AN ART-HOUSE TAKE ON THE CLASSIC ZOMBIE GENRE
You wake up in the rubble and see a ragged, desperate one-armed man greeting you. He takes you underground to a safe space, feeds you, offers you a place to sleep. And then announces that he’ll take the first watch. It’s not long before the peril of the jagged landscape has located you and your newfound protector and is scratching at the door. What transpires is a moment-to-moment struggle for survivalâ€"The Road meets Dawn of the Dead. Daybreak is seen through the eyes of a silent observer as he follows his protector and runs from the shadows of the imminent zombi! e threat. Brian Ralph slowly builds the tension of the zombies on the periphery, letting the threatâ€"rather than the actual carnageâ€"be the driving force. The postapocalyptic backdrop features tangles of rocks, lumber, I beams, and overturned cars that are characters in and of themselves.
Ralph’s stunning debut was the wordless graphic novel Cave-In, created while he was one of the founding members of the influential Fort Thunder art collective. Drawing inspiration from zombies, horror movies, television, and first-person shooter video games, Daybreak departs from zombie genre in both content and format, achieving a living-dead masterwork of literary proportions.
Murphy plays an enlighten! ed eccen tric named "G" (for "guru" or "God"?) who rises to national celebrity when he's enlisted to host a TV shopping network. Jeff Goldblum and Kelly Preston play the show's producer and marketer, respectively, and their formulaic romance provides the movie's lackluster subplot. With skyrocketing ratings and a flurry of cameos by celebrity hucksters (Morgan Fairchild, Florence Henderson, Dan Marino, and even James Brown), G delivers preachy platitudes urging America to stop buying and embrace the finer values of life and love (a hollow message coming from Disney, the most conspicuously commercial of all major Hollywood studios). To its credit, Holy Man occasionally achieves a delicate balance of comedy and commentary, and receptive viewers will be grateful, at a time when crude comedies rule the box office, that someone bothered to try. For that reason, this flawed movie deserves to be seen. --Jeff Shannon
 View larger. |
 View larger. |
 View larger.  View larger. | Three Breeds of Warrior. Three Brutal Campaigns. One Relentless Battleground. Features:
|
Decorate your home or office with high quality posters. From Dusk Till Dawn 3- The Hangman's Daughter is that perfect piece that matches your style, interests, and budget.
!
French Kiss: Meg Ryan emerges bloodied but unbowed from this botched comedy by Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill). Ryan plays a woman whose fiancé (Timothy Hutton) leaves her for a Parisian beauty. She jets over to the City of Lights to fight for her man, but an incapacitating fear of flying forces her to seek help from a fellow passenger, a French thief played by Kevin Kline, who then tutors her in the ways of getting her beau back. Kasdan seems incapable of pacing the story, let alone getting! a firm grip on its comic tone and intentions. The production ! sputters and regroups and stalls repeatedly, forcing Ryan, particularly, to find the boundaries of her own screwball performance. --Tom Keogh
She's the One: Following the success of his spunky, 1995 directorial debut, The Brothers McMullen, Edward Burns suffers a little sophomore slump with this comedy about a pair of rivalrous brothers who get into bizarre relationships with women in a fierce but immature pursuit of happiness. When they find they both have a complicated interest in the same woman (Cameron Diaz), things come to a head. The film is a little overwritten, undershot, bulky, slow, and static, but it is also funny and inventive--further proof that Burns knows his New York City beat as well as Woody Allen does. With Jennifer Aniston, Maxine Bahns, and John Mahoney. --Tom KeoghMeg Ryan ("Sleepless in Seattle") and Kevin Kline ("Dave") star in this bouncy romantic comedy about life, love and larceny. When her fiancé is smitten by a! beautiful Frenchwoman, Kate (Ryan) flies to Paris determined to win him back. However, nothing prepares her for Luc (Kline), a cunning sexy Frenchman with a gift for gab and a fondness for thievery. A self-proclaimed expert on affairs of the heart, Luc promises to help Kate win back her man. But one star-crossed misadventure after another sweeps them across France, ultimately changing them in ways they never dreamed possible.Meg Ryan emerges bloodied but unbowed from this botched comedy by Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill). Ryan plays a woman whose fiancé (Timothy Hutton) leaves her for a Parisian beauty. She jets over to the City of Lights to fight for her man, but an incapacitating fear of flying forces her to seek help from a fellow passenger, a French thief played by Kevin Kline, who then tutors her in the ways of getting her beau back. Kasdan seems incapable of pacing the story, let alone getting a firm grip on its comic tone and intentions. The production sp! utters and regroups and stalls repeatedly, forcing Ryan, parti! cularly, to find the boundaries of her own screwball performance. --Tom KeoghMeg Ryan ("Sleepless in Seattle") and Kevin Kline ("Dave") star in this bouncy romantic comedy about life, love and larceny. When her fiancé is smitten by a beautiful Frenchwoman, Kate (Ryan) flies to Paris determined to win him back. However, nothing prepares her for Luc (Kline), a cunning sexy Frenchman with a gift for gab and a fondness for thievery. A self-proclaimed expert on affairs of the heart, Luc promises to help Kate win back her man. But one star-crossed misadventure after another sweeps them across France, ultimately changing them in ways they never dreamed possible.Meg Ryan emerges bloodied but unbowed from this botched comedy by Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill). Ryan plays a woman whose fiancé (Timothy Hutton) leaves her for a Parisian beauty. She jets over to the City of Lights to fight for her man, but an incapacitating fear of flying forces her to seek help from a fellow ! passenger, a French thief played by Kevin Kline, who then tutors her in the ways of getting her beau back. Kasdan seems incapable of pacing the story, let alone getting a firm grip on its comic tone and intentions. The production sputters and regroups and stalls repeatedly, forcing Ryan, particularly, to find the boundaries of her own screwball performance. --Tom KeoghMeg Ryan emerges bloodied but unbowed from this botched comedy by Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill). Ryan plays a woman whose fiancé (Timothy Hutton) leaves her for a Parisian beauty. She jets over to the City of Lights to fight for her man, but an incapacitating fear of flying forces her to seek help from a fellow passenger, a French thief played by Kevin Kline, who then tutors her in the ways of getting her beau back. Kasdan seems incapable of pacing the story, let alone getting a firm grip on its comic tone and intentions. The production sputters and regroups and stalls repeatedly, forcing Ryan! , particularly, to find the boundaries of her own screwball pe! rformanc e. --Tom KeoghNeigborhood bookstore rivals unwittingly become e-mail pen pals in this charming remake of The Shop Around the CornerBy now, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have amassed such a fund of goodwill with moviegoers that any new onscreen pairing brings nearly reflexive smiles. In You've Got Mail, the quintessential boy and girl next door repeat the tentative romantic crescendo that made Sleepless in Seattle, writer-director Nora Ephron's previous excursion with the duo, a massive hit. The prospective couple do actually meet face to face early on, but Mail otherwise repeats the earlier feature's gentle, extended tease of saving its romantic resolution until the final, gauzy shot.
The underlying narrative is an even more old-fashioned romantic pas de deux that is casually hooked to a newfangled device. The script, cowritten by the director and her sister, Delia Ephron, updates and relocates the Ernst Lubitsch classic, The Shop Around the Cor! ner, to contemporary Manhattan, where Joe Fox (Hanks) is a cheerfully rapacious merchant whose chain of book superstores is gobbling up smaller, more specialized shops such as the children's bookstore owned by Kathleen Kelly (Ryan). Their lives run in close parallel in the same idealized neighborhood, yet they first meet anonymously, online, where they gradually nurture a warm, even intimate correspondence. As they begin to wonder whether this e-mail flirtation might lead them to be soul mates, however, they meet and clash over their colliding business fortunes.
It's no small testament to the two stars that we wind up liking and caring about them despite the inevitable (and highly manipulative) arc of the plot. Although their chemistry transcended the consciously improbable romantic premise of Sleepless, enabling director Ephron to attain a kind of amorous soufflé, this time around there's a slow leak that considerably deflates the affair. Less credulous vi! ewers will challenge Joe's logic in prolonging the concealment! of his online identity from Kathleen, and may shake their heads at Ephron's reinvention of Manhattan as a spotless, sun-dappled wonderland where everybody lives in million-dollar apartments and color coordinates their wardrobes for cocktail parties. --Sam SutherlandBy now, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have amassed such a fund of goodwill with moviegoers that any new onscreen pairing brings nearly reflexive smiles. In You've Got Mail, the quintessential boy and girl next door repeat the tentative romantic crescendo that made Sleepless in Seattle, writer-director Nora Ephron's previous excursion with the duo, a massive hit. The prospective couple do actually meet face to face early on, but Mail otherwise repeats the earlier feature's gentle, extended tease of saving its romantic resolution until the final, gauzy shot.
The underlying narrative is an even more old-fashioned romantic pas de deux that is casually hooked to a newfangled device. The script, cowritt! en by the director and her sister, Delia Ephron, updates and relocates the Ernst Lubitsch classic, The Shop Around the Corner, to contemporary Manhattan, where Joe Fox (Hanks) is a cheerfully rapacious merchant whose chain of book superstores is gobbling up smaller, more specialized shops such as the children's bookstore owned by Kathleen Kelly (Ryan). Their lives run in close parallel in the same idealized neighborhood, yet they first meet anonymously, online, where they gradually nurture a warm, even intimate correspondence. As they begin to wonder whether this e-mail flirtation might lead them to be soul mates, however, they meet and clash over their colliding business fortunes.
It's no small testament to the two stars that we wind up liking and caring about them despite the inevitable (and highly manipulative) arc of the plot. Although their chemistry transcended the consciously improbable romantic premise of Sleepless, enabling director Ephron to attai! n a kind of amorous soufflé, this time around there's a slow ! leak tha t considerably deflates the affair. Less credulous viewers will challenge Joe's logic in prolonging the concealment of his online identity from Kathleen, and may shake their heads at Ephron's reinvention of Manhattan as a spotless, sun-dappled wonderland where everybody lives in million-dollar apartments and color coordinates their wardrobes for cocktail parties. --Sam Sutherland
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
| | |
 |  | |
1998 Ignatz Award Winner, Outstanding Graphic Novel: The inspiration for the feature film and one of the most acclaimed graphic novels ever.
Ghost World has become a cultural and generational touchstone, and continues to enthrall and inspire readers over a decade after its original release as a graphic novel. Originally serialized in the pages of the seminal comic book Eightball throughout the mid-1990s, this quasi-autobiographical story (the name of one of the protagonists is famously an anagram of the author's name) follows the adventures of two teenage girls, Enid and Becky, two best friends facing the prospect of growing up, and more importantly, apa! rt. Daniel Clowes is one of the most respected cartoonists of his generation, and Ghost World is his magnum opus. Adapted into a major motion picture directed by Terry Zwigoff (director of the acclaimed documentary Crumb), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. This graphic novel is a must for any self-respecting comics fan's library. Two-color comics throughoutDan Clowes described the story in Ghost World as the examination of "the lives of two recent high school graduates from the advantaged perch of a constant and (mostly) undetectable eavesdropper, with the shaky detachment of a scientist who has grown fond of the prize microbes in his petri dish." From this perch comes a revelation about adolescence that is both subtle and coolly beautiful. Critics have pointed out Clowes's cynicism and vicious social commentary, but if you concentrate on those aspects, you'll miss the exquisite whole that Clowes has ! captured. Each chapter ends with melancholia that builds towa! rds the amazing, detached, ghostlike ending. Thora Birch (American Beauty) and Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation) "sneak into your heart and stay there" (Rolling Stone) in this "eerie, masterful movie" (Movieline) from the acclaimed director of Crumb. Co-starring Brad Renfro (Deuces Wild), Illeana Douglas (Stir of Echos) and Steve Buscemi (Fargo) in "the best role of his career" (Movieline), Ghost World is a "smartly strange comedy [that] stands out like the Taj Mahal" (Time)! While their classmates head for college, Enid (Birch) and Rebecca (Johansson) focus their energies on tormenting those around them - from a goofy convenience store clerk (Renfro) to an eccentric art teacher (Douglas). But when they zero in on an oddball loner (Buscemi) looking for Miss Right, their seemingly innocent meddling threatens to shatter one of their hearts not to mention their lifelong friendship.If you've ever felt alienated by the world around you, Ghost World will offer laughter, t! ears, and reassurance that you are definitely not alone. Adapted by Daniel Clowes and Crumb director Terry Zwigoff from Clowes's acclaimed graphic novel, the movie spends summer vacation with high school graduates Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlet Johansson). They inflict little tortures on the denizens of urban sprawl, wielding scathing irony as a defense against a "ghost world" full of pop-cultural lemmings and uncertain futures. But when Enid picks a 40-ish vintage-record collector (Steve Buscemi) as the target of her latest cruel prank, she finds herself unexpectedly attracted to him ("he's the opposite of everything I completely hate") and is forced to confront her own crushing loneliness. This combination of deadpan sarcasm and deeply compassionate humanity makes Ghost World a rare and delicate comedy, with an ambiguous ending that suggests tragedy or hope, depending on your own point of view. --Jeff Shannon Dan Clowes described the story in! Ghost World as the examination of "the lives of two recent hi! gh schoo l graduates from the advantaged perch of a constant and (mostly) undetectable eavesdropper, with the shaky detachment of a scientist who has grown fond of the prize microbes in his petri dish." From this perch comes a revelation about adolescence that is both subtle and coolly beautiful. Critics have pointed out Clowes's cynicism and vicious social commentary, but if you concentrate on those aspects, you'll miss the exquisite whole that Clowes has captured. Each chapter ends with melancholia that builds towards the amazing, detached, ghostlike ending. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.When Army Rangers among Douglas MacArthur's forces arrived in the Philippines, they hatched a daring plan to liberate their captured comrades, a mission that, if successful, would prove to be a tremendous morale booster at the front and at home. Led by a young officer named Henry Mucci (called "Little MacArthur" for his constant pipe as well as his brilliance as a strategist), a combined Ranger and Filipino guerrilla force penetrated far behin! d enemy lines, attacked Japanese forces guarding Allied prisoners at a jungle outpost called Cabanatuan, and shepherded hundreds of prisoners to safety, with an angry Japanese army in hot pursuit. Amazingly, they suffered only light casualties.
In Ghost Soldiers, journalist Hampton Sides recounts that daring rescue, once known to every American schoolchild but now long forgotten. A gifted storyteller, Sides packs his narrative with detailed descriptions of the principal actors on both sides of the struggle and with moments of danger and exhilaration. Thrilling from start to finish, his book celebrates the heroism of hundreds of warriors and brings renewed attention to one of the Rangers' finest hours. --Gregory McNameeWinner of the Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz Awards
The setting: suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the outset that a strange plague has descended upon the area’s teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. ! The disease is manifested in any number of ways â€" from the ! hideousl y grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) â€" but once you’ve got it, that’s it. There’s no turning back.
As we inhabit the heads of several key characters â€" some kids who have it, some who don’t, some who are about to get it â€" what unfolds isn’t the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it , or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself â€" the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape.
And then the murders start.
As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, Black Hole transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it- back when it wasn’t exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird.
To say nothing of sprouting horns and molting your skin…The first issu! es of Charles Burns's comics series Black Hole began appearing in 1995, and long before it was completed a decade later, readers and fellow artists were speaking of it in tones of awe and comparing it to recent classics of the form like Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan and Daniel Clowes's Ghost World. Burns is the sort of meticulous, uncompromising artist whom other artists speak of with envy and reverence, and we asked Ware and Clowes to comment on their admiration for Black Hole:
 |
| "I think I probably learned the most about clarity, composition, and efficiency from looking at Charles's pages spread out on my drawing table than from anyone's; his was always at the level of lucidity of Nancy, but with this odd, metallic tinge to it th! at left you feeling very unsettled, especially if you were an ! aspiring cartoonist, because it was clear you'd never be half as good as he was. There's an almost metaphysical intensity to his pinprick-like inkline that catches you somewhere in the back of the throat, a paper-thin blade of a fine jeweler's saw tracing the outline of these thick, clay-like human figures that somehow seem to "move," but are also inevitably oddly frozen in eternal, awkward poses ... it's an unlikely combination of feelings, and it all adds up to something unmistakably his own. "I must have been one of the first customers to arrive at the comic shop when I heard the first issue of Black Hole was out 10 years ago, and my excitement didn't change over the years as he completed it. I don't think I've ever read anything that better captures the details, feelings, anxieties, smells, and cringing horror of my own teenage years better than Black Hole, and I'm 15 years younger than Charles is. Black Hole is so redolently affecting one almost has to ! put the book down for air every once in a while. By the book's end, one ends up feeling so deeply for the main character it's all one can do not to turn the book over and start reading again." --Chris Ware |
 |
| "Charles Burns is one of the greats of modern comics. His comics are beautiful on so many levels. Somehow he has managed to capture the essential electricity of comic-book pop-art iconography, dragging it from the clutches of Fine Art back to the service of his perfect, precise-but-elusive narratives in a way that is both universal in its instant appeal and deeply personal." --Dan Clowes |
 |
Questions for Charles Bu! rns
Charles Burns: There were a number of reasons for serializing Black Hole. First of all, I wanted to put out a traditional comic book-- I'd never really worked in that comic pamphlet format before and liked the idea of developing a long story in installments. There's something very satisfying to me about a comic book as an object and I enjoyed using that format to slowly build my story. Serializing the story also allowed me to focus on shorter, more manageable portions; if I had to face creating a 368-page book all in one big lump, I don't know if I’d have the perseverance and energy to pull it off.
Burns: I guess there's a consistency in Black Hole because of the way I work. I write and draw very slowly, always carefully examining every little detail to make sure it all fits together the way I want it to. When I started the story, I had it all charted out as far as the basic structure goes, but what made working on it interesting was finding new ways of telling the story that hadn't occurred to me.
Amazon.com: Some of the very best of the recent graphic novels (I'm thinking of Ghost World and Blankets, along with Black Hole) have been abo! ut the lives of teenagers. Do you think there's something abou! t the fo rm that helps to tell those stories so well?
Burns: That's an interesting question, but I don't know the answer. Perhaps it has more to do with the authors--the kind of people who stay indoors for hours on end in total solitude working away on their heartfelt stories... maybe that kind of reflection lends itself to being able to capture the intensity of adolescence.
Amazon.com: In the time you've been working on Black Hole, graphic novels have leapt into the mainstream. (I think--I hope--we're finally seeing the last of those "They're not just for kids anymore!" reviews.) What did you imagine for this project when you started it? What's it been like to see your corner of the world enter the glare of the spotlight?
Burns: When I started Black Hole I really just wanted to tell a long, well-written story. The themes and ideas that run throughout the book had been turning around in my head for years ! and I wanted to finally get them all out--put them down on paper once and for all. I've published a few other books and while they sold reasonably well, they didn't set the publishing world on fire. I was pretty sure I'd have some kind of an audience for Black Hole, but that was never a motivating factor in writing the book. And my corner of the world is still pretty dark. I guess I'll be stepping into the spotlight for a little while when the book comes out, but I imagine I'll slip back into my dark little studio when it all settles down again so I can settle back into work. 
5:11 AM
admin
