Film

Underworld: Evolution

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Last night I joined Tom, James, and Jeff to a boy’s night out viewing of Underworld: Evolution. With Underworld: Evolution, the sequel to the 2003 cult hit Underworld, director Len Wiseman once again proves that vampires, werewolves, guns and leather are potent ingredients for dynamic entertainment.

Underworld: Evolution begins with a scene in the early 1600’s that provides some interesting background material to the first movie. It then moves to pick up right where Underworld left off providing an interesting flashback sequence that serves as a recap of the story so far while advancing the storyline in this film. I need not discuss more of the plot here. Examined in the hard light of day the plot for this type of film is never too deep, but that isn’t the point. Wiseman provides just enough mystery in his story to frame what is predominately an action film. And it works.

Many of the actors from the first film make a reappearance, if only briefly. The 1600’s sequence was interesting in that viewers were able to get a little taste of Underworld‘s villain Viktor (Bill Nighy) in a scene that also involved the other two vampire leaders Amelia and Marcus. Amelia (Zita Görög) was short shifted in Underworld, paraded on screen briefly to look pretty and die. In Underworld: Evolution she was able to perform in a few fight scenes giving her somewhat of an action heroine backstory. Scott Speedman was back as Michael Corvinus and I really enjoyed his role in this film. Speedman does a good job of being an everyman, a good joe who grows easily into the role of hero. One of the really nice touches to this film is the fact that he removes his leather jacket before morphing into his alternate persona, thus saving his jacket from an Incredible Hulk style demise. And of course there is Kate Beckinsale.

Of all the recent starlets turned action heroes Kate Beckinsale’s performance of Selene in the Underworld franchise is my favorite. Kate Beckinsale makes leather and fangs look haute couture. I became a Kate fan with her debut performance in Much Ado About Nothing and, while I haven’t enjoyed all of her films (Pearl Harbor), I have enjoyed each of her performances. She is a complete natural at inhabiting the body of a black leather clad, gun toting, fang bearing vampire hunter. Nothing about her performances in the Underworld films seems forced or silly, she takes a role that could be completely campy and turns it into the Indiana Jones of vampire/werewolf films.

The look and feel of Underworld: Evolution has changed little from the first film. Present is the same predominately black palette with hues of blue which corresponds well with the deep blue eye color that appears when the vampires vamp it up. Shiny black weapons mimic the shiny black leather outfits of those who wield them. Cool slow motion special effects give the battles a Matrix/Max Payne feel. In fact all the special effects were quite good. Most impressive was the creature that Marcus morphed into after being unintentionally awoken by the ingestion of lycan blood at the end of Underworld. The presence of a winged vampire creature could have easily turned into a cheesy effect but it wasn’t, it was great. The way the mechanics of flight were rendered was terrific. The music is hard and grinding, fitting perfectly with the mood of the film without being a distraction and the sound quality and effects were crisp, clean and action packed.

This film earns every bit of its ‘R’ rating with more visceral fighting scenes and a few flashes of skin. During a particularly well acted scene of intimacy I found the voice of Pedro, from Napoleon Dynamite, speaking to me: “You think its kind of warm in here?…I think they have the heater on or something…You don’t feel like your head is burning or, or anything?”

Despite being panned by critics, if you enjoyed Underworld you will most certainly enjoy Underworld: Evolution. The movie met and in some places exceeded my expectations and I enjoyed it even more than I did the first one. The action is great, the storyline has some intriguing twists, Kate Beckinsale is stunning and there are plenty of hairy werewolves if that is your thing. I had a great deal of fun watching this movie and look forward to seeing it again on DVD.

Home

Rollergirls and the Dog

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From the lofty heights of early 20th century American fiction to this…the blog has no shame. Our lastest guilty pleasures (yes, our…meaning myself and Mary ) is Rollergirls. Rollergirls is A&E’s latest offering in the ‘reality’ television series that follows the girls of the T.X.R.D. as they live their lives and skate. Should I be embarrassed that I look forward to every Monday evening at 9 p.m. central time? Probably, but I most unequivocably am not. A&E describes the show as “the rollicking, real-action show that puts you on the fast track of the Austin Thunderdome. Check out the five-team, all-girl league of tough and sexy young athletes who pay to skate and play to win. Their raucous bouts combine fierce competition with jaw-dropping outfits and crowd-pleasing personalities”. The contention is that the show is completely unscripted, but one still gets the feel that they are watching a less testosterone filled version of female professional wrestling.

Mary and I happened to stumble across this show a few weeks ago during the episode in which The Rookie, Venis Envy (pictured below) makes her first roller derby appearance.

Miss Conduct, Jailbait, Mighty Aphrodite, and Witch Baby how can one not watch? My favorites of the group are the aforementioned Venis Envy and Sister Mary Jane and Punky Bruiser (pictured below)

One of the more fun commercials for Rollergirls shows Sister Mary Jane in her day job as a school teacher telling her class “now we don’t hit” followed by a cut of her beating the crap out of someone on the track.

The two teams that the show seems to focus on the most are incidently the ones you end up liking the most, the Putas Del Fuego

and the league dominating Holy Rollers

Rollergirls is a fun guilty pleasure. It is an interesting look into the lives of people who may or may not be just like you and me who have the joy of taking on a different persona outside of their 9 to 5 careers to compete in an entertaining, if somewhat dubious, sport. Expect the odd profanity…and by ‘odd’ I mean ‘frequent’ as well as drinking and the occasional fight. Of course if anyone watches next week I’m prepared to be really embarrassed as next week’s previews looked like this will be the most inappropriate show they have shown yet.

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Not to be outdone, however, is our other favorite A&E guilty pleasure, Dog the Bounty Hunter. Dog the Bounty Hunter follows Duane “Dog” Chapman and his family of bounty hunters as they take on the dope dealers and criminals of the Hawaiian Islands. Dog and his family are somewhat of an enigma. They are devoutly Christian. They often pray before their day begins and demonstrate sincere care and concern for the people whose lives they get involved with. At the same time they swear like sailors and are not afraid to put the beat down on someone if need be to capture their prey. The posse includes Dog’s ‘brother’ Tim and his son Leland, pictured below

and Dog’s wife Beth, whose enormous bossom and ever-present cleavage cause Mary, Tori and I to giggle in embarrassment at the interesting array of outfits she chooses to wear.

While highly entertaining there is a sad undercurrent to Dog the Bounty Hunter as they show how drugs, especially the drug Ice, is ravishing the Hawaiian Islands and devastating the lives of people who are caught in the cycle of abuse. Duane Chapman himself is a former convict who has turned his life around and is trying to help others do the same. While a lot of what goes on in the show is posturing for the TV, I truly believe their faith and concern for their community is sincere and it adds a real depth to this otherwise guilty pleasure reality show.

Well there you have it. Those of you who have cringed at all the Robert E. Howard and Conan talk over the last few days can cringe no more!…..er, wait….maybe you’re cringing more now…. at the very least maybe this will keep you guessing as to what may be next on the ol’ blog.

Comics

Comic Book Day…featuring…Conan!!!

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To conclude, for now, my celebration of the Robert E. Howard Centennial I go to the comics.

Last year on occasion I would hear Jeff and other patrons of A to Z Comics talking about Conan, but I was unfazed. Why would I want to read comics about a barbarian with an Austrian accent? would’ve been my reply had I been asked. However, when the first trade came out, Conan: The Frost Giant’s Daughter and Other Stories I picked it up to take a look and was blown away by Cary Nord’s art. I knew right then and there that I had to have it. After reading the book and reading the biography of Robert E. Howard that was included in the trade I knew I would have to go to the source material and discover Conan for myself, thus was born my affection for the work of Robert E. Howard.

The writing chores for the Conan series falls on the shoulders of Kurt Busiek. Busiek has a reputation as a very strong writer in this field and in reading his adaptations of Howard’s Conan stories I can see why. Busiek has written a very nice framing sequence in which to present the tales that ties each issue in the trade together quite nicely. Often in the life of a comic series the first few issues show the signs of growing pains in the writing. This is not the case with Kurt Busiek’s work on Conan. It is strong right out of the gate. And while the assumption would be that the comics format would have to focus more on the action of Howard’s stories Busiek manages to include the other elements from Howard’s stories that have made them stand the test of time.

The first thing that draws me to any comic is, however, the art. There are a handful of artists who I consider to be top notch in the comics field and Cary Nord is in that elite group. The standard process of comic art involves the artist first pencilling and then inking his drawings before the colorist goes to work. Some artists ink their own work and some have others ink their work for them. On rare occasions an artists pencils are so strong that to ink them would be a travesty. Cary Nord is one of those artists. During the planning stages of the Conan series Busiek wrote a script that Dark Horse used to audition over 20 pencillers. Nord’s audition work, included in the back of this first trade, was so strong that he not only got the job but it prompted colorist Dave Stewart to suggest skipping the inking process and coloring right over the pencils.

Cary Nord does not have a weak area in my opinion. Each character has unique qualities; he draws men and women equally well and his backgrounds are rich and lavish or sparse and unassuming depending on the needs for that panel. Some examples of his page work for Conan can be found here and here.

The addition of Dave Stewart as colorist for this series puts this book into the upper echelon of today’s comic series. Stewart is a mutliple award-winning colorist whose work is unequalled in my opinion. The colors are at once rich and soft and are a perfect compliment to Nord’s pencils. Stewart’s colors captured the appropriate mood in each panel. Cary Nord’s pencil work is so great that I would be buying the book if it was only his pencils however the work is enhanced by Stewart’s colors.

The second volume in the Conan series is currently out, The God in the Bowl and Other Stories,

and the third book is due out this May. Each book is put out in both hardback and softcover simultaneously which is a really nice touch by Dark Horse. I would recommend the hardback but the trade quality is outstanding as well and of course slightly less expensive. The God in the Bowl and Other Stories features work by additional artists besides Nord. The art is good but being sold on Nord’s work it is disappointing to me when he is not the primary artist on certain issues. This book also shows that not all strong characters in the Conan universe are males, the females can hold their own!

If you are into comics at all or, if you are curious as to what a great comic can do, I encourage you to pick up a copy of this series. Action, adventure, history, mythology, romance and derring-do abound.
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There is some controversy as to whether Robert E. Howard was born on January 22nd or 24th. Since Robert himself claimed the 22nd that is the date I went with. There is an interesting article, not all of which I agree with, that was in the Washington Post yesterday (the day they acknowledge as Howard’s birthday) here. For a good review of the article I point you to author James Reasoner‘s comments here.

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Tomorrow you will be set free from my Howard mania! Sex on Wheels is tomorrow’s topic. Tune in!

Fantasy

The Tales of Conan

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Continuing with the centennial celebration of Robert E. Howard I want to review the first two books in a three volume series encompassing the stories that make up the canon of Conan: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian and The Bloody Crown of Conan.

A few years ago the UK’s Wandering Star Books under took a labor of love: the restoration and rerelease of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. According to Wandering Star, “As with many authors who’ve been republished frequently and badly, Robert E. Howard’s work has undergone an unpublicized, but fairly constant process of editing, expurgation, and rewriting”. In their passion to release a product of quality Wandering Star consulted Howard scholars to restore the stories to their original text. They also chose to publish them in the order in which Robert E. Howard wrote them rather than the chronological reordering that had gone on with other publishers. Wandering Star Books also chose talented illustrators and the results were outstanding. A well-crafted book is a thing of delight to me thus I find this letter from Wandering Star to be a moving demonstration of their dedication to making their books a tribute to Robert E. Howard. Random Houses’ Del Rey division obtained the rights for US publication and has released these books in wonderful trade editions as can be seen here.

The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian presents the first 13 of Howard’s Conan Tales. These stories are a perfect introduction to the unequaled work of Robert E. Howard. Herein lie tales of adventure, piracy, conquest, battle, heroism, travel, horror, romance…there is literally a taste of almost all genres that Howard was proficient in. My surprise in reading the stories of Conan was that he is not the ignorant barbarian that he has been portrayed as over the years. Conan is a savage in comparison to the more cultured people’s who populate his world, his people are strong and mighty and come from a tradition of success by labor and battle, but he is not ignorant. Conan may be a man of simple wants and desires but he is also intelligent, shrewd and cunning. I was pleasantly surprised at the philosophical leanings of Howard’s barbarian. These stories are rich with action and adventure but the real treasure is the way in which Howard’s words bring these tales to life. He really was a unique and talented storyteller. My favorite story in the bunch is the Conan pirate tale Queen of the Black Coast but they are all quite enjoyable.

This first volume contains beautiful artwork by one of my favorite illustrators, Mark Schultz. I posted recently about his first art collection here. His color work, as seen here in the cover illustration

is magnificient as are his pen and ink illustrations scattered throughout the book. Examples can be seen here. Again the quality of these books is amazing.

The Bloody Crown of Conan continues Howard’s Conan Tales. This volume contains 3 longer works including Howard’s only Conan novel. I was curious how Howard’s writing style would read in these longer tales in comparison to the shorter stories in the first volume. I need not have been concerned as they are once again outstanding. I rather enjoyed traveling with Conan on these bigger adventures. As I stated in yesterday’s post, Robert E. Howard created a genre that is now known as the Sword and Sorcery genre. In his tales Howard brings us lands and people that are so familiar that one could almost believe that they are historical fiction. Howard’s idea of creating epochs of time that are destroyed by cataclysmic events that render them as a vague memory or as mythology passed on to the next generation lend life and realism to his tales. Howard’s style of presenting the ferocity of battle without reverting to gore is unrivaled. It is the addition of ancient magic that lifts Howard’s tales into a genre all their own. The magic in these tales isn’t like the magic in traditional fantasy. Reading Howard’s descriptions of arcane magic and evil magicians feels like you are reading accounts of occultic practices from times that pre-date ancient Egyptian religion. The simplist way to describe the writing of Robert E. Howard is that is is filled with life…vibrant life.

The Bloody Crown of Conan is illustrated by Gary Gianni. Gianni is a fantastic illustrator whose work, especially his pen and ink drawings, hearkens back to the golden age of illustration. His work has a truly classic look and feel to it.

You can see more of his illustration work for Conan and other books in the gallery section of the above link. I had the opportunity to meet Gary Giani at a comic convention years ago. It was at the start of his book illustration career and he had just completed an illustrated work of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. At that time I had not discovered my affection for classic illustration and am kicking myself now for not picking up some of his work.

In addition to the stories and high quality illustration these books contain extras on par with the DVD’s that geeks drool over: “contextual notes, synopses, plot outlines, initial drafts, original ideas, notes — everything Conan’s creator ever wrote about the greatest barbarian adventurer of all time!”.

These books were originally released in trade paperback format in the United States but are now being reprinted in hardback form with 4 full color illustration plates in each volume. For the avid book collector there are still limited special editions of Wandering Star Books original print run that make me quiver with envy! A sample of what these editions look like can be seen here. Ironic that it took a British publisher to put together a high quality collector’s edition of one of the pioneers of American fantasic fiction.

Forget anything you think you know about Conan and fantasy fiction and discover the wonder of Robert E. Howard’s work for yourself.

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A Century of Robert E. Howard

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It has been exactly 100 years since the birth of Robert Ervin Howard, a writer I have come to revere in much the same way I do Edgar Rice Burroughs and J.R.R. Tolkien. Like Burroughs, Howard created many varied and memorable characters and like Tolkein, he created mythological ages for his characters to inhabit, the most famous of course being the barbarian Conan.

Robert E. Howard was born in a small Texas town on January 22nd, 1906. His father was a doctor and much of his childhood was spent living in various small towns throughout Texas and Oklahoma before the family settled in Cross Plains, Texas in 1919. Howard grew up with a passion for the written word, “As a boy and a youth in my teens, I read purely for the love of reading. I can say with confidence that no man ever loved reading for its own sake more than I. I did not read because of any particular urge for learning, or to merely pass the time, or to escape the realities of life. I read simply because I loved reading for its own sake alone. The printed page was like wine to me.” Robert E. Howard had a great affection for both fiction and poetry and reading over his list of favorite authors arouses a feeling of great kinship despite our existence in different generations: Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, H. Rider Haggard, Ambrose Bierce, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, G.K. Chesterton, Oscar Wilde, Alfred Lord Tennyson, among others. So much of the work that influenced him then continues to fire imaginations today. Howard was also known as a famed oral storyteller, often reading his tales aloud as he typed them and he loved to regale friends with stories.

Robert E. Howard began writing at a very young age and he submitted his first story for publication at age 15. It wasn’t until the age of 19 that he was first published, when his short story Spear and Fang was accepted by the magazine Weird Tales. Howard was very pragmatic about his desire to be a writer: “My sole desire in writing is to make a reasonable living. I may cling to many illusions, but I am not ridden by the illusion that I have anything wonderful or magical to say, or that it would amount to anything particularly if I did say it…I took up writing simply because it seemed to promise an easier mode of work, more money, and more freedom than any other job I’d tried. I wouldn’t write otherwise.” To please his father Howard had taken a bookkeeping course and agreed that if he could not make it as a writer in a year he would quit and get a regular paying job. He sold four stories that year and his career as a writer began. Personal freedom and control were touchstone issues for Howard and these came out in his work.

Robert E. Howard’s stories were not originally written to be published in book form…the stories he wrote were for the adventure magazines of his day, Weird Tales, Wild West Weekly, Spicy Adventure Stories, Strange Detective, etc. Howard was unique in that he created several serialized characters. While he was writing these he often felt inhabited by the character and would write several stories about said character and would eventually lose the inspiration for that character and move on to another. That writing style gave us characters like King Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane, El Borak, Red Sonya and of course Conan. Each of Howard’s characters inhabited the same “universe” starting with the pre-historic adventures of Kull up through Howard’s created Hyborian Age of Conan. “Howard engineered his tales so that a great Cataclysm always came to seal and divide each era from the next one, so each civilization was barely conscious of the ones that came before, and even then only in myths and legends”. The Conan tales have continued to keep Robert E. Howard’s name in the limelight but it would be a great disservice to think that this is all that he did. In his brief lifetime Howard wrote over 300 short stories, only 22 of which are about Conan. Howard wrote poetry, westerns, fantasy, horror…he was great friends with H.P. Lovecraft and wrote one or two tales that today are considered a part of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos.

It would also be a mistake to assume that the Conan tales are nothing more than a written version of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan films. I had not read any of Robert E. Howard’s work until Jeff recommended Dark Horse Comics’ new Conan series last year. Cary Nord’s art and Kurt Busiek’s reworking of Howard’s tales are amazing and they drove me to pick up his books. In the next few days I will post more about the Conan stories specifically.

Robert E. Howard is widely considered to be the father of the Sword and Sorcery genre…a genre based on war, fighting and magic. Howard liked to box and his real life experience with fighting translates well on the page. Many consider his descriptions of fighting and battle to be some of the best in fiction.

Tragically Robert E. Howard’s life was cut short. His mother was terminally ill and in 1936 as her health turned for the worse Howard began planning his death. Hester Howard sank into a coma on June 8th, 1936. On the morning of June 11th his mother’s nurse confirmed that she was unlikely to revive from this coma. Howard went into his room, typed this couplet:

“All fled, all done
So lift me on the pyre.
The feast is over
And the lamps expire.”

went out to his car and shot himself. His robust constitution resulted in his living for almost 8 hours after this before finally succumbing to death. Robert E. Howard left behind a wealth of amazing storytelling and it is a tragedy that he left life so early as his writing seemed to get better and better with each story…who knows what great and wonderful literary characters died with him that day.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of this underappreciated American writer I will be posting more about him, his works, and things based on his characters throughout the week. As long as this post is it doesn’t even skim the surface of this fascinating writer. There is an excellent 18 page biography of Robert E. Howard here that is a must read.

Happy Birthday, Robert E. Howard.


(Conan image by Frank Frazetta)

Eclectic Musings of a Renaissance Geek