7 Days in May | A Monster Calls and Holmes vs Ripper

A Monster Calls (2016)



Heartbreaking and thought-provoking. It's easy to understand what the characters are going through, but there are depths to the way the film tells the story that I haven't fully worked through. Lots of symbolism and since the movie is about the complex emotions of grieving, it invites me to dive into those and that takes some processing.

Lovely performances, too, especially by Lewis MacDougall and Sigourney Weaver. And Toby Kebbell's likable, but complicated role makes me even more impressed that he's also Koba in the new Planet of the Apes trilogy.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)



Diane and David hadn't seen this and wanted to. My opinion on it hasn't really changed from the first time I saw it. I don't care much about the US Wizarding World and the plot of Fantastic Beasts is pretty light. I'm bored for most of the movie, but by the end I find that I really like the characters played by Eddie Redmayne, Dan Fogler, and Alison Sudal. It's not a great movie, but I'd be willing to give a sequel a look just to spend more time with those three.

Murder by Decree (1979)



We came back from Britain with a list of movies to watch. One of which had to be Sherlock Holmes trying to catch Jack the Ripper. Christopher Plummer looks the part of Holmes (though with poofier hair than I'm used to), but he's more emotional than Holmes should be. That's fitting for the seriousness of the real-world case he's trying to solve, but it doesn't feel like a real Holmes story. And it doesn't help that most of the clues are handed to Holmes by informers rather than his solving the case through observation and deduction as he should.

James Mason is a wonderful Watson, though, and it's always nice to see young Donald Sutherland, even when his role doesn't actually contribute anything to the story. And I like the theory about the Ripper's identity. This isn't the only time I've seen that particular theory put forth, but the other times are all in things that came out after this one.

The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)



Another '80s movie to show David. I don't know that we'd call it politically correct by today's standards, but it's so kindhearted that it's impossible for me to pick at it. Very funny.

The Hustler (1961)



Watched this in order to also watch The Color of Money. I've only ever seen it once before and had forgotten almost everything about it. So, like the first time, I went into it expecting it to be Rocky with pool and was shocked by how it so not about pool or even winning. At least, not about winning pool. It's about how we define winning at life and what we're willing to sacrifice to do it. Very powerful with great performances by an all-star cast.

The Color of Money (1986)



Like The Hustler, it's easy to go into The Color of Money with the wrong idea of what it is, but it's a mistake to approach it as Top Gun with pool. It's not about Vincent's (Tom Cruise) rise to dominance in the game; in fact, despite Cruise's being a major star already in 1986, Vincent isn't even the main character. Appropriately, that's still Fast Eddie (Paul Newman). Vincent is just the catalyst that sparks the change Eddie's going to go through.

There's a lot to like about The Color of Money. The way it shoots the movement of the balls is amazing and beautiful. Everyone's doing a great job acting (special shout out to Forest Whitaker in a small, but vital role). And it's a good, emotionally satisfying story. But I don't like it as much as The Hustler, because it doesn't play fair with Eddie.

The Hustler is about Eddie's redefining his life goals thanks to the tension provided by his relationships with Sarah (Piper Laurie) and Bert (George C Scott). Because of how that movie ended, Eddie can't really play pool for cash anymore, but Money reveals that he's managed to stay connected by staking other players in games (taking a percentage of their winnings).

That's all cool, but the disappointing bit is that he seems to have unlearned the dearly bought lesson of The Hustler and has basically become Bert. Through his experiences backing Vincent, he relearns what's really important to him, but I hate stories that reset the main character and have them undergo the same journey again (see also: Captain Kirk in Star Trek Into Darkness and the entire series of House).

Money is just different enough that it doesn't feel like a total cheat, but I feel like we're missing the middle part of a trilogy. Still, it's an expertly made movie and it feels right at the end.

Double or Nothing (1937)



A minor Bing Crosby movie in which he and some other characters compete for the inheritance of an eccentric millionaire. They're each given $5000 and the first one to double it gets the whole shebang. Of course, the millionaire's family are there to work against them. It's a cookie-cutter plot, mostly there to hang musical numbers on since the various money-making schemes usually involve singing and dancing. And there's an unconvincing romance between Crosby and the dead millionaire's niece. But I very much enjoyed the end and the specific way in which Crosby outwits his opponents.

Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937)



Pretty good mystery in which Drummond has to solve a series of puzzles in order to find his kidnapped girlfriend. The puzzles go on a little longer than I'd like, but they're mostly good ones and I've grown fond of these characters the more Drummond films I watch.

Heidi (1937)



Shirley Temple is always awesome and this is a classic that I've never seen, so I decided to finally fix that on the film's 80th anniversary. I get why people have liked it: it's Shirley Temple doing what she do, but in a series of fantastic settings. It's mostly an infuriating movie though where everyone acts either stupidly or despicably to keep the story moving. If I want to see Shirley Temple charm old curmudgeons (and I do!), I'd rather re-watch Bright Eyes or Captain January.

The Shadow Strikes (1937)



My first Shadow movie. Really my first Shadow story in any medium, but I'm familiar enough with the character to know that this isn't a faithful version. And it's kind of ridiculous.

The Shadow is stopping a robbery in a lawyer's office when the police show up. Rather than getting caught as the Shadow, he changes back to his civvies and claims to be the lawyer. But while he's doing that, he gets a call to come change the will of a millionaire. It's a case of mistaken identity that leads to a murder investigation when of course the millionaire winds up dead. There are billion chances for the Shadow to remove himself from the situation, but he never takes them. He's too interested in the tomfoolery, the mystery, and the millionaire's daughter. Lamont Granston (sic) is a pudgy, swashbuckling playboy with a pencil mustache in this version. If you're willing to forgive all that though, it's kind of fun.

Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937)



In the '30s, all the major horror stars liked to put on yellow face and play Asian crime-fighters. Why should Warner Oland have all the fun? Boris Karloff famously played Fu Manchu, but he was also detective Mr Wong in a series of five films. And I thought I remembered Bela Lugosi's doing it, but I must have been thinking of his playing a villain who was also named Mr. Wong in The Mysterious Mr. Wong (1934). Peter Lorre got into the action with the Mr. Moto series.

Acknowledging the problems of these movies (Brian Camp has a terrific essay covering the trend), the Mr. Moto series is my favorite of them. I wish that he could have been played by an actual Japanese person, but the character is cool and complex. I love the kindly, humble, and whip-smart Charlie Chan, but Moto is deviously cunning and even long after I've figured out how he operates, he manages to surprise me with his loose morality and shady tactics. He's endlessly fascinating.

In Thank You, Mr. Moto, he's on the trail of a series of maps that lead to lost treasure, so there's an Indiana Jones quality to it, too.

Four-Color Sci-Fi: Science Fiction Writers Who Wrote Comics [Guest Post]

By GW Thomas

When radio became big across America in the late 1920s, there were those who worried it would kill pulp magazines. The magazines quickly adapted though and the two mediums complemented each other. In one case, radio even created one of the biggest selling Pulps. The Shadow began as nothing more than a narrator's voice and an evil laugh by Orson Welles. The voice was fleshed out into a fantastic character and that hero became Street and Smith's top title, selling out every two weeks. Other radio shows such as Suspense and X-Minus 1 adapted stories from magazines.

No, it wasn't radio that killed the Pulps. It was three other media enemies that came about in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The first of these was the paperback. For the soldiers fighting in World War II and Korea, the smaller size made more sense than larger magazines, and after the war was over, well, people just kept reading them.

Television was another very powerful enemy. Unlike radio, the TV networks weren't interested in adapting Pulp fiction. They were producing their own style of stories, largely based on earlier radio titles, and besides, it was free. All you had to do was buy a TV.

The last and most insidious of the enemies of the Pulps was their own spawn, the comics. Many of the Pulp publishers created comic lines to match their Pulp titles. You had Planet Stories, so Planet Comics. These cheaper-to-produce, but comparably priced publications ate away at Pulp profits. By 1955 most of the Pulps had either died or mutated into fiction digests (like Astounding Science Fiction or Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.)

This change in market affected many writers. Some of Science Fiction's writers had no choice but to write both kinds of stories. But before we look at these writers, it is important to mention two SF alumni who had a profound effect on comics. These were Julius Schwartz and Mort Weisinger. The duo began as editors and SF fans. They were involved in creating the first SF literary agency, and for helping to launch the first World SF Convention in 1939. As rabid fans, they knew everybody, though they did not write stories or draw pictures.

In 1944, Schwartz started AA Comics, the company that one day would become DC, where he would work until 1986. Weisinger became the editor of the Superman line, a post he held until 1970. Schwartz headed the changes in 1956 that would see comics move away from the methods of the comic strip packagers of the 1930s toward more modern approaches to superhero story-telling. And to do this he needed good writers. One of these was Gardner Fox who would give us Hawkman, as well as Batman's utility belt. He eventually worked on every major DC title during the Golden Age. Fox is best known for comics, but he also wrote for a few Pulps like Weird Tales and Planet Stories. Another unlikely comic star was Harry Harrison who started as an artist for EC (pencilling for Wally Wood) and even wrote the Flash Gordon comic strip for a decade. Unlike today, being a comic book writer was not something to brag about (possibly even lower than being a Pulp writer) and so Harrison used many pseudonyms before breaking into SF publishing as the creator of The Stainless Steel Rat.

But Harrison was one of the last. Before him were the stars of the 1940s. Writers like Eando Binder, actually Otto Binder (who continued to write under this weird pseudonym after his brother Earl no longer wrote with him), that gave SF the robot hero, Adam Link in Amazing Stories from 1939 to 1942. While writing SF Pulp, he also wrote Captain Marvel for Fawcett. He would write for Captain Marvel Jr and co-create Mary Marvel with Marc Swayze. He worked for DC in the late '40s and '50s, creating the early stories of Bizarro for Superman and co-created another super chick, Supergirl. Otto left comics for magazine editing. He became an avid supporter of UFO lore along with his old editor at Amazing, Raymond A Palmer.

Manly Wade Wellman is best known today for his occult detectives, John Thunstone (Weird Tales) and Silver John (Fantasy & Science Fiction) but he wrote all kinds of SF pulp as well as receiving a Pulitzer nomination for his historical work on the Old South. He started in comics with Captain Marvel Adventures #1 in March 1941 and ten years later would find himself testifying against his employer in court when DC comics sued Fawcett for plagiarizing Superman. (Mad Magazine would parody this case in 1953 as "Superdooperman vs. Captain Marbles".) Wellman also wrote for Blackhawk and ghosted for Wil Eisner's The Spirit while Eisner did a tour in the army in 1941. Wellman also wrote for DC's Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space in the 1950s.

Frank Belknap Long was a close friend of HP Lovecraft and began his career writing horror stories for Weird Tales. He wrote Science Fiction in the years after Lovecraft's death, appearing in John W Campbell's prestigious Astounding Science Fiction. Between 1941 and 1948 he wrote for Captain Marvel, Superman, the "Congo Bill" stories in Action Comics, Green Lantern, Planet Comics and DC's horror comic Adventures into the Unknown. During his comic writing decade, Long lived in California.

Alfred Bester wrote a small number of Science Fiction novels but each is a classic of the genre. His The Demolished Man and The Stars, My Destination are frequently included in lists of must-read books. Before these novels of the 1950s he wrote comics from 1942 to 1946. Julius Schwartz recruited him to work on Superman and Green Lantern. Bester is credited with penning the Green Lantern oath that begins, "In brightest day, in darkest night..." He also subbed for Lee Falk on The Phantom and Mandrake while Falk was in the army. Bester left comics for radio work. His wife, Rolly Goulko, was a busy radio and TV actress.

Henry Kuttner was a prolific writer in many genres, producing horror and Sword & Sorcery for Weird Tales, Shudder Pulps, hard-boiled Mysteries, as well as Science Fiction. He would marry writer CL Moore in 1940 and the two would write under a number of pseudonyms including Lewis Pagdett and Lawrence O'Donnell as well as under their own names. Kuttner would try his hand at comics in Green Lantern between 1944-46 but would return to magazine writing.

Sam Merwin Jr, like Fredric Brown and Robert Bloch, wrote in both the SF and Mystery genres. He began as an influential editor at Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder and other Pulps. He gave up editing and became a freelance writer in 1951. One of his first jobs was writing for DC's Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space until 1953. He wrote a number of SF novels and stories before returning to editing and writing for Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.

Edmond Hamilton started writing comics in 1946 because the Pulp markets were so bad after the War. Before this he was a regular in Weird Tales, Wonder Stories, the Clayton Astounding, and Amazing Stories. He is often cited as the co-creator of the sub-genre of Space Opera. He wrote the Captain Future novels between 1940-46. In comics, he started on DC's Green Lantern but eventually worked on all the Superman titles, Batman, and was instrumental in designing the Legion of Superheroes. He is credited with helping to create the idea of the DC Universe. We wrote the "Chris KL99" strip for Strange Adventures. This comic was loosely based on Captain Future. He left comics twenty years later in 1966, because he and fellow SF writer and wife Leigh Brackett were traveling more often.

Only Gardner Fox hung on longer. He left comics in 1968 when DC refused to give him benefits or royalties on his long canon of work. He turned to writing Sword & Sorcery and adventure novels for Tower paperbacks. Of all these Science Fiction writers, Fox has most often been garnered with awards and accolades, such as the Bill Finger Award, the Eisner Hall of Fame, and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame, having worked in comics for thirty-one years.

What this infusion of SF talent did was add a dimension of imagination to comics that was lacking in the 1930s. The first comics featured a fantastic character, but once beyond the strange gimmick the story was pretty pedestrian, with the hero punching out a bunch of crooks. The Science Fiction writers expanded the possibilities of what comic stories could be until anything was possible. So while I'm watching Ryan Reynolds in Green Lantern say those famous words, or Iron Man and the rest of the Avengers fight aliens from another dimension, or Batman use his weirdly dark gadgets, I think of my favorite Pulp writers and smile. Comics may have helped kill off the Pulps, but nowhere else does the flame of SF Pulps burn as brightly today.

GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.

Movie News: Da Vinci, The Shadow, Dan Dare, and Others

Leonardo da Vinci and the Soldiers of Forever



Not willing to let Marvel have all the fun, Warner Brothers is also turning Leonardo da Vinci into an adventure hero. Good idea, says I.  I'm a bit concerned though about their wanting to include secret societies, codes, angels, and demons in the script. Seems a bit unoriginal, doesn't it? [/Film]

DVD Late Show



Pulp-writer Christopher Mills has a blog called DVD Late Show on which he reviews "the best (and worst) of cult films, B-movies, and genre TV" available on DVD. Chris is a great, knowledgeable writer with a wide range of interests; his thoughts on this stuff are always worth reading. 

The Shadow, Batman 3, John Carter, and Dan Dare after the break.