Hollywood Changes People

And with that, we come to the conclusion of this story arc.  Hope you enjoyed it.

Come back on Monday for the start of a new story!

Comic Review: Macabre #1

                I walked into the comic shop having no idea what I was going to pick up for today’s review.  Lo and behold, looking back at me on the shelf was the newest offering from Richard Moore.  If you don’t know about Moore’s work, it is something you should check out.  Most of the comics that he creates are for the “mature” audience, yet that usually has more to do with the cheesecake in the interior instead of any hardcore sex or language as many other comics with that moniker have nowadays.  The style itself is cartoony and he often uses anthropomorphized animals in his stories but that doesn't make them childish, as they often serve a purpose.  Black and white interiors are his main focus, so it has a very underground feel to it even though the art is much more polished than many of the comics associated with that era.  His work tends to look more like Bone than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

                Ever since I picked up the first trade of his hit Boneyard I have been a huge fan of Moore’s work, trying to accumulate any and all of his books, even some of the more risqué ones as the humor in the writing and art, along with the way the art itself is presented is second to none.  As soon as I saw Macabre #1 on the shelf, I knew what I was reviewing this week.

Cover:

                The book itself is set up almost like a Tales from the Crypt story where a narrator interjects between each story.  Being that this is a Richard Moore book, the narrator is a scantily clad woman that goes by the name of Charli, who is predictably in full display on the cover.  The cover is well done and honestly it does the job of drawing in someone walking by (case in point-me!) with that distinctive Richard Moore style.  If someone else had drawn the cover I wouldn’t have even looked twice at it even though the title has Moore's name right above it.  I wouldn’t have gotten that far and would have wound up purchasing something that I was unimpressed with (again). 

                The coloring is a little dark but because of the fact that it’s a creepy, gloomy book (in theory) I think that works.  I would have liked to have seen a little more of an homage to the old Tales from the Crypt covers from EC Comics though.  I understand that a pretty drawing of a scantily clad girl will bring eyes in the door, but I have 100% confidence that Moore would be able to make that work within the context of the EC comics cover. 

8/10 – It was the first issue and it grabbed my attention on a shelf of comics trying to do that very thing.  Very well done indeed.

Story:

                As I mentioned before, the book reads like an old Tales from the Crypt from EC Comics.  It houses three different stories along with a host of pinups.  The stories are good, often with a clever and humorous “Moore”-ian twist at the end.  The only one that doesn’t involve the typical level of cheesecake we are used to with many of Moore’s books is the last one, which is the strongest in my opinion.  It involves zombie pirates with a poor sense of direction, and turned from formulaic to hilarious in a split second.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Moore’s other stories, usually involving the scantily clad female enticing the stupid male to their doom, and always ending in a humorous fashion, but the fact that he was able to craft a tale that didn’t need that and was still able to offer a humorous twist was great.  That story felt more like Boneyard than anything else I have seen from Moore since that series concluded.  Call it nostalgia or whatever, but that set the final story apart for me.  The stuff in the interim with our “host” was little, throwaway stuff that seemed more like an excuse for Moore to draw  pinups, or at least full-page spreads more than anything. 

                As good as the stories are, they are so short, and so decompressed that it literally took me five minutes to read, and that was with stopping to marvel at the artwork on the page.  With the infrequency of Moore’s work, I would expect more from each installment, and the inclusion of the pinups, while incredible from an artistic standpoint are only used to pad a relatively thin comic out to acceptable levels. 

5/10 – I’m not going to accuse Moore of mailing it in on this one because the stories are good, but if he is going to take an extended break, I would like to see more from him upon his return.

Art:

                As usual with a Richard Moore book, the art is exceptional.  The pinups are incredibly well done, but it is the narrative work that once again stands out.  Moore’s use of facial expression and just the general “acting” that his characters do on the page make it easy to enjoy the story.  He conveys both drama and humor equally well, even when those two emotions are separated by a panel border.  100% of the situations Moore draws could never happen in real life, but the way he draws them, the gravitas that he gives to every moment because of the way he draws expressions, drives it home. 

The texture in his artwork is exceptional as well.  My favorite work that Moore produces is the standard pen and ink stark black and white stuff.  While this is not that kind of art, Moore instead delves into shaded artwork a la pencil or inkwash.  This technique, while not as effective as his pen and ink work in my opinion, is still incredibly strong and dynamic, and the figures don’t lose any of their expressive nature with the different art style.  Moore is an absolute master of the black and white comic book medium. 

10/10 – The only bad thing about Moore’s art is the fact that there isn’t more of it in this issue.

Overall – 7/10: It’s a little sparse for the price tag, but what is there is very good.  This won’t stop me from picking up everything else Richard Moore puts out, and it shouldn’t stop you either.

Album Review: Black Sabbath – Past Lives (2002)

Overview: 

                The album was put out as a publicity stunt when Ozzy’s popularity exploded with the release of his show “The Osbournes” on MTV.  It included Live at Last as well as extra tracks from early Sabbath performances.  For a blatant cash-grab, it was quite good.

Tracks you may know: 

                All of them.  Much like Reunion, all of the hits are here.  This album feels a bit rawer though as it was recorded back when the original Black Sabbath was still the original Black Sabbath.  Because of that, you can really feel the performance coming through, and it doesn’t hurt that this was recorded when everyone was young, and Ozzy was a bit more mobile (though that may be the drugs talking).

Tracks you should know:

                If you don’t know the band by now, this is a good introduction.  I have always preferred live albums as my default “greatest hits” collections.  They take everything about a greatest hits album and infuses the energy and spontaneity of a live performance.  If you don’t know Sabbath, Past Lives and Reunion are two great places to start.

Album rating: 

                It’s electric, like being transported back in time and standing in a cloud of pot smoke (secondhand of course) while the band goes crazy on stage.  If you didn’t get to see Sabbath in their heyday, for whatever reason, this is your redemption.

9/10

That's it! The reviews are complete.  Next Tuesday (6.11) 13 will be released.  I will have a review of that album the following Tuesday (6.18), with a review of the new Alice in Chains album The Devil Put the Dinosaurs Here coming next Tuesday.

In case you missed a review in this series, here are some handy links so you can take a look at the entire Sabbath discography:

Black Sabbath

Paranoid

Master of Reality

Vol. 4

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Sabotage

Technical Ecstasy

Never Say Die

Reunion

Life Gives You Lemons

It's a creepy kind of silver lining.  

Hell’s Kitchen Episode 13: A Whole Lot of Not Much.

                We got to cross off another event from the Hell’s Kitchen checklist with this episode’s “Blind Taste Test” in which the chefs are blindfolded and then have to guess the food that is put in their mouth while Ramsay ridicules them for thinking that Brussels Sprouts is Cauliflower (that actually happened, no joke).  Before we get to that though, Ramsay quizzes the chefs on their senses (kind of as a precursor to the whole taste-test thing) and he picks guy with no nickname and mixed up Cyndi to test their sense of touch.  This involves the chefs putting their hands through a box with holes cut into it and into a bowl of a mystery food.  The foods were eggs, polenta and oysters.  I’m impressed by their tactile ability as I don’t think I would have answered correctly to any except eggs (to be fair, I’ve never touched an oyster before, so there’s that).  The blue team won with a clean sweep, three out of three!  Their prize…

…nothing.

                Yup, Ramsay pulled the old switcheroo on them.  That was all there as a setup for the blind taste-test.  Even when the guys win they can’t win.  It is therefore hilarious to see their reaction when they think they are the victors only to realize that they’ve won nothing.  On to the taste-test, where Ramsay gives them pretty standard fare in terms of food to taste.  The real comedy comes from watching Ramsay have fun at the expense of the chefs.  He’ll say the name of a food and then give a look to the un-blindfolded chefs as if to say “I could get this right with my head underwater and a pit bull (the dog, not the douchey “singer”) clamped on each nipple, and I bet you these fuckers think it’s something stupid like peas”.  Then we also get to people that are force-fed spoonfuls of food and the process they go through to determine what that food is.  Some people eat it normally, some (like loud guy) basically immerse his entire mouth in the food, almost like he’s using it as mouthwash.  It’s equal parts funny and disgusting, like when a baby shits on someone.

                You know what the best part is about the guys winning the not-quite-real challenge?  The fact that they lost the actual challenge…again!  The girls got a nice little day of relaxation and horseback riding (which makes me wonder if Ramsay held off on this reward until fat black girl was gone, for the sake of the horses), while the guys have to prep for the dinner service the following day as well as unload the truck when it comes.  Of course, the guys unload the ice truck a little too much because guy with no nickname just signed the purchase order without actually reading it so Hell’s Kitchen was overrun with unnecessary bags of ice.  The guys then had to put back the bags that were not theirs, making double the work for the beleaguered blue crew.  The other two blue chefs were obviously no longer a fan of guy with no nickname after that.

                So we’ve had the challenge, we’ve had the punishment/reward, now it’s time for dinner service, right?  Not so fast!  Ramsay throws everyone a curveball by offering up a second challenge.  This one is an individual challenge that carries the ultimate prize, immunity from elimination.  The challenge itself is actually fairly simple; just cook a dish, any dish and present it to Ramsay (much like their initial “signature dish” challenge from the first week of competition).  This is to judge the chefs’ growth in the competition.  Some of the remaining chefs put up some truly horrendous meals in that first episode, and Ramsay wants to see who has learned from their time in Hell’s Kitchen.  Everyone that has ever been a chef, or even known a chef, realizes that the profession is a constant learning experience, whether it be new techniques, new dishes or new foods altogether, so this challenge will help Ramsay gauge who is open to and able to learn and grow as a chef.  Ramsay judges it “king of the mountain” style where each subsequent dish has to be good enough to knock the current champion off the throne.  Skinny black girl goes first and maintains her position on top of the throne for quite some time until Mr. Mohawk sneaks in with a well cooked fish dish.  Mr. Mohawk triumphantly sits on the throne until mixed up Cyndi comes up with her dish and…

To be continued.

                While I understand cutting it off at that point, this episode sure felt weird and incomplete without a dinner service in it, hence this week's name.  This week makes up for it though as more celebrity guests show up for dinner, the chefs prove that they are still having trouble cooking even at this stage of the game, and Ramsay loses his cool again.

Album Review: Black Sabbath – Reunion (1998)

Overview: 

                Finally, the original four were back together!  This album was recorded over the course of a two nights in the band’s hometown of Birmingham, England.  The best part about the album is the fact that all of those heavy Sabbath songs were finally able to be played using the technology that made them really hit you.  At the time of their genesis, Sabbath was the heaviest thing on vinyl, but as technology advanced, their sound began to dull.  By recording their hits on this live album, Sabbath was able to show that they were still heavier than everyone else.  The fans were also treated to two new studio tracks, “Psycho Man” and “Selling my Soul” which were incredible songs in their own right, but coupled with the what they meant (the return to form of the heaviest band ever) they were incredibly important to heavy metal culture as well. 

Tracks you may know: 

All of them, basically.  If you know Sabbath at all, the hits are all here.  Plus it has today’s technology coupled with the creativity of yesteryear.  One of the best Sabbath albums, period.

Tracks you should know:

“Psycho Man”:  Traditional Sabbath with a heavier, modern sound.  This is the kind of song that makes you sad that the band wasn’t able to do more together until recently.  A definite modern masterpiece that proved Sabbath was not dead yet.

Album rating: 

                It has the heft of an album from 1998 but all of the classics of the original Black Sabbath lineup.  Everyone is present and on top of their game.  What might have been had they actually got back together back then. 

10/10

The Decency Police

I would hate to be the "Decency Police", that would probably be one step above traffic cop with none of the perks of being in a car chase.