The Factual Opinion

Comics Of The Weak: Teach The Moral ABC That Unites All Mankind Free, Instantly 6 Billion Strong & We're All-One!

Bart Simpson # 52
By Carol Lay, Sergio Aragones, Gilbert Hernandez, Chris Yambar & Mike Kazaleh
Published by Bongo Comics

Most of the websites featuring previews or cover scans of this issue of Bart Simpson look like this:

That's fine and all. But the actual comic looks like this:

And there you go. What are one-sock Milhouse and rope belt Bart doing? Chilling with a hobo. Just laid back in the cut, heating up some beans in a cast iron skillet over a living room fire.

Hobo Chillin'. Star style.

That's the cover of the week, right there. Sure, the comic also contains strips by Carol Lay (who sends a shout out to W.C. Minor, the crazy murderer that used a stint in the madhouse as writing camp to help pen the Oxford English Dictionary), Sergio Aragones skipping right by boogers and snot for a classic two-pager built on the concept of Getting What You Want by Actually Shitting In Your Pants, all of which builds to a Gilbert Hernandez story where Homer gets his ass handed to him by a stereotypical butch lesbian, so it's not like the comic needed to have the best fucking line ever on its cover, because it still would've been tits fantastique.

But hey, if you're going to beat the universe at its own game, why not beat the universe so badly that it spends the rest of its life roasting feces in a Black and Decker toaster oven, just because, you know, why the fuck not?

Split-Dick and Stretch-Nuts

This is a comic featuring a character named Stretch-Nuts. Stretch-Nuts is based on a real person, a guy who can pull the skin on his ball sack out far enough to balance a 16 ounce can of Heineken. You can read more about that guy and his tattoo here, but you'll have to troll around in Oklahoma to find a copy of the comic.

Scalped # 35
Written by Jason Aaron
Art by Danijel Zezelj
Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

What the hell was that thing called? Oh, wait, "Gift of the Magi", that thing. You know that one? There's this poor couple that wants to give each other christmas presents, so the chick cuts off her hair to buy the guy some shit for his grandfather's watch, but the guy has already sold the watch so he could buy her a fancy comb, so when they go to exchange presents they're all "aw snap, egg on my face".

Scalped 35 is a lot like that, except Jason Aaron figures the Gift of the Magi should've ended with Howie Mandel popping out of the chimney holding the watch and a fistful of hair.

Flash Rebirth # 6
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ethan van Sciver
Published by DC Comics

This thing is late as shit, but it's not like there were any sane people in the Barry Allen is Awesome camp that couldn't teach a class on patience, so no fault declared. And hell, it's only late because Ethan Von Stroheim was working up a bunch of those Copyright Protected "people who run with their distended arms flailing overhead" panels, and he's as much of the draw here as that whole DC Comics: Always Fixin' This Flash Shit paradigm. Can't fault Ethan Van Flyheight for wanting to make sure the pages of this magnum opus are chock full of what the fans--which, really, is the only possible audience for something with this many variations on the same character--are hungry for. Hell, take a look at this:

Now that's something that takes a long time to draw! All that negative space--that's big boy art, right there.

New Avengers # 62
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Stuart Immonen
Published by Marvel Comics

The nice thing about those Ed Brubaker Captain America comics was that Brubaker didn't spend huge chunks of the comic including these creepy love poems where other super-heroes talk about how Steve Rogers is pretty special, like who I think about when I'm spitting in my palm special. You'd just had these over the top, everybody in the boat comics about some depressive loner who fantasizes about some dead kid while living in a warehouse with no lights and occasionally fighting a Mexican wrestler whenever the wrestler isn't beating his girlfriend, all the while waiting for a magically undead Nazi ghost to take over the body of a Russian corporate scumbag, and not once did Eddie B throw in some panel where Peter Parker sits there looking at a picture of the Cap'n and says "I hope I made you proud....dad?" But if you'd never read old Avengers comics--like, any Avengers comic, even though you're sort of curious about those ones where Ant-Man pops his wife in the mouth cuz of her book learning--and you'd never read any Captain America comics but those Eddie B ones, then you're pretty much going to be fucked now, because the character is--he's fucking everywhere, and the whole set up for all of his appearances is tangled up with all the rest of the characters getting in a line to tell him how his shit is the best, and that's gonna put you in the direction of the oh-god-Steve won't you say "Avengers Assemble" and you sit there thinking well, that's just some dumb shit that turns on children, or maybe sub-literates, whatever that means but you're starting to feel it down in your stomach, when he says that line, if he says that line, is it gonna make my cracked and wrinkled nubbin moist with anticipation, oh crikey and strikey won't you say Avengers Assemble so I can find out? just say it once for me baby boy, go ahead whisper that shit and flick your tongue Christian Troy style while you do it my big dirty macguffin of stuffin'

Wha

Fucking Hawkeye! You goddamned little shitbird! 

 

Fuck you and your squeezing out a fart face! This was supposed to be Steve and us having a moment, you stupid little bingo table! Nobody gives a tug about Hawkeye and Hawkeye's Shitty Haircut!

Viking # 5
Written by Ivan Brandon
Art by Nic Klein
Published by Image Comics

Hey, that was the shortest season ever!

Blackest Night # 7
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis
Published by DC Comics

Jennifer Lopez still had a record contract back when Blackest Night started. America had two options: Jennifer Lopez or Blackest Night. Think about that shit.

Maybe you shoulda had more pinwheel spins in Maid in Manhattan, you talentless piece of slime. 

-Tucker Stone, 2010

Too Many Movies Tuesdays: Technically, It's Thursday

Done got ourselves a Convoy.

Shutter Island
Directed by Martin Scorsese, 2010
Review by Joe McCulloch

(FUCK FUCK SPOILERS SPOILERS)

This is kinda bad, but also the kind of bad that deserves some consideration; it might look like a tricky high Technicolor suspense piece, but it’s really Scorsese taking one of his continuing obsessions -- the heroic narrative gone weird/sour/futile, a la Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, Gangs of New York -- and riding it straight into the movie buff pomo twilight of Quentin Tarantino. It’d make a great double feature with Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino’s hall of mirrors of WWII fiction, in that it functions as a pointed critique of that picture’s conceptual posture - while Tarantino fixates on movies as inescapable propagandist instruments, blunt like a bat and sharp like a knife, Scorsese emphasizes the necessity of escaping stories to understand empathetic realism.

In other words, if Tarantino has made a WWII movie about how WWII movies are awesome -- in both the “amazing” and “God destroying someone’s face via lightning” senses -- then Scorsese replies with a suspense movie, redolent with WWII aftershocks, about how you should probably shut up about this dumb shit and pay some attention to reality. It’s not a direct answer, granted, having gone into production prior to Tarantino’s film, and having been adapted from a Dennis Lehane novel -- via a screenplay by occasional comics writer Laeta Kalogridis (i.e. the Dark Horse graphic novel adaptation of Pathfinder; you know, the one with the Vikings?) -- but its uniquely filmic handling of Cocaine Comix scion Leonardo DiCaprio’s navigation of a HUAC conspiracy on the grounds of a remote mental institution to use Nazi science in the creation of brainwashed assassins, which, GET THIS, is actually an elaborate role playing exercise so that inpatient DiCaprio can come to terms with having shot his wife after she drowned their kids, suggests some fairly responsive themes, particularly given a denouement wherein Our Man regresses into fictive heroism, thereby discrediting the compassionate practices of the institution and guaranteeing plenty more lobotomies for our American future, his own most imminently.

All of this is accomplished cinematically through faintly unreal settings, hot-colored dream sequences and modular acting showcase encounters with colorful characters, all the more fitting for their structural artificiality. They’re movie-like, as a means of breaking through to DiCaprio that his overheated generic delusions are keeping him from coming to terms with his own guilt on a serious, substantive level, as well as indicating to us that cynical, web of lies, “everyone’s awful” narratives obscure good, moral, compassionate human impulses.

The big problem is that Scorsese, like Tarantino, pitches literally everything in a similarly pulpy suspense movie manner, even though he’s aiming for essentially the opposite effect, so that the picture happily putters onward with swelling music and dramatic revelations for big reveals that seem deliberately telegraphed in advance, leading to a climax that’s an absolute mess of chilly explication and overwrought confrontation. At one point Ben Kingsley unveils a chart to explain part of the plot; at least when Tony Scott did that it Domino it was supposed to be funny! Here, I have the sinking feeling I wasn’t supposed to find the doctors’ treatment to be as silly and convoluted as DiCaprio’s imaginary quest, which I suppose might be grist for a “Leo was right all along!” counter-interpretation, which, aside from contrasting mightily with Kingsley & Co,’s baleful, out-of-eyeshot glances in the film’s final scene, would convert the film into just an especially full-of-itself genre exercise.

I don’t think it’s that, but it ain’t Antonioni or Tarkovsky either - it’s surface thrills pop filmmaking with the surface skimmed off. It’s absolutely perverse, which will attract some strident defenders, make no mistake, but I found it honestly more could’ve-gotten-identical-substance-from-an-essay tedious than most of the overtly ‘experimental’ movies I’ve seen. By the time yet another character’s secret medicinal aspect was revealed, with much revelatory pomp, after much of the audience had probably caught on, myself included, I’d mostly gotten upset that Scorsese hadn’t retained John C. Reilly from Gangs of New York and The Aviator to declare the whole charade FOR YOUR HEALTH. Because, it basically is.

My Name is Khan
Directed by Karan Johar, 2010
Review by Joe McCulloch

This has been in theaters for a week and a half now, and it’s turning into a considerable worldwide success, having grossed over $32 million (USD) total, including $3 million from North America - unheard of for a Bollywood picture so new into its release. But then, I understand Johar had built up something of a reputation for international success (haven’t seen his prior three pictures, though), and certainly his approach here strips down some of the "masala" style, the something-for-everyone song 'n dance ('n adventure 'n familial struggle 'n slapstick 'n romance 'n etc.) often attributed to big money Indian pop cinema, in at least the causal U.S. consciousness; it does often seem to turn on the songs, of which there are only a few here, and just one in which the characters sing and dance, and that’s at a church service, where logic abides.

But, you know, don’t dare underestimate the simple, heat-from-the-sun presence of lead actor Shah Rukh Khan (as the credits read; it’s often spelled compressed as “Shahrukh Khan”), maybe the biggest goddamned movie star anywhere on planet Earth, his North American semi-obscurity notwithstanding. Johar is a longtime cohort, pairing him up with a popular leading lady, “Kajol” (Devgan), all for a big-ass, old-fashioned feel-bad-but-then-feel-good prestige picture star vehicle, in which Khan plays a man named Khan, an Asperger syndrome sufferer and practicing Muslim who emigrates to San Francisco and spends roughly the first hour of the picture’s 161-minute runtime pursuing and ultimately wedding an effervescent Hindu single mother, only to see their happy life fall to pieces following 9/11; the implicit challenge to political strife in Hindu and Muslim Indians cohabitating is cruelly aggravated as Khan’s bubbly bride gradually finds life becoming hard from her association with Islam, climaxing in her young son’s murder and a screaming separation (at the crime scene!) whereupon Khan is charged with tracking down George W. Bush to duly identify himself and inform the Commander in Chief that he is not a terrorist, contrary to many beliefs. Heartwarming inspiration ensues across America, and we learn that there are no good or bad Christians or Muslims, but only good or bad people, just like momma taught him, before she died because her heart was too big. That’s in the movie.

There’s a lot of stuff in this movie, quite a ruthlessly comprehensive piece of anxiety entertainment; there’s a neat little bit up top where Khan’s nervous habit of praying is framed and scored in a way to make him seem like the twitchy terrorist villain of a suspense thriller, the eyes of America’s melting pot uneasily taking him in. The script in exceedingly tidy, with virtually every big comedic line getting a poignantly dramatic reprisal later on. Asperger syndrome can be easily diagnosed by its applicability to metaphor: Khan has an intense interest in fixing things, but can he fix his marriage and a nation’s wounds? He accepts all statements at face value - all the better to see through duplicity! All action rises toward a perfectly untenable 45-minute crescendo involving the torture of suspected terrorists, plucky college reporters who restore a complacent newsman’s idealism, a Muslim extremist’s terrorist scheme, a media sensation of raw idealism exploding onto America’s dinner tables and a Hurricane Katrina stand-in annihilating a community of poor blacks just as Obama clinches the 2008 election. Meanwhile, Kajol accepts the entirely predictable position of vengeful philosophical Goofus to Khan’s Gallant, although screenwriter Shibani Bathija at least affords her the dignity of remaining hurt inside yet fundamentally good as Khan naturally embraces her once more, the film knowing that nothing has been accomplished to actually end worldwide violence, no matter how many would-be killers are shot down with homespun wisdom and denounced as Satan, which is one thing Forrest Gump never pulled off. (Or was that in Gump and Co?)

Still, as smooth-polished and soft-humming as this thing is, and as patience-testing as its melodramatics can get -- interestingly, Johar is now preparing a leaner cut for further overseas penetration -- it’d be a mistake to dismiss the whole affair as a purposeless bromide. Khan really is married to a Hindu woman (Gauri Khan, one of the film's producers), and, as the Economist reports, the picture’s Indian premiere was marked by threats of disruption following Khan’s expression of support for a Pakistani cricket team; tinny as the film’s “we’re all just people” theme can ring as surrounded by its plot mechanics -- and make no mistake, it is not especially deep -- it does speak to an imminent, personal political reality, if then raising several questions surrounding Khan’s own status as a public Muslim figure in and outside India, ably surveyed by examining the comments to said Economist piece. Likewise, its focus on American political climate change can only blur a bit from its of-the-moment starry-eyed thrill over a President Obama, introduced from behind in mighty silhouette like Christ in Ben-Hur and left a mighty rhetorical force to sweep us toward the end credits. That’s Bollywood?

Big Fan
Starring Patton Oswalt, 2009

Playing the "look at how these poor white people find joy" song, Big Fan is Robert Siegel's attempt to do the same thing he did in his script for the Wrestler (sans romance) and vaunt himself into the library alongside the rest of the sentimental middle class clucking filmmakers. There's a decent chunk of acting to go around--Kevin Corrigan's great, Patton Oswalt handles himself well--but at its core, Big Fan can't decide whether it wants to feel sorry for its characters or ridicule their choices. The lack of direction either way might be an attempt to force the audience to choose, but it's half-assed from the get-go.

The Hit
Directed by Stephen Frears, 1984

Although there's a couple of cliched twists thrown in early on--hey, this is a criminal that reads!--there's not much to complain about when a movie consists of Terence Stamp, John Hurt, Tim Roth & Laura Del Sol on a road trip to oblivion. While everybody has to jockey with a stunning Spanish countryside for attention, and the sparse dialog doesn't allow for a lot of hamming it up (which Hurt and Roth are both exceedingly good at), The Hit ends up being more than an interesting diversion.

In The Heat of the Night
Starring Sidney Poitier & Rod Steiger, 1967

As a movie, In The Heat of the Night is dated, predictable, and at times, just bad. But as piece of film history, it's a wikipedia article waiting to happen. Sidney Poitier described the experience as one that tested his skills to a degree none of his work until that point had, Haskell Wexler definitively eviscerated the standard--yet ridiculous--belief that black actors should be lit the same as white, and a film company went to bat financially for a film that initially wouldn't even appear in theaters below the Mason Dixon. Norman Jewison probably isn't at the top of anybody's favorite directors, but if Pictures at a Revolution is to be trusted, he was as integral to the film's lasting memory as Steiger & Poitier, the two contributions that haven't aged a bit. While Sidney spends a good bit of the film wearing a seething rage that his previous roles as a self-described "Angelic Negro" had forced him to hide, Steiger's sweltering Method-based performance carries the film's overblown script in every available direction. (Almost every door, trinket or physical surface that Seiger touches is shaken, thrown, slammed--according to Poitier, Steiger's go-for-broke, out of the box style was so unusual that he wasn't quite sure at first whether his co-worker was sane enough to be around.) That's not all, either. Everybody in the film was chewing on ice chips prior to takes, all to hide that they were filming the movie in the freezing cold up North--because Poitier understandably refused to take a chance on filming a movie down South after his wife came home to a burning cross. In the infamous slapping scene, Larry Gates reveled in what he knew would become an iconic moment, happily exhorting Sidney to hit him as hard as possible. Now, sure--that's trivia, and it doesn't fix the bungling of the film's central mystery, it doesn't make the movie a better one, it doesn't even help to determine whether or not the film is courageous, or merely right-time exploitation. Then again? If something from 1967 still held as the high water mark for a race relations story after forty-three years had passed on by, that wouldn't be something to take pride in either.

The Hangover
Starring Ed Helms, 2009

This? Maybe it works better in a theater, with people laughing around you, but one to one, it's not that funny. It's just another disconnected run through of comedic sequences, some of which are amusing, most of which feel a bit stale, all of which are heavily dependent on the idea that grown men acting like high school boys is inherently clever, no matter what it is they're doing. Which--hell, that's pretty true when it's a clip, a gag, which is probably why the follow-up to the Mike Tyson scene--"I think he's mean"--was actually pretty funny when it was in the preview, whereas here it's just another goofy thing that Zach Galifianaksi says. There are scenes that work pretty well, the best of which being the one where Ed Helms snaps after finding out he'd been doped up the night before, but the overall effect is as scattered as the film that contains it.

All the same, it was filmed in something like fifteen days, the only non-people-talking/walking movie that the cinematographer has produced is Casper Van Dien's Shark Attack, and it's a cheap American comedy that didn't trawl through Freaks and Geeks to come up with its cast. That's something?

A Day In The Country
Directed by Jean Renoir, 1936

A brief film that reveals its orphan status in the way that what it purports to be about doesn't get going until about halfway through, Partie de campagne--also translated as Party Like It's A Campaign--deals with a woman who is engaged to a French comedy stereotype, only to find herself falling in love with a French romantic stereotype. If you're wondering if the boatmen in this movie have amazing mustaches and wear shirts covered in horizontal stripes, wonder no longer: they do, and one of the mustaches arrives bearing a tiny bra that's specifically created for the only the fanciest of mustaches.

It's Renoir, so yes, it's brimming over with moments of beauty, and it's one of those period pieces that portrays something as taken-for-granted as a backyard swing in a way that captures how that must have been one of the most exciting moments in someone's life. (You know, before people came up with shit to do.) Those few minutes match up to anything in Renoir's catalog, while still never erasing the fact that the film is unfinished, badly truncated in the final minutes, and it looks like the star's face is covered in candle wax whenever she's crying.

Army of Shadows
Directed by Jean Pierre Melville, 1969

Most of the Melville library has made it over to America through the efforts of revival movie houses and the Criterion Collection, often to a motley choir of praise--these being movies now embraced by high end East Coast film critics and John Woo. While Army of Shadows isn't that much more "serious" in tone or form than Melville's crime thrillers, it does focus on a bunch of underground French patriots during the German occupation, making it the go-to film for those looking for a Melville cause to safely champion. According to the literature that Criterion makes available with their various Melville releases, the primary reason that most of these movies were initially ignored back in the day boiled down to the disdain of one publication--Cahiers du Cinema--who had dismissed the guy's work as unworthy of consideration, or something to that effect. (The various essay writers never quote Cahiers directly.) Whatever was said at the time was taken to heart by the various companies involved with the distribution of foreign cinema in the States, thus leaving Melville's films to stew, only to finally arrive at a time period where anybody watching them must have initially wondered what exactly the problem was in the first fucking place.

That isn't to imply that the films aren't arty, they are, but that they aren't far removed from something that Michael Mann might release, all wrapped up as they can be inside the lives of inscrutable criminals directly pursuing objectives. Melville's crime may have been tied into his unwillingness to innovate the crime thriller, but even if one acknowledges the more dated aspects of his movies, it's difficult to see what exactly was so unworthy of attention. The Red Circle, The Samurai, Bob the Gambler--they're all brutal, stylish entertainments, sexy little pleasures that follow some of France's most compelling actors at a perfect distance. Not enough Marx? Who could tell.

The ironic twist to the rapture with which the American release of Shadows was received is that Shadows--for all of the tortured prose that attempted to locate a place inside the New Wave history--is a deceptively old school patriotic war film, albeit one that explodes with modern trappings. Viewing it alongside Inglorious Basterds, a film that unmistakably apes Melville's first act of violence for a late stage character revelation, it's even more pointed. Of course, that's possibly a road towards criticism as well--Melville's commitment to realist (read: respectful) results ends up depicting his patriots as being successful mostly as nihilists, accidently proving true the old stereotype that the French are most successful at violence when they're attempting to kill one another, whereas Tarantino's refusal of fact allows him to leap directly towards the happy ending of his choosing. (Making it that much more complicated when Melville breaks from realism and uses a completely fantastic plot twist to keep his primary pieces in play for a little bit longer.)

Like Mann, the oft-repeated complaint with Melville is framed in how often he arguably favors style over substance. There's obviously some truth to that, especially in the case of Samurai, a film where style IS the substance, but in Shadows, the scale seems a bit more level. The question of whether or not the film's creator realized that--whether he grasped how ineffectual the results were from all of this sexy brutality--may be more difficult to answer, but that certainly doesn't make it any less compelling. The answer he reaches for at the movie's final minutes, in the moment when he freezes upon his characters, telling us in a bloodless white font how each of them met their end, seems to be that what happened doesn't really matter, that the intent with which people live their lives--their own style, if you will--is what determines the rate of their success. 

-Joe McCulloch & Tucker Stone, 2010

Romancing The Stone: Could It Be Magic?

I was sittin' around some time last week, doing a little work, and a brief flash of plot line went through my head and I stopped and thought, "I wonder how Cinderella's doing? Did she and Aladdin get out of that mess? I wonder how her store is?"

Seriously. I really wondered about her. Like the way you might wonder about someone who you'd never thought of romantically, and suddenly realized one day - maybe too late in some cases - hey! I'm interested in that person. And I didn't even realized it because I was so busy chasing X.

Cinderella # 4 
Written by Chris Roberson
Art by Shawn McManus & Lee Loughridge
Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

I am really tickled by the notion that I actually got involved with this book enough to wonder about it in my free time. You know, where the Virgin Read was fun because, well, I just didn't know anything and could be completely irreverent and say whatever I thought, this column is even more fun for me because I'm actually enjoying what I'm reading. How 'bout them apples?!

So after all that - I made a date for us. Me and Cindy. On my couch, we got reacquainted. And there she was, with Aladdin. About to be put to death! 

And then.....MAGIC.

I'm finding that I love the magic like an eight-year-old. I seem to be all about it, don't I? Judging how well it's set up and pulled off seems to capture a lot of my attention. In this case, I thought "well done." I love that the element of magic is already inherent in the story. We know that somehow, something magical is going to save them. Here it's the charm bracelet that I'd forgotten about. And isn't it a charming way that they are saved? You touch a charm, and a Fabletown animal shows up. In this case, Puss in Boots! Adorable!!

I mean, put a cat in boots and I can't get enough. Put anything on a cat - a lemon hat, sunglasses, another cat - I love it. Love the kitties. It's even more hilarious that he's got a bit of an attitude.

But you know what I find more interesting than the actual story that's going on? All the back stories. This issue began with a flashback to Nazi Germany, and it ended with a lengthy flashback explaining the entire story of who these harem girls were, what happened, why they've been selling magical items and buying weapons, and what they were intending to do. I found myself wishing for a different format. I'm not sure what it should, could, or would be, but I liked reading that story, and thought how it could have been more elaborate, taken up several issues even. I guess that would have been less about Cinderella, and more about the various spin-off stories of Fabletown. What do I know, sure. But I liked that a lot, I would've loved to see more. I like the myths. I like the histories. 

I think my reaction to wanting a different format is wanting more art, actually. Rather than the story being depicted in six frames, it seems like it could have used it's own issue. Nevertheless, it was well told in those six panels.

There was a lovely twist to be found as well, in the whole sisterhood thing. Although Cindy believes these girls need to be punished for their crimes, the story make it clear that they've suffered as concubines, that their freedom had been taken away, and Cindy is quite sympathetic to that. It's an interesting mix. She's passionate about them paying for their crimes, but she's just as passionate about making sure they no longer are enslaved to a Master. I haven't read a lot of comics, but this seems like a take that hasn't really been done enough. A woman fighting for justice, and for the rights of women. She's clear, throughout that crimes still need to be penalized, even if the motivation for committing them was to escape from tyrannical chauvinism. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)

So, you know. I'm still interested. I'm still interested in Cindy. In The Sword. In Y The Last Man. Still interested in seeing what's out there. I might have to start having a weekly Bachelorette-style Rose Ceremony for my comic book choices. Now that'll be fun. :)

-Nina Stone, 2010

Comics Of The Weak: I'd Read More Comics If They Sold Them At Foot Locker

Betty & Veronica # 246

 

People who wear sweatpants in public get to vote, they get to have babies, they get to do all the things that regular people get to do, even though they shouldn't. In the panel above, Veronica may be a bitch, but Betty is a fucking apologist for America's mistakes. One of those things is worse than the other.

Doomwar # 1
Written by Jonathan Maberry
Art by Scot Eaton, Andy Lanning, Robert Campanella & Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Published by Marvel Comics

The second problem with Doomwar is that it has the same basic plot as Dark Reign, but it doesn't stretch that plot out over a long enough period that Marvel ends up having to publish something interesting like Zodiac to fill the time. See, in Doomwar, when the good guys (Black Panther & friends) realize that a bad guy has taken over a country, they go and get Nightcrawler, make Nightcrawler teleport Black Panther and his sister right next to the bad guy, and then Black Panther's sister kills the bad guy. That's how you're supposed to handle it when bad guys take over branches of the government in a world where the only people that matter wear spandex costumes and can teleport right next to each other.

The first problem with Doomwar is that it has panels like this.

What advertisement is this picture from? Marvel's tracers use it all of the time, but what was the original context? Was it in some magazine about how to get a job working at Marvel Comics? Was it in a magazine about how to get things finished on a deadline? Does it have any other pictures in it? Does it have a Jumble? Could somebody start tracing the Jumble instead? That would be a really great drawing if Wolverine was handing you a beer with a blank label and there was a sentient Jumble sitting right next to him.

Spider-Woman # 6
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Alex Maleev
Published by Marvel Comics

This is probably the most poorly written book Bendis has put out, boring and trivial, but mostly due to the way it accidently lampoons the schtick-y, personality driven dialog that Bendis can do well with, like it's some kind of bizarre attempt to create a self-replicating comic book, one that could eventually recycle previous dialog balloons along with its replicated pages, no human hands required. Part of the art's oddness may be aggravated by the simple nature of openly crediting the model--not that she doesn't deserve credit, she probably works hard, models certainly complain about how difficult their jobs are enough for there to be some plausibility to merit the incessant whining--but it just ends up turning the book into HD hardcore. Not because it's pornographic, mind you. There's no giant cocks and slash movie tit jobs, but there's just too much reality on display, too much of the mechanics showing through, and the reaction ends up similar to the way an erection becomes ashamed when the body its connected too begins obsessing over the slicks of viscous sweat, that pubic hair stubble. (If High Definition pornography is going to change one thing, it's going to bring back pubes, because a meat shaft surrounded in bushy tendrils is a hell of a lot sexier than a stubble encrusted ballsack, all neon white and red veined.) Maybe that's the Spider-Woman problem? Reminding the reader, over and over again: this was a lady, he drew a lady, a very real lady, she did these poses, this is a comic, you are a boy, she is a girl, don't you have a Blur album about this very special time, and it's all just a little too much information, something else to clog the brainstem while the tabs are clicked and the disgust begins, and what's next, what else is there, we want out.

20th Century Boys Vol. 7
By Naoki Urasawa
Published by Viz

With Urasawa's Pluto almost finished, it's high time to start copying & pasting all of the praise for that series with a little dash of find/replace whenever the title comes up. And sure, all the guess-that's-criticism stuff holds--Urasawa reuses faces, he likes the remote/emote stuff a little too baldly--but when it works, it works, and 20th Century Boys works, even if the manga creator character is getting a little too much face time. 20th Century Boys: it has a prison break. Somebody tells somebody that they better get honest about their feelings before the world goes a-ending. Some dude goes over the railing. Beep click, I love you.

Guardians of the Galaxy # 23
Written by Abnett & Lanning
Art by Wes Craig
Published by Marvel Comics

Some nice looking art in this, including one of those goofy spiral panel layouts that look like a stained glass window from a science fiction novel. The story is pretty confusing, seems primarily to be about an evil guy living inside a good guy who kills a bunch of people and their dog, but then he has them kept alive in a dungeon where a robot servant whips their souls. There's a big alien that looks like a purple Hagar the Horrible, nano-something-something bullets, oh, and the dog can talk--sure? This is something like part 15 of a 19 part story though, so it's totally supposed to read like this. Some people like it. It seems fine.

Incorruptible # 3
Written by Mark Waid
Art by Jean Diaz
Published by Boom!

If these comics weren't so fucking ugly, they'd be kind of entertaining in the same way that something as ugly as Fables is kind of entertaining. Never very good, never very original, but there's enough moments of subplot curiosity that you'd want to find out whether certain characters are going to fall in love and when others are going to die. Too bad.

Spider-Man 1602 # 5
Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Ramon Rosanas
Published by Marvel Comics

The art in this comic looks like it was drawn at a much smaller size and then blown up to fit the comic, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, just like it's not necessarily a bad thing to copy the Ditko I must, I must, I must increase my bust pick-up the machinery moment, but in the end, that's too many necessarily and maybes for a five-parter. Maybe there's just too many Spider-Man spin-off alt-reality comics? Nah, that can't be it.

Deathlok # 4
Written by Charlie Huston
Art by Lan Medina
Published by Marvel Comics

There's so many fucking love letters to Frank Miller, it's nice to see somebody come along and write one that's express delivery straight to the cult of Howard Chaykin. No, Deathlok isn't as good as American Flagg, it's not even as good as the first Robocop movie, but it sure is expressly designed to make for more shakes of pleasure than those X-Men stories that go on for fifty fucking years.

Azrael # 5
Written by Fabian Nicieza
Art by Ramon Bachs & John Stanisci
Published by DC Comics

Nice religious war here, it's Jews v. Palestinians, in a Gotham City super-hero comic. "I won't tell nothing to a Zionist pig" and "They want to keep us from existing." Fucking wreck shit, tear it down, kill 'em all ball. Looks like hell, this is a great fucking comic. Look at this:

His leg is weird.

The Astounding Wolf-Man # 21
Written by Robert Kirkman
Art by Jason Howard, FCO & Ivan Plascencia
Published by Image Comics

Invincible is sort of a piece of shit, but it has nice fights and kissing. This Wolf-Man thing has neither, and all of the characters sounds exactly the same as all of Robert Kirkman's other characters. This comic has fans?

Atomic Robo: Revenge of the Vampire Dimension # 1
Written by Brian Clevinger
Art by Scott Wegener
Published by Red 5

If the shelf is going to be made up of a bunch of Alan Moore rip-offs, no real reason not to have a Mignola jack move sitting up there as well. Does it have to be so obvious though? This thing reads like a deposition in a theft of intellectual property case.

Psylocke # 4
Written by Chris Yost
Art by Harvey Tolibao
Published by Marvel Comics

Blah blah blah, looks like Wolverine has a yearly torture party with some dickhead who doesn't have the courage to kill himself. Psylocke can't even be the lead in the climax of her own mini-series, and while that could be read as a some kind of feminist character criticism, read it like this: fuck Psylocke.

Supergirl # 50
Written by who fucking cares
Some of the art is by Cliff Chiang

The guy who drew all the gross out violence in the last issue didn't get to draw any of this issue, but they did give Cliff Chiang a chance to draw some of the stuff in the back. It looks nice, reads like it was written by an eight-year-old who really likes supergirl a whole lot you guys, but it's not like i'm the audience for this character anyway.

Modern Warfare # 3

The nuTorture will make you want to rape-y rape the ladies. What the heck? His buddy is going to rape some lady, and the only reason he wakes up and says "nah man, raping ain't no way to be" is because the lady has too many keys on her keychain? Is she a janitor? Why so many keys?

Power Girl # 9

It takes a while to read and it made me think about getting an erection. It has a urination scene!

Jumbly Junkery # 8

Pleasant. Has a nice cover, only one story about cats. Some parts are kind of sad.

The Talisman # 4

Stephen King can get his shit published by anybody.

Uncanny X-Men # 521

Are you supposed to feel sorry for Matt Fraction? This comic is fucking heed-eous. 

Captain America # 603

So then there's this thing about the wait a second going old school 

oh yeah, pre-Criminal BruPhil, bringing the heater to the Right back in the Batman days. Shit man, that letterer who fucked things up must have a time machine!

Television of the Weak: Shit Goes Down

This week, it's Survivor, Lost & The Bad Girls Club

Survivor Heroes Vs. Villains: "Slay Everyone, Trust No One" - Martin Brown

Survivor invented the structure of reality show competitions, but its dramatic structure differs greatly from most of its progeny. The shows that come close to matching Survivor in quality or watchability—Project Runway, Top Chef, The Amazing Race, some episodes of The Apprentice—tend to show their competitors actively competing 95% of the time. Usually, when you tune in to one of those shows, you see people making dresses, cooking, racing or completing a task. The competition provides the show’s dramatic arc. Survivor is subtly different. Since most of the competition simply involves living with strangers on a deserted island, that’s exactly what comprises most of what you see. Challenges and tribal council provide the show’s dramatic arc, but they only provide about a third of the footage. Most of what you see on Survivor are vignettes of people living together on an island, and the strength of any given episode is contingent on the strength of those vignettes.

The other thing is that there’s no way for producers to have a clear idea of who’ll make it far and who won’t, the way there is with just about every other reality competition. Going in to those other shows, there’s a pretty clear idea of who the strong designers, chefs, racers and business-people are. With Survivor, there’s absolutely no way to predict how the social dynamics will play out. So a season is usually only as strong as its weakest cast member. More often than not, the weakest cast member will go far in the competition. Survivor has been saddled numerous times with a cipher making, say, the final four, and they’ve gotten no footage to be able to characterize them.

Or take last season, which received a lot of attention because of Russell—a Texas millionaire who burned his tribemates’ socks and dumped out their water on the first night, lied about being in Hurricane Katrina, and ran the show up until the final two (when he lost the vote, presumably because everyone knew he already had money.) The problem with the season is that there were absolutely no other compelling characters, so the producers hung the entire season on Russell’s shoulders. They thought they had one of their best seasons—or at least Jeff Probst did. I thought it was one of their weakest. Russell played an amazing game, but the show should be about the social dynamics of the group, and those were lacking. Take Russell out of it, and last season would’ve been Survivor’s worst.

But when you pick Russell up and put him in the middle of a strong group of competitors like those on Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, he becomes immensely more compelling. The premiere episode was probably the best first episode in Survivor history. Two of the reasons for that are that there’s an incredible cast, cherry-picked from the previous 19 seasons, and that most of them came to play. When I decided to cover Heroes vs. Villains for TV of the Weak, I obviously hoped it would be great, but my predictions gave away that I secretly thought it might turn out like Survivor: All Stars, when most of the cast showed up just to be on TV again, and some of the weakest characters went the farthest. One of the most heartening things to happen in the first episode was that I was proven wrong.

90% of the cast of Heroes vs. Villains have distinct and interesting personalities, and most of them are bringing them to bear in their game play. There was already a good amount of strategizing right off the bat, some factions forming in each of the tribes, and a multitude of ways that the dynamics could play out. Plus, the gameplay lead to a good number of personality-driven moments—like heroes poised to play like villains, and the villains all thinking of themselves as heroes. This is the show operating at its best, and the result was a series of unfailingly strong vignettes that carried the full 2 hour episode: Coach and Jerri’s adorable/repulsive show-mance; Tom’s disbelieving stare as he discovered four wild chickens at his camp; Rupert’s failure to make fire with the help of flint, contrasted with Boston Rob’s success making fire by rubbing two sticks together.

Even the opening challenge exceeded expectations. In it, two teams of two race to dig up a hidden sandbag buried in the sand, and carry it back to the team’s mat. In the first match-up (well, the first according to the edit), Stephanie dislocates her shoulder, and we get to watch medical pop it back into place. Then, Rupurt breaks his toe in three places. In another match-up, Sandra unhooks Sugar’s bra. Not to be undone, she slips out of it and runs topless with the sandbag back to her team’s mat. Now, Probst talked about all of that in various places before the episode aired. What he didn’t mention was the best moment of the challenge: When Coach drags Colby, who is clutching onto the sandbag, all the way down the course to his mat, and gets his team the point.

The person ultimately voted out was incredibly satisfying, as well. For one thing, she admittedly hadn’t come to play—which would have made her dull to watch over the season. Yet, she managed to provide at least a handful of memorable moments for the show, even in her brief time on the island—like trying to cuddle with one of her tribe-mates, getting rejected, and then following him around camp anyway. If Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains can keep up that kind of quality with each episode—fascinating challenges, compelling vignettes, and a satisfying end—it’ll be a truly incredible season.

Lost: "The Substitute" - Zeb L. West

I have to say it’s a stroke of genius casting Locke as the nemesis in this final season. As one of the two powerhouse actors on the show, Terry O’Quinn is the best man for the job. But the real genius is in solving the storytelling problem of having the audience connect with a villain who has remained faceless for most of the story. The Lost writers are earning their Emmy by having a long-delayed character take on the aspect of someone who is (conveniently) already familiar to the audience! Which is a relief, because how many folks rolled their eyes when new characters were introduced in the season’s first episode? (I’m lookin’ at you Dogen and Lennon!) Jeez Lost! You’re supposed to be tying up loose ends, not introducing new subplots!

It’s also a stroke of genius casting Peg Bundy (Katey Sagal) as Locke’s love interest. While she may have been a little one-dimensional on Married With Children, she’s a great equal to Locke on Lost, and helps reveal a lot of his vulnerable aspects. Even though they can only truly be happy in the parallel universe where the survivors flew right past the island, it’s nice to see paralyzed Locke with a cougar who loves him warts and all.

At this point, I have many questions about balance. It was all well and good when blondes were with blondes and brunettes with brunettes, but what happens now that Jack is being held responsible for removing Sawyer’s love from the equation? Is it now necessary for Sawyer to take away the only thing Jack loves? (Kate, I guess… I mean, he could have done it on the pier...) If Sawyer were to try and kill Kate, would we then have a new set of rivals to replace Jacob/Nemesis? (I don’t really see how Kate could die, but this outcome would definitely support the blondes vs. brunettes undercurrent.

Other episode highlights:

· Bloody stigmata Jesus-boy whom Richard cannot see, but Locke and Sawyer can.
· A wild-eyed Richard Alpert, who Lock has been storing in a tarp, is running loose around the island, desparate to issue breathless warnings.
· Candiates have been nominated to take over Jacob’s job of protecting the island.
· Locke faceplants gloriously onto his lawn.
· Sawyer swigging Dharma whisky and listening to Raw Power on vinyl.

Although I might complain just as vehemently if exposition were dumped mercilessly into every conversation, I find myself often asking ‘Why didn’t that conversation just continue?’ For instance, Ilana is explaining to Ben why the anti-Locke can’t change shapes anymore. But instead of Ben getting down to business and being like ‘hold up a sec’, they sort of act like the conversation just ended, leaving the viewer with the question ‘why didn’t you just ask a couple more questions and get some vital information?!’ A simple question like ‘how the fuck do you know that, Ilana?’ would go a long way! And heck, it could even be followed up with a healthy ‘while we’re at it, wtf else do you know about the ‘rules’ of this crazy-ass island? While I don’t condone an expository infodump of every Lost mystery, I hope that the writers can find more clever ways to have these conversations end. It strains credibility for anyone on the island not to stop and challenge anyone who seems to know ‘the rules’ the moment they encounter someone with authority.

CONTEST UPDATE: Great submissions for the contest! Just to clarify the rules (read as ‘make them up as I go along’) I will be judging whether a Lost prediction is worthy of being considered. Anything implied by what I’ve written myself, or what has been made obvious already through fan sites, will be disqualified. If you see any bogus predictions, please feel free to call them out and I will weigh the evidence presented.

The Bad Girls Club:  "The Puppet Master" -  Tucker Stone

There was a considerable amount of effort expended in turning the most recent hour of footage into a regular episode of The Bad Girls Club, but don't be fooled: one thing happened, a fight, and that's it. Sure, there was a bit of humorous subplotting involving Annie & Kate, who stayed home sick while the rest of the cast went to Santa Barbara on a drunken road trip, and there was enough of a flashback-ing narrative to pretend the episode was about an early season fight between Kendra & Natalie, but at its core, the only thing the producers had to offer was a fight.

It was a pretty good one.

Having left the show for now, Flo's absence leaves the girls excited to put a new foot forward, to head out, to drink, to fuck, to party. Choosing to make said party a road trip, in minor hope that this will level Natalie's "I run LA" advantage, the girls have chosen Santa Barbara, and they plan to make a day of it. Due to Kate's bout with the swine flu and Annie's concerns for her own health--she has a cold--they stay behind, and throughout the episode, the cameras cut back to show them bickering. (Both girls have long given up on attempting to be friends, but their bickering rarely goes behind snide remarks, passive aggression and behind-the-back faces.) Prior to the Santa Barbara trip, Natalie and Kendra make a trip to "the hair store", where Kendra spends nearly five hundred dollars getting a new weave. (Natalie has been disgusted with the state of Kendra's recent hair choices.) After a minute or two of heavily edited footage involving Kendra & Natalie making time with a few of Natalie's sub-pro athletic friends, the trip finally begins.

The girls begin drinking early, wandering the streets of Santa Barbara and finding themselves the target of catcalls from various passersby, many of whom are enjoying the opportunity to vocalize their negative feelings about reality show stars. The girls eventually begin their first of what will become more than a few extended hide-outs in bars, sequences where they drink, grope each other, and dance alone. At no point throughout the episode are the four--Natalie, Kendra, Lexie or Amber--seen extensively interacting with non-employees, and the camera fails to conceal the withering looks of judgment thrown in their direction by everyone surrounding them. For whatever reason, Santa Barbarians do not share the tolerance for reality television that extends across Los Angeles, and they make no attempt to hide it.

Seed One: You're A Real Fine Woman When You Back That Thing Up

Kendra's make-up brush is in the bag she's sharing with Natalie, but when Natalie discovers that Kendra is going to loan the brush to Amber & Lexie, she becomes strangely disgusted, and her refusal--based on the mistaken assumption that Kendra is loaning the other girls Natalie's personal make-up brush--sends the girls outside of the bar, where a lopsided argument begins. At first, Kendra is attempting to argue for why friends should loan each other make-up brushes, but upon realizing that Natalie's reactions are built around a "my thing, not theirs" reaction, she becomes confused. It's not Natalie's make-up brush, it's hers, and there's no argument to be had. When Natalie finally understands the miscommunication, she stubbornly refuses to apologize or calm down. The two end up pushing each other, and the girls are scolded a bit by a security guard.

(At this point, the heavy hand of production makes an appearance, mixing this security guard moment with the police intrusion that made last week's previews--Natalie is taken aside by police officers to get a ticket for violating open container regulations, but based off the background architecture, this happens somewhere other than the bar the security guard was at. Later in the episode, after the cop sequence described below in Seed Two, the girls are seen leaving the bar before the open container violation stuff occurs, making this episode the most clumsily edited the show has ever had.)

Seed Two: These Pigs Want To Blow My House Down

You can't drink in the street, and when you do, and the cops are right there, they're probably going to give you a ticket, especially if you flaunt it in their face. Natalie likes to tempt fate, so she ends up embroiled in one Life's Most Revealing Moments. Safely put, Natalie is in that group of people who responds to police officers with what she probably imagines to be some kind of homage to Joan Crawford, because nothing puts a cop in his or her place like trying to irritate and belittle one's way out of a ticket. After the initial "you can't give me a ticket" boilerplate, she goes full Wire Hangers, telling the cops that their little tickets aren't a big deal, "even if it's for a million dollars", and after handing over her driver's license, she orders them to compliment her on "the nice picture." (If it's not obvious, Natalie is also rolling her eyes and sighing the entire time.) In another Up Yours to Oxygen, all of the police officers and onlookers have refused to sign waivers, so Natalie ends up being the only person with an unblurred face, and the cameras have been ordered down the street. Under some kind of mistaken sense of loyalty, Kendra decides its time to "stand up for her friend", so she goes over to the circle of cops, screeching at them regarding "intent" and how they should "back off". There's a lot of yelling back and forth--Lexie and Amber keep crossing back and forth down the street, telling Kendra to "come back over here", and the cops eventually grow weary with telling Kendra to go away and be quiet. Natalie seems completely irritated with Kendra's behavior as well, and when the cops finally give up and grab Kendra and threaten to arrest her if she doesn't walk away, the whole scene puts a candle in the farcical birthday cake it has become. There's no measure with which to describe the discomfort inherent in looking at steadicam footage of a young black woman being manhandled by muscular white police officers with blurred faces, but, even with the scattershot editing approach, the producers seem keenly aware of the situation they're in: they've provided minutes of footage to showcase Kendra's drunkenness, there's plenty of audio where the police are heard calmly telling her to "walk away" or "wait over there" as well as yelling "come and get your friend before she gets in trouble". The footage of Kendra's arms pinned behind her remains a complicated piece of imagery, but it's been made impossible to label her as a true victim. In the end, the complexity vanishes--Natalie gets her ticket, Kendra realizes she doesn't want to get in that much trouble "sticking up" for an ungrateful, angry pseudo-friend, and the girls move on.

Seed Three: Don't Everybody Like The Smell of Gasoline?

Although Kendra and Natalie seem to be closing on the realization that the evening has reached its obvious conclusion, Lexie and Amber are as furious as they get: they aren't finished drinking, and a brush with the law shouldn't ruin their evening and send them packing for what is described as a "three-hour car ride." So, with no forethought to why it might not be a good idea, the girls head for another bar and start speed-drinking. Within what appears to be minutes, the girls are the center of ridicule. Kendra and Natalie begin arguing, the onlookers laugh and point, Amber and Lexie try to ignore it, and the girls leave the bar--it's not made clear, but they may have been ejected. Outside, Natalie disappears down the street after a bit of shoving. The other three sit down next to one of those small patches of grass and hosta plants that urban areas throw down in an attempt to make you remember what nature looks like. Some woman nearby yells "Girls gone wild", and the unseen heckler ladles the sarcasm on the phrase with a spoon the size of Denver.

One Rainstorm Away From Mud Wrestling

When Kendra attempts to entice a bored Lexie and a drunk Amber into a Natalie shit-talk, Natalie shows back up. From now until after the fight reaches conclusion, Natalie speaks in a disturbing monotone. She says all the requisite Bad Girls things--fuck you, you're a bitch, i got a ticket--but her voice never really raises, and the calmness with which you speaks is in complete opposition with what her body does.

In other words, Kendra and Natalie beat the crap out of each other, and yet Natalie talks like a Hollywood serial killer the entire time.

Besides the viciousness of the fight, what makes this particular round of hair-pulling, kicking and slapping stand out is how many people it encompasses. Before what must be the show's largest crew member gets involved, Natalie punches Amber in the face, shoves Lexie, kicks Kendra multiple times, punches and scratches two production assistants, shoves a cameraman, and eventually kicks a van door. (That last image above? That's a crew member attempting to separate Natalie's hand from Amber's hair.) It's not the most entertaining fight the show has ever had--the involvement of so much of the film crew means that the fight isn't filmed with an eye for comprehension--but it is remarkable for its extensive cast.

The fight eventually simmers down--the producers make a point of jacking Natalie's mic up loud enough so that you can hear the gigantic man holding her repeating the phrase "That's enough"--and the girls are separated, with Amber, Kendra and Lexie being driven home by the most depressed looking production assistant ever seen on television, a young woman who looks like she would rather fuck her way through a Russian gulag than spend three hours driving Bad Girls home.

The Aftermath: Mix In The Dirt Our Brother's Blood

Sans Natalie, the girls have returned home, excitedly showing Annie & Kate their bruises and filthy, dirt covered bodies. While Kate seems incapable of enjoying something she wasn't there to see, Annie finds the entire thing hysterical, and she remarks that it's about time for "some Team A-Plus." After a bit of time--either that night, or the next morning--Amber finds Kendra crying in the shower, which she has been doing for about an hour. Why is she crying, Amber asks, using the baby voice she usually throws at her boyfriend? Because she feels used, because she feels ashamed, says Kendra. After a moment of discussion, the producers return to Natalie, in what must have been the minutes after the other girls had left for home. Having convinced the gigantic man to let her go, Natalie walks off down the street, and while we never see him, a producer is yelling at her, begging her to come back and get in the van. "Where are you going?" he yells. "Come back", he pleads. "This is ridiculous!", he cries.

Natalie flags down a car and demands the driver's cell phone. "It's an emergency" she says, "You can pull over here while I make my call", she orders.

Someone comes to get her. She disappears into the night. Her mic is disconnected.

(Next week's episode will be a clip show, involving Flo, the Ambers from last season, and a whole bunch of superfluous footage.)

-Martin Brown, Zeb L. West, Tucker Stone, 2010

Too Many Movies Tuesday: On A Wednesday?

Precaution Against Fanatics
Directed by Werner Herzog, 1969

It's only 12 minutes long, and how long that feels depends on how much one enjoys watching a bunch of oddballs repeat various phrases before an old man walks over and starts telling the camera they have to "go". There's a solid chunk of funny lines that get some screen time, the best being when a horse track's resident doper yanks his shirt open and says "this is the naked chest of an honest man! Dishonest! No! Look at this naked chest!" Herzog describes the movie as one long practical joke, and there's a couple of flamingos in it.

God's Angry Man
Directed by Werner Herzog, 1980

The best part of this documentary on an old school televangelist is the extended sequence where the guy reads off the amount of donations coming in live. Revealing far more about himself than when he's interviewed, Dr. Gene Scott doesn't sound like a greedy sociopath at first, but by the time he's reached the fourth real-time minute of mumbling out numbers while snatching more pledges away from an offscreen hand, it's not difficult to grasp how twisted the guy really is. By the time the movie reaches the end of its running time, with him and his 70's mustached crew yelling at little wind-up monkey dolls in a strange ritual meant to humiliate "the bureaucrats", it's just an extra large hammer hitting a nail that's long buried. Whether this particular shitbird necessitated the focus or not, God's Angry Man is a delightful slice of justifiable ass kicking. Picking on Christians is easy, and it's fucking boring. Picking on some Christians who deserve it--that's art.

The Perfect Getaway
Starring Timothy Olyphant, 2009

Most movies set in Hawaii--the ones that aren't Predator--come bearing the one piece of Hollywood gossip that's become well-known fact: these aren't movies that actors turn down, because it's a free trip and a helluva vacation. (Track down old interviews with the cast members of Lost who deigned to speak out prior to the realization that they'd been handed a meal ticket--if memory serves, at least three of them took the assumed short-term gig solely for the hotel rooms.) Getaway isn't much of a movie, and the parts that are don't amount to more than a quarter of its length. Excepting one over-the-top editing trick that works better than any line delivery would as a "this person is really, really crazy" piece of exposition, the effects are bizarrely chosen and too CGI'd to tolerate. The plot is spastic, with a nearly twenty minute flashback sequence stuck right in the middle of the film's first major fight scene, thus annihilating the only momentum the film had (surprisingly) earned. And yet?

Olyphant. While he can't take credit for the content of his bizarrely appealing lines, the method with which he delivers them--animated, crazed, hungry--isn't to be shared. Stopping midstory to pant out a love for Nicholas Cage, childishly jealous of his girlfriend's preference for Johnny Depp, proudly anointing himself "An American Jedi--that's for you", Olyphant's performance nearly redeems a crassly put together B-movie, only for the filmmakers to chuck it away at the climax when they choose to rely on an oddly unappealing Milla Jovovich, who apparently decided she didn't really want to act anymore after she filmed her introductory scenes. It's a gorgeous movie--Kauai is, to put it mildly, impossible to shoot poorly--but it's also tremendously slow whenever Olyphant isn't onscreen, and it ends up being a film that barely deserves to get classified as thriller.

The Silence
Features Nudity, 1963

While the classic SNL parody of the stereotypical 60's Swedish film looms heavy over Silence, there's still something to be gained in watching a shitty little boy piss in a hallway after getting a private display of acrobatics from a group of foreign dwarves, the same dwarves that dressed him up in a Strawberry Shortcake dress for no discernible reason. (Because it's funny? Was Bergman interested in being funny on this one?) Of course, that scene isn't all that The Silence has to offer--there's also a butler that looks like Orville Redenbacher, one of the first major film depictions of a woman masturbating onscreen, and there's even a buggery moment, although it isn't that obvious, no matter what the internet tells you. (It's not really Bergman's fault, but if the audience is supposed to pick up on anal sex, it helps if people have their pants pulled down, or off entirely.) While it's short on plot--the smart sister is sick, the sexy sister is horny, the kid is king of the shitheads--The Silence is a pretty movie, laden with all kinds of Kubrickian hallways to go along with the classic look-at-these-cheekbones close-ups that made the cranky Swede a superstar.

The Steel Helmet
Directed by Samuel Fuller, 1950

This is what they're all supposed to be like. Courageous, innovative, and, even at sixty years old, unique as hell. There's something pretty humiliating when a movie from 1950--shot in ten days, dependent on stock footage and B-movie character actors--remains a far stronger indictment of racism and chickenhawk patriotism than any war film of recent memory. War stories don't have to be political, but their nature makes it so. "If you die, I'll kill you." Yeah. That's from this one. This is the kind of shit that grown-ups are supposed to make.

For All Mankind
Features Lots of Space, 1989

Although the absence of onscreen talking heads and the lack of any subtitled explanation for what or who one is seeing make for a decent attempt at turning For All Mankind into an "art" film, the movie is pretty much going to be won or lost on the strength of the found footage that it consists of. On the big screen, it's probably revelatory--much of the NASA footage it contains had gone unseen until Al Reinert assembled it, and those moments that had--Armstrong's touchdown, the first time a human being saw the entirety of Earth from orbit--have lost little of their impact. Brian Eno's score is excellent wallpaper, and it's difficult not to feel the excitement stirring when seeing a massive room of scientists realize that their life's work had actually paid off. Somewhere amidst the unseen voices, one of the astronauts explains it like this: "I just told myself it wasn't going to happen. If I believed this was really happening, I'd never have been able to do my job." It's a touching bit of surprise, one that Reinert's commitment to anonymity eventually drives home. These were the people who made it happen, but what they did, they did in no small part for everyone. (And they don't even include a fucking "earn this" to ruin the moment.)

No One Will Play With Me
So Many Fucking Children, 1976

Another Herzog short, this one a weird little fable about the boy that no one wants to play with. His clothes are hand-me-downs! His parents beat him! He has a talking crow! By the end, all the kids have gathered together to play with a couple of guinea pigs that appear to be drunk, and everybody has learned a lesson that nobody attempted to teach them. Being kind by osmosis? The acting is shit, but hey: most of these kids just cleared toddler status.

From Paris With Love
Produced by Luc Besson, 2010

After a jaw-droppingly bad domestic scene that succeeds only in showcasing the charisma black hole that is Jonathan Rhys Meyers, From Paris With Love delivers two excellent action setpieces, both of which feature John Travolta killing lots and lots of what he excitedly refers to as "Asian dudes". While both sequences seem stolen directly off of an HK actioner's storyboard, they're still pretty fucking satisfying, as are the two brief scenes where Travolta's Charlie Wax attempts to explain the movie's plot, eventually resorting to repeating the word "Terrorists!" Otherwise, the remaining 80% of the movie is almost completely unbearable, a hodgepodge of irritating dialog and Hogan's Alley shoot-outs, and a particularly promising scene--Wax shooting a female sleeper agent point blank at a dinner party--is choreographed with so little care towards comprehensibility that it's questionable whether there was any fake blood available on set that day.

Everlasting Moments
Directed by Jan Troell, 2008

It's not supposed to be a contest, but if it were, here's the winner.

Everlasting Moments loses a bit of its power when it's on television, but that's pretty much the only way anyone got the chance to see it. (Even then, the film has ended up as a "Blockbuster Exclusive" DVD for what must have been financial reasons, but The Criterion Collection will apparently release the film in the near future.) It's gotten pretty solid reviews, one of those from King of the Iconoclasts Armond White, who went so far as to say "Don't talk about 2009 movies unless you've seen Jan Troell's comeback film. Everything that makes movies matter is in Everlasting Moments..." (He then goes onto plump for Gamer over Avatar, so this happens to be one of those times when Armond is spot-the-fuck-on.)

Still, Everlasting Moments isn't exactly what those raves describe. While its plot is dependent on its main character's lifelong relationship with art, with her photography eventually becoming the smoldering core of a will to live, the film isn't really about taking pictures. It's about her, the drunken, abusive husband that torments and loves her, the girls she raises to become women, the crippling brutality of poverty & sexism, but more than anything, it's about determination. Any plot synopsis might end up with it being classed alongside something like Angela's Ashes or In America, but Everlasting Moments is able to surpass that kind of period self-worship on its oddly fervent commitment to family. Whereas the term is one that gets thrown around mostly in political based culture war arguments, Troell's obsessed study of what "family values" might actually mean, what time does to the relationships that blood (or love) create ends up as some kind of bizarrely relevant time capsule. Although the impoverished circumstances that an alcoholic patriarch creates give way a bit in the concluding moments, by then, the film has already rounded itself to the point of view that something like Big Fan seems terrified to acknowledge: whatever it takes to make you happy works just fine, and whatever you have to do to survive is worth creating the space to do it in. Interestingly enough, the film's message only becomes clear as the years it depicts begin to mount up--even at the halfway point, Everlasting Moments behaves like any other period drama set in squalor. But somewhere along the way--when a mother's loss can only be realized through a haunting memorial, or when a startled crush looks down at his howling dog and realizes how long he's been desired--the film vaunts right over the circumstantial details that populate it.

They still make them like this. You just have to work harder to track them down.

-Tucker Stone, 2010

Romancing The Stone: Dating the Last Man

Something about a truck accident, one little warehouse in hurricane alley and another truck accident all apparently amounts to the reason I don't have The Sword Volume 3 to read.  And they say diamonds are a girls best friend? Diamonds are suppose to signify the deepening of a commitment, not the brutal interruption of a burgeoning relationship. Huh.

And who knows...this could have dire consequences! I was excited for The Sword Volume 3, even if it's in hopes of things getting back to how they were in the first volume. But in the meantime, I picked up Y: The Last Man Volume 1. And I think this could be the start of something special....

I know nothing about this comic book. I've heard it referenced in a sentence before. That sentence is usually "you might like Y: The Last Man, Nina." But I've never heard anything about the plot.

(Now although I've got the whole volume right here, I've learned a lesson or two. No more hasty acting out like my inflight rendezvous with The Sword. I'm gonna take this one issue at a time.)

And the first thing I have to say is - what great storytelling! Back when this column was called The Virgin Read I often mentioned "the question." They say that every good book, play, screenplay, movie, etc., has one question that is somehow posed to the reader or watcher, something that should show up in the first page or five minutes or so. (Now, this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it seems to be one that these stories often break, usually at their peril.) But Y poses one right on the first page, with its first few panels. It's delivered as a statement: "All the men are dead." And of course, we wonder why? What happened? How are all the men dead?

It's an immediate hook, especially with that police woman ready to blow her own brains out after saying it. She doesn't want to live without her husband? Without her partner? Has she grasped how widespread it is, and she's too terrified to continue?

What's great about this issue is not just that first question that it poses, but all the subsequent ones: What's up with Yorick's Mom and that Senator? What's the deal with Agent 355....and now that I know she's an agent, how does she relate to the Senator? What's with the amulet? How and why did that scientist woman impregnate herself with a clone? And of course, the most obvious question of all - which I can ask because of what the title proudly declares - why doesn't Yorick die? Why is he the last man?

A big hurrah for the love story, for women who kick ass, for 24-style formatting (especially since 24 has forgotten how to make it work) and for monkeys. Who doesn't love a monkey? (Except for Hit Monkey. Somebody tried to get me to buy that--really? Are you an eight year old?) The last four pages - the ones that follow the word NOW - are AWEsome. So well done. I'm intrigued by the scientist gripping her head with the dead men around her saying, "Oh God, this is my fault." It is?!?! How?!? Did birthing a clone throw the cosmic energy of the Universe off somehow? Oh, I am so intrigued! I am so excited to read more, because I get the feeling that this story pays off. It seems like it's science fiction that's just science-y enough for there to be some logic that must be adhered to, and fictional enough that I won't have any problem suspending my disbelief and play along.

Oh oh oh! This is gonna be fun!  

And one last thing. Last but not least: the art! I'm usually not a fan of these kind of newsprint-ish pages. I'm not sure why, it's just a sensory thing for me, I think. Nevertheless, I didn't mind it here. And, yes, I actually enjoyed the art. It's slightly cartoonish, but just in that way that reminds me that I'm reading a comic book. All the lines and body shapes and facial expressions make sense. I'm a fan of the little details like the monkey's diaper, or the blue tint of the scientist's glasses.  

Can't wait for more. And yes, okay. YES. I did peek ahead and read just the first part of the next issue. I just wanted to see if Yorick was definitely alive.

He is!

-Nina Stone, 2010

Television of the Weak: "A Respectful Black Woman I Can Take Home To My Mother"

This week, it's Survivor, Lost and The Bad Girls Club

Survivor: Heroes Vs. Villains - Martin Brown

The thing that's going to be make or break for the villains is how many have showed up to play, because it looks like at least a couple haven't. For the Villains' tribe to do well initially, they'll need to confront the Heroes' obvious strength advantage with sheer will. Someone like Courtney, who seems to have no real stake in the game, will drag them down. Tyson might just be there to preen. Gamers like Sandra and Parvati might just assume they're not going to get far, anyway; while players like Boston Rob and Russell might end up playing too hard for their own good--which tends to be a weird little liability in All-Stars seasons. All of this means that ciphers like Coach and Danielle (and probably Courtney and Tyson too) stand to do really well. In anticipation of Thursday's 2-hour premiere, let's take a look at each of the villains individually, and make some predictions.

CBS is promoting Coach Wade's involvement with Heroes vs. Villains as heavily as Russell's and Rupert's, which is interesting because he's not nearly as liked as those two. It may be a hint that he's going to be around for a while (it also might be a hint that he's an unstoppable quote-machine.) Most of the villains are known for dishonesty, but with Coach it's the opposite. If some enterprising player finds a way to use Coach's vote, they can probably get pretty far. And Coach is so unthreatening that he could probably avoid a vote, even deep in the game. I'm calling him as runner-up.

Courtney probably cares the least of any of the 20 returning survivors, which makes her prime real estate for some gamer's alliance. I have a feeling she'll sneak past the first couple of votes because, even though the villains will most likely lose the first couple of challenges, people will try to start taking out power-players and former winners first. Courtney will probably breeze through for a while simply because players will be concentrating elsewhere. I think she'll make it to 5th place.

In terms of characters, Danielle is easily the person that the audience cares least about. She made it to 2nd place of a fairly unmemorable season, and didn't do one thing of note the entire time. (Rumor has it, she thought for sure she was going to win, but only got 2 out of 7 votes.) Of course, this means that she'll probably also go far by aligning with stronger players along the way. In the end, I imagine Candace picking Coach over her to go with to the jury, landing her in a respectable 3rd place.

Jerri is one of the earliest Survivor villains, but I don't really think she's much of a player. She rolled over pretty easily in the first All-Stars season, and I remember next to nothing from her supposedly memorable first season. I think she's going to have trouble finding allies on her tribe, putting her out early - 19th place.

For my money, Parvati is one of the best actual players in this game, along with Cirie, Boston Rob, and J.T. But after winning Fans vs. Favorites season, she's going to have to completely overhaul her strategy to go far in this game. She seems to be aware of that, so I think she'll do well initially. However, I think there's going to be so many shifting dynamics, she's sure to become a target at some point. I think she'll be the 7th voted out/14th place.

Randy could do well in Heroes vs. Villains, because he's a strong player that will probably get lost in the shuffle. He knows it, too, and he plans to fly under the radar initially. He will run into problems socially though, and I think that'll be his Achilles heel. My guess is that he'll find himself on the outs after some tribe reshuffling and go out in 13th.

Boston Rob basically won the first Survivor season. By marrying his final-two-mate Amber, he reaped the benefits of running the game, without actually winning the vote. I suspect that not winning All-Stars will only help him here. His seasons happened so long ago that people will probably forget just how strong a player he is--at least, until it becomes an individual game after the merge. He'll go out squarely in 10th place.

CBS is doing a major publicity push for Russell, and he's got a major advantage in that none of the other players had seen his season when they started. Still, I don't think he's going to do very well here. The villains are going to notice him playing way too hard pretty quick, and his ego is not going to mesh well with the tribe. I expect an early departure, 17th place.

Sandra could be a hell of a player in Heroes vs. Villains, but she's coming in with three distinct disadvantages: 1) She won her season; 2) She's convinced she can't win this season, and 3) She's one of the older women. I'm pretty sure the villains will lose the first immunity challenge. As a result, I think she's going to be the first one out.

Of all the players, Tyson did the worst in his season. If Boston Rob--who wasn't even on the jury in his initial season--is any indication, however, that's going to be a huge advantage for him in this game. Tyson's not nearly as good a player as Rob, so he won't win, but I'm predicting a 6th place finish.

You can check out my predictions for the heroes in last week's TV column. For those of you keeping track (which I'm pretty sure is just me) here are my complete predictions for elimination order: Sandra, Jerri, Stephanie, Russell, Sugar, JT, Parvati, Randy, James, Tom, Rob, Colby, Cirie, Amanda, Tyson, Courtney, Rupert, Danielle, Coach, and Candace as the winner. Let's do this.

Lost: "What Kate Does" – Zeb L. West

It’s the final season of Lost! All secrets revealed! All mysteries unraveled! All dead characters get cameos! I can’t wait to FINALLY know the answer to the mystery! I may not remember what the mystery is, exactly, but I HAVE to know it! Let’s see… it had something to do with polar bears made out of black smoke… and a statue of a big foot that prevents women from having babies… and some lottery numbers that are causing an electromagnetic disturbance… OKAY FINE! So what if I don’t remember what it is I wanted to know so badly?!

What I do know is that Lost needs to pull off quite a trick this last season! And it’s not a trick that has anything to do with how Richard Alpert can live forever, or why any of the Losties were ‘chosen’ by the island, or any of the myriad unexplained plot points. It has to do with this damn story finally settling into a recognizable genre!

At a certain point, the writers will finally have to bow to the science-fantasy fanboys who need to be able to distill it down to a simple and unsatisfying statement like: “Oh, it’s just a _________ story. I knew it all along.”

“Oh, it’s just a parallel universe story. Typical.”
“Oh, it’s just the story about a handful of mortal pawns being toyed with by two ancient and moralistic forces. Ho Hum.”
“Oh, it’s just a story about an alien presence which has been trapped on an island by scientists who foolishly hoped to weld its power. How jejune.”
Or even…
“Oh, it’s just a story about scientists who, through their unchecked ambitions, create an abomination they are ultimately unable to control, which wreaks havoc on a handful of bizarrely interrelated, malcontent air-travelers. Meh.”

So, why is this such a hard trick to pull off? Because the revelation has to satisfy five seasons worth of frustratingly compounded mysteries, which upon scrutiny only dilate into further mysteries, which in turn unearth deeper mysteries which are themselves shrouded in thick, syrupy mystery. Until suddenly it’s clear that we have almost EVERY SINGLE SCI-FY/FANTASY TROPE IN EXISTENCE all slapped into one monolithic ABC show. Time travel, parallel universes, resurrection, biblical references, extra-sensory perception, numerology, monsters, immortals, gods, demons, polar bears! Once we can distill it down to a single dismissive sentence, will it really justify the waiting, speculating and head-scratching of the mid-to-late 2000’s? I can’t wait to find out!

So what about this week’s episode? I find the most boring part of any review is synopsis, so I’m going to try to limit my plot descriptions to two sentences this season:

Sayid returns from the dead, but The Others think he’s tainted because he revived a couple hours late, so they try to get Jack to poison him, and unfortunately for us all, Jack fails to even poison himself. Meanwhile, Claire has turned into Rousseau (symbolized by nappy-ass hair) and Sawyer is busy trying to win an Emmy.

The only thing I can honestly say I want to see this season is the reunion of Jin and Sun. They they’re the only couple I actually like anymore.

CONTEST! In honor of the final season of LOST, I’d like to have a small contest. Here’s how it works. Make a prediction in the comments section about a revelation that will happen this season. If you are spot-on with your guess, and I deem the prediction suitably significant (by my discerning standards), I will send you a small but extremely awesome LOST-themed prize! Good luck!

The Bad Girls Club: "Go With The Flo" by Tucker Stone

This episode wants to be about a lot of things, but at the end, it is only about one thing: Flo, Florina, or, as she was once accidently labeled by the producers in the first episode, Florian. Even in the face of an actual case of the swine flu, even when the show enters the precarious territory of an on-camera three-way, Flo is the sweltering leech pulsating on the throat of this Bad Girls Club episode. Need some proof?

The show opens with helicopter shoots of Flo going to the doctor to have a check-up on her foot. Roll that around in your mouth, ignore the taste: America's job prospects are stagnant. The ongoing culture war has infected Captain America comics. The creators of the Chuck television show are holding interviews to discuss fan reaction regarding a will-they or won't-they plot twist on a show that 14 people watch. 

And the Bad Girls Club--the most successful television show on Oxygen, the network for women--have hired a helicopter to capture the sight of a manic depressive narcissist driving around in an SUV. 

Enough with the doom. Back at the house, one of the girls admits that she dreamed about Flo the night before, and in the dream, Flo borrowed her underwear. And with that, the dramatic music begins. Cut to an overflowing garbage can. Cut to day old macaroni in a pan. Cut to Kate, coughing. Cut to Flo. Cut to the girls. Something is coming.

 

Make that two somethings--Amber is on the phone with her boyfriend. He is coming to see her in a week, although the show's producers will edit that week into what appears to be two days. He says many things to her on the phone, almost all of them gross, but none of them funny. The idea of boys puts Lexie on the prowl, and she explains to the other girls her desires--"a cute little tall country boy" without "fucked up teeth." 

To kill some time, Nicole "from the Allure Dance Studio" has come over to the house to teach them how to use the stripper pole. (For accuracy, Nicole is the owner of Allure Dance Studio, and their website is poledanceallure, and they seem like a perfectly respectable--albeit niche--business, and one has to question whether it's best for their owner to be identified as a "friend" of Natalie's.) Some of the girls do well on the dance pole, but Flo doesn't, leading Natalie to say "Florina doesn't know how to be cute."

Although Flo doesn't hear those words, her roommates disdain for her is obvious, leading her to a confessional where she says "This is where I belong. I was meant to be here, and I'm not going anywhere." It's an intensely felt statement, one that brings into question how much involvement fate--or, if you will, the Lord--has to do with which chain-smoking bisexual from Staten Island gets selected to live in a house in Los Angeles for a short period of time during the final months of 2009. Has Flo been selected by a Higher Power? Are the other girls blasphemous cretins, questioning the wisdom of their Creator?

Returning to more earthy affairs, a coughing Kate is trying to call her ex-boyfriend Paul, who broke up with her due to a lesbian encounter in the last episode. In a surprising "I mean it when I say I don't care about reality television" twist, Paul has disconnected his phone and changed his number. In a tear-strewn conversation with Kendra, Kate explains that Paul isn't the kind of guy who breaks up and gets back together. He just moves on.

That night, the girls are at the club. Amber is dancing with a man who bought her shots. Her definition of "dancing" is grinding her rear end into the man's crotch, effectively giving him a standing lap dance. The gentleman eventually decides that he should give her some time to rest, so he picks her up and helps her grind into his crotch without having to stand up. The ensuing feast of visual pornography disgusts the other clubgoers, one of whom turns out to be the man's fiance. (This fact is first delivered in the classic bad-night-at-the-club line, "Bitch, I got a ring on my finger.")

While the fight that ensues isn't particularly surprising, it lasts much longer than these scenes usually do. Amber, Natalie and Kendra are all involved, with the fight eventually making it into the street, where the police and producers put an end to it with some stern words. (Along with the stern words, a lot of large men with large arms provide assistance.) When returning to the house, Flo is completely ignored due to her refusal to help any of the girls out, thus ruining her status as someone who "has your back."

At this point in the show, Kate leaves for the hospital. She will not return this episode, excepting for a short confessional where she is wearing a mask covering her nose and mouth. In a later phone call, she reports that she has been diagnosed with a strand of the swine flu. It's impossible to determine when this phone call actually took place.

And now we have the arrival of Rich, who will eventually go on to win a place in the hall of fame for performing a brilliant improvised dance sequence to the sound of Flo and Kendra screaming at one another. Before we reach that point, he will merely wander around making one feel uncomfortable, as he is a mildly unattractive man whose girlfriend feels the need to braid her hair before he arrives--which she has never done before, yet has now done in such extensive fashion that she appears to be his little white female twin. Natalie, in one of her rare literary moments, describes the two of them as "Predator versus the Alien. The two of them together are the oddest couple I've ever met in my life." Kendra attempts to ascribe their relationship as a case of "to each his own", but considering Kendra's own compulsions towards vanity, this seems mildly disingenuous.

Amber shows Rich the bathroom, refers to the bidet as a duvet, and explains that it is an object designed so that men can clean their penises. This is also when we first experience Amber's "baby-voice", which Rich seems to like very much, which no one else does, and which will be used off and on (but mostly on) throughout the remainder of the episode.

We return to Flo, who is repeating to herself "I will show you gangster" for some reason. Although it's never dealt with again, the producers insert a scene where it is revealed that Flo has been receiving stuffed animals and flowers from her friends back home. Natalie believes that Flo is lying, and that Flo is giving these flowers to herself. This sequence leads one to the sight of Flo writing in a diary (showing the viewer "gangster") about all the girls, what's "wrong" with them, and then she hands these pages off to Amber so that Amber can see what Flo "really thinks about her" because Flo "really cares about her." She then takes the pages and pastes them to the wall. Annie stops and glances at the notes in the hallway and, after noticing the innumerable grammatical errors, says "She's an idiot who doesn't even know how to write." Walking away, she looks back and says "You know, she's so inconsequential to me that I don't even care."

Although Annie will later reveal--in a priceless Team Annie moment if there ever was one--that she does, in fact, care, it's difficult to process what Flo has done here if one is incapable of remembering teenage girl fiction from middle school. What's happened is that Flo--in a desperate attempt to become relevant to a house full of girls who have tired of her so much they no longer even pick on her--has pretty much posted a photo negative of a MASH note. It's a good trick--Natalie and Kendra are too volatile to let something this aggressive slide, but even then, they find Flo's behavior almost incomprehensible. Writing notes about your roommates and posting them on the wall? That would seem immature in a college sorority house, and in a house full of 20-somethings, it's so comical that one questions if Flo was pushed to do so by the producers. (After all, has Flo shown any inclination to write in a diary since the show began?)

The first result of Flo's attack is that she is left at home while the girls travel to the club. Lexie's attempts to throw herself on the bartender end with him telling her that "she's a nice girl" and will probably find a man no problem, which he says over his shoulder as he walks away. Meanwhile, Kendra has started up a conversation with Marc, who the producers list as a "Simple Ohio Boy". How simple, you ask?

Marc: "I love...I love...dark skin."

Kendra: "I ain't dark-skinned!"

Marc: "You're very bronze, a respectful black woman I can take home to my mother."

Kendra: "You want to come home and kiss and hold me until I go to sleep?"

Marc: "I'm up for other things as well."

Now, you might think that Kendra was picking up a doughy country boy because she wanted to have sex with a doughy country boy, but that's probably because you've forgotten that, at heart, Kendra is a generous friend concerned about the lack of testicular interference during Lexie's stay at the house. After returning to the house, Kendra tells Lexie to put on her swimsuit and join her and Marc in the pool. Kendra and Marc head for the hot tub, where they make out a bit. Flo, who is watching poolside and chain-smoking, tells Lexie to give the two some privacy. 

Kendra: "Lexie. Come get in the hot tub."

Flo: "Oh my god."

In the confessional, Kendra: "Lexie's an attractive girl, and when I've had a few drinks, I like to kiss attractive girls."

And from here, nature takes its course. All clothing is removed, the three attempt to kiss in a way that will allow each individual tongue a chance in each individual mouth, and Flo eventually goes inside. (After Marc makes it clear that it freaks him out how she keeps staring.)

The next day, Marc is sent packing--"not much of a conversationalist, but a really good kisser". Lexie feels a bit of post-evening regret, but Kendra talks her down from the precipice. The day speeds by, leading up to the massive Flo fallout. It begins with Flo attempting to speak to a lights-out, bedridden Annie (at 1:45AM), and Annie responds by screaming at Flo to "get the fuck out of here". When Flo tries to continue the conversation, Annie makes herself clear: she's not going to have fake conversations about "how she's doing" with people who write fucked up mean shit and post it on the wall. With that, she sacks out, and Flo finds herself at the heart of a fight. Natalie tries to calmly explain that Flo's intentions--which were, supposedly, to help--have made all of the girls incredibly angry, and that Flo has to accept some of the responsibility for those reactions. After Kendra gets involved--ridiculing Flo's vocal inflection and behavior--Rich performs his dance, and it's an incredibly strong piece of clowning, the sort of thing one might expect out of a young Bill Irwin. There's a hip move he throws in, a snakey pump of the hips, and it hits right when Flo yells "Flo is the realest bitch in here." Excellence personified.

As the fight continues, Amber and Rich depart for sexual intercourse--he yells "We're about to have sexual intercourse"--and while we can't see them when they hit the mattresses, we do hear the following exchange:

Rich: "I want you on top."

Amber: "But it makes you kind of carsick."

The fight continues unabated. There's a lot of "Fuck you bitch", repeated at varying intervals into faces, and while Flo eventually starts pushing Kendra, the fight never moves into fisticuffs. Lexie, in her attempts to separate Flo and Kendra, finds herself in a shoving match with Flo as well. This is around the time that Flo's anger switches to performative insanity, the portion of the show where she yells "This house got the devil in it." (Again, there's a theological question here. If everyone you live with doesn't like you, is it because of your behavior? Or is it because Satan is real, and he lives inside the house with you?)

As Flo begins angrily packing her suitcases, Lexie starts giggling. Flo turns on her--why is she laughing? What's so funny? Don't laugh at me.

Lexie: "I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing because I farted and it smelled bad."

In another room, Annie: "Flo, I don't care. Just pack."

The girls find their water balloons.

Flo is leaving the house, she has a canvas bag that says "Love is..."

The girls are throwing water balloons at Flo as she exits the house to a waiting SUV. They miss her for the most part, but one of them hits the "Love is..." bag.

Flo gives chase, doesn't catch them. She's gone.

The girls hold hands in prayer. And there's the answer.

God was in charge all along.

Next week, somebody is getting arrested.

-Martin Brown, Zeb L. West, Tucker Stone, 2010