Blog - Jason F.C. Clarke

this & that

Posted under Blog on September 6th, 2007 by JFCC

I suppose it’s a sign of a lazy writer when I have to sit here and stare at the WordPress form for ten minutes before deciding I have no real topic and then thinking, “A ha! I’ll write about how I have nothing to write about! That’s never been done in a blog before, right?”

So instead, you’ll get a random assortment of thoughts until I can come up with something better to write about.

I’m still trying to decide what to do for Halloween Month (a.k.a. October) this year. I abandoned my plan to review every Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween movie after nearly going insane from just four Friday the 13th films. Besides, I’d like to get away from the movie reviews this time around and focus on some more original content. I’m working on an original story, and this time, I’ll finish it before posting it.

Speaking of writing, I’m currently working on a collaborative novel with Kate Racculia. The idea was to see if we could egg one another on and actually finish something for once. It’s a kind of fantasy-themed thriller, set at a kids’ summer camp in 1991.

Other things…I read Baltimore or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire last week. The book was a collaborative effort between Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and author Christopher Golden. It’s a Gothic vampire novel, set in a kind of alternate history World War I. The prose is heavy and the story tragic, definitely not for those who prefer their fiction light-hearted. But for those of us who love Gothic horror, Baltimore (inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s bittersweet fable “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”) is a wonderful revisiting of those old Gothic classics. Best of all, it’s lavishly illustrated by Mignola himself, who produced 150 pieces of art for the novel.

But let’s not forget Christopher Golden, a Massachusetts-based author whom I had the good fortune to meet on Tuesday evening when he did a reading at the Barnes & Noble in Framingham. Golden is a funny, entertaining speaker, and in Baltimore he does a lovely job of adapting the dark, Impressionistic style of Mignola’s art to prose. I highly recommend the novel.

I also read Scott Smith’s The Ruins. Smith wrote the novel A Simple Plan, which was adapted into one of my favorite films (though I haven’t had a chance to read the novel yet). Like its predecessor, The Ruins is a thriller, but this time the mood is horror rather than noir. I’ve been describing it people as The Descent meets Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows.” (I generally try not to describe artistic works in terms of other works–a practice gifted to us by Hollywood–but sometimes it’s just the easiest way to get the point across.) I definitely recommend it to horror fans, but beware–there’s not a lot of the characterization found in a writer like Stephen King, and there’s not much about the origin of the horror either. It’s more like a survival story that happens to have a preternatural antagonist…it’s not so much scary as it is creepy and genuinely horrific.

CSI: Miami continues to be my guiltiest pleasure. I’m working my way through the entire series on A&E. Why can’t I stop watching? I think it’s Caruso. His eccentric performance is mesmerizing. As my cousin (and future best man) Mike put it, “He always does the sideways stance…puts his hands on his hips…and delivers the cheese.” DG and I often point out certain things that would make for a great drinking game, such as Caruso’s tendency to walk out of frame after delivering a parting shot.

The show’s formula becomes really evident when you watch five or six of them back-to-back (not that I’ve, uh, ever done that…recently…like last weekend or anything). My personal favorite is how often a suspect is forced to reveal some part of their body that has been marked in some way, proving they committed the crime. I’d say that happens on at least thirty percent of the episodes. For the viewer, determining who the killer is relies less on the evidence given in the episode than on who would be the most surprising or dramatic, or sometimes simply “who did we see earlier in the episode that we forgot about?” But Caruso and the other actors (particularly Emily Procter and Eva LaRue) keep me coming back time and again.

And get this…it’s this decade’s Baywatch, the most popular American television show in the world. I guess cheese is the true lingua franca.

The Call of Cthulhu

Posted under Blog, Movies, Reviews on August 30th, 2007 by JFCC

Here’s an interesting tidbit. Last night I watched The Call of Cthulhu, a short independent film by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. The concept was to adapt Lovecraft’s famous short story in the style of the era in which it was written–that is, a 1920s silent movie.

I actually requested Netflix add the title to their collection, and they quite nicely obliged me (which was no doubt a better boon to the filmmakers than if I’d just bought my own copy). That said, I was wary; the concept seemed ambitious and I’d already seen more than one bad, low-budget Lovecraft adaptation.

But The Call of Cthulhu impressed me. The silent film conceit works well for Lovecraft’s writing style, which is low on character development and features lots of oblique references and impenetrable dialogue. The acting is surprisingly good, perfectly capturing the stage-like style of the period, and rarely seems amateurish. Most importantly the cinematography and film stock give the impression of an actual 1920s silent film, rather than a black-and-white student film that happens to have no dialogue.

The special effects are interesting too, particularly the Impressionistic manner in which the filmmakers present the “non-Euclidean” architecture of R’lyeh, Cthulhu’s sunken city.

The film is only fifty minutes long and well worth a rental, especially if you’re a Lovecraft fan. I may end up buying a copy for myself. While this isn’t the most realistic adaptation of Lovecraft, it is one of the most effective and faithful to the spirit of the work.

Dreaming in ultraviolet near dark

Posted under Blog, Movies, Reviews on August 28th, 2007 by JFCC

Watched a few movies over the weekend. I don’t really feel like doing individual reviews of any of them, so here are my thoughts based on a five-star rating system:

Masters of Horror: Stuart Gordon’s Dreams in the Witch House

Director Stuart Gordon is the only commercial filmmaker to have made a concerted effort to bring H.P. Lovecraft’s eccentric style of horror to the big screen. His greatest success was and remains Re-Animator, which ironically was based on Lovecraft’s novella “Herbert West–Reanimator,” a work that’s one of Lovecraft’s least-regarded (by himself as well as his fans). By making it into a true dark comedy, Gordon actually improved upon the original tale, though I don’t think there’s anything particularly “Lovecraftian” about the end result.

Gordon’s next effort was From Beyond, based on Lovecraft’s story of the same name, which I haven’t seen and therefore won’t comment on. But I have seen Dagon, Gordon’s attempt at adapting one of Lovecraft’s most famous stories, The Shadow Over Innsmouth. To my mind, Gordon makes a painfully crucial error in the film by setting it in a tiny West European fishing village rather than the haunted New England Lovecraft so adored. That said, there’s enough weirdness to make Dagon one of Gordon’s better efforts, but it’s still doesn’t quite capture that true Lovecraftian feel.

Dreams in the Witch House, Gordon’s first contribution to Showtime’s acclaimed Masters of Horror series, is probably the most faithful Lovecraft adaptation I’ve seen to date. It’s based on one of my favorite Lovecraft tales (though it’s not too highly regarded in critical circles), and it features one of his most successful efforts at blending science fiction with supernatural horror.

Miskatonic University grad student Walter Gilman (Ezra Godden) somewhat reluctantly takes a room in an ancient, crumbling boarding house. Aside from the stereotypically fat and unpleasant landlord, Walter’s housemates include creepy old man Masurewicz (Campbell Lane) and single mother Frances Elwood (Chelah Horsdal). The lonely Walter and Frances are soon engaging in some awkward flirting, while Walter begins having some very odd nightmares involving a witch and a rat with a human face.

I was impressed by the acting of Godden and Horsdal. While the other characters are a bit two-dimensional, Walter and Frances are fully realized and behave as believably as one could, given the circumstances. While Frances was “Frank” in the original story (and obviously not a love interest), many of the major plot points are present. The changes made to the story (and I’m not entirely sure what they are, since I haven’t read it in a year or two) are mostly for the better, I think, adding an emotional involvement with the characters that Lovecraft was incapable of doing.

My only disappointment was the conclusion, which gets bogged down in unnecessary exposition and delays the inevitable a bit too long. The film could easily have used the original ending to the story and gotten away with it.

Overall, though, this is probably my favorite film translation of a Lovecraft story so far. Fingers crossed for that Guillermo Del Toro adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness, though.

Near Dark

With surprising frequency, I discover the existence of cult movies I wasn’t even aware of. Evil Dead II was one of those, as was Legend and, most recently, Time After Time. While the quality of these discoveries varies, it’s always interesting to run across these nuggets of genre film.

After the punishing disappointment of Time After Time, I didn’t expect much from Near Dark (1987), which seemed very similar The Lost Boys (which had come out a few months earlier). The films have an almost identical plot: a young man gets turned into a vampire against his will and is then shanghaied by the vampire gang into becoming one of them–or else. But where The Lost Boys was played mostly for thrills and laughs, Near Dark adds a certain pathos about the vampire condition that makes it work surprisingly well.

Billed as a “vampire Western,” Near Dark features Heroes’ Adrian Pasdar as Caleb, the aforementioned dupe; Jenny Wright as the sexy vamp fatale who dupes him; Lance Henriksen as the nihilistic leader of the gang; and Bill Paxton as the resident psychotic. (Jennette Goldstein also plays a vampire, which means Near Dark features three Aliens actors just a year after that movie came out.)

The film’s most famous scene is a bloody massacre in a bar, and what makes it effective is the vampires’ truly cold-blooded attitude toward their victims. Unlike many movie vampires of late, these aren’t the flying monsters of Lost Boys or even the feral, animalistic hedonists of the Blade flicks; these are serial killers whose bloodthirst happens to be literal.

Of course, one does have to get past the psychedelic Tangerine Dream soundtrack–is it me, or is that band singularly responsible for making a third of all ’80s films instantly dated?

The last third of Near Dark is the weakest, with a terrible deus ex machina and some unrealistic behavior on the part of the normies, but overall I was surprised by how much I liked this one.

(Oh, and don’t look now, but there’s a remake on the way.)

Ultraviolet

DG wanted to watch something dumb, so we got it via On Demand. In the past, I’ve been willing to defend director Kurt Wimmer’s previous film, Equilibrium, which gets a bad rap as a Matrix rip-off even though it was filmed at about the same time and stars a better actor.

But I’m not going to defend Ultraviolet. Holy crap, what the heck was that? I mean…I guess I don’t really have anything to say. Just…wow. What a mess.

Legendary Comic Book Heroes

Posted under Blog, Comics, Toys on August 16th, 2007 by JFCC

As I think I’ve made abundantly clear on this site, I collect action figures. I started doing so as a wee tyke, beginning with a little plastic totem of Mighty Mouse, then on into He-Man, Star Wars and the original Transformers and finally Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. After TMNT, I had a brief period where I read comics and bought a few figures; then a Transformers renaissance in which I produced a fan fiction novel; and then the money that had been previously funneled into action figures was redirected to Magic: the Gathering for most of my high school career.

In my freshman year of college, for whatever reason, I started buying action figures again. At the time it didn’t seem that strange to me–after all, I’d been buying toys all my life–but in retrospect, that was obviously a turning point. I had become an adult (more or less), but I still wanted toys. And yes, I’ve had a few of the more grown-up toys over the years, such as videogames and Ipods and PCs and such, but I still spend a good amount of my income on little plastic men.

Why? I have no idea.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that the epic storylines I created with my toys back in the day were my earliest attempts at writing, and even today I think the way I write is largely a form of play. With that idea in mind, I eventually came up with my idea of the perfect action figure line. (more…)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Posted under Blog, Books, Reviews on August 15th, 2007 by JFCC

Yesterday I blasted through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to finally put an end to the constant shushing I’ve had to do to people who’ve already finished it. (Ed has already written on the phenomenon of HP speed-reading, and I posted my thoughts over there.)

I read the first three Harry Potter books back in 2000 while spending a summer in England. I had avoided them until then mostly out of laziness and a general antipathy toward the mega-popular that I had at the time. When I finally read them, my verdict was that they were good, but not quite as good as Roald Dahl. I enjoyed the fourth book, Goblet of Fire, immensely, but it took me almost a year to get through the depressing Order of the Phoenix. Half-Blood Prince I remember only for its climax.

And where does that leave Deathly Hallows? I’ve decided to keep this a relatively spoiler-free review (we’ll confine the spoilers discussion to the comments below). Overall, I found Deathly Hallows satisfying. Not immensely satisfying; too many of my predictions came true, there was a tad too much of use of di ex machina, and too few major twists.

Actually, that’s as far as I’m going to review it, I think. I could start nitpicking, but if people really want to get into that they can do it in the comments. I think Stephen King’s essay in Entertainment Weekly pretty much sums up my thoughts on the novel.

One thing I would like to mention is that, back in 2000, pompous windbag Harold Bloom issued an ill-favored screed against the Harry Potter books. Three years later, in a bizarre tangent when he was supposed to be attacking Stephen King, Bloom actually suggested it would be better for children not to read at all than to read Harry Potter.

While working on my Masters a few years ago, I wrote an essay defending Harry Potter (and J.R.R. Tolkien) from Bloom and his spiritual predecessor, Edmund Wilson. I wouldn’t dare punish you by reprinting the essay in toto here, but if you’re interested in reading me argue why it’s okay to read popular fiction, you can download the PDF.

And remember: spoilers in the comments!

Savage Dragon/Hellboy

Posted under Blog, Comics, Hellboy on August 11th, 2007 by JFCC

In my question to own any and all comic appearances of Hellboy, I finally picked up a copy of Savage Dragon/Hellboy, which collects two issues of Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon comic featuring a guest appearance by the wielder of the Right Hand of Doom.

Quick history lesson: In 1992, when the post-Batman comic book boom was at its peak, a number of Marvel Comics’ most popular artists left to start a new company called Image Comics. While Image’s fortunes have waxed and waned over the years (they currently publish the bestselling Walking Dead), two original Image titles have continued ever since those early days: Todd McFarlane’s Spawn and Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon.

The Dragon is a green-skinned, super-strong fellow with a big green fin on his head and an (until recently) unknown origin. He appeared in a blaze of fire with no memory of his past and was recruited to fight (supervillainous) crime by the US government.

Hellboy is a red-skinned, super-strong fellow with filed-down horns on his head and an (until recently) unknown origin. He appeared in a blaze of fire with no knowledge of his past and was recruited to fight (supernatural) crime by the US government.

(more…)

Question popped

Posted under Blog on August 7th, 2007 by JFCC

Yes, it finally happened. Last Saturday at noon, I asked for DG’s hand in marriage. Her response: “Okay–but just this once.”

We were camping in Greenfield, NH, in what will now become famous in JFCC-DG lore as “Campsite 149” (though I have little doubt I will someday misremember it as “Campsite 49,” owing to Pynchon’s 49th lot). I had planned to propose during a hike, but when it became clear that no force on this earth could get DG to go on said hike, I quickly and brilliantly devised a plan to just ask while we were alone at our campsite. It wasn’t quite as elaborate as I’d imagined I’d propose someday, but it was certainly memorable. Despite some reservations about being proposed to while not having showered in over twenty-four hours, DG accepted my proposal.

Before you ask, no, there’s no date set–best guess is “late summer ’08,” but nothing’s certain until she finishes her doctorate.

It’s interesting, being engaged. Technically nothing’s different, except my girlfriend now has a tiny, expensive piece of jewelry (which she admires and fiddles with obsessively). Yet something has definitely changed. I feel more adult, which is significant when your main hobby is collecting action figures.

In any event, all is well and we’re very happy. The photo below is from the following day, after we’d had a chance to clean up (including a shower) and head down to my parents’ house.

Karen and me, post-engagement

Word. (Specifically, “libratorr”)

Posted under Blog on August 6th, 2007 by JFCC

Penny-Arcade comments on an issue near and dear to my heart (for those who don’t know, I work in a library–though I don’t have an MLS, so I’m not a librarian per se. I’m a library assistant).

My personal suggestion: librarylock (cf. warlock for male witch).

D’oh Hard

Posted under Blog on July 30th, 2007 by JFCC

This makes my third Die Hard-referencing post title in less than a month. Also, to be fair, I stole it from ToyFare.

Anyway…let’s see if I can recall everything that went on this weekend…

Friday night, DottyGale (DG) and I just hung around the apartment. It was her first full day of vacation (she’s off all this week too), so she’d had a busy day of not doing much, while I’d had a busy day at work not doing much. We ended up watching The Specials–which, despite a script by James Gunn (Dawn of the Dead ’04) and a cast including Rob Lowe and Thomas Hayden Church, turned out to be a poor man’s Mystery Men (and though I’m a fan of MM, I still think that’s saying something).

Speaking of “poor man’s x,” my friend Ryan pointed me to this: “The 20 Best ‘That Guys’ of All Time.” But how could they forget Robert Loggia, whose name I almost went insane trying to remember last week? (On a side note, I was one of the five or six kids who preferred Cracked to Mad, though that was primarily because Cracked had John Severin, whose celebrity likenesses in Cracked‘s movie and television parodies were always incredibly good.)

Where was I? Oh, Saturday: DG and I went to see The Simpsons Movie, which was pretty good. Yes, it’s basically a really long episode with slightly better animation, but it’s still better than half the Hollywood comedies out there. There’s also one sight gag that takes full advantage of the PG-13 rating and will probably go down as one of the best Simpsons moments ever. I’ll be getting the DVD (no doubt the extras will rock).

After The Simpsons, we went to hang out at our friends Razz and Jen’s new house, where I enjoyed my very first turkey burger.

Sunday I went home to my parents’ house in Carver to help out with some chores since my dad’s laid up with a bad back. I painted my grandparents’ shed (my right shoulder’s killing me at the moment), then mowed my parents’ lawn. I have to say, I feel almost guilty mowing a lawn with a tractor. You’re just sitting there burning fossil fuels. That said, I did get the whole thing done in about an hour.

Sunday night we watched my brand-new special edition DVD of The Monster Squad. In the film, the Goonies-like child heroes need to perform an ancient ritual to stop Dracula’s plot, and much time and humor is spent on trying to locate a female virgin for the rite. Both DG and my friend Kate wondered why it didn’t occur to any of the kids to try it with a male virgin. Personally I think they were just hedging their bets–female virgins were always used in previous instances, so why risk the fate of the world by changing things up?

I spent much of the weekend closely following the news coming out of the San Diego Comic Con. To be honest, there wasn’t a whole lot that I saw, other than the announcement that Sylar would be playing Spock in J.J. Abrams’s upcoming Star Trek movie. There were also a lot of toy announcements that interested me but probably none of you guys, though I will mention that NECA has the rights to make Gears of War figures, as I’d guessed. Also, Mezco will be doing Heroes action figures.

And that’s it for now. Tune in tomorrow, same Bigger-time, same Bigger-channel!

Fanboy nirvana

Posted under Blog, Culture on July 25th, 2007 by JFCC

In celebration of the San Diego Comic Con, USA Today has an amusing article examining the so-called “fanboy” phenomenon. (One thing I’ve never understood–why are those people who paint their bare stomachs at ballgames and name their kids after football players just “fans,” while anyone who owns a Star Wars toy is a “fanboy“? Not a new observation I know, but whatever.) I went to the SDCC in 2003 and would love to go back someday. That’s one point DG has in favor of moving to Cali.

Before anyone asks, no, I haven’t had the chance to read Deathly Hallows yet. Blame Tom. DG burned through it in seven hours though. I’ll try to get through it by the end of the weekend, then maybe we can have a little spoiler-filled discussion here.

Before I forget, congrats to Sean for breaking the 10K barrier on his Xbox Gamerscore. Way to go, fanboy! (I kid because I love.)

On a side note, I decided to remove the “What I’m Reading” section, mostly because it felt a little too much like that Twitter thing I tried a while back–too much pressure to constantly update.

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