-beginning-of-the-angled-wall bank of shelves on the left leads into the full floor-to-ceiling set on the immediate right, which run up alongside the narrow strip of wall on the left of the wide closet doorway.

As you can see, ample shelving space, all perfectly designed for optimum racking of DVDs, with enough clearance throughout for vhs tapes and many DVD boxed sets.

Dave's efficient use of all available space, including the areas dealing with the angle-cut of the inside wall, provides a space pleasing to the eye and useful for tucking and storing odds and ends -- including remotes, etc. -- that are coming in very handy. The warmth of the wood (which Mike polyurethaned, two coats) contrasts the blue walls perfectly, and the entire room now has an expansive warmth, thanks to the woodwork, that's really comfortable to spend time with. Nice!

I should also mention, before we get to Dave's final completion of the interior closet shelving, that this was the only room of our new home we had to paint. For the original (and only preceding) owners, this was apparently the bedroom of their two little girls. It was a truly hideous patchwork of violet and pale green walls -- perhaps color-coded for the girls? -- and clearly had to go.

Marge chose this eye-soothing hue of blue, which wasn't as oppressive as the dark blue I had chosen for our Marlboro home's basement viewing room (which never, ever provided sufficient space for the sprawl of my equipment and collection, and was hardly usable in our five years there). This worked out well, and Dave began work within two days of my completing the spackling, sanding and repaint job on the walls.

Okay, back to the photo tour of the viewing room:

This is the entryway to the closet, which also showcases the shelving Dave completed for the narrow wall extending out from the right closet doorway frame. So, what you're seeing here is a portion of the interior of the closet (with the hanging doors removed, natch) and the floor-to-ceiling shelving running up along the wall outside the closet doorway -- and on to the entry door we began this photo tour with.


Here's a tighter shot of the shelves to the right of the closet door frame.

The three display shelves to the left of the entry door were Dave's idea, too. Having seen some of my monster models, which I've nowhere to put just yet, Dave asked if I'd like space to display two or three of them in this otherwise unused space by the door frame. Like all Dave's suggestions, this was a good one, and also provides a handy shelf -- directly across the room from the rounded shelves in the opposite bend-of-the-wall, visible in the third photo above -- for another of the surround-sound speakers.

Good call, Dave -- and excellent execution!



Here's the best angle we could manage to photograph the closet interior -- again, floor-to-ceiling shelving. This was a particularly tight area for Dave and Mike to work within, but per usual, they did a fantastic job. It's perfect.

These shelves are sized not for DVDs, but for larger components of the video collection: the floor shelving is designed for laserdiscs (they all fit!), the rest for big-box videos from the early years of the 1980s video market, those glorious oversized color vids from the likes of Gorgon Video, Wizard, and the rest.

Many of the titles released on vhs in the big-box format have never been issued in other any form, and for some -- like the original Herschell Gordon Lewis and Andy Milligan vhs releases, and curios like the Spectreman series -- the boxes themselves are artifacts of a key era of exploitation cinema and video that has long passed. I treasure them as much as my poster and pressbook collection. So, at my request, Dave designed and constructed this interior closet shelving to accommodate as much of this part of the ol' collection as possible.


This was the best we could do, photographing the deep interior of the inner closet shelving. It's almost impossible to get a camera into the confines of this area with enough visibility to capture what it's like inside. It's a wide, deep closet, ideal for my needs -- and it was mighty tough for Marge to give up!

Fortunately, the rest of the house has so much quality closet space, Marge has more than enough. So, this worked out fine for me.

I can't wait to complete the set up of the viewing room, and hopefully savor it for years to come. I'm beginning the setup process this weekend, and hope to watch my first movie here by next weekend.

As you can see from this little photo tour, David Gabriel has done an extraordinary job for us.

There's still much to do, work that will carry on into the summer: an unfinished room over our garage that will become my office, mailing room and writing studio; the entire basement, which is unfinished and will become my sorely-needed library for books, magazine, comics and the collection; and Marge's screened-in back deck porch, which we'll get to once the ground thaws, dries and spring is here.

But that's a long way off just now.

Have a great weekend, one and all, and see you here as time permits...

Road Trip!

Last night's roadtrip with James Sturm to Burlington was a great one. The panel at the Firehouse Gallery wasn't heavily attended, but there were more asses in the seats in the audience than on the panel, which is all that matters sometimes. Those who were there really wanted to be there, and a good time was had by all.

I'll tell ya about it tomorrow, when time is on my side.

Today, though, it ain't -- off to teach my two sessions, road trip (my fourth trip north a-way up VT Interstate 89 this week) with the CCS students to the Helen Day Art Center to savor the VT cartoonists exhibition, dinner on Montpelier for all (on CCS's ticket, thankfully), then I drive north again to pick up Marge at the Burlington Airport after the students head home. She's been away all week, visiting our grandchildren in Texas -- then, barring air flight delays, the long drive home (again) from Burlington to home, sweet home.

So, tomorrow, compadres, I'll write something of substance tomorrow. Today, I'm up, out and running! Have a great Thursday -- or at least an OK one...

No Time! No Time!

Wednesday AM and no time -- so, feeble post today. Sorry.

Today's post title is true, but prompted too by the ongoing interview I'm amid with Bryan Talbot, whose new graphic novel Alice in Sunderland is soon to appear. More on that later -- when this white rabbit has time.

I've been working my way through notes on some of my old Swamp Thing pencils for the upcoming issue of Rough Stuff magazine ("S&M for Comics Pencillers"), prepping today and tomorrow's lectures for CCS, etc., all while making room for two trips north -- one today for

the Vermont cartoonists's panel in Burlington at the Firehouse Center for the Visual Arts -- all the info is here!

-- and for a CCS class trip up to

Stowe to visit the Helen Day Art Center and the "Fine Toon" VT cartooning show.

Whew; don't be surprised if I'm absent from here for a day or two, but I'll try to ensure that doesn't happen.


Followup on an email query from 'anonymous': Alex Toth was indeed vetted by Heavy Metal art director John Workman to do 1941: The Illustrated Story. For more info, check out the TwoMorrow's zine Alter Ego #63, December 2006, edited as ever by Roy Thomas; it's Roy's Toth tribute issue, and John Workman's article "1941 And All That: Why the Graphic Novel Version of Steven Spielberg's 1979 Film Was Not Drawn by Alex Toth" (pp. 47-50) says it all.

John, bless him, says the final published book was "brilliantly done by the young and wildly exuberant team of Rick Veitch and Steve Bissette," and notes the graphic novel did make a profit, which was news to me. FYI, Spielberg loathed what we'd done -- I still have a copy of his extremely negative letter to the HM folks in my files, which I reprinted in the letters page of SpiderBaby Comix -- but hey, maybe it's because we saw the truth about 1941 and laid it all out on the page for all to see!

Have a great Wednesday, one and all --

What Mark Martin Wants,
Mark Martin Gets

(except for Condi)

You want an explanation for this image,

visit Mark Martin's glorious website and go exploring.

I'm just realizing what was apparently his fondest wish one morning -- January 14th, 2007, to be exact. Sorry it took so long, Mark, but I really had to get that Pan's Labyrinth review done first!

But -- What About My Head?

And, a recap (redecap?) of Mark Martin's glorious Blog Opera, which was serialized

at Mark's magnificent blog, "Jabberous," late last year.

All this sturm und drang, then -- nada.

My head, abandoned, in midair, like Tyrant's sibling on Eggsucker's tongue. Forever dangling, dangling.

I am crestfallen (pun intended).

Here's the sequence, in total, depicting my vain effort to save my dear amigo G. Michael Dobbs (aka Mike Dobbs aka Mayo Blot) -- well, his head, anyway. My greatest disappointment: no Brain That Wouldn't Die in-jokes. Read it and weep.

Panel the First

Panel the Second

Panel the Third

Panel the Fourth

...and t-t-t-that's all, folks!

PS: Note Mark's and Mike's ongoing revulsion at

my papers and collections at Henderson State University and the HUIE Library Special Collections.

It's a constant dig (in more ways than one!), but one I know that comes from profound and malingering envy. Mark's papers were to be stored at the Clinton Library in nearby Little Rock, Arkansas, but that fell through -- and with President Bush reclassifying declassified materials, it's likely Mark's highly-sensitive papers will be forever buried, perhaps with him.

Anyhoot, since I've linked to all Mark's online universe, it's only appropo

I do the same for Mike, kicking off with his venerable "Out of the Inkwell" blog,

bopping over to his "That's Thirty" journalism site,

and winding up at his ongoing Fleischer Brothers book-in-progress blog, "Made of Pen and Ink."

Mike's papers are -- well, out weekly. In Massachusetts. Five of 'em. That he edits. Weeklies. Got it?

I'm outta here -- more later!

VT Cartoonists Descend on Burlington, Wednesday Night, 2/21!


As promised, a follow up on this week's activities.

Yo, big time in the big town (Vermont's only city!) this week -- Wednesday, to be exact!

James Sturm and I are off to Burlington on the afternoon of February 21st for the Cartoonist’s Panel and Informal Public Cartoon/Comic Critique Session. The evening event will be moderated by James Sturm, Director of the Center for Cartoon Studies and cartoonist/graphic novelist; panelists will include Harry Bliss, Jeff Danziger, Ed Koren and yours truly.

The panel discussion is during the dinner hour, 5:30 pm – 7 pm, followed by an informal public critique session from 7–7:30pm. All this for just $5 at the door; we'll be in the Lorraine B. Good Room at the Firehouse Center.

This will be a special evening, so be there --

all the particulars are here, at the Firehouse Center for the Visual Arts site,

-- see you up on the second floor at 135 Church Street, next to City Hall in Burlington, VT, 05401.

Contact info:

Phone: 802-865-7166

Contact: Melinda Johns
mjohns@ci.burlington.vt.us

Directions: The Firehouse Center for the Visual Arts is located in downtown Burlington next to City Hall on the Church Street Marketplace,

and here's a map for those of you not familiar with Burlington who are planning to come!

For further information, please contact Idoline Duke, 802-253-8538, Director of Exhibitions, Helen Day Art Center --

for more info, including the poop on the current Fine Toon: The Art of Vermont Cartoonists exhibit at the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe, click here!

Upcoming events linked to the exhibit (including my April 17th lecture at the gallery) are cited here.

More info tomorrow!

Yow! Monday!

Just finished one of two deadline gigs due today, so apologies for the late post -- I'll have more up later today, too, including news about the upcoming VT cartoonists panel in Burlington on Wednesday I'm part of.

Continuing:

Cine-Ketchup, Part 3:
____________

* GHOST RIDER (2007) - In a way, this tops Mars Attacks! and The Garbage Pail Kids -- being the only films based on trading cards that come immediately to mind -- in that technically Ghost Rider is the first film based on a decal.

I think.

Really.

Ya, I know, I know, there's the song "Ghost Riders in the Sky," a venerable fave of mine, too, that's saved for (and mangled) under this new flick's closing credits.

There's the original comic book Ghost Rider (aka Phantom Rider, in his 1960s Marvel resurrection), originally published by Magazine Enterprises until his demise in Red Mask #50 (November, 1955). That Ghost Rider was a western vigilante character with a pseudo-supernatural slant: he was the alter-ego of federal marshal Rex Fury, and he had a coolie -- I mean, Chinese sidekick named Sing Song. He didn't have superpowers, but he was one heck of a rider and shot a mean six-shooter; he was kind of a horror-tinged Lone Ranger or serial western hero, wearing a bone-white luminescent costume and riding a glow-in-the-dark horse (named Spectre) to scare the bejeezus out of his foes and craven criminals (though he did reportedly fight the occasional werewolf or vampire in his Pre-Code incarnation). Think of the original western Ghost Rider as a sort of wild west take on Russell Thorndike's British pirate/preacher/smuggler Doctor Syn (more familiar to my generation via the early '60s film versions, Hammer's Night Creatures aka Captain Clegg and Disney's The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh) -- now, he figures into this new movie, but I can't say more about that without given anything away.

Then there's the Marvel Comics Ghost Rider this film is ostensibly derived from: Johnny Blaze, a motorcycle stunt-rider whose comicbook cycle pretty much sucked wind. I mean, it wasn't a chopper, really, and it was too tame to appeal to bikers or those of us who dug biker movies. But that's neither here nor there. Johnny Blaze dabbled with devilish forces and made a pact with Mephisto, ending up losing his soul to possession by the demon Zarathos, though I thought the creepiest thing he did in the comic was fall for and marry his step-sister Roxanne, but maybe that's just me. In any case, Johnny Blaze gained enough control over his flaming-skull demon powers to fight on the side of right throughout his career, though he never really caught fire in terms of sales. Tuning out of the character's exploits in the late '70s and back in in the '90s, I was surprised to find some brawny teen named Dan Ketch had taken Blaze's place astride the cycle, which thankfully looked much cooler in the '90s than it ever had in the '70s, when it would have really mattered.

But, see, between the evaporation of the western Magazine Enterprises's Ghost Rider in 1955 and the resurrection of the moniker via Marvel's Ghost Rider in 1967, there was this absolutely iconic flaming skull decal every kid had on their bicycle, an image bikers embraced and truckers dug and that seemed to be just about everywhere there were wheels in the '60s.

The flaming skull image, with burning eyes staring out at you with uncanny life, was as omnipresent as those nudie girlie garage calenders with flimsy tops and panties on lift-up plastic sheets -- like, they were everywhere.

So, to my mind, Marvel's Ghost Rider was always derived from that decal -- period. And so is this movie, when you trace its lineage to its real pop culture flash point.

Now, it's the Johnny Blaze incarnation of the Marvel characters we've got on the big screen here, reportedly a pet project of star Nicholas Cage, who's more likable here than he was in The Wicker Man remake (2005), though it's Matt Long as the even-younger Johnny Blaze that seems closest to the Mike Ploog Ghost Rider comic incarnation I have soft spot in my skull for. Mark Steven Johnson, the man behind the so-so 2003 Daredevil movie (OK, it wasn't even so-so, but it was horns-and-tails above Elektra), is the auteur of note, and that says it all, if you know what I mean.

Writer/director Johnson knew that '70s "I've got the hots for my step-sister" shit wouldn't fly for a family Marvel movie, so here Roxanne (played in her younger incarnation by Raquel Alessi, then by more mature but less engaging Eva Mendes, of Hitch, Stuck on You, Out of Time, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, 2 Fast 2 Furious, All About the Benjamins, Training Day and Exit Wounds) is just, like, the girlfriend he stranded and ditched sans explanation after selling his soul to the debbil. That ol' debbil is fun to watch, via Peter Fonda milking his turn as Mephistopheles, though he's not nearly as scary as his ol' pop was in Once Upon a Time in the West (not a fair comparison, I know). Peter does more with less compared to the whippersnappers, except for Long and Alessi: Wes Bentley glares and sneers with abandon as (I kid you not) Blackheart, though truth to tell he looks and acts like he walked off the set for Constantine (in fact, the whole desert-and-demons mix works against the film, evocative as it is of better films like Prophecy and Constantine). Alas, Blackheart's trio of elemental bad-boy cronies are more Elektra (the movie) than, say, Big Trouble in Little China (no surprise, given that writer/director Johnson scripted and produced Elektra). Their tedium is balanced somewhat by Donal Logue's turn as Johnny's trusted sidekick Matt (who deserves far better than the unceremonious disposal he gets).

Best of all, though, is Sam Elliott as 'Caretaker,' though he's really -- no, I can't tell. It's one of the film's few, if utterly predictable, pleasures.

Sam's voice and face alone bring more character to this film than the surrounding 114 minutes of folderol. It's his voice we hear at the outset, but banish The Big Lebowski (1998) from your mind: no such luck here. Sam's The Caretaker, not The Stranger, here, and Johnson isn't even a distant thirtieth cousin of the Coen brothers -- he hasn't the wit or good grace to make the best use of his greatest asset, even as a narrative voice we can hang some tentative faith on.

Mark Steven Johnson is to Marvel movies what Stephen Sommers is to Universal Monsters: Sommers, natch, coined a new gold mine for Universal with his antic The Mummy (1999), thus entrusted with the whole Universal pantheon of monsters, concocting the bombastic and far less fun The Mummy Returns (2001) and the unbelievably abysmal Van Helsing (2004). Johnson, likewise, is the anointed child of the Marvel franchise, though he's rightfully notched beneath the far more capable Sam Raimi; Johnson's Marvel movies are serviceable at best (his earlier Jack Frost, 1998, totally sickened me). He's given cart blanche and ample budgets (Ghost Rider's release was postponed from last year to allow more action sequences to be completed, including the ridiculous chain-roping-of-a-helicoptor that had one guy in my theater roaring and clapping with glee: score, Mark!). I'm glad the money-men have such faith in the fella, and I wish him all the good luck (and no ill will) in the world, personally, but I far prefer his script work on Grumpy Old Men, and I'll leave it at that.

Nicholas Cage's devotion to this venture likely got it made, but his Johnny Blaze is a mere ember onscreen. Blaze comes across as a cipher, rendered more cipher-like once his flesh burns to inexpressive bone. Unlike the Martians of Mars Attacks or even Ray Harryhausen's ambulatory stop-motion battling bones of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts, Ghost Rider doesn't register as a character. Pre-flaming-skull, post-Matt Long (whose young Blaze does register: though he has far less screen time than Cage, it counts for much more), Cage's Johnny Blaze is a self-effacing bummer, dependent on deadpan asides (he'd rather watch TV specials about Howler Monkeys than his own PR -- I can relate) and Elvis mannerisms Cage himself codified in David Lynch's Wild at Heart. Sailor Ripley would stomp the shit out of this shell of a man and leave him in the gutter without a backward glance -- but that's as unfair as mentioning Once Upon a Time in the West a few paragraphs ago.