Category: Reviews

Reviews of books, movies, tv shows and other items

Colter Wall’s Songs of the Plains – A Country Music Review

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Last November I reviewed Colter Wall’s self-titled album.  To say I liked it would be a gross understatement.  It had such stand outs as Kate McCannon, Bald Butte and Fraulein.  But the whole album was worthy.  Colter has a new album and I got my copy yesterday.

This is a theme album that can best be described as a country western celebration of the Great Plains.  Colter is from the Canadian Plains and he concentrates on Canada but he does include a ballad to Wild Bill Hickock.  I’ll list the tracks followed by a short comment or two.

In addition, I’ll summarize that as a whole the album is a good traditional country western collection.  And it suits me.  Hopefully I’ll provide enough information for the reader to make up his mind.

The full track list to Colter Wall’s Songs of the Plains:

  1. “Plain to See Plainsman” (written by Colter Wall)

Straightforward acoustic guitar and harmonica western.  An ode to home on the great plains.

  1. “Saskatchewan In 1881” (written by Colter Wall)

Upbeat Canadian folk song with a touch of humor.  Where else could you find a rhyme like, “Don’t pick no fights with Mennonites?”

  1. “John Beyers (Camaro Song)” (written by Colter Wall)

This is a short little revenge song.  Very catchy and fun.

  1. “Wild Dogs” (written by Billy Don Burns)

This is a song by Billy Don Burns and it’s literally a song narrated by a wild dog about his life.  The music has some good spots but it’s not something I care for.

  1. “Calgary Round-Up” (written by Wilf Carter)

A western about a roundup jamboree.  You could easily imagine the Sons of the Pioneers singing this song.  It even has yodeling.

  1. “Night Herding Song” (Cowboy Traditional)

It sounds like a spiritual mixed with a lullaby for the cows.  Most of it is acapella.  I like it.

  1. “Wild Bill Hickok” (written by Colter Wall)

Western ballad chronicling Wild Bill’s life.  Well done.

  1. “The Trains are Gone” (written by Colter Wall)

A dirge to the changing world of the old west.  Kinda downbeat.

  1. “Thinkin’ on a Woman” (written by Colter Wall)

A song a bout a trucker brooding over a lost love.  Amusing enough.

  1. “Manitoba Man” (written by Colter Wall)

A cokehead bemoaning his fate and thinking about his next score.  Not my thing.

  1. “Tying Knots in the Devil’s Tail” (Cowboy Traditional)

This is an upbeat western about two drunk cowboys tying, branding and knotting the devil’s tail.

Universal Classic Monster Movies – An OCF Classic Movie Review – Part 3 – Frankenstein

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Re-posted from October 2017

If Dracula is the King of Monsters, monster royalty as it were, then Frankenstein is the People’s Monster, the Monster of the Proletariat.  Everything about him is working class.  He is outsized and strong to make him an able worker.  His clothing is a workman’s suit.  He is dull, brutish, inarticulate and ugly.  He recognizes beauty and strives after it but is rejected by the beautiful people and chased away.  He is the ultimate step-son.

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein’s creation as the ultimate act of human hubris, to pretend to be God.  And the Monster punishes Dr. Frankenstein for putting him through Hell.

Okay, so that’s the meta-story, now let’s talk about the movie.

Universal released Frankenstein in 1931.  The cast is mostly contract character actors who appeared in most of the B-movies at Universal.  Even Dr. Frankenstein was played by a minor star Colin Clive.  And of course, the real star, the Monster is an anonymous question mark (?) in the opening credits.  Boris Karloff made his name with this movie.  And as opposed to Bela Lugosi’s eternal submergence into the part of Dracula, Karloff prospered as the go to monster player at Universal.

The story follows Dr. Frankenstein, first as he creates the Monster and later as the Monster attempts to destroy him.  During this we meet the doctor’s fiancée and his aged father “The Baron.”  And, of course, there is his lab assistant and part time grave robber Fritz.  The hunch-backed sadist (played by Dwight Frye, the same actor who was Renfield in Dracula by the way) is the archetype for every Igor act-alike henchman in every monster movie that ever followed.  And there are all those other memorable characters, the Burgomaster, little Maria the girl drowned in the pond, Maria’s father and of course Doctor Waldman played by Edward Van Sloan.  If you read the previous post in this series you may remember Van Sloan as the brilliant Dr. Van Helsing the scientist and vampire hunter.  In this movie unfortunately, he’s not quite as successful at monster eradication.  In perhaps the most inept example of obsessive compulsive behavior ever filmed, we witness Dr. Waldman bungle the job of monster euthanasia.  In the preceding scene the Monster, tired of being tormented by Fritz, hangs the hunch-back with a length of chain.  Drs. Waldman and Frankenstein immediately suss out the necessity of subduing the Monster before he carries forward this new policy of interpersonal simplification on them.  Working together they barely manage to tranquilize the Monster with a hypodermic before he could finish throttling Dr. Frankenstein with his bare hands.

Dr. Frankenstein, now convinced that his creature is too dangerous to live wants to put him down himself but his father and his fiancée arrive in time to interrupt the program.  Dr. Waldman convinces him to leave and assures him that the deed will be performed without delay.  So far so good, capable older scientist and biologist will dispatch the Monster with a good swift stroke to the carotid or the aorta or whatever, right?  Wrong.  We are about to witness film history.

The next scene opens on Dr. Waldman in operating room garb standing over the Monster lying on an operating table, seemingly unconscious.  Dr. Waldman fiddles with some scalpels, checks the Monster’s vitals and turns aside to make an entry in his journal!  I can’t recall the exact words but the paraphrase is something like, “sedation is becoming less and less effective, I must quickly euthanize him before he regains consciousness.”  Of course, as soon as he finishes this diary entry and turns back to the job at hand, the Monster awakes and breaks the good doctor’s neck.  What the hell!  I mean, come on!  Forget medical school, how did this guy get through middle school without a body guard?  Instead of putting him in charge of monster execution he should have been assigned to spittoon polishing back at the baronial estate of Papa Frankenstein.  What a loser.

Well, the story proceeds with the monster going on a killing spree that inexplicably leads him to Dr. Frankenstein’s location.  The Monster arrives just in time to disrupt the wedding and harass but for some unknown reason not kill the doctor’s fiancée.  Roused by this threat to his planned for wedded bliss, Dr. Frankenstein joins the village mob and follows the Monster’s trail back to the obligatory windmill.  Here the tables turn and the Monster kicks his creator’s butt and tosses him off the top of the windmill.  One of the windmill’s vanes breaks his fall and he is transported back to the manor.  The incensed mob sets fire to the mill and the last we see of the Monster he is trapped under a falling beam and surrounded by flame.

Miraculously the doctor makes a complete recovery and in the last scene the household staff are drinking a toast with the Baron to “a Son of the House of Frankenstein.”  Looking at sequels as children, this toast seems to have been amply fulfilled.

So, what’s my conclusion?  It’s incredible fun.  With so many semi-comical characters it’s hard not to take the movie for what it’s meant to be a wild fantasy.  And in that guise, it succeeds.  It even somehow cobbles together a happy ending which completely ignores the actual ending of the book.  The fact that the main characters are obviously British but are supposed to be a German noble family is inexplicable.  The fact that there are no legal or personal repercussions from the Doctor’s creation murdering so many friends and neighbors is equally unexplained.  But taken as a fairy tale it works.  Silly, yes.  Enjoyable, sure.  See it if you haven’t already.

The Rising Tide Can Even Float the Boats of Congress Critters in the House

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But, but, Blue Wave!?  Looks like even the worthless denizens of the House may benefit from Kavanaugh’s Carnival in the Senate.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/10/13/gop_gains_momentum_but_midterm_spending_trails_dems_138342.html

Of course, “Speaker” Ryan is more interested in fund-raising than winning but even that serial loser may be powerless to snatch one last loss out of the jaws of victory.   That’s one bright side to all this.  We’ll have anew leader in the House soon.

I’ve agreed to a marathon telecom over the election night returns.  I’ll also set up a post for the folks here to comment to as the night progresses.  Have to remember to buy some good food for the night.

Galaxy’s Edge (Volume 8) – Message for the Dead – A Science Fiction Book Review

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Spoiler Alert!  I discuss some plot details.  If you don’t want to know, then long story, short, it’s another great addition to the Galaxy’s Edge series.  It’s full of daring heroics, brilliant battle scenes and fascinating characters trying to survive the downfall of the Galactic Republic.

Up until “Message for the Dead,” Jason Anspach and Nick Cole had made their series, Galaxy’s Edge about the conflict between the factions fighting for control of the Galactic Republic.  The Legion has attempted to maneuver in the military, moral and political space between the corrupt civilian government of the Republic (The House of Reason) and the active military enemies of the Republic represented by the zhee, the Mid Core Rebellion (MCR) and the Black Fleet Forces of Goth Sullus (now known as the Empire).  But by the conclusion of the previous volume (Turning Point) the Legion had used their constitutional authority to denounce the House of Reason, to force an investigation of their corruption and to call for new elections.  This looked like a step forward to resolving the crisis and allowing the Legion to concentrate on the external military threat.  Hah!

In Message for the Dead FUBAR is the order of the hour and all hell breaks loose.  The main battle scene in the space around the Republic’s capitol planet Utopion is a swirling cauldron of death for all the fighting forces, Republic Navy, Legion, Black Forces and the MCR.  But none of them are prepared for the arrival of the Cybar.  They are the biggest wild card in the battle and their allegiance is misunderstood by most of the combatants.

And in this book, we finally learn the depths of X’s duplicity.  He’s been using the Legion, the House of Reason and the Black Fleet as chess pieces in his own merciless campaign to reshape the Galaxy’s government through violent crisis.  We finally get to hear his specific plan and his self-justification from his own lips.

And in the foreground of the story is the Legion’s best soldiers, Victory Squad.  In various situations, they and their friends fight to save civilization from the predators and the tyrants.  But by the end of the story they are fighting just to stay alive.  At the beginning of the book Captain Keel recruits friends and even enemies to help him rescue his shipmates from the Cybar mother ship.  By the end of the book Keel is called on to repay the favor by rescuing Major Chun and all that is left of Victory Squad from the midst of a planetary extermination operation being perpetrated by the Cybar.

Well, now that Anspach and Cole have destroyed everything in sight I guess they’ll have to write about ten more books to try and put humpty-dumpty back together again.  These boys are really getting it done.  I read these books as fast as I get my hands on them.  They balance the story between the military action, science fiction elements and the human interest in the characters.  The sheer number of characters they create is impressive but the detail is there and that helps keep the reader’s interest from flagging.

Interestingly, the story is now introducing an aspect that seems to be an echo of older mythology.  It’s too early to tell but I think there is an almost Tolkienian plot element being introduced.  Of course, this is a guess on my part.  What has occurred is so far only a suggestion of a plot direction.  We’ll see.

Hail Galaxy’s Edge.  Long may you torture your legionnaires and my bank account.

Universal Classic Monster Movies – An OCF Classic Movie Review – Part 2 – Dracula

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Re-posted from October 2017

 

Dracula is the King of Monsters.  He is obviously royalty.  He has all the trappings.  His castle, his formal evening attire, even his diction and good manners.  He is called Count Dracula in the Universal film but his legend descends from a real prince.  Vlad III (the Impaler) was ruler of Wallachia in present day Romania.  He was called Dracul (Dragon) for his defense of Christians against the Turks but his cruelty against just about anyone he came in contact with was legendary.  The legend of the vampire (nosferatu) is central European in origin and goes back very far into the imagination of primitive people huddling in the dimly lit hovels and fearing the long winter nights for all the real and imagined terrors that lurked right at their doorsteps.

Bram Stoker took this legacy and created a gothic novel that followed the conventions of his time and populated it with upper class British characters right down to the damsel in distress and the square jawed leading man ready to save her from a fate literally worse than death.  It cried out for a stage adaption and of course it got it.  And then some.  Several productions were launched and in 1927 a company opened the play in the United States.  And interestingly enough three of the lead male parts reprised their roles in the Universal film, Bela Lugosi as Dracula, Edward van Sloan as Dr. Van Helsing and Herbert Bunston as Dr. Seward.

Let’s now look at the film.  What are its chief characteristics?  It’s an early talkie.  The sound is not perfect.  Whether an artifact of the age of the prints used or of the original production there is considerable background noise.  The sets for the most part are the studio versions of city streets and upper class drawing rooms.  The sets used for the village and castle in Transylvania are unconvincing but highly evocative.  My one pet peeve with Castle Dracula is that while showing all the creatures crawling around in the cellar we are given a good look at some armadillos.  These are New World creatures and what they would be doing in central Europe is very hard to imagine.  The set for Carfax Abbey is equally entertaining and in fact is probably built on the set for Castle Dracula used earlier.

With respect to the actors, they are exaggeratedly and understandably stagey.  After all, most of them were stage actors.  They exaggerate their words and gestures to such an extent that sometimes it appears to a modern audience as parody.  This is probably the result of both the stage and silent film legacy of most of the cast.  Probably the most entertaining performance is given by the Cockney Orderly who watches over the madman Renfield.  He is an exaggerated lower-class everyman who adds comic relief and a really terrible accent to the film.

And finally the special effects.  At one point, Renfield looks out the window of the stage coach he is travelling in to Castle Dracula and sees a bat flying above the horses.  It is hard to minimize how laughably pathetic it looks to anyone used to the magic that CGI can perform today.  I think the strings are actually visible, but maybe it was just my scornful imagination.  There is at least one more bat flyby in the film and it doesn’t improve over the first.  ‘Nuff said.

Okay, now I’ve run down everything about the film.  It sounds like a hot steaming mess.

 

Well, it is and it isn’t.  All that I’ve said is true.  But it still remains an entertaining experience.  It is a time capsule of what our great grandparents looked on as theater.  The British basis of what was considered civilized and urbane is on display.  And you can see the tension between reason and science on the one hand and the instinctual and irrational forces at work in the universe.  And it’s interesting to note how young women are the weak point in the rational structure being undermined by the powers of darkness.  Really the story isn’t that different from our own morality tales about the dissolution of the world of light into the abyss.  It’s only different in that it has a happy ending.  Today the forces of darkness would win and we would cheer them because of how cool they dress.  And the characters get to mouth some very entertaining lines.  In one exchange between the main protagonists Dracula declares in his best Transylvanian English, “You are wise for one who has not lived even one lifetime, Van Helsing.”  For me that’s worth the price of admittance right there.

Universal Classic Monster Movies – An OCF Classic Movie Review – Part 1

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Re-Posted from October 2017

 

A friend of mine at work is a movie fan.  But being a Gen X aged guy he hasn’t been exposed to the full gamut of classic Hollywood films from the ‘30s and ‘40s.  Recently he’s begun a systematic review of these films.  For instance, he just finished up an exhaustive viewing of all Alfred Hitchcock’s films in chronological order.  He even watched the early silent films Hitchcock made.  Now that is dedication.  On the whole he seemed impressed by Hitchcock’s body of work.  While he recognized weaker efforts he also felt that Hitchcock was an extremely competent craftsman who produced quality work.  And he noted that Hitchcock innovated over the course of his career and broke new ground in several ways.  He did chide him for birthing the slasher films with Psycho.  But all in all he was a great director.

This month he started on a smaller project.  He’s watching the Universal Classic Monster films.  He just finished up on Dracula, Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein.  When I spoke to him he was surprised and disappointed at what he judged a lack of quality.  I told him I predicted he’d really be shocked once he’d watched the Wolfman.  He is soldiering on but I could see he was let down.

After my comment, my friend questioned whether I disliked the Universal series.  I told him I have a fondness for them but have no illusions about the artistry they represent.  My exact words were, “Peter, they were made to scare children and simple people.  They were wildly successful at doing this.  And if you watch them in the right frame of mind they still can entertain.”  I’m not sure if I convinced him but it got me thinking about what those movies could say to an audience today.

First off, let’s see how they do with today’s kids.  I have a 13-year-old grandson who has been fed a steady dose of these films from about the time he was five.  Now, they may have become tame fare for him now but he still likes watching them.  He probably recognizes the relation to such modern fixtures as the Count on Sesame Street and Hotel Transylvania.  And basically kids are still kids and monsters are great fun for kids.  So, one audience still exists for these movies.

For those of us who grew up watching these movies their charm although thinned by use still survives.  They’re like old relations who diminish in importance as we grow up but still are fondly regarded and maintain an association in our minds with the happiness of childhood (if your childhood was happy).  This audience is shrinking but is still a large population.

And finally, there are those who are fans of all things fantastic.  If you are a SF&F fan then how can you not, at least, have a curiosity about the origin of all those First Blood and Underworld stories?  Sure, the 1930’s models were vastly less cool, what with their crosses and holy water, but even if just from an historical perspective, they should be viewed and discussed.

Being solidly in the second and third camps I feel entitled to give my opinion.  And that’s what I’ll do.  I’ll plow through the canon and give the pluses and minuses as honestly and objectively as I can.  It should be fun.  Stay tuned.

Deplatforming Becomes More Pervasive

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Recently everyone saw the spectacle of Alex Jones being outlawed from YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Apple Apps, etc., etc., etc.  Vox Day posted that Indiegogo has reneged on his recent crowdfunding foray for one of his comic books.  Without a doubt our Tech Masters are intent on purging the sinners from their midst.  Now this isn’t a surprise especially to Vox who preaches the good word of building our own platforms.  But the hardest things to replace are financial institutions.  Things like PayPal, Stripe and the various crowdfunding companies are currently irreplaceable for net businesses and they know it.    The Trump Administration has made the first rumblings against the Techs for persecuting the Right on-line.  But it will probably be a long time before any legal relief is possible.  This makes it more important than ever for alternatives to be established.  But who has the wherewithal?  It’s one thing to open a store on Amazon (which is also a risk to right wing individuals and businesses) but it’s quite another to open a bank.  So right now, there’s no good answer for this.  Hopefully some of the bigger players on the right side of the aisle will see this as an opportunity and jump in to service an under-served market.  That’s right Peter Thiel I’m talking to you.

My Annual Halloween Celebration

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Lichen on Monument
The Raven is a Wicked Bird

 

Halloween was always one of my favorite holidays as a kid and in my heart of hearts I haven’t really progressed far from that.  I guess I’m not a progressive.  So here is the advantage to being in business for more than a year.  The calendar allows you to recycle stuff you did last year.  I did movie reviews of the Universal Classic Monster Movies and a few other related films last year and I’ll recycle them around for the Halloween season.  And I’ll add some additional films to avoid the label of laziness.  I’ll also try to find some other Halloween content.  I guess Ray Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes” is sort of the quintessential American story for this time of year.  But there are all kinds of other stuff out there from Poe to (yikes) Lovecraft to even that lefty doofus Stephen King.  So stay tuned and I’ll start cycling those in.

 

 

When Bret Stephens Admits He’s Glad Donald Trump is President You Know That The Democrats Are Doomed

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The NeverTrumpers have seen the light.  The blind can see.  The Millennium is upon us (again).  American Thinker has a nice review of the NeverTrumpers waking up to why President Trump is the antidote to Progressive poison.  How sweet it is when the dolts finally see the light of day.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/kavanaugh_boomerang_1_fanatical_dems_finally_have_unified_the_gop_behind_trump.html

My two favorite quotes in the piece was one from Erick Erickson:

“Congrats progressives. You so overplayed your hand that you

(A) fired up the Republican base;

(B) pissed off Susan Collins; and

(C) Radicalized the newest Justice on the United States Supreme Court.”

 

And one from Brett Stephens:

“For the first time since Donald Trump entered the political fray, I find myself grateful that he’s in it.  I’m reluctant to admit it and astonished to say it[.] …

 

I’m grateful because Trump has not backed down in the face of the slipperiness, hypocrisy and dangerous standard-setting deployed by opponents of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.  I’m grateful because ferocious and even crass obstinacy has its uses in life, and never more so than in the face of sly moral bullying.  I’m grateful because he’s a big fat hammer fending off a razor-sharp dagger.”

 

If I wasn’t sure they’d back track on this later in the week I’d welcome them back into the right-wing fold.  But I know they will so I’ll just take this as a gift from heaven and give them no credit.

But this is a wonderful moment.  And every Republican establishment type that pats himself on the back for being a part of it should know very clearly that without Donald Trump none of them would have had the backbone or the opportunity to be a part of this.

I’ll have another longer post on the Kavanaugh addition to the Supreme Court but let’s just savor the moment.

Thank you, President Trump.  Well done.