We’ve done it before, we’ve done it again. It’s another “shoot-the-shit” episode where we dive mostly into rewatches and recent book readings. But before all of that, the topic of provincial holidays and home beer brewing rears its head as well as a one-man look at Len Wiseman’s version of the new classic, Total Recall. See you at the party…
As always, please join the conversation by leaving your own thoughts in the comment section below and again, thanks for listening!
http://rowthree.com/audio/cinecast_12/episode_268.mp3
Full show notes are under the seats…
IN-HOUSE BUSINESS:
– Get well soon Matt Gamble
MAIN REVIEW:
– Total Recall
THE READER LIST:
Andrew
– “Time’s Eye” | Amazon
Kurt
– “Embassytown” | Amazon
– “Ready Player One” | Amazon
– “Miracle Mile” | Lulu
THE WATCH LIST:
Kurt
– Miracle Mile
– Dead Man
– Red Chapel (Det røde kapel)
– Play Dead
Andrew
– Beasts of the Southern Wild
– Five Minutes of Heaven
– The Fox and the Hound
– Total Recall (1990)
DVDs/NETFLIX INSTANT NOW AVAILABLE:
Jandy’s DVD Triage
NEXT WEEK:
The Bourne Legacy
To Rome with Love
The Imposter
PRIVATE COMMENTS or QUESTIONS?
Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, or email us:
feedback@rowthree.com (general)
andrew.james@rowthree.com
kurt@rowthree.com
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Kurt: Twitter, G+, Letterboxd
Matt: Twitter, LetterBoxd
RowThree: Twitter, G+, Letterboxd
Artur C. Clark’s prose is so bland. Science fiction fans tend to give a pass to subpar/terrible prose.
I agree that it’s pretty bland – but the ideas and stories trump the “lifeless” writing. I mean I’ve read the first three RAMA books and think they’re great. I’ve read “Light of Other Days”, “2001″ and a shitload of his short stories and I think they’re all so creatively interesting.
A piece on the sticky politics of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD: http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=828&fulltext=1&media=
The guts and details of Total Recall 1991, 2012, and really bad Dick joke.
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/08/09/the-new-total-recall-doesnt-know-dick/?mod=WSJBlog
“Virtually every change brought the film further from Dick, not closer.”
So much for my hope that it might be going to the other way and be an action movie that was a bit more Philip K. Dick like. The short story is simple, but I still think it had some interesting ideas in it that could have been explored in a movie.
Man Kurt we like the same kinds of material but the mediums of approach are so different. If only you were interested in comics at all. The science fiction there is bursting off the page.
Also I will be that 26 year old person who only fully watched Total Recall for the first time in the last couple years. That movie is FUCKING AWESOME. No one makes action movies like Verhoven did, well except same period Woo (weird how stuff like that lines up). It is funny, brutal, terrifying and awesome. For Verhoven Robocop is better, for Arnold Predator and Terminator are but it is pretty damn good in its own right.
I think the cheap sets and the feel that everything was put together with papermache adds to that. It is almost saying, if you can do action this well, be this funny, and have this many new ideas everything else will blend together to create that great whole.
I’ve read a few comics/graphic novels, but I really do not like the medium all that much, give me a good book in long-form prose any day of the week.
Speaking of science fiction, I have started Cloud Atlas. How the fuck are the Wachoskis and Tyker going to pull of the adaptation? The novel is 6 different stories that are writing in different prose styles– from 19 the century memoir prose to modern airport book prose.
Where do Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side, and Mutts fit in?
Well comic strips and comic books are two very different things in my opinion. I love The Far Side.
Exactly. Calvin and Hobbs for the absolute win. I’ve got my son reading the anthologies now. These are pure classics, and a different medium than longer form serialized (or even graphic novel) comic books.
Comics is the technique of creating time using space. Method of distribution doesn’t create a new medium.
As Scott McCloud puts it in “Understanding Comics”, the detail of the art can vary widely, from very detailed to more cartoony to represent more people:
http://johnnyholland.org/wp-content/uploads/mccloud-closure.png
Which he then broke down to a picture plain from reality to cartoony to pure language, then upwards to become more abstract:
http://www.xradiograph.com/projects/xradiograph.com/wiki/uploads/Comics/Understanding_Comics_triangle.png
Then he mapped out various comic book characters:
http://www.xradiograph.com/projects/xradiograph.com/wiki/uploads/Comics/Understanding_Comics_trangle.png
One of the things comic strips often do is become more cartoony to open up how you perceive the characters. Some long form comic books do as well, but it depends on what you are exposed to.
As Rick points out comic books and comic strips are the same medium, it’s just the length that changes. Also many comic strips are more based around comedy. There are comedy comics, but they tend to be fewer in number compared to comic strips.
Ya know, we rip on comic books all the time (usually with a wink), but I just realized I’ve never said why. So then I started thinking about why and I don’t really have a good answer. Gamble has given me a few to look over and I think I maybe understand why I’m not a fan…
I usually appreciate the artistry on display. There are some neat ideas and there is definitely some cool looking stuff. In fact sometimes it is flat-out amazing.
And then there are the stories – which can be pretty awesome and again a lot great ideas and concepts.
I think the problem might be that I don’t like it when these two entities are meshed together. Too much of a good thing sours the soup so to speak. When I read a book, I like what I have in my head; not hand drawn cells to show me what it looks like. Likewise, I enjoy looking at wall art or drawings but usually like to let my brain conjure up its own thoughts to correlate with the artwork. So mixing the two is just giving me too much and not letting me do any of the legwork.
I could be wrong of course and maybe it’s just me being a douche or some other reason I can’t properly articulate.
I can actually see what you’re saying, but it doesn’t explain why you also like movies – which also give you ideas in a visual context, and in fact, let you do EVEN LESS legwork, because you don’t have to imagine voice inflections or stuff like that.
Yeah I thought of that as I was typing. All I can do is agree and shrug my shoulders.
Maybe because movies are much more immersive experience. It has visual and aural and acting and movement. Plus I grew up with them as my true best friend. Also the movies I like best are pretty far from the sort of content that is in a comic. Leaving Las Vegas would be a pretty boring comic and Boogie Nights would just be weird, perverted and creepy. I dunno.
Movies have Boogie Nights, comics has Chester Brown’s Paying for It and The Playboy. Both autobiographical, interesting but at the same time a bit on the creepy side.
The Playboy is about Chest Brown’s exposure to porn from a young teenager onwards. He gets an unhealthy almost addiction to pornography, memorizing the stats of each Playboy playmate he encounters like a sports fan might memorize the stats of his favorite team.
Paying for It is about his experiences with prostitution. Perhaps it could have made an interesting movie documentary, but I imagine the women he approached would not want to be on film. Also the comic is set up so that you never see the faces of any of the prostitutes, by either framing them out of the picture, or putting word bubbles or though bubbles in front of their faces. Also Chester Brown’s simple artwork and lack of face makes it so the prostitutes could really be a wide range of people.
It could have been a novel, but once again I think it is using the medium’s strengths.
That’s not to say that both comics are extremely creepy at times.
As Harvey Pekar, famous for American Splendor would say: “Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures”.
The equivalent of say an independent indie drama in comic books would be say many (but not all) of the comics from Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly.
The great thing about a great comic is that many will have 2 people, sometimes 3 working on the artwork and story. They are generally cheap to produce compared to a movie and with less moving parts can tell a story more direct. Movies can be incredible but I think are more prone to failure because of all the people involved and the amount of money. Then again, maybe my problem with movies is seeing too many Hollywood movies, compare to the volume of great comics that I read.
Except that movies have this VISCERAL immediate effect, the motion is planted right in front of your eyeballs, and the music you actually hear. So there is that.
So comics are like a weird in-between. Simultaneously too much and not enough. I get that. For me that “too much and not enough” space is motion comics. I’m fine with fully animated, and I’m fine with reading comics, but motion comics are just weird to me.
Yes. I want minimalism (pictures or words) or everything at once (movies). In a way the entire medium of film (in this day in age especially) is “over the top.” Everything coming at you from all around you. Comics are words and pictures.
So yeah. Give me the “minimalism” of words or the “minimalism” of pictures or throw everything at me all at once.
Well motion comics are usually poorly produced monstrosities created from the pages and panels of something never intended to be in motion.
You have not been reading the right comics if you have not had VISCERAL reactions.
He hasn’t read any, but Halfyard being Halfyard he still keeps on keeping on.
I read the first dozen or two pages of Gaiman’s SANDMAN, I’ve read KINGDOM COME, I’ve read WATCHMEN. I’ve read Royden Lepp’s RUST. I’ve read a few dozen pages of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and I’ve smattered an issue here and there of alot of the men in spandex Marvel and DC titles.
But you’re right. I’ve never claimed to be an expert. I know what I like in terms of mediums though.
Different people like different things, to each their own.
However, I’ve heard the same dismissals of movies as a medium, that they are all studio brainless blockbusters. I’ve heard the same thing about today’s music, that it is all pointless noise. That anything that is animated is for kids (sometimes they will say the Simpsons is the exception, others say the Simpsons is for kids and can’t understand why any self-respecting adult would watch it).
It takes time and an investment to explore any medium that many people just don’t care about it. That’s the way things are.
I would never say any of those things about comic books (especially since I’m rather ignorant of them). I just know they’re not for me.
Also I love the series the Sandman, but the first dozen or two pages of Sandman are lousy. Gaiman has said before that he really didn’t find the voice of that series until issue 8, featuring Death and called “The Sound of Her Wings”.
If anyone wants to read a great single issue of Sandman, try issue #50 “Ramadan” (it’s collected in “Fables and Reflections”).
Perhaps, one day they will make it into a movie or tv HBO show. Matthew Vaughn has said he would like to give it a try one day, but I’m not sure if it will stand up at all to the comic.
I’m all vested up. Movies, books, family, job, blogging, etc. The panels had their shot when I was younger. Movies and Books were more fun for this kid. Dem’s Da Breaks, I certainly don’t begrudge anyone from getting maximum pleasure and a bevy of ideas from the graphics and words on the page…Unless you are Gamble. Because, hey, fuck that guy.
In terms of American comic books, I do not like the serial format. For many series, there is no definitive ending. Plus, unlike other forms of art, mainstream comics tend to discourage maintaining the same writer or writer team for whole run.
It is also an expensive hobby. I rather pay 10 bucks for novel. The graphic novel equivalent at that price can be read in 1 or 2 hours.
Lastly, and perhaps my most controversial opinion, in my experience, so called “literay” graphic novels have an identity/tonal problem between wanting to be profound/high art while also being pulpy/graphic. People like Frank Miller and Alan Moore want to have cake and eat it too.
I also find it weird that “mainstream comics” is basically the superhero genre. WTF.
History and a long story.
It depends on which set of sales figures you are looking at. In North America, some Manga books manage to outsell a lot of the superhero material. Neil Gaiman’s Sandman was the #1 top selling comic when the series wrapped up. When a new collection of Sandman material was released in the mid-2000′s, it was the first graphic novel to debut on the New York Times Best Seller list.
Meanwhile Vertigo tradepaperbacks like Sandman or Fables or even the series the Walking Dead tend to dominate the top list of tradepaperbacks.
The New York Times now has a graphic novel best seller lists. It has a lot of Batman thanks to the Dark Knight Rises, but you can also see a lot of other non-superhero titles:
Paperback
http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/paperback-graphic-books/list.html
Hardcover
http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/hardcover-graphic-books/list.html
The trade paperback sales for are typically 1/5th the volume of the single issues and now the only way for a series from another publisher to get that high in the singles charts is to do a really gimmicky #100 issue with 13 variant covers (HI Walking Dead)
Also Sandman ended in a period of general decline for the sales of comics.
Sandman ended January 1996 which was the midway point of the decline. Still a lot of the people who were buying comics before that were speculators, who weren’t really reading the comics anyways. Sandman was never a very collectible comic when it was being published and was mainly made up of readers. Now at the time Image comics were still dominating the top ten, but Sandman #75 was up in the top 10, just ahead of anything DC was publishing at the time.
Also Sandman trades have sold in the millions. I imagine Sandman Volume 1 (perhaps another volume like Seasons of Mists) is one of DC Comics top selling trades of all time. Watchmen is obviously #1 and I wouldn’t be surprised if The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One is ahead of it, but after that Sandman is up there. As despite not getting into the top ten monthly trades, on a regular basis Sandman and other Vertigo trades make the yearly best selling DC trades. As they are one of those trades that consistently sell each month making up at the end of the year.
Back in early 2011, Image Comics was talking about how it has sold 2 million copies of the Walking Dead’s 13 tradepaperbacks. So that’s 153,000 per volume, but more likely the first volumes selling many more times than later volumes. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have already pass another 1 to 2 million since then.
Meanwhile, Oni Press mentioned that Scott Pilgrim had sold over 1 million copies of the series in North America. A number that was a lot bigger if you include UK sales and all the various translations. That was just shortly after the movie came out, so it had cross promotional help, but then so does a lot of the superhero comics. Divided among 6 volumes would make it around 166,000, which would be one of the top selling comics.
Art Spiegelman’s Maus has sold over 2 million copies, Jeff Smith’s Bone has sold over 10 million copies.
These are some extreme examples, but still when a tradepaperback first comes out they don’t sell as much as the individual comic, but unlike many non-superhero comics really good trades keep selling again and again.
2 Things.
1, Miller and Moore are different because Moore is only coming at it from a writing angle and more often than not Miller is thinking about it in visual storytelling / on the page techniques.
2. I don’t have a problem with people having their cake and eating in when it is done so well.
“In terms of American comic books, I do not like the serial format. For many series, there is no definitive ending.”
Depends on what you are reading, the majority of the comics I read have a definite start and ending. However, I tend to read more comics that are creator owned that tend to favour the ending. Compared to company owned comics where they tend to want to keep milking the property as long as possible.
However, even then there might be some good individual story-arcs or original graphic novels that are quite good. I just picked up on the weekend Batman: Death By Design, by Chip Kidd bringing his fascination in design, architecture & Batman together. Great one off comic that reminds me a bit of some of the best of Batman: The Animated Series.
That said, I’ve long grown out of buying individual issues and tend to buy in trades.
I can understand how that would keep you at arms length. The combination of static images and words to create a sense of time that doesn’t really exist and therefore needs to be interpreted by the reader is fundamentally different than something like film.
Then again that combination can create some truly virtuoso images that you can not replicate anywhere else.
http://i45.tinypic.com/2h7nwpi.jpg
http://i47.tinypic.com/etusmv.jpg
(Before someone asks those are both from We3 which is 3 issues of what if Homeward Bound was fused with Science Fiction military death machines, and it is amazing.)
I’ve looked at about 3 comics on the last ten years and that is one of the ones I read (We3).
For quite some time there has been talk of a We3 movie. No matter how good the movie might be, I don’t think it would be as good as the comic. As part of what made the comic so good was Grant Morrison’s & Frank Quitely’s great understand of the comic book medium and using it to it’s fullest.
Another recent comic is Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli (who drew the famous Batman: Year One). It’s like Mazzucchelli had read Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics and decided to stretch the comic book medium to it’s limit. It’s an interesting story being told about a middle-aged architect who leaves New York to relocate and escape into a small town. However, the way it is told, with the artwork often changing often becoming more abstract to reflect the mood of individual characters and the environment is great.
Netflix Canada does indeed have a queue (though it’s called “list”)
Even though I add films to it for reference on the website, it’s overall useless, since the main Netflix app I use (on my blu-ray player) doesn’t have an option for it.
Some other things:
- You got the cast of Fox and the Hound backwards (Mickey Rooney is the Fox and Kurt Russell is The Hound)
- I’m a bit surprised that in all his Total Recall love, that Kurt didn’t mention that the original is playing tomorrow night at the Bell Lightbox (I plan on checking it out – haven’t seen it)
It is amazing that now being 13 years out The Matrix still holds such a firm grip over the western action film. Also very similar to how other groundbreaking works of something are dissected elements were taken out and others have been left on the cutting room floor. People not realizing that the Martial Arts, the training actors, the guns, the blocking, the R rating all combined to create what The Matrix did.
Now we are left with pieces and chunks of that trying so hard to recapture the lightning.
I’m a fan of James Nesbitt as well. If you have a chance, check out Jekyll on Netflix Instant. It’s a six episode British series where Nesbitt plays a guy with the Jekyll and Hyde split personality disorder. A great dual performance.
Oh and to speak to Bill Nighy’s presence he was in the 7th Harry Potter movie for I think one scene (like a majority of the fantastic British actors) and he was amazing in it.
So yeah I can’t imagine him phoning it in.
He was in Harry Potter for two scenes.
Well, see Total Recall. It’s jarring how obvious it is he doesn’t give a shit.
I just saw (the original) Total Recall for the first time (theatrically) and I had a blast!
I wish I could have been at that LIGHTBOX screening on saturday. 35mm print, w00t!
Alas, I was camping in the rain.
I have very fond memories of seeing that film in the theatre at least three times in its initial run.
It was a jam packed screening. Atom Egoyan was even there (I walked past him afterwards in the washroom corridor)
hey Kurt if u like Mads Brugger, like I do having seen all his feature-work with The Ambassador this week at MIFF, then I’d reccomend John Safran’s work, a mockumentary filmmaker here in Melbourne who interviewed Mads, will vlet you know if audio comes out of the two going at it, in the meantime check out John Safran, his main subjects are music, religion, race, hypocracy, conspiracy, and more… Cheers.
Nice. I will do that for sure. If anyone has a line on where I can find DANES FOR BUSH, Brugger’s first feature, please let me know.
As it stands, The Red Chapel is on both US and Canadian Netflix
and
The Ambassador is playing FOR FREE over at Mubi.com – http://mubi.com/films/the-ambassador–2
KuRt.
Just catching up on the podcast and was very happy to hear someone else who liked The Red Chapel, so had to comment. I loved it too, such an awesome look inside that crazy country and having the disabled guy in there just added a layer of humanity to it all. Huge fan of that movie.
The Ambassador is playing at VIFF, so hoping to see it there. Hope I like it as much as you did and as much as Iiked The Red Chapel.
My review of Walter Chaw’s superlative monograph on 1980s gem MIRACLE MILE, & an extended conversation with the author is now live on TWITCH – http://twitchfilm.com/interviews/2012/08/movies-as-a-cassandra-complex-a-conversation-with-walter-chaw-on-the-global-and-personal-apocalypses.php
Verhoeven’s favourite scene from TOTAL RECALL is one scene that we spent a significant amount of time talking about on this episode (of the cinecast, above)
As validated here: http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/director-paul-verhoeven-talks-remakes-schwarzenegger-and-his-favorite-scene-from-total-recall?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter