Horror/monster mags have seen better days, because the rises in postage and the high overheads for profitable distribution mean that so many niche publications have become untenable. Thankfully, the people who publish these are passionate and have stuck to their guns. My current favorite–one that all should support–is Shock Cinema Magazine, which along with the similarly excellent Video Watchdog, could be glimpsed briefly in a scene in Death Proof (2007). Taratino knows and loves these magazines, and much of his seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of brilliant old horror films comes from them. Watchdog just celebrated its milestone anniversary, while Shock Cinema just published its first issue in many months. Both are highly worth seeking out!

Two other favorites include the recently revitalized Scarlet: The Film Magazine (I wrote, once for its precursor Scarlet Street magazine). The magazine has always had a passionate staff, and the longer essays are great gateways into a specific subgenre or creative icon in the field. One of the most long-lived magazines is published by somebody who managed to trademark their alternative, movie-reviewing persona: The Phantom of the Movies’ Videoscope has been plugging away for years. I also highly recommend his book, which does thematic clusters and has a depth that similar genre guides seem to lack.

Though my taste tends to run counter, you’ve still got Famous Monsters of Filmland (albeit in a different form), Fangoria (I’ve always felt too well adjusted and pleasant to read this magazine…), and Asian Cult Cinema.

For the more scholarly minded, check out the journal Gothic Studies, the soon-to-be-launched (though this has been the case for several years, now) Horror Studies, or the always lively Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies. The IJGHS is free and online. I’ve contributed to them and they turn out a really thoughtful product.

I can’t help with free consumables, but I can point you to some resources for enjoying foundational horror literature FOR FREE. Think of this as a mini-guide to your Halloween media.

Edgar Allan Poe: A man inseparable from the season. His melancholia was to be the shivery delight of millions. Check out a selection of his stories, care of the Poe Museum in Richmond, VA. Includes “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

Albrecht Durer, Melencolia I, 1514

Speaking of melancholia, why not read bits of Robert Burton’s brilliant assemblage of 1654, The Anatomy of Melancholy (includes thoughts dark and dreary) .

Three Giants of the Gothic: Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) is a key work of unsettling Gothic spaces. Walpole was so committed to the idea that he built his own “Gothic Revival” house. Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1764) should be spoon-fed as a suitable substitute for those who are Twilight crazed. A foundational romance, it blends forbidden love and terror to strong effect. Matthew Gregory Lewis left us The Monk (1796), where the Gothic impulse met up with black magic, The Devil, and all that jazz.

Two Gods of the Gruesome: If you have not read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (get the 1818 version) since school, you owe it to yourself to give it another shot. Worth every bit of adulation that it has garnered. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) remains epistolary brilliance. Of course, Stoker’s The Lair of the White Worm (1911) is equally interesting, if un-PC and a bit strange. Ken Russell made an amazing film of it–better than the book!–and writer John Kenneth Muir recently wrote a piece about said film for my book.

Vampires!: While on the subject, Dr. John Polidori, friend to Lord Byron, wrote The Vampyre in 1819. Fans will want to check out Melinda K. Hayes and her excellent resource Vampiri Europeana, an extensive bibliography of representations of the bloodsuckers. Want films? Try watching Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride (1970), Vampire’s Night Orgy (1970), Vampire’s Kiss (1988, starring Nick Cage!!), and The Vampire Bat (1933) for free!!

Other Kings of the Scary Short: H.P. Lovecraft has legions of devoted fans–check out his approach to horror via Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927, though changed a bit in the 1930s). M.R. James, generally unsung in the United States, has some powerful supernatural tales, especially in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904).

If you can spare a dime…: On the cheap and in your mailbox in a matter of days are Stephen King’s Danse Macabre (1987), a wonderful, personalized guide to his horror views and influences. Jenny Uglow’s The Vintage Book of Ghosts (1997) is one of the best anthologies on apparitions that I know. For the little ones, try the works of John Bellairs–an absolutely formative author of my youth–now mostly available for the cost of postage.

Read (and watch) yourself silly before the big day.

Since I recently published a book, I’ve become quite interested in ways that authors/editors get the word out on their latest work. The traditional avenues still remain: print ads in venues where the subject will play well, reviews in publications (even lukewarm ones–at one level, there is no such thing as bad publicity!), and personal appearances for talks, signings, and panels. The author’s presence and interest in the “afterlife” of a book often make it work.

Anyway, this is mostly in recognition of a book and short film by Kevin Jackson. A few months ago, I somehow noticed that the author of several books I had on many disparate topics–let’s say a biography of British filmmaker Humphrey Jennings, a book of interviews with Iain Sinclair, The Oxford Book of Money, and a book on the moose, to scratch the surface–was, in fact, one and the same person.

A simple Google search turned up his latest project, Bite: A Vampire Handbook (published earlier this month by Portabello Books). I haven’t had a chance to get/look at the book yet, but it seems a timely Halloween read. While they’ve arguably been all the rage for the last 100 or so years, vampires really have been all the rage as of late. With Twilight (2008) and Let the Right One In (2008) pock-marking people’s taste before they’ve had a chance to even explain, vampires are in vogue above and beyond their 1990s heyday during the age of Buffy. My personal preference skews toward the goofy vampire movies of the 1970s–Blacula (1972), The Vampire Lovers (1970), Count Yorga, Vampire (1970), Vampyres (1974)–and the foundational vampire lit. But I’m sure the book will contain something, if even in passing, for everyone.

But back to marketing. Jackson made a short film–which works on its own as a terror scenario, but just happens to rightfully promote the book–and is using that, in addition to the obvious promotional channels listed above.

But wait! Horror author Sarah Langan’s recently released Audrey’s Door has an attached short film by friend of VF J.T. Petty.  Again, we’ve got the just promotion of a book mixed with concrete, creepy images!

To preface: this is neither an ad hominem critique of the sprawling San Diego Comic-Con, nor a definitive history. Rather, what I am interested in with “The Roots of Comic-Con” are the antecedent events, types of gatherings, and commercial showcases that gave rise to America’s biggest yearly showcase for all things fantastic, glittery, and full of explosions.

From roughly July 22-26, the city of San Diego—already a pretty large place by any standards—swells with a specific sort of person, the type more at home in the air-conditioned space of the dark room than the sunny vistas of SoCal. It would be easy say that nerds, geeks, obsessives, and the like all flock to events like Comic-Con, but this is not true. All sorts of people find solace in the vast San Diego Convention Center, whether as casual/curious fans, exhibitors, or press agents.

Even in a world with such entertainment showcases as E3 and CES, Comic-Con looks like the lumbering behemoth of the group, quickly swelling in size and hoovering up any and all showcase-able media. In some senses, what began as an actual comic book convention would be the ideal repository for all sorts of new and exciting entertainment experiences. After all, people who read comic books tend to have an uncanny, almost instinctual literacy for mixed media. Since comics and graphic narratives are primarily an intersection of the image (and its framing, spatial orientation, variable sizes, etc..) and the word (though a “visual” word, as important for WHERE and HOW it is used as for WHY it is used at all), it follows that Comic-Con would be the perfect place to showcase the fluidity of media, the triumphs of popular creativity, and the masters of marketing. For all of their supposed vices—and there are some, even for a popularizer and egalitarian like myself—comics are a compact form of cultural literacy, 32 solid pages (or more) to aid in the decoding of Western civilization.

That said, while Comic-Con is certainly unique in its vast promotion of both small/independent efforts and the corporate juggernauts, it is not wholly without precedent as a cultural showcase, as an event that teaches a people about itself. What I’d like to do is briefly sketch the sources of this event, which is as much comic book convention as it is flea market, technological exhibition, job fair, audience focus group (writ large), Utopian (in all senses of the world) vacation spot, subcultural rite of passage, and industry trade show.

The Crystal Palace, via WikiMedia

The two precedents that immediately come to mind are the nationalistic technological exhibition and its near ally (or evolved self), the World’s Fair. In the 19^th century, industrialized advances in production, consumption, and distribution meant that a large part of American and European nationalistic pride was tied up in the technologies pioneered by the great minds and hard-working people of a given place. In Britain, where industrialized practices dated to the 18^th century, these showcases for technology (such as the Great Exhibition of 1851, known for its building of the still-amazing but long-ago-destroyed Crystal Palace) tempted ambling audiences with the wonders of progress, of the new, of imaginative science and its realities. In America, a similar impulse paints the Colombian Exposition of 1893, where the glory of the American 19^th century—its railroads, imperialism, miracle cures, celebrities, etc—were placed next to the riches of the rest of the world. Bear in mind that a key factor in the history of these events is the sense of cultural imperialism, the notion that what the Nation produces is of visible interest to the wide world. Comic-Con suddenly does not feel so far-off.

Some of the nationalistic zeal of these Exhibitions is alive and well at Comic-Con. An obviously huge component of the convention is the superhero, a peculiar figure that has survived and flourished across media from nearly 100 years. Since the central prerogative of most superheros is the maintenance of law & order (or the restitution of a kind of static past, untroubled by the various ills of the contemporary world), they are often aligned with nationalistic sentiments. On this national level, Superman is evidently a standard-bearer for truth, justice, and the American way, while the obvious Captain America was an emblem of WWII-era fortitude, depicted as an ideal soldier who could fight the nation’s enemies wherever he found them. The formula holds even for superheroes more concerned with local, personal vendettas. Despite his supposedly international education, and his outward life as a Europeanized playboy, Bruce Wayne/Batman is all about restoring glory to Gotham city. In fact, his reliance on intelligence, education, and technology is the kind of end-result of the liberal-progressive attitude of 19^th century industrialization. These scientists, inventors, and industrialists (Wayne is all three) are the nation’s super-men, the secular saints who will deliver the people from evil and want.

But beyond this building of national identity—where else in the world (aside from, well, Japan) could something like Comic-Con happen with such girth, such zeal?—this yearly event also promotes the commercial spectacle of the American free market. While an exhibition or World’s Fair or Expo is more concerned with showcasing things that only large corporations or millionaires can actually own, such as experimental apartment buildings (see Montreal’s Expo ’67 and its famous Habitat) or Westinghouse dynamos (the above 1893 Colombian Exposition), the flea market promotes the proper ethos of personal ownership. It’s no good tracing the history of the marketplace, as a full account would cover Billingsgate, the medieval covered markets, the Paris arcades, the American shopping mall, and the church swap-meet. Instead, take my word for it: yard sales, flea markets, swap-meets, and concentrated places of shopping continue to thrive. State and church fairs have always been places for hucksters to promote new wares—miracle tonics, shirts that need never be ironed, shoe soles that never wear down, etc—and mutual ingenuity tends to form a nice circuit. As such, new consumer goods do well when showcased together. Comic-Con totally understands this. Even when crap rubs shoulders with what appears to be genuine innovation, the lure of the new benefits from a general atmosphere of commerce and (apparent) invention. Twilight may be awful, but its co-presence with James Cameron’s Avatar promotes a general sense of American hegemony on the world’s entertainment.

But fans, consumers, and vacationers don’t just go to Comic-Con to stir their inner-nationalist or to assure themselves that an American stranglehold on the technological arts remains in plain view. Hell, people go because it’s fun! Thus, Comic-Con takes as much from the flea market as it does from the amusement park, from the Coney Island ethos of enjoyment, relaxation, and the consumer dream-world set to bright lights and HD TVs. The Coney Island of the early 1900s was truly amazing, a constant media spectacle that perhaps has still yet to be surpassed. Where else could an average Joe from New York go on rides, see pseudo-anthropological exhibits, play carnival games, and witness the liveness of death? That’s right: one famous Coney Island spectacle of yore was the live electrocution of elephants, who would be zapped to death before the eyes of a paying public. Comic-Con does not kill people, but the enculturated sense of violence remains. As much as the event gives life—new things to see, do, read, and love—it gives death. Violent entertainment, showcased in public, lives on.

The relationship of corporations and consumers is in a delicate balance at Comic-Con. Some attendees want to see the big stars, hear the big announcements from the studios, in short participate in the mainstream thrill as much as possible. Others go for the independent showcases, the self-published and/or smaller tables that hope to find a kindly audience amidst the thousands of men dressed as Stormtroopers. On a personal level, I wish the best to the smaller outfits at Comic-Con, as it is the biggest live audience they’ll ever potentially encounter. Given the size of the event, it is likely that all tastes can be accommodated. But the flip-side is true. One of the other functions of Comic-Con is as an extremely volatile product-focus-group. The super fans are in attendance, and Warner Bros. can show its latest properties, fully aware that part of the process is the airing of grievances demanded by the die-hards. As such, Comic-Con gives the mainstream outfits a sense of the fringe. While they still want the mainstream audiences, the mainstream money, they can also engage with the vocal minority in hopes of taming the beast of internet complaints. But, as previously mentioned, as Comic-Con grows, so to do the mainstream audiences. While the event’s audiences of 30+ years ago were built more specifically around a common subculture, the scene today is much more fractured. With 125,000 hearts and minds, the corporations and fans begin a mutually beneficial—though sometimes lopsided—battle for favor.

Comic-Con has likewise up’ed the ante for seemingly egalitarian, yet still divided public events. As countless online galleries attest, Comic-Con is a platform for celebrities, actors, writers, and directors to stand behind their latest creations. As scenes from Comic Book: The Movie (2004) and countless YouTube clips suggest, the fantasy of brushing against your personal pantheon of geniuses is fairly high. You will see people you recognize. But, there remain differences. Some of the promotional sessions are uni-vocal. The corporation showcases it’s film, the stars speak canned questions and answers, the audience remains an audience. This is not always the case. Some events are better at including other voices and concerns. But is is worth restating that, as with many things at Comic-Con, appearances can deceive. Some laugh all the way to the bank. Others cry as the ATM receipt shows them to be in the red.

In short, I will readily admit that my demystification of Comic-Con does take a bit of the fun out of it. While the whole media event can still be enjoyed on that very obvious promotional level—where new products make the heart race, where G.I. Joe begins looking even more atrocious than before—it should also be understood as an event that is an exception in some ways, and wholly historical in others. It is a refined showcase for fantastic narratives across media. Its success is a testament to its selective cannibalization of past events, carefully tailored to the current world of entertainment media. It is a fan-friendly convention, but it is also a con.

The London Rock & Roll Show (1973)

Film Editor: Thomas Schwalm.  Cinematography: Peter Whitehead et. al.  Produced by: Peter Clifton.  Exec. Produced by: Ron Faulk and Ray Faulk. Directed by: Peter Clifton.  Running Time: 84 min (some prints as short as 24 min)

Peter Clifton’s film of the historic pioneers of rock and roll, shot at Wembley Stadium on August 5th, 1972 and produced for theatrical release the following year.  Both nostalgia and energy hover over the sets by Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley and the Comets, Little Richard, and headliner Chuck Berry.  The mixture of performance and interview gives a good sense of the paradox confronting most of the musicians: despite a decline in popularity, the demands of the show are to bring a slate of greatest hits to a new generation of rock fans more familiar with The Who and The Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger makes an appearance and puts the age question into perspective).  This mini-festival drew the gamut of British youth sub-cultures, and part of the pleasure in watching the film now is in witnessing the Teddy Boys, Bikers, Rockers, and proto-punks strut their stuff.

Diddley’s bluesy set sports solid renditions of “Road Runner” and “Mona.”  Lewis brings his rollicking showmanship and outspoken personality to the fray, indirectly clashing with Little Richard for the title of the King of Rock (a title later given to Bill Haley by an announcer).  Compared the stage presence of Lewis, Haley’s run-through of “Rock Around the Clock,” though a crowd-pleaser, is trite and hopelessly dated.  Little Richard, in extensive interview sequences, points out the greatest irony of all—for all of his showmanship and passion, his music (and rock music in general) has always been consumed by a mainly White audience.  Richard’s extended set brings bravura to “Tutti Frutti” and “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” amongst others, but his pessimism dampers the celebratory veneer of most of the concert.  Berry closes, combining the performative sense of Little Richard with the mastery of Diddley.

As a movie, The London Rock and Roll Show feels haphazard, though the inclusion of candid interviews makes it a curiosity piece worth searching for.  The mixture of “the old” with the burgeoning possibilities of “the new” attests to the longevity of rock, but in the process gives a truncated shelf-life to some of the tamer aspects of the Golden Age sensibility. Available on DVD.

~~~~

Note: One of the lead cameramen on this film was Peter Whitehead, whose film TONITE LET’S ALL MAKE LOVE IN LONDON is one of the best on the British scene of the 1960s.  Whitehead had a knack for capturing the energy of rock.  He was responsible for chronicles of The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, and Pink Floyd.

]]> http://www.virtualfools.com/film-tv/from-the-archives-lost-rock-roll-film-encyclopedia-reviews-1/feed/ 2 http://www.virtualfools.com/film-tv/diabolik-fumetti-film-and-phenom/ http://www.virtualfools.com/film-tv/diabolik-fumetti-film-and-phenom/#comments Sun, 11 Jan 2009 05:16:40 +0000 Kevin http://www.virtualfools.com/?p=268 Fumetti are Italian comic books.  They are laid out similarly to American comic books and to French bande dessinée.

As with the differences between Japanese anime and American superhero comics, fumetti are ostensibly understand-able to most audiences, but the cultural traditions of Italy tend to change how they are received and enjoyed.

Today I was lucky enough to stumble across a reprint edition of one of my favorite fumetti characters–indeed, one of the only fumetti characters I know about–Diabolik.  As longer term VF readers will glean, I am not the biggest comic reader, though you may have noticed my increased interest over the last two or so years.  I didn’t exactly grow up on comics, could never afford to collect them in any serious way, and was irrationally interested in too many other things to invest too much of my time in them.

This particular Diabolik fumetti, spine number 62, appears to embroil Diabolik in a pretty elaborate diamond heist.  I say “appears” because I don’t speak Italian.  Though these stories are easy enough to follow on their own, I miss the nuance because of my inability to speak Italian.

I should backtrack a bit.  Diabolik is a master thief (he “liberates” valuable goods from the over-rich, but isn’t quite up to Robin Hood’s nascent communism).  He looks like a badass ninja, but operates in a cultural context without ninjas.  The character was especially popular in the 1960s, which leads to why I know about him at all.

During the golden age of the international co-production, Mario Bava made a brilliant film of Diabolik, called Danger: Diabolik (1968) in the states.  Starring American John Phillip Law–who found extra popularity though his role in Roger Vadim’s Barbarella, which also adapted a comic book character who was popular in the 1960s and was similarly positioned as an internationalist film with an American star–Danger: Diabolik heightens just about every aspect of the written/drawn stories.  A quitessential comic film, it falls just as easily into the eurospy/lounge cycle of the time (i.e. Bond but weirder) as it does to our current understanding of what constitutes comic book adaptation.

Bava is the main reason for the film’s success.  His innovations and hand in the films successful transposition of comic aesthetics to screen can be seen, with loving detail, in Tim Lucas’ book Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark, widely regarded as one of the best film biographies ever.

Sadly, the DVD is now out of print, but can be purchased for reasonable sums (wait too long and it will become a “collector’s” item.

If you already own the disc, you’ll know that the real gem is the short documentary From Fumetti to Film, which explains the cultural background of fumetti and argues for why the film is one of the best comic adaptations (that, sadly, few peopel seem to know about).  You can watch the thing–it is about 20 minutes total–at this site, which also could be a good place to go to polish up on your Italian!

While you are at it, check out other stuff featuring Steve R. Bissette, the main commentator in the doc.  Bissette worked in the comic industry for years but now lectures to aspiring artists, writes film criticism, and publishes a staggering array of books.  His blog is no slouch, either, and his political commentary is always spot-on.

I’m sure that there are some American translations of Diabolik fumetti circulating out there.  As the reprint I just bought attests, it remains popular in Italy.  Hell, you can even buy a swanky t-shirt to impress your friends.

But wait, that’s not all.  Beastie Boys fans should be able to recognize Diabolik from the video to “Body Movin’”:

In fact, elements of Danger: Diabolik have cropped up in Roman Coppola’s CQ (2000) and last year’s Speed Racer. I will leave you with the film’s trailer, housed at Trailers from Hell:

Enough for evident social values.  This is, after all, primarily “weird” because it claims to be the first “computerized” comic.  Let’s investigate this claim a little further.  In the inside-front cover, Mike Gold offers an editorial in which he praises the recent availability and usefulness of the MAC (this is, after all, 1985) and outlines how the idea came about.  Thoroughly in the thrall of the technological capabilities of the MAC, not to mention Neuromancer and a probably significant amount of caffeine, the creators wrote the story and created the art on the computer, but confessed to having added the color after the fact.

This is a great curiosity piece, but the artwork strikes our contemporary sensibilities (read: MY contemporary sensibilities) as pretty terrible.  The story itself is quite recycled, the imagery an awkward, lo-fi mix of cyberpunk and sketch-book doodles.  What the artist was able to do with the wonky early MAC does impress, though the book wears out its welcome pretty quick.  The adventures of Shatter were apparently continued in a series called Jon Sable, Freelance and in his own line.

And now, I leave you with…

Fantastic Four #292 is weird.  Not because it is an especially well written issue (it isn’t) or because it approaches high art where other issues falter (it doesn’t).  No, #292 is typical in its breakneck pace, its references to other issues and storylines–fully half of its 32 pages discuss previous narratives–and, as I mention above, its generally confusing nature.  Hey, I suppose it is my fault for not having read the rest of the story-arc.  I maintain, Fantastic Four #292 is weird and in one way totally exceptional.  But why?  Well, its all spelled out on the cover:

Human Torch: Nick Fury is going to kill ADOLF HITLER!

Invisible Woman: And we’ve got to STOP him!!…….OR DO WE?

Nick Fury is going to kill Adolf Hitler? Sign me up!  Without getting into too much of the backstory–and without ruining the inevitable surprise for those of you who want to buy it for a dollar or less–the extant Fantastic Four (here the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and She-Hulk…Reed Richards is presumed dead and The Thing had quit the group for a while) track Nick Fury to heart Germany in 1936.  They had been thrown into a bizarre time loop that oscillated them between the 1930s and 1980s of New York.  Fury wants to prevent world suffering and give the worst man in history what-for, so he sets out to potentially prevent World War II.

I will not give any more away.  Stories in which people mean to assassinate Adolf Hitler, especially when those people and their lives generally do no operate in the same time, place, and even space as this beacon of real-world evil, are instant ballyhoo.  If you find a copy for $1 or less (think Robocop’s “I’d buy that for a dollar” man), give it a shot.

Best Film

Kevin - The most touching film I saw this year was The Savages (directed by Tamara Jenkins). Despite the fact that it virtually oozed “indie” and felt similar to many recent vintage pop-indie films during key scenes (especially Little Miss Sunshine), it was by turns serious and funny. This will probably go down as the year of Philip Seymour Hoffman – though each of the last two years could also have that distinction – what with this and Charlie Wilson’s War. The Savages probably affected me as much as it did because of certain autobiographical resonances, but does not deserve the totally best-of distinction.

What does deserve this accolade, as Bobby will confirm, is Hot Fuzz. I saw it several times in the theaters. But the DVD has really defined the experience for me. Let me put it this way: I watch Hot Fuzz when I don’t know what else to do. It is able to simultaneous affirm (which is to say, successfully mimic and include) the main conventions of several genres (not the least of which are the contemporary action film, the horror movie, the buddy cop movie, and the murder mystery) while inverting, subverting, and flat-out making fun of them. It is funny, scary, gross, heart-warming, entertaining, and very unique.

Bobby - I saw Hot Fuzz three times in the theater this year. I never see movies more than once in the theater. Hell, I rarely see movies once while they’re on the big screen. Written by Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead fame and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost of the same, Hot Fuzz is a buddy-cop action-horror-thriller set in a small British village with a suspiciously low crime-rate. Hot Fuzz is the perfect film: It’s clever writing and comedic delivery is accented by the fact that it’s both a great action film and suspenseful. Most movies have a hard enough time getting just one of these right, but Hot Fuzz skillfully executes all three. I mean, how many comedies can you actually say you need to see on the big screen? And how many movies have cameos from Stephen Merchant and Steve Coogan? And one last question: Is it true that there’s a point on a man’s head where if you shoot it, it will blow up?

Best Documentary or Small Release Film

Kevin - I was able to see a good number of smaller-run films in 2007. One of the best – a film of interest to most of VF’s readership – is The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (directed by Seth Gordon). This documentary follows the back and forth struggle between the world’s two best Donkey Kong players. The battle manages to assume epic proportions while at the same time revealing the very human strengths and flaws of the central players. Though focused on the rather well-publicized controversy over the official high score, the movie also provides crucial back story for and documentation of early video game tournament/competition culture, talks about the rise of Twin Galaxies, and showcases interesting archival material. Though far from glossy, it gives due attention to a different kind of hero.

Bobby - Unlike my educated colleague, I am but a philistine and did not see anything like this. I have dishonored the Virtual Fools name.

Best Book

Kevin - Though maybe not the most important book of 2007, Michael Palin’s Diaries: 1969-1979 has been the most enjoyable thing I’ve read in a long, long time. Edited down from thousands and thousands of pages of a personal diary (regularly kept since the year that Monty Python’s Flying Circus first aired), Palin’s personal world becomes yours. Sure, there are the inevitable laundry lists of what he ate during particularly good or bad days, lots of regretful notices of having drank too much the night before, and several instances of straight-forward malaise. Despite the few details too many, the diaries are refreshingly personal, revealing the honest opinions of a forthright and funny man. In addition to Palin’s personal world (his views on parenting and on taking care of his ailing father are especially poignant), he provides inside, gritty detail on the social and artistic world of the Monty Python troupe. He also chronicles his first shot at film stardom (Jabberwocky) and his personal struggle to see the completion of his and Terry Jones’s series of Ripping Yarns.

Bobby - I must recuse myself from this one as the only two books that I bought this year that were released this year were Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which I read about half of before getting caught up in school work, and The Exploit: A Theory of Networks by Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker, which I just got for Christmas. The beach is where I usually get my reading done, but I only spent one week in Jersey this summer and my accomplishments illustrate that. At least this keeps me on par with the rest of the country.

Best Book Read (Not Necessarily Released this Year)

Kevin - This is a pretty-well impossible category for me. I generally read a book per week (more during the height of the school year). Forgoing academic film studies books, I’ll just throw a random title out there: The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. If you have not heard of it, look it up. Honestly, it was not the most fulfilling read of the year, but it was the longest and one of the most canonical. Thus, “Longest Book Read this Year” award goes to The Forsyte Saga, a massive undertaking of 3 books and two bridge stories which shows the transition from Victorian to Edwardian to Second World War era England.

Bobby - Most every student I’ve talked to who took John Haidt’s Psych 101 class at the University of Virginia has been unabashed about professing their love for the man. There’s a Facebook group called “If John Haidt Started a Cult I Would Join it Immediately.” During the year I took the course we got to read some draft chapters from his upcoming book The Happiness Hypothesis. At the beginning of the semester I tacked the tradeback edition onto an Amazon order to get free shipping. I highly recommend it because it’s an easy read from the field of positive psychology: a discipline that says that psychology doesn’t just have to fix problems, it can also take people who are feeling fine and make them feel any better. Haidt uses plenty of colorful examples to illustrate concrete psychological facts that can help improve your life: things that you can think about so the world doesn’t bog you down. It’s helped me and maybe you can find something in it for you too.

Most Consistent T.V. ShowKevin - Entourage! See below.

Bobby - TV categories are difficult because you have to decide whether you want to look at the end of the Spring shows or the Fall line-up. The Sopranos ended with a… something, but I didn’t care about it any more. I couldn’t begin to tell you how 24 ended this year. Season 3 of The Office was awesome. The first season of Heroes, which I didn’t start watching until this Fall, was fantastic. Veronica Mars, which concluded its series’ run in the Spring stayed strong despite its rocky relationship with the network. But these should really be classified as last year.

This Fall featured a lot of inconsistent shows. The two I made the effort to watch weren’t the best ever. The Office had its ups and downs and Heroes had a generally downward trajectory. The writers’ strike hasn’t helped things either. Now that there are no new episodes of anything I’d want to watch, I’ve stopped watching any live television that doesn’t include the letters NCAA or NFL.

So, instead, I will turn to this summer for a show that never ceased to entertain: Entourage. Entourage has maintained its quality by playing on the strengths of the characters, the spectacle of Hollywood, and story arcs that are interesting enough to create some coherence between all the little ridiculous plots. This award is all about consistency, and Entourage was the only show I watched that delivered it.

Best “New” Show

Kevin - Though it first reared its head in 2006, I am going to consider Clark and Michael, the internet parody serial created by Michael Cera and Clark Duke, to be a “new” show. Having had my own hand in the internet serial business (as a multi-tasker on John Kenneth Muir’s The House Between), I know the charms and limitations of the format. Clark and Michael brushes that line between fact and fiction, self-parody and self-actualization: Michael and Clark play aspiring writers and actors working the Hollywood circuit in pursuit of their T.V. show. Cameos and absolutely off-the-wall events are the norm. Though Michael Cera has recently achieved something approaching stardom (Juno and Superbad have the world singing his praises), Clark and Michael shows him at his most candid, raw, and true.

Bobby – I need to phone this one in because I just tried to publish the story, got an error, and realized when I went back that it hadn’t saved the newest version of our article. I wrote a nice piece about how I didn’t watch any new TV because I didn’t want to make time for it. My lengthy explanation is now gone and I don’t feel like rewriting it. Basically it boiled down to: ‘there are a ton of talented people working in television, TV is not dead, and 2008 will be about how we watch as much as what we watch.’ Maybe then I’ll have a favorite new show.

Best Album

Kevin - I’ll go with another cheat: best “archival” release. For my money, the most important (as well as most interesting, challenging, and out-of-nowhere) jazz release (partially a re-lease…sorry about all of these qualifying statements) is Webster Lewis – The Club 7 Live Tapes. Lewis was mostly known for his compositions in the disco era and into the early 1980s. This set, culled from performances in Oslo, Norway in 1971 tastefully mixes soul, acid jazz, funk, and danceable beats. Lewis covers “It’s Your Thing” to great effect, but the real gems are the original compositions. Extended, jazzy, out-there, soulful….wish I had been at Club 7 back when these were recorded!

Bobby - I maintain that anybody who says music sucks right now isn’t trying hard enough. We have unparalleled access to back catalogues and increasingly varied access to new music. Even the “bad radio pop” that people complain about isn’t all that terrible—it’s just not to many discriminating tastes. Last year kicked off the start of my expanding music taste and this year was a barrage of new things to listen to. I could probably name ten albums off the top of my head that I thought were great this year. Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible, Les Savy Fav’s Let’s Stay Friends, Radiohead In Rainbows, Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, The National’s Boxer, Person Pitch by Panda Bear, Sounds of Silver by LCD Soundsystem, or even scary-lady Amy Winehouse’s soulful Back to Black… just a handful of what I can think of right now and that doesn’t even count the stuff I haven’t heard. And the stuff that I recognize as good music but is just not my taste. And the stuff I listened to that I loved but wouldn’t consider for the list. A hard decision to make. Oh, and sorry Kanye, I thought you CD was very mediocre.

In the end, I’ve decided to go with M.I.A.’s Kala. There’s so much going on in each song that I discover something new on each listen. It integrates a huge variety of global influences and shows maturation from her first album. It’s an album that I can both study with and party to. The M.I.A. music video aesthetic is fascinating too. She’s a great artist that everyone should give at least one listen to.

Best Album Discovered (Not Necessarily Released this Year)

Kevin - I’ve discovered sooooo many good albums this year (see my favorite internet service of the year). I will just say that Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s Brotherman in the Fatherland is one of the most amazing things I have ever heard. Everything on the jazz spectrum done better, with more style, and more verve. Getting away from jazz a bit, Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain is as close to essential as you can get. For novelty value, try Psychedelic Shack by The Temptations. You will never think of them in the same way again.

Bobby - Kevin showed me a documentary earlier this year about a band most people have forgotten. It’s the other quartet of mop-headed Brits: The Rutles. From Rutland, England, the Rutles have a spread of music that sounds similar to counter-parts The Beatles. So similar in fact, that you’d think they just copied them… Hmm…

Actually, for those who don’t know, The Rutles is a parody group of The Beatles created by Monty Python writer/actor Eric Idle and songwriter Neil Innes. Unlike parody groups that just make fun of their source material, The Rutles are more a style parody. While the movie highlights just how ridiculous some of the things in the lives of The Beatles were, the songs are every bit as catchy as the originals. More than parody, the songs are tributes to the McCartney and Lennon style. So The Rutles’ self titled album takes top accords this year. Do I have to spell it out? C-H-E-E-S-E-A-N-D-O-N-I-O-N-S.

Best Game

Kevin - 2007 was a good year for games. I liked a good deal of what I saw, excepting the repeated themes and relative lack of thematic expansion. The most fun I had , despite my trepidation with the genre, was with Rock Band. Perfect multi-player bliss. Simple, addictive, fun for the hardcore and the novice alike. Plus, it is a game for which usual taboos and barriers are easily broken down. Though Rock Band was probably not the best game of the year, I can’t speak with the same authority as Bobby. My gaming lies in the recent past!

Bobby - A flurry of games came in at the end of the year, as usual. I’m not enjoying Super Mario Galaxy as much as I expected. I mean, it’s a fun play, but it’s a Mario game. I think I expected to be blown out of the water by the use of the Wii’s controls and instead am just satisfied. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it just puts it in top 2-5. BioShock also deserves a spot in the top 2-5, along with Puzzle Quest and Rock Band.

That means #1 goes to Portal. I choose Portal instead of Orange Box in general because two of the things had been released before, I still haven’t played Half-Life 2: Episode 2, and while amusing I don’t think of Team Fortress 2 as anything spectacular. But Portal was the only game this year I just never wanted to stop playing. Annoying Internet obsession with Weighted Companion Cubes and Cake aside, the portal mechanic was compelling and the puzzles were engaging. I felt a great sense of satisfaction from solving the puzzles and even more when I started to think outside the straightforward solution and tear my way through levels. It was also fairly ‘subversive’ as it did interesting things with gender and violence. The most interesting game I’ve played in a long while.

Best Game Played (Not Necessarily Released this Year)

Kevin - Let’s take a trip back 5+ years to when Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was THE game. In my mind, games have long shelf-lives and often work best after fine aging. While Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is “better” in almost every regard, I could very easily play Morrowind on my computer without overtaxing everything. Though the world currently loves MMORPGs, I find that in my gaming world, hell is often other people. What better way to escape from their grasp than to plunge into a nearly endless world. Though I can’t bring myself to beat the game – and at 100+ hours, I really should – I can confidently say that Morrowind has given me my best experiences of the year. As I just purchased a PS2, I am pretty sure that next year might be a year of console exploration. But for now, shut your friends out of the house, sit back, and get re-acquainted with the single player PC RPG experience.

Bobby - I finally finished up Final Fantasy XII in October. It’s by far my favorite entry in the series to date and ranks as my third favorite RPG and second favorite PS2 game. It did everything I want out of a role-playing game. I found the gambit system to work extremely well, taking the monotony out of constant menu-commands and improving the pacing of battles. The story left a little to be desired, but its competency was complimented by some of the best voice-acting I’ve heard to date. I could listen to the woman who voiced Fran talk and Balthier make snide comments all day long. It’s a good sign when you don’t want to strangle the main male protagonist—Vaan is 100x better than Tidus. I had a great time with the game and would enjoy playing it again if I didn’t have so many other titles on my plate. I am now playing FFXII: Revenant Wings for the DS, though, which is like a temporary fix for my FFXII habit.

Best Hardware Release

Kevin - NOT GONNA LIE. My 80 gb Zune is pretty much just what the doctor ordered. Holds what I need it to, can be used for video (though that is not my scene – I own a 32 inch television for a reason), and is relatively small and space-compact. For those of you who have not heard it personally, my desire to embrace the Zune stems from my intense distaste for iTunes. It uses too many resources when it runs, it is too big on the screen, it ruthlessly overwhelms and takes-over one’s music collection. Though the iPod is a great little device, it means transporting my eMusic and Winamp loving self over to a standard which I am very much against. So, for 2007, the monstrous 80gb is a winner.

Bobby – That iPhone is pretty nifty, but its just a fancy phone. My hardware release choice is a little generic, but it’s meant to capture a growing trend. That would be the affordable notebook computer. The OLPC (one-laptop per-child) project aimed to create a $100 laptop that could be sold or donated to developing countries so that children in those education systems would at least not be so far behind the digital curve that first world countries were blazing along. The whole thing is complicated, but the gesture is nice. Everybody who wants access to computers and the Internet should be given a chance. And while the OLPC missed its mark by about $100 dollars, it had smart minds at MIT on the job. Then there’s the Intel Classmate, which has received decidedly better reviews than the OLPC and has been picked up in more countries. Even inexpensive lightweight laptops are coming on the consumer front: ASUS’s Eee PC rocks a build of Linux to do basic computer tasks starting at just $300. And have you seen low-end Dell and HP laptops lately? If all you want is a working computer, you can get an extremely cheap mass-market laptop. Basic technology should be affordable and I hope it becomes even more so in 2008.

Best Internet Service

Kevin - I have sung its praises elsewhere, but eMusic.com has become my go-to place for all things music. They are limited – only a relatively small selection of labels, incomplete catalogs for some of their holdings, and relatively weak classic rock holdings – but provide a great venue for discovering the new and the different. Since I started on eMusic in November of 2006, I’ve discovered many favorite artists (The Pharaohs, Piero Umiliani, Eric Dolphy, Gazzara, The Cinematic Orchestra, etc) and have filled in my knowledge of previous favorites. I have found several all-time favorite versions and tracks. I pay $20 a month for 10+ albums, an addiction which would cost over $100 if I were still doing it the old fashion way.

Bobby – More than anything else, I’ve enjoyed using Tumblr this year. Tumblr is a microblogging service that allows the user to post really simple entries either from scratch or other websites using a simple javascript bookmark. You can post links, quotes, chat/IM logs, pictures, and videos. Say you’re on YouTube and you find a video you want to share with your friends. You just click the special bookmark button and it will automatically pull out the video, embed it, link to it, and allow you to comment if you wish. You can also have it import feeds automatically, like your Twitter updates or Google Reader shared items. It’s a fast and easy way to get interesting material out there. Quick to post, quick to read, and generally clutterless. One of the things I like about it is that it’s built to work for people who aren’t signed up for the service, but adds another layer of functionality if you befriend other people using the service.

Favorites Website/Blog

Kevin - The internet has no shortage of film blogs. One of the very best is Greencine Daily. Greencine is a service which is comparable to Netflix but positions itself as being aimed at the the world cinephile. Though I’m not a member of the service, I like the fact that the content is backed up by very passionate people. The “Daily” blog over at Greencine contains festival reports and roundups, condensed news (beyond celebrity gossip), notices of new books, links to reviews, and much more. It is well written, generally brief, and quite comprehensive. I recommend it to all film enthusiasts.

Bobby - Thanks to Google Reader and RSS feeds, I read more stories and articles this year than probably the last five years combined. Granted, I tore through some at a blazing pace just to see a headline or the gist of the article, but anything that piqued my interest I took the time out for. It should come as no surprise that video game blogs account for at least half of the stories I read: Joystiq, Kotaku, GameSetWatch, GameSpot, Destuctoid–all great, but I did have one favorite. Chris Kohler’s Wired Games blog Game|Life was consistently interesting, well written, and had a good mix of personal and professional flavor. Most of the articles from the year are by Kohler and Susan Arendt, but even the newer contributing writers have maintained the same level of quality. The nice thing about the blog is that it doesn’t feel it has to post on every single story that comes out. You can continue to go to Joystiq or Kotaku to make sure you don’t miss a beat, and turn to Game|Life to get a couple quality stories a day. Keep up the good work in ’08, Chris and Susan.

Life-Saving Technology/Software of the Year

Kevin - We’ve got gadgets and gizmos aplenty. In all honesty, there has been nothing new in 2007 that I didn’t have access to in 2006. I will venture that one bit of technological brilliance that I discovered this year (though it has been around for a while) is Extract Now. Simple, elegant, compact, this program cleanly and effortless extracts compressed data. I still wake up nights in a cold-sweat dreaming about the terrible days of yore in which I had to use awful programs like StuffIt and WinZip on my Mac. Ugghhh.

Bobby - The Gmail Java application for my phone is actually something I don’t think I could live without. It loads my mail quickly, giving me on-the-go access to important information. Some people do this with fancy phones and e-mail services, but to be able to do it on a crappy Motorolla phone is what makes it so special. Combined with IM forwarding from AIM, my cell phone became a more useful piece of communication technology this year. I’ll e-mail myself directions or phone numbers I might need when I’m out and about. It helped keep me in touch with all the people I was e-mailing about housing when I was moving down to Atlanta. I’m not the kind of person who feels they need to be tethered to their e-mail, but I do like having the option of being there when I want to.

2007 Will Go Down as the Year…

Kevin - …of the “bad idea.” Lots of things that were started in previous years have been found to have been terrible ideas. Americans finally realized that their mortgages, which seemed too good to be true, really were too good to be true. Political discontent (with no viable outlets, just a public fiasco of an election) ruled the day, HD broadcasting ruled the night, and consumerism worked around the clock in its upward spiral to outdo itself. If this warning sounds pessimistic, it is for a reason. Out with 2007. Towards 2008. Onwards!

Bobby - …of the microcosm. Technology once shrank the Earth. We could get to far new reaches of the world in boats. We could send letters across the seas and land. We could telegraph and then call. We could transmit images and information via satellite. Then we laid a network of phone lines and Internet lines which could connect every computer to every other computer. Then the consumer got bored with expanding their horizons and turned inward. And the content producers said, “we want to keep you here so we can have your undivided attention.” I’m as guilty as anybody else, I’ll admit it. I have the news I want to read delivered to me directly and ignore the rest. I use a ton of web services that operate independently of each other. I use Xbox Live which only talks with Microsoft products. I instant message and chat with far fewer people these days than in the past. I even wrote an article talking about the need to break up the conflation of Facebook and MySpace. This wasn’t the first year of the microcosm, obviously. But it will probably be a good average year when we look back on it. Here’s to the future, whatever it may bring.

It has been roughly a week since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has hit shelves across the world. People – fans and newcomers alike – are deadly series about this book. This strikes as slightly funny, since the title is almost an oxymoron akin to Harry Potter and the Jumbo Shrimp…a hallow, of course, being associated with religious rites, presumably in the name of life, consecration, and peace.

No one is laughing about the business of the book. Big business it is, too. Favorite retailer Deep Discount accidentally mailed copies a wee bit in advance, resulting in legal steps from the publisher and dismay from consumers. Reports of leaks and hacks prompted more news stories in the popular media than real crises. Hype reigns.

I work at a book store and have witnessed this book consume our practices, processes, and energies, sometimes to the detriment of other areas of our job. For the record, I “enjoy” these books and films, though with some trepidation, and disapprove of their total ascendancy in place of other stories, genres, and pursuits. With that in mind, I would like to share an anecdote, followed by showing two different ways of framing the phenomenon that help give it a better historical connection.

My usual hours coincide with those quieter moments when the store is closed and can be put back together again (late night into early morning). However, Harry Potter launch meant working this momentous – and momentous it was indeed, with thousands in attendance – event. By 12:01, following fanfare and the dodge of eager customers, I was located between the front store windows and the back of the registers, on display for all to view as I frantically removed books from sealed boxes and placed them by registers. Our particular store had 10 registers working continuously, meaning that nearly 30 of these lunky books were sold every five minutes. Two hours of this kind of placement meant tired limbs, near dehydration, but amazement at what was done. Integrated into the assembly line, I was Chaplin’s wayward tramp of Modern Times (1936), further alienated by the fact that books, reading, and the previously intellectual realm of solitary contemplation had become superseded by spectacle, noise, and nerves. Overall, the selling went off with little hitch and I look forward to reading the book, on my own time, once the hysteria dies down.

With that in mind, I’d like to share two avenues of approach for the Harry Potter books and films that help give it some context. First is an older essay by famous literary critic and teacher Harold Bloom. Bloom explains that Rowling’s world is modeled after a combination of Tom Brown’s Schooldays and Tolkien’s sense of epic fantasy. In general, he bemoans the enjoyment of the easy pastiche as opposed to the pleasures of the ingenious sources. It is well-known that Bloom has an active interest in canon-making and maintenance, so this is to be expected. But he has a point. Potter doesn’t really offer any spiritual enrichment in the transcendental sense, but rather a well-dressed endorsement of coming of age and succeeding at one’s goals. Though there is real imagination, some taut emotion, and lots of potted melodrama at work, there is little to change the deep depth’s of one’s life beyond spending habits.

The most recent (August 2007) issue of Sight & Sound contains an essay on the British school film by Andrew Roberts. Roberts contrasts the tradition of the Arnoldian – respectable, Imperial, hierarchical, traditional – “public school” with the tradition of dissent and subversion in the cinema. He laments two sentiments that I happen to wholeheartedly share. 1) the only challenging, anarchic, and undeniably masterful film in the cycle/sub-genre is Lindsay Anderson’s if…. (1968), itself absolutely one of the best films ever made and 2) that the two “British” directors who would be best suited to adapting the Potter books into something spectacularly cinematic are also the last two people who will ever be asked to do so (Terry Gilliam and Ken Russell, who are too “un-commerical,” “difficult,” “unbankable,” what have you). The best television view of the tradition of the British boarding school that I know of is “Tompkinson’s Schooldays” from Terry Jones and Michael Plain’s Ripping Yarns. Their view is more polite satire than upheaval.

One of Anderson and David Sherwin’s objections to this school tradition is the total, evidently absurd sort of ideological indoctrination that comes with the territory. While Mick Travis and his friends lash-out with uncoordinated, counter-cultural rigour, Harry and his friends mange light mischief combined with “schooling” for their Wizarding society. Though “bad” in some strictly behavioral ways, Ron, Hermione, et al. are the next generation of public administrators in their alternate reality. Like England itself, their Hogwarts education is a confused mix of tradition, progress, and eventual integration into a larger social order.