MOVIES: 'Brokeback Mountain'

MOVIES: 'Brokeback Mountain'

So Avril and I finally got around to seeing 'Brokeback Mountain' last night, sticking Peter with the sitter for a few hours... It's one of those rare movies that lives up to the hype, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it win Best Picture. I was surprised at just how many gray heads I saw in the theater last night in our small, pretty conservative town; clearly this movie isn't just appealing to one demographic. It's a great, heartbreaking romance, with a measured, tranquil pace and some great performances, particularly by Heath Ledger, who I never would've expected this from. Director Ang Lee definitely makes up for the abomination that was "Hulk" and has won back my favor.

One of the things I found so interesting about Lee's direction is that the landscape is almost a third main character. The cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto is utterly gorgeous, with wide-open skies, shattered mountains and endless fields all sort of acting as a silent chorus to Jack and Ennis' dilemma. The role of landscape and surroundings in a film is something you rarely notice actively, but it plays a huge part in how successful the filmmakers are at crafting a believable world. "Brokeback Mountain" takes the raw West and rough-and-tumble cowboy lifestyle and twists it a bit, in a way that isn't quite so much subversive as it is insightful. I'm admittedly a flaming liberal type, but "Brokeback" still seems to me the kind of movie only a hardcore homophobe will dislike. It's ultimately a doomed love story, as tragic in its own way as "Romeo and Juliet."

...As I've been writing this post on this cloudy Monday off work, I went to the kitchen to make coffee. And now Toddler Peter is running around the house bleating, "Drink coff-ee? Drink coff-ee?" So it begins...

COMICS: Quick Comics Reviews!

COMICS: Quick Comics Reviews!

Nextwave #1

"Healing America by beating people up." That's what Nextwave #1 promises on its cover. Now that's my Warren Ellis! This is good fun high-octane superhero comix by Ellis, who takes assorted C-list Marvel heroes (the black female Captain Marvel, Machine Man, Boom-Boom) and tosses them together to fight a giant dragon this issue. Nextwave embraces the fundamental silliness of the medium, but in a non-contemptous way. It's a lot like Ellis's "Authority" work done with a lighter touch so far. It's good to see Ellis moving away from the standard dark, chain smoking loner against the system archetype he's been a little too reliant on lately (see: "Fell," "Desolation Jones," "Ocean," "Jack Cross"...). It's also helped by the highly colorful, animated art by Stuart Immonen and lots of wonderful one-liners, amusing narrative captions and a fine sense of walking the line between parody and action. This issue is mostly set-up and promise of impending battle, but it gets the job done. It's not quite revolutionary, and still a bit soon to judge the series, but a solid grade A-.

Local #3

Continuing one of my favorite new series and even better than the first two issues. Another self-contained story (with a slight link to the first two), it's the tale of a band, Theories and Defenses, after it's broken up and returned home to Richmond, Va., after years of traveling and touring. Each of the band's four members look at picking up the pieces of their lives. Writer Brian Wood weaves all four stories around an interview the band's acerbic frontman is giving to a music magazine, and it's a real masterpiece of pacing, storytelling and setting. Each character is drawn with fine details in a tiny amount of space -- the weary, witty frontman, the sleazy drummer, the quiet professional. You get a feel for the nomadic life of a musician and how easy it is to get lost in it. Loving details by artist Ryan Kelly such as album cover art and a vivid imagined history for Theories and Defenses make this issue feel real and lived-in. Local #3 is just a great, compact and evocative little comic book, and one I'll pass on to people who think comics are all capes and spandex to show them otherwise. Local blog. Grade: A+

The All-New Official Handbook Of
The Marvel Universe A-Z #1

OK, first off, "A-Z" it ain't. I'm a geek for these fake encyclopedic looks at comic-book characters, where they combine art and prose to tell the history of four-color fellows from Hulk to Wolverine to Aunt May. Marvel's been putting out some nifty if pricey one-shots the last few years devoted to certain characters and cast like the Spider-Man books, X-Men, etc. Now they're making a companion for those with this A-to-Z 12-part series fitting in everyone else that wasn't included so far. While that's a nice idea, I was a little annoyed at the scattershot way they've categorized this whole project. This issue goes from Abraxas to Bastion and manages to include tons of totally obscure characters I've never even heard of. (I'm a geek, but who the hell are Akhenaten, Americop and Atleza?) It's trivia-packed and painstakingly detailed, yet there's something off about how they arrange these books so you have to hunt through a few dozen random issues to find, say, Ant-Man, who's in the "Avengers" book, not this one. This particular issue is so random in its inclusions (the only really well-known character in here is the D-list heroine, Alpha Flight's Aurora, to tell you something) that it all just leaves me a bit cold. By its very nature, it's a navel-gazing narrow-appeal project, but it could've been done better. It's aimed at getting you to spend more money picking up the many separate handbooks Marvel's published in the last few years, and that dilutes my appreciation despite the Handbook's overall fanboy inclusiveness and high quality. Grade: B-

BOOKS: Stephen King dials up 'Cell'

BOOKS: Stephen King dials up 'Cell'

I don't much care for cell phones. Got rid of my own last year when I realized I hardly ever used it.

Stephen King doesn't much seem to like them either. They're the trigger that leads to worldwide apocalypse in his taut, invigorating new novel, "Cell." It's the best non-"Dark Tower" novel the man's written in several years, satisfyingly gory and frightening, with a magnificent hook.

"Cell" launches like a rocket and doesn't let up the white-knuckle tension for several chapters. It all starts one bright autumn day in Boston as aspiring comic book artist Clay Riddell stops in a park to enjoy an ice cream cone. Suddenly, half the people around him go insane. The cause appears to be an unheard pulse that affects anybody who uses a cell phone — the majority of Americans, in other words. The Pulse erases their minds, turning them into savage, zombie-like beasts. It's nothing less than the end of the world.

Clay and a small band of survivors meet up and together try to make their way in this awful new reality. But those affected by the Pulse aren't staying animalistic killers — they're evolving, into something terrible and new. "Cell" is fast-moving, relatively compact (it doesn't suffer from the excessive bloat that's marred some of King's novels), and in the end, it's a vision haunting enough to stick with you.

Stephen King is like a good cheeseburger for me – not the fanciest thing on the menu, but gosh darn it, he fills you up. The man can tell a story, and I've enjoyed many of his 30-something novels. After a certain point, a writer repeats himself a bit, and "Cell" does bear some resemblance to one of King's best, the equally apocalyptic "The Stand." It lacks that novel's enormous scope and cast, but "Cell" is his strongest since 1999's "Hearts of Atlantis."

King nicely taps into a primal fear about technology, that all our gadgets and geegaws might one day overwhelm us. "They saw we had built the Tower of Babel all over again … and on nothing but electronic cobwebs," one character realizes. "Cell" is particularly tapped into the zeitgeist in the age of iPods and Blackberrys. We get used to technology so fast, that we never consider there might be a dark side.

Whatever caused the Pulse is ultimately uncontrollable, and in his homespun way, King makes us consider what a man is at his core with the terror of "Cell." Are we just another machine? King puts a nice spin on the zombie/world's end mythos (the novel is dedicated to "Night of the Living Dead" creator George A. Romero and "I Am Legend" author Richard Matheson). The evolution of the "phone crazies" is compelling and works within the story's logic.

"Cell" does suffer with its characters, who don't quite come off as indelible creations. There's spunky girl, plucky homily-spouting old man, computer-savvy kid, and so forth, conventions not quite individual enough to be unforgettable. Only the main protagonist Clay gets more than a few dimensions. The plot pushes the story more than the characters do here; they tend to just come off as gears in the machinery. When the story moves as propulsively as it does in "Cell," though, that's a failing I barely noticed. It's King quite close to the top of his game.

LIFE: The Great Migration Q&A

LIFE: The Great Migration Q&A

To follow up a little more on my recent announcement that we're moving to New Zealand later this year, I arranged with myself to sit down with an interview with myself on some frequently-asked questions. I was a good interview although a little evasive and had poor table manners.

Q. Why are you doing this?

A. Reason #1, for Baby Peter, who'll be able to start attending preschool there at age 3 in 2007. We want him to be closer to his grandparents, auntie and cousins, including one who's just a few months older than him. And, y'know, it's New Zealand. I've wanted to live in a foreign country since I was a kid, and Avril's had to put up with the U.S. for 8 years, so turnabout is fair play.

Q. What will you do for work?

A. Um... Well, the way I look at it, first we have to actually move there, and then due to various residency issues I probably won't work for the first few months while Avril might. I'd like to stay in the media industry somehow, but kind of feel like I'm ready to move on from newspapers into perhaps magazines or publishing. Or perhaps my vast mad blogging skillz will earn me a paycheck (ah, the dream). Anyway, one thing at a time, and I'm not too concerned about whether I can find a job or not. I'm plucky, darn it.

Q. How long will you live there?

A. Answer uncertain. Anywhere from 2 years to 10 years, but it really depends on how it all works out. We're leaving things open-ended for now. I kind of imagine we'll be back in America someday. Maybe if I write the Great American/Kiwi Novel we can buy homes in both places and commute.

Q. Are you pulling an Alec Baldwin? Why do you hate America?

A. Although the political climate in the U.S. ain't exactly blowing my way these days, it's very, very low on the list for reasons for actually moving. Everything's cyclical in history, and the repressive excesses of the Bush era will likely turn around into something else in another 5-10 years. The good things about America don't get changed by politics that easy. Besides, I didn't vote for the jerk either time, so there.

Q. Will you get a funny accent?

A. Apparently I will instantly acquire a funny accent upon moving to New Zealand, although it will only be apparent to the natives.

Q. Can we come?

A. You'll find it difficult unless you married a Kiwi like I did. And no, I'm not sharing her.

Q. Is New Zealand the promised land?

A. It's easy to get that impression but the grass is always greener, etc. I fully expect to encounter the same hassles, irritations and complications that are part of one's life wherever you are. The problems you got, you'll bring with you no matter where you go I think. At the same time, it'll be nice living in a country where you're never more than 70 miles or so from the ocean. It's actually a bit like Oregon already, really.

Q. What are you doing with all your stuff?

A. Well, we're not going to take it all with us (a shipping container runs into the many thousands of dollars). We're cramming as much as we can into our six allowed suitcases next month and the same when we leave for good, and we also plan on shipping a handful of boxes via surface mail. The majority of our books, comics, music, etc. that we keep will go into cold storage here in the states to be dealt with "eventually" on return visits and the like. As for furniture and bigger objects, we've always been pretty minimal about that kind of thing and will probably yard-sale most of it. We'll sell the car and are giving our cat Kudzu to my parents which when I think about it is probably going to be the hardest part to leave behind, but it's just way too much money and hassle to take an 11-year-old cat to NZ.

Q. Will you blog?

A. Probably, although there'll be some hiatus I imagine and I might change the name of the blog to "Expatriate Forum" or somesuch. Or I might disappear into the bush with the tuatara and weta and never be heard from again.

Q. Do you like Vegemite?

A. I said, do you speak-a my language?
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich.

MUSIC: Cash and Cheese

MUSIC: Cash and Cheese

Here's a look at a couple fine new CDs I've recently acquired (from a man named "Vito" in a black limo in the alley behind the pizza joint, but I digress).

Rosanne Cash, "Black Cadillac"
Rosanne Cash has been a critical favorite for years, crafting literate country-flavored rock along the lines of Lyle Lovett and Lucinda Williams. Her latest, "Black Cadillac," is both a eulogy and a moving ode to things lost. It's universal in scope yet very personal in feeling.

In the space of just a few years between 2003 and 2005, Rosanne lost three parents — her father, singing legend Johnny Cash, her stepmother, June Carter Cash, and her mother, Vivian Liberto Cash, Johnny Cash's first wife.

Sure, she's paying her respects to Cash's musical legacy, but part of Rosanne Cash's own appeal has always been her dogged insistence on going her own way. She carved out her career separate from her father's years ago.
But how do you deal with private grief in the public eye? You pick up your notebook and guitar and sing about it.

"Black Cadillac" is a searching quest, for meaning and the small epiphanies that follow death. What happens next? Does love die when the loved one does? Cash's quest here is deeply personal, full of tiny observed details that flesh out her songs and make them true stories, rather than just treacly bombast. "Black Cadillac" doesn't offer firm answers about life and death — how could it? — but it offers melodic food for thought.

These are beautiful, heartfelt songs about loss that will only fail to move the stone-hearted. "I Was Watching You," as Cash pictures her young parents meeting for the first time, has the sweet tang of ever-optimistic first love. "The World Unseen" nicks a line from the hymn "We Three Kings" to craft an affirming ballad about the search for faith, while "God Is In The Roses," with its chorus — "God is in the roses / and the thorns" – aptly captures the bittersweet, wise feeling of "Black Cadillac."

Despite the serious tone, the music, with hints of folk, soft rock and juke joint-stomp, isn't dour — Cash rocks in the anthemic "Like Fugitives," and the bouncy "World Without Sound" turns from a witty lark into a haunting ballad and back again at the drop of a hat. The title tune even includes a trumpet deep in the mix that evokes Cash's father's classic "Ring of Fire."

It's sometimes a melancholy tonic, but it goes down warmly, unforced, without manufactured sentiment. Rosanne Cash is simply telling us stories, about how she feels and the things she's seen. With "Black Cadillac," she's made a rich, layered CD that honors the memory of her family yet continues down her own unique path.

Richard Cheese, "Sunny Side of the Moon: The Best Of"
Lounge music and rock 'n' roll. Dare I say, it's a match made in heaven.

The bastard child of Bill Murray's "Starrrrr Waaaaarrrs!" singer from "Saturday Night Live," Richard Cheese and his band Lounge Against The Machine take on the heavyweights of alt-rock, from Slipknot to the Beastie Boys to Snoop Dogg, running them through a purifying rinse of sheer lounge-lizard smarm and charm.

"Sunny Side" culls the best of Cheese's first three CDs with a selection of new and reworked tunes. It's a great primer to one of the more oddball talents in music, out there on the fringes of parody with Dread Zeppelin and the godfather of the genre, "Weird Al" Yankovic.

You can't beat his gloriously offensive cover of Nirvana's "Rape Me," which starts off with a sleazy, "This one's for the ladies!" and ends with a conga-line chorus of "Rape-rape-rape-rape-rape-me!" That right there will give you a clue if you're in tune with the Cheese-meister. Other highlights on this collection are Cheese's classic take on Nine Inch Nails' industrial anthem "Closer" (complete with chorus of "I want to f__k you like an animal"), and a cover of Radiohead's "Creep" that manages to be the opposite of everything Radiohead's ever stood for.

It's all a fine line between wit and worn-out, and the Cheese joke — uncool lounge versions of raunchy, often profane modern tunes — could easily get old fast. Yet what makes this Cheese fresh is how hard they work. He sings the hell out of these goofy songs, and his band gives them the lounge treatment with smooth-flowing skill.

"Best Of" offers a solid collection of Cheese, even if it's not all-inclusive. The CD is short enough that a few more tracks could've been packed on (I'm partial myself to his covers of Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" and Green Day's "American Idiot"). Sure, Cheese is a novelty act, but he's a darned groovy one. It's lounge livin' large, and guaranteed to be the hit of your next party. Or as Cheese himself would say, "Par-tay!"

LIFE: Still Here

LIFE: Still Here

...OK, I'm back. Hope most of you had a more fun weekend than I did. I won't get into the messy details of it all, but basically spent the last four days lying in bed which isn't half as fun as it sounds. My semi-surgery required me to wear a catheter for a few days, which is now easily in my Top 10 Experiences of My Life That I Did Not Like. And I've interviewed a Republican congressman and saw Stephen King's Sleepwalkers in the theater. I did get to catch up on reading (seven books in four days!) and really closely analyze the dinosaur wallpaper in our bedroom (long story). Faithful wife catered to my every need and Toddler Peter poking his head into the bedroom every once in a while to say solemnly, "Daddy hurt." Anyway. Am at perhaps 75% of normal strength and heading back to work tomorrow. Regular irregular posting to resume concurrently.

LIFE: Ides of the 18th

LIFE: Ides of the 18th

Hey, it's January 18! That means it's exactly one month until someone turns 2 years old!

And it also means it's one month until we leave for New Zealand for 2 weeks on a scouting trip prior to our big move next fall!

And it also means tomorrow is my darling wife's birthday!

And for no particular reason, go read My Band Name For Today. I come up with great band names all the time, too. (In case you're wondering, my band will either be called Skeptic Epileptic or Pumpkin Prostitute.) Now I just learn to play an instrument.

Unfortunately, despite it being Avril's birthday tomorrow I have to go in for some minor but unpleasant surgical type stuff. ...So no more posts for me rest of the week, I hope to return next week intact and erudite. Cheers!

Ashcroft and the Bush administration's totalitarian attempts to overturn Oregon's assisted suicide law, the only one of its kind in the nation, gets slapped down by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 vote. If you want to see me get opinionated, read my editorial applauding the decision here. The issue of assisted suicide is a grim one, but it's one I'm quite passionately for. I simply don't think it's anything the government should step in and tell a horribly ill cancer-ridden patient they can't choose their own fate. Funny how the Bush-ites claim to be for "state's rights" and keeping the government "off your backs," but only when it comes to issues that dovetail with their own philosophy...

MOVIES: 2006 Movie Preview

MOVIES: 2006 Movie Preview

Forget "King Kong" and "Brokeback Mountain." That's all so 2005. What's coming up in 2006 at your local movie theater? Here's an alphabetical look at the dozen movies I'm most interested in announced for 2006 so far:

Art School Confidential. It's another movie combining the talents of one of the great comic artists of our time, Daniel Clowes, and director Terry Swigoff. Their last movie, "Ghost World," was fantastic, and this one takes on the scary world of art school, loosely adapting one of Dan's strips. April 28

Clerks 2: Passion of the Clerks. Catch up with Dante and Randall ten years on, still mired in dead-end jobs. This is either a really great idea or a really bad one. Will it catch the unique vibe of 1994's "Clerks"? It's in color, for one thing... Either way, it's got to be better than Kevin Smith's very so-so "Jersey Girl." August.

The Da Vinci Code. The gazillion-selling novel isn't the best thing I ever read, but it is a catchy page-turner. With Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen and many more on board, it should make for a decent thrill ride of a movie -- heck, half the time the book felt like a screenplay, anyway. May 19.

For Your Consideration. Writer-director Christopher Guest, co-writer Eugene Levy and the rest of their wacky ensemble turn their satiric attention to Hollywood's award season. Another film from the minds behind "A Mighty Wind" and "Waiting for Guffman"? I'm there. Sept. 22

The Fountain. Hugh Jackman plays a time traveler who struggles for 1,000 years as a Spanish conquistador, a scientist and an astronaut to save the woman he loves. Directed by Darren Aronofsky ("Requiem for a Dream"), it has a very promising mind-bending story. Opening TBA.

Marie Antoinette. Sofia Coppola follows up "Lost in Translation" with something completely different — a take on the legendary Antoinette, played by Kirsten Dunst, in historic France. A really mesmerizing trailer with a fascinating choice of music has me quite looking forward to this. Oct. 13.

Mission: Impossible III. Yeah, yeah, everyone's sick of Tom Cruise, and the first two M:I movies were brain-dead, disposable but still solid high-octane entertainment. Extra points for casting the great Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain. Worth seeing if it's more like Part 2 and less like Part 1. May 5

Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest. Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack is back. The first was surprising fun. The sequel could either be another blast or a bloated over-hyped mess. But Depp is back, so I'm hoping for the former. July 7

Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny. The origins of Jack Black and Kyle Gass' frenetic rockin' duo are finally revealed. If you don't want to see this, you do not rock. September.

Superman Returns. This year's "Hulk" or this year's "Spider-Man"? I really don't know what to expect from this production. I've read some interesting press on it, and worry about the potential for letdown. But director Bryan Singer helmed the first two "X-Men" movies, so I'll be at the head of the line to see what he's done with the Man of Steel. June 30

X-Men 3. Despite losing director Singer to "Superman," the first trailer for this is quite entertaining, and the first two movies were excellent. Plus, "Frasier's" Kelsey Grammer is blue as the Beast. Cautious because director Brett Ratner doesn't come with a great reputation, but big fan of the series, so I'll give it a shot. May 26

V For Vendetta. Yeah, Alan Moore has a terrible track record with movie adaptations of his graphic novels ("League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," "From Hell"), and it does sound like this movie about a totalitarian future terrorist has taken some liberties. But it's starting to build some interesting buzz, and Natalie Portman is great whenever she's not in a George Lucas movie. March 16.

Least looking forward to: At least two big-budget 9/11 themed movies are planned for next year, "Flight 93" by Paul Greengrass and Oliver Stone's as-yet-untitled World Trade Center movie with Nicolas Cage. I have to admit I have zero interest in seeing what happened that day reenacted by actors on the big screen. I only wonder that anybody could. The events of that day inevitably will lead to great art (I personally loved Jonathan Safran Foer's novel "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"), but Hollywood all too often cheapens reality. I suspect these movies will be seen as too much, too soon.

LIFE: In memory of Dan Phillips

LIFE: In memory of Dan Phillips

Working on a fairly slow Saturday night here and doing some aimless Internet surfing, I just belatedly discovered that one of my old bosses — really, one of my first bosses – died suddenly one month ago.

Dan Phillips was assistant publisher at The Oxford Eagle in Oxford, Mississippi, and he died Dec. 12 at age 47 due to complications after a kidney transplant. His brother, Tim, who I also worked with, had donated a kidney to try and save Dan's life in the face of failing health. I am just heartbroken and sick over this, and discovering it I felt like I'd been punched hard in the throat in the way that only truly awful news can do you.

The Eagle and its "alternative entertainment weekly," Oxford Town, was where I got my "training wheels" in journalism, the first real paper I ever worked for after my college days. I was hired as Oxford Town's assistant editor a month before graduation in 1994, and later, Dan hired me to take over as editor of that publication. He had faith in me, and always encouraged my education and inspirations, tolerated my flights of fancy and occasional blasphemy.

I always appreciated Dan giving me that chance, and that time I served as editor of Oxford Town, up until 1997, was both the hardest work of my journalism career and the most fun I've ever had at a paper. There were lots of 10-, 12-, even 15-hour nights, but there was a freewheeling kind of creativity and what-the-hell spirit at Oxford Town I've rarely recaptured quite the same way in my career. We were the "wacky younger sibling" of the more staid and respectable Oxford Eagle, our task to get the college-age readers and cover Oxford's surprisingly booming entertainment scene. It was an awesome job.

The Eagle is a pretty small paper - around 6,000, five days a week, but Dan was a player on the national newspaper scene regardless. He was the president of the National Newspaper Association in 1999, the first Mississippian in 50 years to head up the 3,600-member group. People who knew Dan liked Dan, simple as that, and the tributes flowed in after his death. The dean of Mississippi columnists, Sid Salter, wrote a fine ode to him.

Dan was the kind of person I've discovered is kind of rare in journalism — a fundamentally decent man, relaxed and rarely ruffled by the chaos of daily deadlines. He and his father, Jesse, and brother Tim helped shape my impression of journalism as a calling that can be harrowing, but one that's also humane. Dan left far too early and in far too tragic a fashion, and his passing is deeply unfair to everyone who ever knew him.