The Eyes of My Mother

When Self-Isolation Leads to Horror

The most common horror movie tropes deal with supernatural evil, or sometimes a horror brought about by some high profile social ill like corporate greed or environmental pollution. There are, however, other potential sources of horror which are less often explored on film. One of them is loneliness, which is explored by first time director Nicolas Pesce in the film The Eyes of My Mother.

While some horror films have touched on loneliness and self-isolation to a degree, notably Stanley Kubrik's The Shining, few have tackled it as head-on as The Eyes of My Mother. The plot centers around Francisca, the daughter of a Portuguese immigrant family living in rural America whose mother is killed by serial killer and whose father descends into an alcoholic depression, leaving young Francisca isolated and lonely in an empty farm house. There are some echoes of Polanski's Repulsion here, as we are witness to Francisca's descent into madness when left alone. But unlike Repulsion, The Eyes of My Mother isn't about a rapid crash over a weekend, but a slow unravelling as Francisca grows from child to adult walled off from human interaction.

The film is part horror movie, part indie arthouse flick. Shot in black-and-white (with some gorgeous cinematography), the film is partially in English, partially in subtitled Portuguese. While this no doubt limits its appeal with both horror fans eager for ever greater Grand Guignol gore and jump-scares, and arthouse cinephiles who tend to look down on genre filmmaking, for the right audience The Eyes of My Mother delivers a wholly unique and haunting horror show set in the seemingly mot mundane of places.

***1/2 out of *****

New Fun Comics #1

New Fun Comics #1

The Birth of Comic Books

In early 1935, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson - a flamboyant character who someone is no doubt writing a screenplay about as we speak - jump-started the comic book business, by creating the first comic book of all-original material (rather than reprinted newspaper strips). For all practical purposes, this was the beginning of what would later become the juggernaut of DC Comics. 

Aside from a handful of text articles and stories, New Fun #1 was an anthology of comics including:

"The Magical Crystal of History" by Barreaux, a kids time-travel adventure. "Oswald the Rabbit" a funny animal tale featuring Disney's proto-Mickey Mouse. A disjointed war comic, "Wing Brady, Soldier of Fortune",  a ponderous comic adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe", "Buckskin Jim, The Trailblazer", a crudely drawn Western, the Fairy Tale "Bubby and Beevil", the standout one page "2023 Super-Police", a sci-fi cop story, and notably, a full color comic ad for Ralston Purina featuring Tom Mix.

Today the comic is a curiosity, more notable for its historic importance than its artistic merits. It is however a clear blueprint for Action Comics and Adventure Comics, and would later introduce some of DC's long-running characters.

** out of *****

The Andromeda Strain

The Andromeda Strain

Realistic to a Fault

One of the most frequent complaints any movie fan hears about movies in general is that the film treatment of X profession or fill-in-the-blank social issue is not "realistic". To which my response is, yes, because movies aren't real life. If it was realistic, chances are you probably wouldn't want to watch it.
Such is the case with The Andromeda Strain. Written by Michael Crichton, who was still working on his M.D. at Harvard Medical School at the time, the novel, which screenwriter Nelson Gidding and Director Robert Wise took pains to faithfully adapt, is nothing if not realistic. Every scientific fact, every piece of technology was either in existence or theoretically possible (and much of it has been realized since). This does not, however, make for very riveting viewing.

The story deals with a satellite that crashes in a small Nevada town, carrying with it a spaceborne contagion that rapidly spreads. The film then unfolds over the next few days as scientists race to isolate and cure this hitherto unknown disease.

The trouble is that 'race' is a relative term, most of the film deals with scientific inquiry which in the real world takes years, or even decades, but is compressed to a mere 131 minutes, but even at such great compression, it is apt to seem tediously long and dull to those not of a scientific bent to begin with.

So, for the limited audience of hard science fiction fans out there, it may be a pretty decent show, particularly for the accuracy of the various sciences such as microbiology and biochemistry portrayed in the film. For the vast majority of humanity, it's likely to be a really long yawn-fest. (originally reviewed Oct. 26, 2013)

** out of *****

Contagion

Midling Thriller Based On A Very Possible Scenario 

(originally reviewed on July 21, 2012)

I've mentioned before that 4 decades of Star Wars has made it so the general public thinks that if it doesn't have lasers or robots, it's not science fiction. Obviously that's not the case as demonstrated by Contagion. Contagion is a science fiction film, specifically one where the science we are talking about is the biological sciences, and is based on the actual events of the recent outbreaks of Avian and Swine Flues. The heroes here are scientists, racing to try to isolate the virus and mitigate its damage.
It's understated in typical Soderbergh fashion. And while it's a well made, if subdued, indie thriller, it's already been done a lot of times before: The Andromeda Strain and Outbreak come immediately to mind. Its most redeeming factor is perhaps a greater realism than its predecessors.

It might be worth a look for fans of medical thrillers, or those that want to see a zombie apocalypse film sans zombies. Otherwise, I wouldn't make it your first choice film on a Friday night.

***1/2 out of *****

Thongor, the Barbarian Hero That Almost Became More Famous Than Conan.

In the 1960s the Sword and Sorcery genre was experiencing a revival due to the efforts of a number of writers and editors in New York, as well as an attempt to diversify from the waning superhero genre at Marvel Comics. The former effort was spearheaded by Lin Carter, a fiction editor who created the barbarian hero Thongor. The latter effort was spearheaded by Roy Thomas, Marvel's rising star (who would eventually succeed Stan Lee as Editor-in-Chief).

But Thongor was eclipsed by Conan due to a number of factors. Conan had more success in print in the U.S. and U.K., largely due to effective marketing of Robert Howard's literary properties by L. Sprague de Camp,Lin Carter himself. Carter further back-burnered his own character by re-writing a number of his Thongor stories as "official" Conan stories instead.

Over at Marvel, Thomas had planned to adapt Thongor to Marvel comics, but later scrapped the idea in favor of obtaining the license to Conan the Barbarian instead. Though Marvel would eventually get around to adapting some of the Thongor stories in the anthology "Creatures on the Loose".

Fortunately, die-hard fans have kept his work alive, and as recently as 2012 a new collection of Carter's Thongor stories, Young Thongor, appeared. Prominent blogger The Groovy Agent also has scanned many of the long out of print Marvel Thongor stories at his excellent blog, Diversions of the Groovy Kind.

Jonah Hex #60

Sixty issues in, and Jonah Hex was still going strong. Michael Fleisher's dedication to scripting one character for the long-haul is something we just don't see with comic writer's and publishers today. All told Fleisher would write Jonah Hex's adventures for over 13 years(!); nowadays it's lucky to see a writer last for 13 issues.

Anyway, at this point in the story Jonah is taken out of the Old West for the first time, as he's Shanghaied for China and forced to do the bidding of a local warlord.

The backup story has El Diablo confronting a religious sect that is believed to be responsible for livestock rustling and the disappearance of a child. It seems at this point that El Diablo is basically an Old West version of The Spectre.

Overall, it''s a fine issue, though far from being a must-read issue.

Gunman's Walk

Gunman's Walk

Not your average Western

One topic dealt with too rarely in Westerns is the phenomenon whereby early settlers to the Old West, before the law came, too often flouted the law, even after it did come. Fans of the HBO series "Deadwood" are very familiar with this in the form of Timothy Olyphant's character, the saloon keeper Al Swearengen.

But decades before "Deadwood" would revive the theme, a brilliant little film called Gunman's Walk perfected it. In it, Van Heflin plays no-nonsense horse rancher Lee Hackett who has his hands full with two sons, Ed Hackett (Tab Hunter), and Davy Hackett (James Darren). But when Lee tries to use his influence to protect Ed from a murder charge things spiral out of control for all involved.

The film deals not only with the sense of entitlement of the white settlers as expressed through this conflict, but also deals head-on with the rampant anti-Native racism is inescapably intertwined with the setting.

The Good: 

• powerful performances by Van Heflin and Tab Hunter
• propulsive pacing

The Bad:

• the usual Native Americans portrayed by Anglos in redface

Stuff to watch for:

• horses galore

Pairing: Chili and hardtack

The Verdict:
**** out of *****