Hello and welcome to another addition of Five Cool Things the bi-weekly article where I talk about all the fun, interesting, and yes, cool things I’ve enjoyed since the last time.
Crisis on Infinite Earths
By 1985, the DC Universe was a bit of a mess. The idea of an infinite number of universes, or the Multiverse, was an interesting one and allowed the writers to play in a lot of different sandboxes, but it also created a continuity nightmare. If there is an endless supply of universes, that means there is an endless supply of Earths and thus an endless supply of superheroes. That’s a lot to keep up with, and truthfully, no one was doing a very good job of it. To solve this problem, writer Marv Wolfman decided to create a crisis that would bring all the heroes from all the universes together and then ultimately destroy all the universes save one.
Buy Crisis on Infinite Earths: 35th Anniversary Deluxe EditionIt was one of the first big crossover events, and like most of the ones to follow, it is messy, confusing, and probably created more problems than it solved. But when it is good, it is a lot of fun to read.
It is also difficult to sum up in a few paragraphs. There is the real world and the antimatter world. There is a Monitor and an Anti-Monitor. The Monitor is an eternal being that essentially keeps watch on the Multiverse, guides it, and protects it. The Anti-Monitor is his exact opposite and evil. He sets up the crisis by using antimatter to destroy the real world. The Monitor then guides all of the multiverse’s superheroes to come together and destroy the Anti-Monitor.
I finished the book last week, but I’d be hard pressed to give you many more details. There is a lot going on in these pages. In its quest to use every superhero in DC’s large oeuvre, the story becomes too big and too confusing. My understanding is that in the original story, a lot of the individual titles fleshed out their individual stories better. The book I read excises some of that and only brings in the characters when they are connecting to the larger story and the other characters. This was probably a wise decision; otherwise, the book would balloon up into another hundred pages or so, but it doesn’t exactly make things clearer when one character appears for a few pages, then completely disappears. I’m also not that well-versed in all the DC characters, so there were a lot of heroes joining in that I’d never heard of before, which only added to my confusion.
The heart of the story is an interesting one, and hugely important to the history of DC. The artwork by George Perez is excellent all around. Unfortunately, my book was a little small, which made some of the details difficult to make out and many of the dialogue bubbles very hard to read. But I’m glad I read it, as it is a hugely influential tome.
Hi-Jack Highway
I’ve been on a bit of a French crime thriller kick lately. It started with films starring Lino Ventura and has now moved on to Jean Gabin. This film (also known as Gas-Oil) finds Gabin playing a truck driver named Jean Chape. He’s just bought a new truck, and he’s got a lover living in another village. She’s Alice (Jeanne Moreau), a school teacher. They aren’t married, so they have to keep their affair on the down low.
Buy Hi-Jack HighwayMuch of the film is just him driving around in his truck, stopping off at cafes to have a chat with his friends, and stopping by Alice’s place for the night. It is a very laid-back affair, but Gabin and Moreau have such a lovely way about each other that I still enjoyed it very much. Periodically, the film will switch to a gang of thieves. They rob a truck with a satchel full of thousands of dollars in it. One guy drives off in the stolen truck while the others go their separate ways. They are to meet up at a rendezvous point later that evening. Except the driver doesn’t show up.
Early the next morning, Jean leaves Alice’s place for a delivery. There is a car parked on the side of the road and a man (the driver of that stolen truck) lying next to it. It is dark, and the car doesn’t have its lights on, so Jean sees the man too late and runs over him. He doesn’t want to go to the police because that will mean the fact that he stayed over at Alice’s place will come out, and there will be a scandal. But she convinces him to do the right thing. The newspapers get hold of the story, and the crooks figure Jean must have swiped the stolen cash when he killed the man.
Honestly, the film doesn’t go too hard with this angle. The crooks harass Jean a bit. They follow him around as he drives his truck, often getting in his way. They mess up his house and make vague threats. But Jean is a big, tough guy, and he doesn’t threaten easily. There is a bit of a showdown at the end, but Jean has a lot of truck driver friends, and they all come together to help him out. That’s really the thrill of the film. Jean is a good guy; he has a good lady and good friends. His life is pretty cool. The film is too.
Violent City
This Italian/French/American co-production from 1970 has a terrific beginning, a wonderful finale, and mostly bored me through its middle section. It begins with one heck of a car chase. Jeff Heston (Charles Bronson) and his lover, Vanessa (Jill Ireland), are vacationing in the Virgin Islands when suddenly they are set upon by some thugs. An incredible car chase ensues, seemingly across the entire island. At the end of it, Jeff finds himself shot by his old pal Coogan, and Vanessa then runs off with him. Jeff awakens to find himself not dead but imprisoned for the killing of some of Coogan’s goons.
Buy Violent CityFast forward a few months, and Jeff gets himself out of prison, and he heads to New Orleans. There, he is asked to join up with crime boss Al Weber’s (Telly Savalas) gang. Jeff refuses, preferring to spend his time looking for Coogan. He finds his man, who is now a race-car driver. Jeff sets up a pretty cool kill, shooting out his tires while Coogan is racing, causing him to die in a fiery crash. But someone caught Jeff doing the deed and has some pictures of it that he’s using for blackmail. There is lots of double-crossing, and Vanessa shows back up at some point. All of this is fine, but not particularly memorable. Honestly, I just had to read a synopsis to remember what all happened. But then it ends with an absolutely incredible sequence, which I won’t spoil. That scene and the car chase in the beginning make it worth checking out.
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
Chloé Zhao’s debut film is a wonderfully felt, beautifully written drama. It is set on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. It follows Johnny Winters (John Reddy) and his younger sister Jashuan (Jashaun St. John) in their daily lives. Johnny is desperate to leave the reservation and its stifling poverty. He’s hoping to follow his girlfriend to Los Angeles, where she’s got a college scholarship. He’s torn between that desire and his need to stay on the reservation to help his sister out. Their father has just died, and their mother (Irene Bedard) is an alcoholic, incapable of taking care of her.
Buy Songs My Brothers Taught MeDespite his mother’s alcoholism and how the disease is tearing his community apart, Johnny sells bootleg liquor on the side. Alcohol is illegal on the reservation, so every day he drives out across the borderline and picks up several bottles. He then sells it in smaller cups (or sometimes soda bottles – anything he can put it in, really) for a large markup. Jashuan connects with a local artist who paints designs of shirts and other articles of clothing, then sells them on the street. He’s a bit crazy and drinks too much, but he is kind to her.
The whole film is like this – just snippets of these characters’ lives. Zhao never judges them. The film feels like a documentary. The characters are all played by non-actors. The camera is a fly-on-the-wall. These are characters who often make bad decisions and do things that will harm themselves and their community, but they are all just trying to survive in pretty desperate circumstances in a land they were forced onto, and that is difficult to escape. It is a wonderful film and an incredible debut by Zhao.
Back to the Wall
I should mention that most of the films I’m talking about today, and some of the ones I talked about in the last Five Cool Things article, were all watched on the Kino Film Collection streaming service. I recently discovered it, and I’ve been enjoying a lot of films through the service. It is basically the streaming arm of the Kino Lorber company (of which we’ve reviewed many a release on this website). They have a wonderful collection of not quite classic films and European genre films.
Buy French Noir CollectionBack to the Wall involves Jacques Decrety (Gérard Oury), who discovers his wife Gloria (Jeanne Moreau) is having an affair with a much younger man. He hatches an elaborate plan to catch them. He starts sending her anonymous blackmail letters stating that he knows about the affair and will tell her husband if she doesn’t send him some money. Naturally, she’ll have to ask Jacques for the money, pretending it is for dresses and things, so he’s basically paying himself to keep her affair a secret from him. Ultimately, he’s looking for a reaction from her, or perhaps a confession.
She pays it the first time and then a second time, never revealing anything to him. He’s at a loss. He realizes his plan was a bit half-cocked. But then something happens, and the lover finds himself dead. Always the helpful husband, Jacques hides the body inside a wall his construction company is building. Everything then goes back to normal, until it doesn’t.
It is a terrific little French noir with some fine performances and great direction from Édouard Molinaro. There is one scene where Moreau is standing inside her bedroom looking out the window. It is raining, and the lightning on her face makes her look stunning. That one image is worth watching this movie alone.
Small Prophets
Mackenzie Crook follows up the utterly wonderful comedy Detectorists with this show, a minor miracle of delight. Like the Detectorists, Small Prophets is a fairly small series without a lot of big ideas, or set pieces, or action. It finds its joy in small moments and wonderfully drawn characters. Unlike the Detectorists, this one also has some supernatural goings on.
Buy DETECTORISTS COMPLETE COLLECTIONPearce Quigley (who has a small but hilarious role in Detectorists) stars as Michael Sleep, a middle-aged man working a dead-end job at a do-it-yourself tools store. He takes no shit from anyone, but he’s not a tough guy. He just doesn’t care what people think, and that puzzles them. When his neighbors complain that his garden is a mess (and it is), he shrugs it off, telling them he’ll get around to it eventually. When his boss complains that he’s not doing a good job, he keeps doing whatever he’s doing.
His dad (Michael Palin) is beginning to show signs of dementia. One day, he gives Michael a recipe for making homunculi, the small prophets from the title. He makes them in jars in his woodshed. Once they are fully grown, they are supposed to be able to tell him anything he wants to know, and they have to answer any question you ask with the truth. The question he desperately wants answered is why his girlfriend, Chloe, disappeared seven years ago. Is she still alive, and does she still love him?
Over the course of the season, he becomes friends with his coworker Kacey (Lauren Patel). Their friendship is the heart of the series. But all of these things are just things that happen. It is impossible to describe how endearing it all is. Every episode is a wonder, full of big laughs, poignant moments, all tinged with a touch of sadness. Detectorists remains one of my all-time favorite shows. Small Prophets is on its way to being right there with it.
