Critter's Cave

There have been many, many movies based on comic books over the years, from The Mask to From Hell to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – the list goes on and on. However, I don’t think any of the directors of those movies “get it” like Sam Raimi does.

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With the recent release of the Bubba Ho-Tep DVD, I thought I’d republish the review I wrote on October 23rd when it was shown at the Indie Memphis Film Festival.
Bubba Ho-Tep ***** out of 5
An ancient Egyptian soul-sucker is on the loose at the Mud Creek Shady Rest home in east Texas, and only Elvis Presley and JFK can save the day. Unfortunately, Elvis broke his hip twenty years ago and has to use a walker, and JFK had part of his brain replaced with sand and his skin dyed black by the CIA. This sounds like a B-Movie plot (which it is) and you would expect Hollywood to ignore a movie like this completely (which it has), especially when Elvis is played by Bruce Campbell, star of the Evil Dead series of films. However, this is no B-Movie. Beyond the basic premise, this script has unexpected depth and compassion for its characters and continually suprises the viewers throughout the course of the film’s 92 minute running time.

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Tolkein purists might rage and rail over what Peter Jackson has changed in this movie, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. This is a cinematic acheivement like no other.
Billy Boyd as Pippin really came into his own in this installment. As he sang to Denethor while Faramir marched the army of Gondor into its doom, you could hear his heart breaking. His conversation with Gandalf about death as the armies of Mordor are about to breach the final gate, managed to come off as an initimate moment even while carnage was taking place all around them – really a wonderful moment in the film.

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The first Shrek came out several years ago, and was an instant smash, and if this weekend’s box office numbers are any indication, Shrek 2 is following in the original’s footsteps.

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As if anyone didn’t know by now, Universal Studios owns the film rights to almost all of the classic movie monsters of cinema – The Mummy, the Wolfman, Frankenstein, and the grandaddy of them all, Dracula. In recent years they have had two popular movies based on The Mummy (and a “spin-off” in the form of The Scorpion King). With Van Helsing, Universal has decided to give us a union of classic monsters not seen since their heydey during the golden age of cinema.

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I just finished reading Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions. I have always loved his writing, and am an advid fan of his blog – lots of interesting things there. Anyway, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions is, as its title leads one to believe, a collection of his short stories, poems, and other bits. I have been a avid consumer of Science Fiction, fantasy, and the like as far back as I can remember (I cut my fiction teeth on Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising Sequence, and Lloyd Alexander’s tales of Taran the Pig-Herder before I even started grade school). My wife normally has no interest in any of that sort of fiction beyond a slight acceptance of Star Trek. On this day she picked up the book, read for a bit, then announced “I LOVE Neil Gaiman”. Fortunately I was able to take that statement in context and ferret out that she meant she loved Neil Gaiman’s writing, and was not lusting after his body. At least now I have an excuse to get Good Omens.

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Well, MidSouthCon 22 is over and I’m back to my paying job.
The con was a blast, and even though I was sore until Wednesday, I can’t wait until next year! We had a few bumps (I got caught in a game of musical hotel rooms and registration had some issues), but I would
still take that over the Feds crawling all over the place like in 2002. I’ve got the pics I uploaded available here. Enjoy!
As a bonus, I’m going to be seeing Hellboy tonight at a free screening with tickets I got at the Con! WooHoo!
More later (maybe!)

Been a while since I posted a non-test blog. Got a little bit of time, so I thought I would.
MidSouthCon 22 / DeepSouthCon 42 in Memphis, TN at the Holiday Inn Select at Airways and Democrat is almost here! There are two more ConComm meetings, then on the 24th of the month we have to get the food for the ConSuite, and on the 25th we unload everything at the hotel, then have the “bag stuffing” party that night. I am getting pumped. Now I’ve got to go work on my volunteer schedule to make sure I have the Hearts tourney free!

Yeah, prolly every blog out there is using that title tonight, but I just can’t help it. The king has been crowned, and his name is NOT Aragorn. No, his name is Peter Jackson, and he and his little film project in New Zealand has just run roughshod over the awards this year, winning every award he and the movie were nominated for. It has tied Ben Hur and Titanic for the most statues in one year. I am SO happy that “Into the West” from LotR:RotK won Best Song!!! That song is on my personal Top Ten Favorite Songs of All Time.
Hmm…maybe Hollywood has figured out why 7 out of the top 10 highest-grossing films of all time are genre films (8 out of 10 if you count Finding Nemo. Could it be because they’re actually GOOD FILMS? Nah, that can’t be it. Well, maybe PJ has set them straight. We’ll see next year.
Later,
critter