Buck Rogers comic covers

I have never read any of the Gold Key Buck Rogers comics but these covers are wonderful. This reminds me that I need to finish my rewatch of the old TV series to see if my memories are better than the show's reality. 

MANIAC (2012)

Via NetFlix streaming I recently caught the remake of the seminal trashy horror film MANIAC (1980) and I must admit that I found it to be quite well done. I have to confess that I have never been much of a fan of the original film. Its grungy, filthy look and its generally unpleasant tone always put me off and made it hard to easily enjoy the excellent effects work and the fine performance by star Joe Spinell. I can admire the 1980 film without really thinking very highly of it and I think I'm far from the only horror fan that feels this way. Its a dark, oppressive movie that generates a depressive state in the viewer that makes it difficult to think positively about the work.

By all rights, the same should be true of the remake. It tells the same tale of a tortured man guilt-ridden by his sexual urges, driven to commit hideous murders to calm the horrors in his own head. The ways in which this new version is more impressive (and, for me, more compelling) is in that the story is better structured and the agonized suffering of the main character Frank is more sharply detailed. Part of this is because the film is told completely from the point of view of Frank as he stalks and kills his victims and then deals with his own shame and revulsion at his actions We see him in mirrors and other reflective surfaces as he tries to control his emotions while obsessively scrubbing his hands with steel wool in a Lady Macbeth style attempt to wash away his conscience. We see his home in the backroom of his family's manikin store where he tries nightly to create a world where he is loved and cared for in the ruins of the early life that warped him into his present state. In both versions Frank is a man with serious Mother issues but in this film we see her actions in flashbacks that show specific moments that make her son's adult existence hellish. He can't trust women once they arouse him sexually and this horrific fact makes his burgeoning relationship with a French photographer all the more tragic.

It is in this odd courtship that the 2012 film stands well above the 1980 version. In the first film the scenes of Spinell's Frank and the luminous Caroline Munro out on restaurant dates were out of place and completely unbelievable. In the new film Elijah Wood as Frank is able to get across a convincing sense of being barely able to string sentences together well enough to talk to the beautiful lady come to admire his restoration work on manikins. Her flirtatious nature is sexy but not so aggressive that it triggers his migraine-like need to kill and her careful conversation about a subject he knows well makes the bond they begin to share quite convincing.

Of course, this tale is never going to end well but the 2012 version ends in a way I think is very satisfying. I'm glad this film was produced by the brave French filmmakers that tackled the project as I'm sure that if done by an American team it would have failed quite badly. I'm curious to learn what fans of the 1980 film think about this updated approach. 

Scooby-Doo in The Mystery of the Missing Santa

For reasons that passeth all understanding, I have been watching several Scooby Doo Christmas shows this week. I had no idea there were so freakin' many of the damned things! I have a bundle of ten to check out and I'm not sure that's all that have been produced over the years. In a quiet moment I decided to see if any of them were available on YouTube but instead turned up this old record album with the Scooby gang involved in a Santa themed mystery. Amazing! I'm not sure what year this was released but I got a kick out it and I hope you do too.

Jess Franco poster art- Part 26!

I haven't seen this Franco film yet but it appears to star Lina Romay, involves a South American prison and seems packed with nudity. It is on the Watch List!

Because Its Always a Good Time for Caroline!

It might be time to watch AT THE EARTHS CORE again. 

Comic Book Subscriptions!

The first comic book to which I ever bought a subscription was Marvel’s The Avengers. My one year of home delivery of this precious commodity ran from issue 188 through 199 and I still regard those issues with real joy whenever I spot a cover or a reference to the tales told therein. I also remember being disappointed at having to buy the double sized issue 200 off the rack and lamenting that I hadn’t continued my subscription. At this late date I can’t remember why I chose The Avengers as the one comic to have guaranteed access to, but I guess it was because of the team aspect of the book. You were sure to have at least five cool superheroes per month with Captain America or Thor being a good bet each time.

The reason I bring this up is that I now have at my advanced age subscribed to a comic book again. As a matter of fact I have subscribed to two! A few months ago I took advantage of the deal of a $15 price to pick up a year of the Geoff Jones scripted Aquaman book and just last week I plunked down the same price for 12 issues of Batman: The Dark Knight. Both of these are books I’ve enjoyed for the past year or so and this is a great way to have them painlessly drop into my ‘to read’ pile. Of course, these comics are part of the current, controversial revamping of DC Comics entire line of superhero books so many fans would wonder why I am bothering with them at all. A number of older fans hate the ‘New 52’ approach to these beloved characters and to a degree I can understand their anger. The classic tales of Batman, Superman, etc. are such a big part of what makes these characters important to a lot of people and to have those stories discarded could be considered an insult. But I can’t feel that way. I’m thrilled to have a new version of these old tales and having good, creative folks come in and tackle these icons is refreshing to my eyes. Anyone that can turn Aquaman into a badass again is doing the right thing and the only way to make the current series any better would be to magically have Jim Aparo do the artwork as he did in the 1970’s.

That’s not to say that DC has done a good job across the board. In fact I think that, from the books I’ve read, they might have more misses than hits in this massive recreation project! Their Hawkman book was completely awful – incoherent, sloppy and just a total waste of time. Likewise, the new Teen Titans run started out with some strength and potential but degenerated quickly into a confusing mess of cross-over madness and pointless plot complications that left whole issues feeling like a waste of time and money. The entire first year of the new Firestorm comic was a disaster of stupid plots and poorly defined direction with too many creators trying to control the book. It improved greatly in the second year with Dan Jurgens’ take over of the title but by then too many readers had written the revamped Nuclear Man off to keep the book afloat.

It’s never going to be easy to recreate the origins of characters this well known, but in too many cases DC seems to have broken things that didn’t need to be fixed and, in Firestorm’s case, fixed things too late to matter. With Aquaman and most of the Batman titles I have been happy to see a level of quality that makes fifteen bucks for a year’s run seem like a pretty good gamble. We’ll see.

Video: Ten Worst batman Villains?

These are pretty bad but I can think of some that I like even less.