Category: review

BOOK REVIEW: Freddie and Me

I wasn’t a big fan of the rock group Queen. I do own their Greatest Hits album on vinyl, but that’s it. But Mike Dawson was a HUGE fan. In his comic book autobiography, Freddie and Me: A Coming of Age (Bohemian) Rhapsody, Dawson talks about how his upbringing in England and eventually in the United States was heavily integrated with the music and the lives of Freddie Mercury and his band. This wasn’t just the background music in his life a la the movie The Big Chill; these tunes were core elements that affected the decisions he made throughout his early years.

The book is funny, and occasionally sad; it’s specifically personal, yet has a universal sense as well. For instance, when he notes how much he hated those Queen fans-come-lately who only knew “Bohemian Rhapsody” as the result of the movie “Wayne’s World”, it sounds like any number of comic book, art and music fans I’ve encountered over the years.(I think this speaks to Tosy’s feelings about the overplayed title tune of this book. If you’re a big fan of the group Queen or, oddly, George Michael, you’ll almost certainly love this book. If you’re a big fan of any musician or artist, you will certainly relate to the passion upon which Dawson draws.
***
Coincidentally, Freddie and me is one of several items for sale at ADD’s graphic novel sale.
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Go to this episode of Coverville and hear the rare Michael Jackson/Freddie Mercury demo to the Jacksons’ hit “State of Shock” that ultimately featured Mick Jagger on guest vocal.
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VIDEO REVIEW: Who Killed the Electric Car?


Back in March, I watched the video of the movie Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) and have neglected to write about it because I found it so amazingly depressing and infuriating simultaneously. The film, narrated by The West Wing’s Martin Sheen, documented how the Ford Motor Company developed a viable electric vehicle in the mid-1990s, the EV1, that had a small but fervent fan base and was in the process of developing a significant infrastructure to fuel these cars, and then took it away. You’ll see how actors such as Tom Hanks, Ed Begley Jr., and especially Peter Horton of “thirtysomething” were huge advocates for the car, which required minimal maintenance.

Yet, for reasons that are still not clear to me, the car was removed from the marketplace. The people who wanted to keep the cars were unable to do so because the cars were leased to them, and if they didn’t return them to the company, they were threatened with arrest for grand theft auto. Not only were they unable to keep them, they had to stand by helplessly as Ford had these perfectly good cars destroyed. I’m not even a car guy, and I found it utterly painful.

The movie’s director Chris Paine suggests that the blame for the failure of electric cars lies with the car company, the petroleum industry, and the government, among others. He also blame the consumers, and I will take issue with this. For the “sales job” that Ford did on this vehicle was to point out all its deficiencies such as its limited range of miles traveled before refueling, rather than emphasizing the economic and ecological benefits. He gave a pass on the battery, which did have a 40- or 50-mile limit, because it was improved to double that; this information never got to the consumer.

I was watching the news for the past several weeks, and there’s conversation about a new viable electric car, but it seems that the industry wasted the last decade in continuing to be dependent on foreign oil. The argument in the 1990s was that everyone charging their cars wouldn’t work because it’d blow the energy grid. But if people were charging overnight, when demand is less, this argument doesn’t hold water (or gasoline). In any case, a tragedy.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Young@Heart

Now that my wife is home from school, and off for the next four weeks, we’ve come up with a way for us to enjoy the same theatrical releases – see them separately. So I went to the Spectrum Theatre, the “art” theater in Albany to see Young@Heart; Carol went on Wednesday. I tend to be immediately suspicious of a movie that uses punctuation other than question marks and exclamation points in the title.

More to the point, I worried about this being one of those “Oh, isn’t it cute how the octogenarians are singing Coldplay?” type of films. Largely, it is not. It’s primarily about these folks in their 70s, 80s and 90s relating to each other and the music that their 53-year-old musical director is offering them. As someone who sings in a church choir, I know that choirs can be balky when attempting music not in their comfort zone but that ultimately, they tend to appreciate being stretched.

The movie is funny and poignant. A group of elderly people doing the BeeGees’ Stayin’ Alive, the Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go or the Talking Heads’ Road to Nowhere adds a certain urgency not experienced in the originals.

As of Monday, the movie had a 88% positive score in Rotten Tomatoes. Naturally, I gravitate towards the negative reviews. One writes: “Young@Heart plays like a 100-minute version of one of those ‘on the lighter side’ news feature segments that end a local newscast.” Meh. If that were so – if there was no investment that the audience makes with these performers, then that assessment might be fairly accurate. That it transcends what a positive critic feared would be “dubious and cutesy” that makes it worth recommending. If I did stars, it’d be three and a half out of four. The fact that it takes place around Northampton, Massachusetts, where I’ve been a number of times, is just a personal bonus.
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Estelle Gtty, best known for Golden Girls, died at the age of 84. By contrast, Bea Arthur, who played her daughter, is 86, as is Betty White; Rue McClanahan is a mere 73.
This got me to wonder about, of all things, the Beverly Hillbillies. Irene Ryan, who played Daisy Moses, a/k/a Granny, was born in 1902, while Buddy Ebsen, who played her son-in-law, Jed, was born in 1908. Certainly, this is plausible, if Jed was much older than Granny’s late daughter.
***
Old fool: The often arrogant Robert Novak> is 77 now; what was his excuse for his foolishness when he was younger?

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SCATHING BOOK REVIEW: Fred Hembeck’s TNCEHAO


Fred Hembeck is my friend. We were friends back in my days at FantaCo. After a long hiatus, we’ve been friends in my period of blogging. So now that I’m reviewing his book, THE NEARLY COMPLETE ESSENTIAL HEMBECK ARCHIVES OMNIBUS, I feel that I should especially tough on his compendium.

Item 1: it’s not in color. Of course much of it was not in color in the first place, and it IS 900 pages for 25 bucks. (Truth is, if that page of the X-Men which was used as an insert in Hembeck #2 WERE in goldenrod, I think I would have suffered flashbacks from my days doing mail order at the ‘Co.)

Item 2: those CBG pages, which were hard to read at 11 X 17 are even harder to read at 8 X 10.5 or whatever it is. Strange though – I’ve been reading Hembeck’s work for so long (30 years!) that it’s not the problem I thought it’d be.

Item 3: it doesn’t have the Marvel and DC copyrighted stuff. Hey, if this is a big success, don’t you think Marvel will want to follow the trend and package the Fantastic Four Roast, those Marvel Age pieces, that book in which Fred destroys the Marvel universe (what IS the name of that comic book?), et al., all in one piece.

Item 4: it’s not paginated. That IS tricky, but I suppose that’s why God created the bookmark.

Item 5: in the introductory page to the last section, the village of Saugerties is MISSPELLED! Shocking!

Ah, who am I kidding? I love this book. I started reading the introductory sections first. I was TRYING to bypass the stuff FantaCo published in the early 1980s, but I found myself stopping to read some of the framing stories, such as when bride of Hembeck Lynn Moss meets Bud Abbott and Elvis Costello. Or the time when Fred was going to blow off FantaCo for a mysterious benefactor. I also got to re-remember the wordless story Fred did with Bill Mantlo.

I’ve had the book almost a month and I’d be lying if I said I had read even half of this tome. But I’m happy to have it, for I can usually pull it off the shelf and read six or eight pages at a time between other duties.

So, despite my savage criticisms, go to your local comic book store, book store or the website of artiste himself and get it!
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To make up for that brutal review, a short piece featuring one or two of Fred’s favorite performers:

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MOVIE REVIEWS: Defending Your Life, ID4, Andromeda Strain

Movies I’ve seen recently, two on DVD, one recorded on the DVR.

Defending Your Life (1991), lent to me by a co-worker, is an Albert Brooks movie, by which I mean he directs, writes, and stars in a film that’s about what happens after one dies, a vaguely familiar version of one’s earthly existence. But everyone gets to see the highlights and lowlights of their past and have to explain their actions. Brooks’ character meets and falls for another of the recently deceased, played by Meryl Streep. It’s a comedy, but it did not have many big laughs for me. Still, I liked it, as I found it quite thought-provoking.
There is a movie trailer included but DON’T watch it until after you see the film, as it essentially REVEALS THE ENDING.
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Independence Day: One of my co-workers lent this to me on VHS. Another co-worker, seeing that I had the tape, brought me the DVD of the film. Apparently lots of people really liked this film, as it was a big hit in the summer of 1996.
I will say that in the July 2 segment, things got blowed up real good. But I never got all that invested in the characters – well, maybe Randy Quaid’s drunken alleged former alien captive. I was watching the movie for a number of minutes when I had to look at the package; Will Smith IS in this, isn’t he? Yup, billed first, no less.
All the electronic alien encounters was done better in Contact, the meeting of the First Lady with another character stretch credulity, and the President would have been tackled by the Secret Service before getting into the plane. I didn’t hate it. More like indifference.

Whereas I hated, hated the A&E remake of The Andromeda Strain. I never saw the 1971 theatrical release. It featured Benjamin Bratt (Law & Order), Christa Miller (Drew Carey, Scrubs), Daniel Dae Kim (Lost), Ricky Schroeder (NYPD Blue, 24 – yes, he’s back to his Silver Spoons name) and Viola Davis (L&O: SVU) as scientists that are trying to find the reason a town all but died, making all who initially didn’t die suicidal or homicidal. TV Guide gave a “jeer” to Eric McCormack’s (Will & Grace) wooden performance as a drug-adled reporter, and rightly so. The mutation of the strain seemed almost random. Still,, I watched the second half of this four-hour mess, hoping for the payoff. Instead, it just went stoopid, especially in the last hour. I’m loath to provide spoilers, but suffice to say that: the family drama involving one of the scientists went nowhere; one romantic liaison had no chemistry, while another was highly implausible; the fate of one scientist went totally unexplained, a rescue mission contradicted the movie’s own internal logic; another rescue was utterly laughable; the death of one character was unexplained; and worse, the big reveal left me saying, WTF?! Awful, just awful. It’s available on DVD, but I implore you: DO NOT WATCH THIS. DO NOT WATCH THIS. DO NOT WATCH THIS. DO NOT WATCH THIS. DO NOT WATCH THIS. DO NOT WATCH THIS. DO NOT WATCH THIS. DO NOT WATCH THIS.
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