November 2003

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The Frederic Wertham Memorial Cover Gallery

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Strange Worlds #5-- cover by the immortal Wallace Wood

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 30, 2003 9:01 PM

 

The Outbursts of Everett True by Condo & Raper (1907)

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Posted by Steve Monaco at November 29, 2003 1:51 AM

 

"By the time I get to Phoenix, I'll be plastered . . . "

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Glen Campbell mug shot, 11/24/03

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Country music singer Glen Campbell was arrested on Monday on suspicion of extreme drunken driving and hit and run after he crashed into another vehicle in central Phoenix, city police said. (More)

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 25, 2003 4:02 PM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #29

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It's back to the traditional three-clue soundclip for this week's quiz, and an easier mystery movie is hard to imagine, so no extra hints. (Note: File size is 325K.) If you know the name of the film in question, send me an email by late Sunday night, and next week you can see your name in our glorious winners circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 24, 2003 3:26 PM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

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Original French poster for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, 1958

Once again, our last quiz proved to be much tougher than I thought it would be. (Have I proven sufficiently by now that I don't have the slightest idea how these quizzes will go over?) Perhaps there would have been more winners if I'd mentioned that the composer of the music in question also wrote the scores for what most film buffs consider Hitchcock's and Welles's best pictures. And it would have been all but giving it away to have mentioned that the real genius responsible for the movie learned his craft in part by working with the man who brought King Kong to life.

But I didn't give any clues, so only three intrepid readers knew that the beautiful music was composed by Bernard Herrmann and that it was from Ray Harryhausen's masterpiece, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, starring Kerwin Mathews as the titular hero. It's a tribute to Harryhausen's animation that, 45 years and quantum leaps in technology later, the movie still seems magical, at least to those of us who were lucky enough to see it in childhood. The story moves very fast and the performances are both straight-faced and funny (Torin Thatcher is especially splendid as the evil magician Sokurah).

Anyone who's seen it will attest, however, it's Harryhausen's creations that are the real stars. There was the double-headed roc, seen here right after it hatched:

The sword-fighting skeleton (the precursor to the team of battling bone-bags in Harryhausen's almost equally great Jason and the Argonauts):

And everyone's favorite, the Cyclops, seen here in the movie's climactic death-battle with Harryhausen's magnificent dragon:

So congratulations to our three experts: Hank Parmer, Wayne A. Palmer and Mike Hardenbrook. (Mr. Parmer earns extra points by pointing us all to a nice bio of Bernard Herrmann.) And to everyone else, do yourself a favor this holiday season and skip the current kid-crap that Hollywood's spewing and treat the children around you to a screening of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad-- they'll remember it long after the latest Seuss desecration has been forgotten.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 24, 2003 3:16 PM

 

The Frederic Wertham Memorial Cover Gallery

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Adventures Into Darkness #7, 1952-- incredibly busy cover by Jack Katz

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 23, 2003 10:07 PM

 

The Outbursts of Everett True by Condo & Raper (1907)

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Posted by Steve Monaco at November 22, 2003 10:44 PM

 

Rush Limbaugh: Rehab is wonderful!

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"Thanks to Oxycontin, I've lost over 100 pounds!"-- Rush Limbaugh, disgraced radio entertainer and mansiere candidate

If you got in your car Monday and thought it smelled bad, it was just your radio stinking-- Rush Limbaugh was back on the air after over a month in rehab. Even if you thought he sounded shaky before, it was still surprising to hear how jittery and unhinged he was during the first few minutes of his return. His message boiled down to this: Rehab was a great experience-- everyone should do it!

Here's a clip from that night's Mike Malloy show, where Mike plays excerpts from Rush's self-thrown "welcome back" party and then puts out Limbaugh's candles by pissing on his cake. (Note: File size is large, 1 MB.)

P.S. If you think I've been writing about Malloy a lot lately, you're right, mainly because I've been listening to him a lot and never cease to be impressed by how good he is. He has the best-produced radio talk show around, with the intelligence of NPR call-in shows but none of their pretense or tedium, and certainly none of their blandness. Even if you think you don't like talk shows (I don't blame you), you still might give Mike a try. You can download three weeks worth of shows here.

 

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 19, 2003 9:00 PM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #28

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Another musical clue this week, the secondary theme from the opening overture of one of the best known and loved '50s kids films. If you know the movie, you'll recognize it in a second; if not, too bad, because that's the only lead you get at all this time. If you know the title, send me an email by late Sunday night, and next Monday you can see your name in our mythological winners circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 17, 2003 8:56 PM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

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Even though it wasn't my intention, last week's mystery movie was almost a total stumper-- it even took our reigning, never-miss champion two whole days to figure it out!

I was surprised because I thought The Heroic Trio had become fairly well-known in the decade since its release (a few years ago, it was shown frequently on TNT, and even my little neighborhood video store had a copy that was constantly rented for months). It was my first introduction to the world of Hong Kong action cinema and has remained my personal benchmark for those films. It's also a big favorite with fans of '60s superhero comics, especially Marvel; in fact, the first shot of Anita Mui as Wonder Woman is a Jim Steranko panel come to life.

 

Besides the ravishing Anita, the two other stars of the film-- Maggie Cheung as Thief-Catcher and Michelle Yeoh as Invisible Girl-- are equally lovely and amazing to watch. (Even non-HK action fans know Yeoh, from the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.) All three approach their roles with no campiness whatsoever, and the earnestness of the performances gives the film a genuine '60s comic book feel that no art direction or special effects can match.

Of course, the special effects and stunt work are fantastic, the latter being all the more so because it's real-- it may not be Anita Mui running from pole to pole across wobbly power cables, but someone actually did it, just like the rocket-ride another stunt woman took during the scene when Thief-Catcher strides a barrel full of explosives and then throws in a lit stick of TNT. (Don't discount how much stunt work each star really did, especially Yeoh, who has actually held her own on screen with Jackie Chan.) By the last 20 minutes, the picture is almost non-stop action set pieces, one after the other, and the story turns more horror comic than superhero, made all the better by an appearance by HK's #1 scary guy, Anthony Wong. (When he loses a finger in a fight with Yeoh, he picks it up, sniffs it suspiciously, and then pops it in his mouth.)

If you've never seen any action movies from the heyday of Hong Kong cinema, The Heroic Trio is the perfect place to start-- great music, lots of plot (hardly the rule for this kind of picture), explosions, blue gel lighting and girl fights, plus one of the best superhero origin stories ever.

And let's hear it for our own heroic trio, the only three people who won this quiz: Hank Parmer (good guesses count, too), Wayne A. Palmer (still champ, and extra points this week for effort) and Paul Murphy (a man of few words who knows his movies). Especially nice work this time, men-- thanks for helping to keep the quiz and yours truly from laying a big fat egg last week!

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 17, 2003 5:31 PM

 

The Frederic Wertham Memorial Cover Gallery

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Chamber of Chills #21, 1954-- Cover by Lee Elias

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 16, 2003 8:56 PM

 

Bad Dialogue of the Week

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(Chef Vincent from Theater of Blood)

It's a cooking lesson this week, courtesy of one the world's biggest hams, Vincent Price. Price did a cooking video at one time, and apparently some wag had a good time reediting the soundtrack. Here, Mr. P. describes how to make one of his favorite delicacies.

By the way, the aforementioned "wag" behind this tape may be April Winchell, KABC radio host and daughter of the great Paul Winchell (think Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff). This soundclip comes from her incredible audio page, full of terrible cover versions, Christian learning songs, bloopers and even KFC employee training tapes. Definitely worth your time.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 15, 2003 10:46 PM

 

Shut Up, Little Man: The Animated Series-- It's only Pete 'n' Ray but I like it

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(They gave Pete and Ray to you-- neighbors Eddie and Mitch, the audio veriteests who made the immortal recordings in the late '80s.)

Here's a terrific flash cartoon by Australian animator Kevin Peaty featuring the immortal voices of Peter Haskett and Raymond Huffman, the well-known stars of the Shut Up, Little Man tapes. Peaty does a nice job caricaturing the boys, and his direction is imaginative and funny. (Being funny when you're using Pete and Ray as your source material really isn't that hard, but to make their dreary, walled-in setting seem interesting is quite an accomplishment.) I'm hoping for more, and soon.

In other Little Man news, the first remastered CD is getting closer to release. There are four cuts, all taken from the master cassettes made with Eddie and Mitch's boombox recorder:

1) "Who in the fuck is Ardell?" The longest consecutive bit in the repertoire, it's over 47 minutes long and by the end it will make you want to join Ray in killing the drunken, out-of-control Peter. It begins with a prank phone call from Mitch and Eddie that, in the inebriated and idle minds of our boys, is blown into a huge "Who Dialed It?" mystery, with jealous accusations flying. (Peter is convinced the caller was their sometime-roommate and object of their affections, Tony Newton, and that he and Ray are playing lovers' games behind his back.) Then, after some mind-numbing work stories from Tony, Pete begins to go after Ray for his various sins, culminating in a fracas over cleaning the bathroom that includes some mean wastebasket throwing by Pete. Throughout, it's Peter Haskett at his belittling best (worst? both?) and by the end you really wonder how anyone could have been able to take him day after day, even with all that booze. (Ray was known to drink four liters of wine-- that's five empty bottles and a nice start on the sixth.)

2) "Toenails, vodka and friends" These are three short and well-known cuts from the original Best Of CD that Eddie and Mitch put out years ago (it was Moby's "Album of the Year" that year in the Spin artist poll), but here they're included in the original and uncut 11-minute monologue by Peter. "I would like to have eaten dinner tonight, also," he sneers at Ray, "but I can't because of you talking about toenails. No one wants to watch you cut your toenails, and no one would steal your toenail clippers!"

3) "Fragments of Peter" A two minute collage of incomplete comments by Pete, which when strung together have a "Revolution No. 9" feel.

4) "A liar, a thief and a cheat" A classic, and after all of the above Peter-oriented material, it's a delight to hear Ray let loose on his roommate for a change. The rat-a-tat-tat exchanges between the two is amazing, and when Ray finds a new and effective barb to use on Pete-- calling him fat-- they wail at one another like inspired jazzmen. (You can hear some of it here. File size is 900K-- and remember, they're foul-mouthed old motherfuckers, so don't play it around kids, collegues or customers.)

 

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 13, 2003 5:14 PM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #27

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It's a musical quiz this week, and the one clue is the movie's theme. Since it's not in English, it may be considered a toughie, but a dubbed version of this film-- with the original opening anthem-- has been a minor late-night favorite on a cable channel or two for the past few years. That's as it should be, since (in my opinion) it's still the best comic-book flick yet made, with non-stop action and kickass characters, and the main stars are stunning in more ways than one. If you know the answer, send me an email before late Sunday night, and next week your name will appear in our intrepid winners circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 10, 2003 7:15 PM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

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Last week's mystery movie was Stanley Kubrick's 1956 crime classic The Killing, starring Sterling Hayden, Marie Windsor, Vince Edwards, Elisha Cook Jr. and other noir vets. On the surface, it's a typical '50s docu-caper film, with voice-over narration (by the one and only Art Gilmore, almost as much a mainstay of Jack Webb cop productions as Jack himself) detailing the step-by-step plotting of a racetrack heist. But not quite-- in Kubrick's hands, helped by dialogue from Jim "The Killer Inside Me" Thompson, the retelling of the story's fateful events moves forward and back, adding details and characters until the viewer knows much more about what's happening than ringleader Hayden could ever imagine. Its narrative sophistication makes it look better than ever today, while its supposed influences like Call Northside 77 look more and more dated.

The film is also helped immensely by perfect performances by practically everyone in the cast. One standout is Jay C. Flippen as the kindly older sidekick of Hayden's-- the moment when he subtly but openly reveals his homo-erotic desires for his young friend-- and Hayden's just as subtle revulsion-- is unlike anything in an American movie of this type and age. He's topped by the always delightfully weird Timothy Carey as the horse sniper, who cuddles a puppy and swats invisible bugs from his eye as Hayden gives him the lowdown on the job. As Eddie Mueller wrote in his excellent book Grindhouse, no matter what the role, everyone has the same reaction the first time they see Tim on-screen: What the hell is wrong with that guy?

To call the film underrated may have been accurate at one time, but if the responses to last week's quiz are any indication, it's not any longer-- all the replies included comments about The Killing being one of Kubrick's best. I agree. So congratulations and two big suitcases of stage money to our following winners: Wayne A. Palmer, Hank Parmer, Mike Everleth, Peter at Mudville Magazine, Jay Downing, E. Yarber, Paul Murphy, and Kika Warner.

P.S. Speaking of Timothy Carey, his interview with Psychotronic Magazine can be found here, and there's a good overview of his work, in particular his insane magnum opus The World's Greatest Sinner, at The Stranger's website here.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 10, 2003 6:23 PM

 

Bad Dialogue of the Week

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I've been catching up with some old Mike Malloy shows that I missed (poor Mike was off all week after oral surgery), and I came across a priceless Bushism that, to my knowledge, was missed by the usual on-line Dubya watchdogs. It's from a October 27 press conference our beloved Prez gave about the "good news" from Iraq-- besides the typical claptrap, at the very end King George (or, as Malloy calls him, "Too-Stupid-to-Eat-a-Pretzel") launches into some impromptu word jazz and soars into the stratosphere of incoherence. You can listen to the clip by itself here (file size 225K), or you can double your enjoyment and listen to it along with Mike's outraged commentary here (file size 700K).

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 9, 2003 10:16 PM

 

The Frederic Wertham Memorial Cover Gallery

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Chamber of Chills #23, 1954-- Cover by Lee Elias

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 9, 2003 10:14 PM

 

But seriously, folks . . .

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Hey, Monica-- take this economy. Please!

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 8, 2003 9:03 PM

 

Happy 75th birthday, Ennio Morricone

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God, I wish I could be in London on November 10-- Ennio Morricone is giving a concert at the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate his 75th birthday, and the music he will perform will be a retrospective of his four decades of composing film scores. Whatever your favorite soundtrack of his might be, it's on the program: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Mission, Cinema Paradiso, Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion, on and on. He'll be conducting a full orchestra, but it will be a Morricone-style ensemble, which means that it will also include a synthesizer, a mouth harp, and all the other non-traditional instruments he's incorporated to make his magic with over the years. (As the Maestro himself says, "If you put these instruments in an orchestra they become the orchestra, so that's it, no problem.")

I learned about all this through a recent article in The Guardian by John L Walters, which includes a brief but rare interview with Morricone himself. (Up at 5 a.m. every day to compose his next score, and with over 400 to his credit, he probably doesn't have a lot of time to talk to the press.) I also learned that there's a new 4-CD set of his music out (from Italy) called Io, Ennio Morricone, with each disc devoted to a different facet of his composing talents. (I'm especially interested in hearing all the piano music on one CD.) He's truly the greatest film composer of all time, and next Monday's concert will be literally the event of a lifetime. Sure wish I could be there to hear it.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 7, 2003 10:25 PM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #26

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It's classic crime movie time this week at the quiz, with one of the finest and most sophisticated caper pictures ever made. The three-clip sound montage that serves as our clue features the well-known voice of not only its star but-- big hint for the truly trivia-minded-- the film's voice-over narrator. (Note: File size is 400K.) The film's director was one of the all-time greats, although this one doesn't usually show up in lists of his best films (I think it should), and the dialogue was written by a master of hard-boiled fiction.

So take it and run, quiz experts-- if you know the name, by now you know the rest: send me an email by late Sunday night and, if you're correct, you'll see your name in next week's murderous winners circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 3, 2003 8:39 PM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

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Gene Siskel was never one of my favorite movie reviewers, but he did have a good point long ago when he cited American films' almost complete detachment from anything to do with the world of work. It's a criticism that I think still holds-- unless a protagonist is a lawyer, cop or superhero, there aren't a lot of stories being told about what it's like to have this or that job, especially any of the many truly rotten ones, since they can often be the most interesting. (Don't think so? Talk to someone who has the nightmarish gig of removing dead people from crime scenes sometime.)

Too bad Siskel didn't get to see last week's mystery flick, Mike Judge's 1999 masterpiece Office Space, because it was precisely the kind of movie he was talking about. It focused on the soul-killing tedium of the average cubicle job (where you need a phone to talk to the person sitting two feet away) but with a fresh, sarcastic viewpoint that has made it, among many things, the most popular movie rerun of all time on the Comedy Central channel. It's brimming with memorable catchphrases and characters: boss Lumbergh's "That'd be great," poor Milton (in the above pic) mumbling about his precious stapler, and the unfortunately-named wage-slave Michael Bolton (played beautifully by Dave Herman, who is especially funny in the scene where he slugs the living hell out of his nemesis, the office copier/fax machine).

So a big bonus goes out to the following quiz winners for correctly identifying the movie from last week's sound clips: Wayne A. Palmer, Kika Warner, E. Yarber, Hank Parmer, Steven Jay Gellert, Leora Effinger and Mike Hardenbrook. As always, thanks for participating, gang, and if you could win next week's quiz, that'd be great, yeahhhh . . .

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 3, 2003 8:03 PM

 

The Frederic Wertham Memorial Cover Gallery

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Weird Tales of the Future #4, November 1952-- cover by the great Basil Wolverton

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 2, 2003 1:31 AM

 

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