CultureGeek

TVGeek: Smallville

SMALLVILLE: through last week.

The news that creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough are leaving their own show should have created a much bigger cry of dismay. But as it is, I can only hope that whomever takes over this show can possibly return plot, emotion and people we actually like in place of endless product placements and the Lanathon of recent seasons.

The only good thing about the post-strike season thus far is that Lana is in a coma and therefore cannot speak. And there was much rejoicing. This was almost as great as the decision to repeatedly send Kara off to the hinterlands of Acting Lessons, because SuperChick is even more wooden than Tom Welling. I didn't think that was possible.

I've complained so many times about Clark on autopilot - farm Lana farm Lana not get involved Lana lie lie lie Lana - instead of continuing his ultimate arc into becoming Superman, you'd think eventually I'd get tired of myself. Honestly, that's why I've stopped doing episode-by-episode reviews. And yeah, I thought about giving up on the big lout. But I haven't even given up on LAW & ORDER yet, so clearly I'm always up for more abuse.

But the show hit a new low recently, and I'm not talking about Pete Ross returning only to shill Stride Gum for an hour - though that was possibly the biggest waste of a skilled actor and beloved character in modern television.

When SMALLVILLE finally reached what we all knew to be the inevitable turning point for Lex Luthor, it dropped the ball. Completely.

Yes, the time came for Lex to irrevocably turn evil, murdering his own father as his father had done before him. It finally happened, but not as it should have, when Lex was channeling Zod and Lionel channeling Jor-El, the Luthor family as pawns in the ongoing Kryptonian power struggle.

No, it was over the secret society to which Lionel belonged, protecting and/or hiding the Travelor (note: Traveler = Clark). I give them credit for managing this without total retcon - it draws in the Swanns and those people we shall not name because they were connected to the Tattoo From Hell and the Pop Rocks of Doom in that season that shall be forever scrubbed from our brains. Heck, the secret society even refers back to the headline on Lionel's newspaper in the pilot: the death of Oliver Queen's parents. Good job, guys.

But when the time comes, this seven-year arc to inevitable patricide... it falls flat.

It's in the teaser, for heaven's sake. With almost no emotion, from Lex, Lionel or from us. It ultimately turns out to be nothing on an emotional impact, Michael Rosenbaum uncharacteristically phoning in his performance, a 3.1 on the Richter scale of a relationship that has always registered like Mount St. Helens. Ultimately, it was no different than any other character snuffed by the Freak of the Week. The murder of Patty Swann, a one-episode guest shot a few weeks ago, was ultimately more shocking.

It's like Millar and Gough can't let the audience really hurt for anyone or anything. Clark's high-school girlfriend was murdered by a FotW a few seasons ago, and he mourned for, oh, about ten minutes to the end of the episode. They killed Lana in the 100th episode and Clark's devastation cut through Welling's general woodenness... until we turn back time and make all okay. When major events occur, no one weeps. It's the heartfelt drama and tragedy of the comics, but on Prozac.

I've often said that the 100th episode played out completely wrong, even given the canonical death of Jonathan Kent. But killing Lana that way would have been perfect - Lex and Clark each partly responsible, each blaming each other for the death of the woman they both loved. It would have cemented their lifelong opposition and gotten rid of Lana once and for all.

So when it came time for the final face-off between Lex and Lionel, it should have had the emotional impact of the season finales they do so well, something grander and more tragic than the simple murder that creates barely a ripple in the placid mountain lake of this show. But no, that might have interfered with a musical montage showcasing the latest pop band, or a glaring product placement.

I've never been a big fan of Millar and Gough, ever since I learned they cast Annette O'Toole as Mrs. Kent and then were surprised to find out she'd been Lana Lang in SUPERMAN III. They've never really had a sense of Superman that I'd want for the current torchbearers of the Boy Scout's legacy. I hope however takes over the show has a bit more of a sense for Superman, and brings Clark's wandering arc back to becoming a hero instead of a moper, a man of steel who stands for truth, justice and the American way.

God knows we miss him.

BookGeek: The Missing

THE MISSING
By Sarah Langan
Harper Books

I want to be Sarah Langan when I grow up.

Langan's follow-up to her amazing debut novel, THE KEEPER, weaves a supernatural disaster around a
small Maine town with greater skill than anyone since Stephen King. The horror that seemingly died with most of the town of Bedford in THE KEEPER resurfaces to eat nearby Corpus Christi - literally.

Imagine, if you will, a 'SALEM'S LOT with plague-ridden near-zombies instead of vampires. Then get rid of any thought of happy endings or ultimate redemption, because Langan pulls no punches at all. Don't get too attached to anybody in a Langan novel.

Langan has the ability to create a fully-realized, three-dimensional person in only a few short pages. Near the beginning of THE MISSING, a woman walks out of her house to pick up the newspaper. On her way back, she sees a bird eating poisonous berries. If a lesser author were to write this sequence, it would be half a page and we would know no more about this woman when she returned to the house than we did at the beginning of the chapter.

With Langan behind the wheel, this ordinary moment is a glimpse into a life both complex and ordinary, a woman frustrated in her role as mother and wife, full of regret and hope and sadness all at once. She is a real person, someone we know or might even have been, and we suddenly care very much what happens to her.

This is where most horror movies and many novels fail: making characters into archetypes, easily disposed of when the monster appears. Langan never falls into stereotype, making each character nuanced and real, with flaws that remind us that they are human beings. We never cheer for any of the deaths, even when they are characters we wouldn't want to know in real life. But we feel real sorrow at their flailing and ultimate futile attempts to save themselves.

Langan's voice will echo in your head for days after you finish reading this book. I find myself eagerly awaiting her next outing, even if the path down which she leads us is lined with poisonous flowers.

In case you missed it, this book won the Bram Stoker Award this year, beating out (among others) HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill. THE MISSING is currently available in most bookstores and Amazon.com.

BookGeek: General Slocum's Gold

GENERAL SLOCUM'S GOLD
By Nicholas Kaufmann
Burning Effigy Press

It may not have won the Stoker, but this little chapbook has remained in my mind days after reading it nonetheless.

This novella from Burning Effigy Press came to national attention when it was nominated for the Stoker, but author Nick Kaufmann had already won the respect of his peers in the horror community. I kept meaning to buy it, but to be honest, I only plunked down my money after it was nominated for the big statuette.

I find myself wondering how anyone could have beaten it.

Meet Sackett, a guy who would be ordinary hired muscle in anyone's gang if it weren't for his special gift. His hands can do extraordinary things, like see through walls... and stop a man's heart. That makes him muscle with extra value to any criminal gang, particularly the group going after the long-lost gold of the sunken General Slocum.

GENERAL SLOCUM'S GOLD has a stylistic choice that usually would turn me off. It's in present tense for the main story, past tense when we're going through the backstory of the gold. But you know what? It works. I can't recall a single present-tense story I've enjoyed until this one. It just goes to show, there aren't any rules in fiction that can't be broken, even those concerning double negatives.

Sackett is a compelling character, a man searching for a reason to exist beyond his role as someone else's tool, following orders to the bitter end. It's a search that makes sense to many of us, even with his special skills. The key to a good novella is building a character quickly, defining him without endless exposition. Kaufmann pulls this off remarkably well.

And what they find on their search for literal buried treasure is creepy beyond description - or at least without spoilers. Kaufmann draws you into his spell without gore, without the big scares that other authors rely upon, but with a steady growing dread that marks truly great horror.

I strongly recommend GENERAL SLOCUM'S GOLD, now available in its second printing from Burning Effigy Press or from HorrorMall.com. And here's hoping Mr. Kaufmann gets to take home a statuette soon. He deserves it.

MovieGeek: Summer Roundup!

Hey guys, miss me?

Sorry about the brief hiatus - sometimes real work intervenes. But the summer blockbuster season starts next week - no, I'm not kidding - and so it's time for the annual Big Movie Roundup!

May 1 - IRON MAN
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard.
Directed by Jon Favreau

A billionaire industrialist is kidnapped and forced to create a weapon, but creates a massive suit of armor and escapes. Thus is born comic hero Iron Man, who has the most wonderful toys since Batman to fight dangerous plots.
Up against: MADE OF HONOR, a romantic comedy with Patrick Dempsey.

May 9 - SPEED RACER
Starring Emile Hirsch, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman
Directed by the Wachowski Brothers

The anime icon comes to the big screen, as the Wachowski brothers turn in their first major project since the Matrix fell into bullet time and stayed there.
Up against: WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, a romantic comedy with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher.

May 16 - CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN
Starring Peter Dinklage, Anna Popplewell, Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes
Directed by Andrew Adamson

A year later for the four kids, 1,300 years for Narnia and things are not going well in the alternate universe. The gang comes to the aid of Prince Caspian, heir in hiding, to bring magic and glory back to Narnia.
Up against: RAMBO FIRST BLOOD, re-released in theaters this weekend.

May 22 - INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
Starring Harrison Ford, Shia LeBouef, Karen Allen
Directed by Steven Spielberg

Ford dons the fedora one more time, facing Soviets in South America. (The Nazis finally gave up. Thank goodness - I hate those guys.) If you don't know that Shia LeBouef is probably playing Indy's son, you've been living under a rock for the last fifteen years.
Up against: nothing. No one's that crazy.

May 30 - SEX AND THE CITY
Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis
Directed by Michael Patrick King

Four years after the show ended, where are they now? (Probably watching the Indiana Jones movie.)
Up against: The ghost of Indy, a Liv Tyler horror movie and yet another mocking martial-arts "comedy." Speaking of which...

June 6 - KUNG FU PANDA
Starring Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan
Directed by Mark Osborne, John Stevenson

The animated adventures of Po, a klutzy panda bear training with the masters.
Up against: Adam Sandler as a Mossad agent who fakes his own death to become a New York hairstylist. How do you imagine these things get pitched to movie studios?

June 13 - It's a tie!

THE HAPPENING
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

The world is ending - for real this time - and a family is on the run from it in the latest outing from the creator of THE SIXTH SENSE, who hopefully has learned not to make fun of movie critics in his movies. Hey, I'm a big fan of the apocalypse.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK
Starring Edward Norton, Liv Tyler
Directed by Louis Leterrier

Long-time comic geek Norton wants to make us all forget that Ang Lee waste of celluloid of several years ago, as Bruce Banner must make peace with his mean green self when "The Abomination" threatens a major city that will probably be New York.

June 20 - GET SMART
Starring Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway
Directed by Peter Segal

Carell attempts to resurrect the bumbling Not-Bond with Agent 99 at his side. Extra credit for guest stars Dwayne Johnson, Terence Stamp and Alan Arkin.
Up against: Mike Myers' THE LOVE GURU, which ought to annoy and/or offend just about everyone.

June 27 - WALL-E
Starring Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard
Directed by Andrew Stanton

The last robot left on earth is... well, alone, as they forgot to turn out the lights when mankind abandoned earth. This latest offering from Disney/Pixar might be the one to break their unprecedented winning streak, unless we see some better promos.
Up against: WANTED, about a slacker cubicle drone who becomes a spy. High star power, but overdone premise.

July 2 - HANCOCK
Starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron
Directed by Peter Berg

Wow. This is the best we can offer for the Fourth of July weekend? Hancock is the anti-hero, a gruff, sarcastic superhero with an image problem. I love Will Smith, but is this a Fourth movie? Jason Bateman plays a PR guy who plans to spruce his image.
Up against: the first American Girl movie.

July 11 - HELLBOY II
Starring Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, David Hyde Pierce
Directed by Guillermo del Toro

The big red guy is back to stop the latest Ruthless Leader and his Unstoppable Army, with plenty of snappy one-liners. At least we hope so.
Up against: JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH 3D, starring Brendan Fraser, and MEET DAVE, Eddie Murphy being run by tiny robots.

July 18 - DARK KNIGHT
Starring Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, the late Heath Ledger
Directed by Christopher Nolan

Does anyone NOT know that Ledger died shortly after what is rumored to be a chilling and brilliant turn as the craziest villain in all of comic books? Director Nolan returns, so I'm sure it will be just as cheerful and hilarious as the first one. Yes, that was sarcasm.
Up against: MAMMA MIA, the ABBA musical brought to screen. Yeah. I don't care if it does have Meryl Streep.

July 25 - X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE
Starring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson
Directed by Chris Carter

Nobody's telling us what's happening in this long-awaited return to the 'Files, except that it ISN'T about the Grand Alien Conspiracy, so thank the Cigarette Smoking Man for that. (No, he's not in it, I don't think.) Anything to wash the taste of the series finale out of our mouths, and no sign of either silly replacement character from the final seasons.
Up against: Will Farrell and John C. Reilly as stepbrothers.

August 1 - THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR
Starring Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello
Directed by Rob Cohen

The first Mummy movie without Rachel Weisz or series creator Stephen Sommers, and without them... can it really be half as much fun? Still, it's got Li as the new mummy cursed by wizard Michelle Yeoh, so it could be worth your time.
Up against: Kevin Costner as a voter whose decision literally decides a presidential election. Ouch, too close to home. Also: A serial killer in New York's subways. Like THAT'S something new.

August 8 - SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS 2
Starring America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn
Directed by Sanaa Hamri

I don't think I can take much more. *pokes calendar* It is still summer, right?
Up against: Lazy stoners dealing a new strain that seems to have bad guys on their tails.

August 15 - TROPIC THUNDER
Starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte
Directed by Ben Stiller

Self-absorbed actors end up in a real war zone in southeast Asia and don't realize the bullets are real. Because war is funny! Bonus: Robert Downey Jr. in blackface! The only thing it's missing is a cameo from Tom Cruise... wait... no...
Up against: Clive Owen as an interpol agent breaking up an international arms dealer... you know, Bond Lite.

August 22 - BANGKOK DANGEROUS
Starring Nicolas Cage
Directed by Oxide Pang Chun, Danny Pang

A hit man in China falls in love with a local girl. But the poster makes it look really intense. Also, Cage never lets a summer go by unscathed.
Up against: some kid movie, a few romantic comedies. It's a catch-up week.

August 29 - BABYLON AD
Starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh

A mercenary escorts a young woman from Russia to Canada, unaware that she carries a virus that could doom humanity.
Up against: Some teen "comedy" about visiting colleges and getting drunk.

Despite some high points, I'm sadly disappointed. They can't even blame the writers for this. We have week after week with stupid comedies or lackluster "dramas" taking the spots usually reserved for blowing up the world. At least we have Indiana Jones for one more summer crack of the whip, and the Joker will get a chance to scare us.

Have a good weekend! Summer is almost here! (At least at the movies.)

MOVIEGEEK: Shake, Rattle and Roll

In honor of this morning's whole lotta shakin' goin' on, CultureGeek is proud to present the best of the disaster film genre, films near and dear to my heart. After all, where's the fun in natural disaster without Charlton Heston hamming it up for the camera?

First, the collected works of Irwin Allen. The master of disaster, Allen pretty much launched the genre of wreaking havoc on large all-star casts with maximum melodrama. He was responsible for the original POSEIDON ADVENTURE, THE TOWERING INFERNO, THE SWARM and WHEN TIME RAN OUT (which is about a volcano, by the way).

However, Allen was not responsible for a movie for which he often gets erroneous credit:
EARTHQUAKE. Directed by Mark Robson and written by Mario Puzo, it starred, um, everybody. Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, Lorne Green, Genevieve Bujold, Richard Roundtree, Victoria Principal, even Walter Matthau (credited as Walter Matushanskayasky, a name I could not make up if I tried – and no, that wasn't his real name either.)

EARTHQUAKE's producers toyed with the idea of bouncing foam "debris" off audiences' heads, but someone (probably a lawyer) slapped them and they woke up. Instead, they created "Sensurround" speakers to simulate the vibrations of the earthquake. Unfortunately, the lawyers should have slapped harder – the vibrations caused nosebleeds and stores adjacent to theaters lost inventory. Allegedly one patron's ribs cracked from the intensity. Oops.

One of my personal favorites is TWISTER, a "stormchaser" movie following Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt as they try to catch a tornado in order to develop an early warning system. Trivia: the Dorothy device was loosely based on a real "Toto" experiment in the 1980s, which unfortunately failed. "Cow. 'Nother cow." C'mon, you know you liked it.

In THE CORE, the earth is losing its electromagnetic field and Hilary Swank tries to save the day by journeying to the center of the earth. I am amused by the fictional alley on their ship, "Unobtanium." Wink wink, nudge nudge. There's plenty of takes on JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, but few are so audacious about their impossibility.

Want volcanoes? I think the best of them is DANTE'S PEAK, which makes flailing attempts at scientific reality, except that no geologist was ever as hot as Pierce Brosnan. It came out shortly before VOLCANO, with Tommy Lee Jones as the FEMA director faced with a volcanic lava flow coming from the La Brea tar pits. It was a fun movie, even though geologists agree it is patently impossible. KRAKATOA, EAST OF JAVA (brilliantly renamed VOLCANO later) fictionalizes the 1883 explosion of Krakatoa, which is amusingly enough west of Java. My admiration knows no bounds.

The sea also gets up to misbehavior sometimes. Setting aside the ill-fated Poseidon and TITANIC, there's the Andrea Gail of THE PERFECT STORM. Fine, it's a true story, but it's a good one nonetheless. The swordfishermen of the Andrea Gail meet the confluence of storms and a hurricane that pretty much, well, eats them. It's fun when a director as good as Wolfgang Peterson decides to play.

And when you need a little shot of global oops, try THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. Roland Emmerich was a lot more entertaining when he was destroying the world with aliens instead of greenhouse gases, but the sequence of hail in Tokyo, tornadoes in California and an ice hurricane are pretty fun. Then a tsunami covers New York, because no disaster can avoid New York, and freezes solid.

Then there's the whole "asteroid" sub-sub-genre, with DEEP IMPACT and ARMAGEDDON vying for the lead. The former attempts to be scientifically relevant and concentrates on several complex characters and ethical issues of survival in a "worldkiller" event. The latter has Bruce Willis cowboying up to blow the (censored) up. Hey, they're both fun. Given the choice, I'll take DEEP IMPACT. After all, to quote Jon Stewart at the Oscars, "When you see a black man or a woman president, an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty."

Enjoy! Remember, Weebles wobble but they don't fall down!

MovieGeek: A League Of Their Own

Spring sunshine and the crack of a bat, it's time for the Great American Pasttime to return. Heaven forfend we begin any season without television programming, and the channels were full: BULL DURHAM, THE NATURAL, FIELD OF DREAMS, etc. Fans may argue among themselves which of these movies best brings out the game for them, and I have my own opinions on each.

But for me, baseball begins with my annual viewing of A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN. Often dismissed as "the girls' baseball movie," I argue that any man watching this movie needs only to think of the Keller sisters as two brothers playing in a minor-league team, and he'll be reduced to tears. While the men were away, the women could play... ball.

In Penny Marshall's fictionalized ode to the All-American Girls' Professional Baseball League, the Keller sisters leave their farm to play professional women's baseball in a time when women were discouraged from wearing pants. Owner Mr. Harvey of Harvey Bars is a stand-in for Mr. Wrigley, who cofounded the real league. Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) was loosely based on Hall of Fame slugger Jimmie Foxx, who managed a girls' team toward the end of his career.

Jimmy's vehement line, "There's no crying in baseball!" was voted on the AFI list of best lines ever, and it's not because the line is so brilliant. It's Hanks, playing a role for fun instead of angling for an Oscar, and his rapport with Geena Davis is a highlight of the movie, whether they are arguing in the dugout or talking quietly on the bus.

The timing of this movie is just spot-on, whether it's repartee between Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell, the hardball played by the real actresses in almost every instance, or a young wife breaking down in hysterics when she is notified that her husband has been killed in action.

A few trivia points:

• Originally the Keller sisters were to be played by Debra Winger and Moira Kelly. But Kelly hurt her ankle filming THE CUTTING EDGE, and Winger dropped out when Madonna signed on. By the time Geena Davis was cast, filming was about to start and the rest of the cast had been practicing for months. But Davis caught on quickly.
• All the actresses except Anne Ramsay (Helen) played their own baseball, with one other exception: while Davis could do a split, she could not slide into it to catch the ball. The injuries seen on the players were real - Renee Coleman (Alice) sustained a horrific bruise on her left thigh, seen on film, and it remained with her for more than a year.
• Tom Hanks gained 30 pounds as the slovenly drunk he was at the beginning of the movie. He attributed the weight gain to the local Dairy Queen.
• The older women seen playing baseball during the credits and joining the actresses at the Hall of Fame are real alumna of the AAGPBL.
• Note the faces: Marshall's brother Gary as Mr. Harvey, her daughter Tracy Reiner as "Betty Spaghetti," Eddie Mekka and David Lander (from LAVERNE & SHIRLEY) as Madonna's dance partner in the tavern scene and the announcer respectively, Ann Cusack (sister of Joan and John) as Shirley Baker, and look fast - a nonspeaking Tea Leoni plays second base for Racine.
• Cowriter Kelly Candaele had a personal connection to the league - his mother played in the 1940s.
• During the filming of the World Series games, in 100-degree heat, the actors took turns entertaining the unpaid extras in the stands. Tom Hanks performed puppet shows over the dugout and Rosie O'Donnell did stand-up comedy. Madonna balked at singing for them, so the other actors took turns pretending to be Madonna and singing her songs. This is why I wish DVD extras had existed in 1992. That is a reel I want to see.

It's not just a funny, entertaining and ultimately heart-warming movie, it's an important movie. Marshall showed women as real athletes, and Jimmy's conversations with Dotti about the love of the game strike to the core of every girl who was ever told she couldn't throw a ball.

To this day, there is only one very small professional women's league: the North American Women's Baseball League, which operates in the northeast with four teams and plays a sixteen-game season. Women's sports requires viewership, and you don't find these things on ESPN, so viewership can't develop. To this day, I do not understand why a woman who can hit as hard as a man and run as fast as a man can't try out for a professional team, but that is probably an argument for another day.

Movies that make a statement often stink, because the director and/or writer forgets to entertain while educating and the viewer has suddenly fallen into an Afterschool Special. Marshall never makes that mistake - even the girls' detractors are fun to watch, and the beginnings of the women's movement are treated with deft subtlety. These women suddenly learned what it was like to step outside the traditional role society had set for them, and they liked it. Everyone, man or woman, can relate to that.

To me, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN wakes up the love of the game in all of us. Not the least of which was my son, who ran to get his glove after he heard Jimmy Dugan tell Dotti, "It's supposed to be hard. If it was easy everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great."

BookGeek: Ask George R.R. Martin

Famed fantasy author George R.R. Martin is going to take your questions all week on the Barnes and Noble web site.

Through the Center Stage at Barnes and Noble, Martin will log in and answer as many questions as he can, at least once a day for the whole week. He promises to try to answer all of them, so don't flood him with 97 versions of, "So where do you get your ideas?" Heck, even I get that one and there is no good answer to it.

Martin, 59, is the author of the Fire and Ice fantasy series, a many-times Hugo and Nebula winner and worked on TV shows in the 1980s. The rights to the Fire and Ice series have been bought by HBO, by the way.

Martin is a very friendly, open author who is a regular on the convention circuits and often comes to the metro-east's own convention, Archon. He also whomped my ex-husband at chess three times, but that's beside the point. (He would have made mincemeat of me - I just can't get the game.) He also holds a masters degree in journalism. That creates all sorts of characters, I tell you...

"I will actually have three topics for my very own," Martin said on his blog. "One for INSIDE STRAIGHT and the Wild Card series, one for A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE and all my other books, and one about my experiences writing for television and film, including BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, TWILIGHT ZONE, and my series-that-never-was, DOORWAYS. So be sure to post your question in the right topic."

If you're a Martin fan, drop by Barnes and Noble's site to ask a question or just read the discussions.

MovieGeek: The Grapes of Wrath

Maybe it's like Casy says. A fella ain't got a soul of his own, just a little piece of a big soul, the one big soul belongs to everybody. Then it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark, I'll be everywhere, wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beating up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad, I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready. And when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build, I'll be there, too.
-- Tom Joad

I should live so long to write so well.

I'm maybe the last adult human to watch THE GRAPES OF WRATH, John Ford's 1940 tale of the Joad family in Dust Bowl hell. A review seem somehow silly: "Wow, that Ford sure can frame a shot! And we're gonna see good things from that Henry Fonda!"

Still, I found it an astounding film, portraying a time we all forgot. Two hundred years ago, it was "No Irish need apply." In the 1920s, it was the Dust Bowl "Okies" kicked off their sharecropper lands who flooded the landscape, looking for work, a hot meal and a little dignity, not necessarily in that order.

I'm not going to shade political. Let's just say there were a few allegories I saw in this movie that makes me wonder if anyone wants to make a movie like this today. Watch it and you might see what I mean.

Fonda's brilliant, tightly-restrained performance as Tom Joad shows a man trying not to become the monster that society expects him to be, a brute who reacts to all affronts with a violence. Oddly enough, though, it's Ma Joad who holds the movie - and the family - together. It's an understated role, a woman as simple caregiver who nonetheless has the bravery to keep going when the men are falling apart, to stick with the family when some of the men run off into the night.

In the book, it's the pregnant older sister who carries with her the hope of new life. Her part in the movie is apparently much smaller, and yet we feel for her, and with her, as she is abandoned by her husband.

"We're the people who survive," Ma Joad says at the end, and we know that there are likely hundreds of Joads now, filling the towns of California and learning new ways to survive with each generation.

If you were one of the last few Americans not to see this movie, please go forth and find it. CultureGeek recommends.

MovieGeek: Cadence

I'd like to introduce you to a little-known film that I find to be sadly overlooked. Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen face off* in CADENCE, this 1990 film directed by the elder Sheen.

Charlie Sheen brilliantly plays troubled soldier Bean, a ne'er-do-well forced into the Army by his father in an
attempt to create a sense of character and discipline. But the father dies, and Bean goes a little wiggy on the sauce. A barfight and two illicit tattoos later, he's sent to do ninety days in the stockade. This being 1968 or so, all his roommates in the stockade are black - led by an understated Laurence Fishburne.

Martin Sheen, of course, does not play Bean's father. He plays McKinney, commandant of the prison, who has his own issues: namely, a son who doesn't speak to him. McKinney is going a little wiggy himself, obsessing over turning Bean into a better soldier, a son surrogate.

Vietnam, racism, the strains between fathers and sons... and yet there's real heart to this movie. There's laugh-out-loud moments, when the men on the chain gang are singing work songs and Bean is left hopelessly white and confused. The sequence where they try to teach him the cadence song makes me giggle helplessly.

And there's real tragedy, too. I can't tell you.

It's impossible to know where the Sheens drew their inspiration for the complicated relationship that this movie details. But it's clear that they drew brilliant, nuanced characters. McKinney is a racist, abusive bastard, but he's also a father completely lost and confused by the changing world around him. Bean is a slacker turned soldier, taking his grief out on those around him, but he's also a boy discovering the pride of becoming a man.

Trivia: Look quick for Corporal Gessner, played by Ramon Estevez - also known as Charlie Sheen's brother. It wasn't supposed to be a family flick - Gary Busey was originally contracted to play Bean. But as much as I like Busey, I don't think it would have had the same nuance without Sheen's intensity.

It made all of $2.07 million. It's criminal. It's made a good bit more since then, the sort of movie that finds its legs on cable and DVD, usually as the late-night fill-in for some far-lesser movie. It amazes me, because I think Charlie Sheen does the best work of his career by far, reminding us all how brilliant an actor he is and how sorely underused he is in random comedies.

If you get the chance, Netflix CADENCE for yourself. You won't regret it.

CADENCE (1990)
Starring Martin Sheen, Charlie Sheen, Laurence Fishburne
Directed by Martin Sheen

* In a previous version of this review, I erroneously stated it was the only time the Sheens worked together. An eagle-eyed reader reminds me that Martin Sheen played Charlie's father in WALL STREET. Oops.

ComicGeek: Buffy Season 8

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, Nos. 9-12
Dark Horse Comics

It's hard to say how I feel about Buffy's comic turn. From the beginning, I loved it in spite of myself. It was quintessential Joss Whedon writing, the characters speaking and acting just like the old days. They almost seemed to have recovered the rapport of Best of Buffy, and at first Buffy seemed to have shed the poor-little-me that nearly killed the series for me in her post-death life.

Only in the Whedonverse does "post-death life" make sense.

It's still good. Of course it is, Brian K. Vaughan is no slouch and Joss himself is back for the occasional issue. But a few things are driving me crazier than a Renfield with no flies:

• Willow's "big reveal" that she feels guilty about Tara. That she chose Buffy's life over Tara's and got Tara killed. Um, what? We were there for all that, folks, and pretty much Warren Mears got Tara killed, by shooting her while trying to shoot Buffy. Willow went evil, killed people, nearly destroyed the world and wore some absolutely dreadful sweaters, but the one thing she feels guilty about is the one thing she DIDN'T do? Joss, please try harder.

• The resurgence of Buffy as the whiny superhero bugs me, and it's Joss doing it. Buffy's self-involvement is legendary, but of course she's the Chosen One, so a little self-involvement is expected. The problem is, heroes don't whine. You'd think having a private army of 500 Slayers would take the onus off being the Chosen One, but Buffy's still giving us lines like, "They all leave, even my friends, sooner or later everybody realizes there's something wrong, something wrong with me, or around me, or..."

Ow! Joss, that hurt! There's a reason we hated Season Seven, yanno. We like superpowered Buffy in her tough armor and leading the fight as she always has. Whiny, neurotic Buffy fell into the Hellmouth. Leave her there.

• Dawn. The problem with Dawn has been the same since her arc was resolved at the end of Season Five: what to do with the MacGuffin after the fight is over? Once everyone stopped fighting over Dawn, she was just a whiny teenager with "I Am a Potential Hostage" stamped on her forehead.

Comics have not found a use for Dawn, so she's been magically "blown up" to giant size and stuck in the barn. I'm sure there is a point to this besides some admittedly cool visuals of the lounging lady giant in the Scottish castle. But it's up to issue 12 now and there seems to be no actual resolution.

Here's a hint, Joss: Dawn was the Key, and even if she wasn't, some folks have managed to serve the forces of righteousness quite well without superpowers. Exhibit A: Xander Harris. So shrink her back down and give her a job, or kill her. Or both. We know you can do it. You're JOSS.

• And here it is: Buffy has a one-night (so far) stand. With Satsu. A woman.

I went round and round about this, because I honestly like the idea of a bisexual or lesbian heroine. Heaven knows there are few enough of them in comics, fewer still that aren't written like the fantasies of fifteen-year-old boys. This plot twist made headlines in the industry, but most reviewers shrugged it off as, "Well, Joss has done it before."

Yes. And honestly, that's what bugs me about it. We've already been here, with Willow. A girl who is entirely heterosexual without the slightest indication of bisexuality, until Joss suddenly wrote in a girlfriend. He pulled it off with taste and dignity, because he's Joss. But it always struck me as a bit of a retcon, because Willow never had the slightest hint of being interested in girls before - and she was friends with BUFFY. And Cordelia. Fairly hot women, or so I've been told.

Then Willow was completely lesbian. She had no interest in men at all. Again, something I might have found more realistic if we hadn't seen her have fully-developed, loving and even sexual relationships with Xander and Oz. (Okay, with Oz. She and Xander never knocked boots. But the implication is they did a lot more than hold hands.) I always would have liked this plot twist if pre-Tara Willow* had gradually shown interest in the occasional girl - and don't say Joss doesn't plan that far ahead, because he was foreshadowing Buffy's Season-Five death in Season Three. And I would have preferred that Willow became bisexual, thereby expanding her character and still maintaining some continuity.

All that set aside. Here we are again. Buffy, who was somewhat weirded out by Willow's coming-out and never indicated the slightest interest in any woman, suddenly falls into bed with Satsu. Who is a very nice, sweet girl, but I have reread these issues several times and I still don't see a reason for Buffy's attraction. Especially given the, you know, heterosexuality. Even Satsui comments, "I know you didn't just turn gay all of a sudden." It's a fair question, and of course it devolves into Buffy's Insta-Insecurity instead of addressing the question.

Hey, the rest of that scene is hilarious. It's quintessential Whedonverse, and Xander... well, let's just say I could HEAR Nicholas Brendan saying those lines, okay? Imagine my surprise that the issue was written by Drew Goddard, not Joss.

But a retcon is still a retcon, and nobody's going to mistake it for anything else. The cynical comics reviewers say it's a ploy to drive up readership for the comic, much as they said about Willow's conversion during the series. I'm not that cynical, mostly because I know Joss isn't living and dying with this comic as he was, say, a certain space western well-beloved by us all. (Browncoats forever!)

There's plenty to love about Season 8. It has the right feel, the right art - Georges Jeanty perfectly captures the characters, to the point where we recognize even one-shot guest stars - and Joss hasn't lost a bit of his touch. But I hope for more from it than rehashing the old stuff over and over.

So. Who wants to take bets on how Satsu dies?

* And don't bring up Wishverse Willow. Alternate reality, doesn't count. Also, the whole evil=bisexual thing I found to be rather skeevy. Most bisexuals are not, after all, evil.