The division between the literary story and the action one

I think I understand why Otto Penzler went with "The Devil in Iron" when composing The Big Book of Adventure Stories: because it's just that, an adventure story.  It doesn't have the special something which puts it among the ranks of Howard's greatest works, or even the greatest of Howard's fantasy, or even the greatest of Howard's Conans, or even the greatest of Howard's eastern Conan stories - but it is what is, in the ol' vernacular, a Ripping Yarn.

It's one of my favourites, and to say that it doesn't have the cosmic tragedy of "The Tower of the Elephant" or the dystopian degeneracy of "Red Nails" doesn't necessarily make it a bad story, just not an exceptional one. Howard wrote dozens of these sorts of tales that are great fun to read, but there isn't much else lurking beneath the surface - at least, nothing that we haven't seen better executed in previous Howard tales. With this in mind, Penzler's choice actually seems fairly good for the sort of book he was trying to compile - rough-and-tumble, boy's own adventure tales.

Unfortunately, such an approach can sometimes lead to reviews like this.

Conan the Barbarian Review Reviews: Roger Ebert

(Note: you'll notice that I've not been keeping up on the blog. Part of it's stuff for Conan Movie Blog, part of it's the book, another part's getting ready for Cross Plains. And gremlins. As consolation, here's a Review Review I put on the backburner due to its contentious subject matter, but considering I'm pretty sure Ebert's going to do a review of the upcoming Conan film, I figure I may as well.)

Ah, Roger Ebert. Doug Walker, a fan of Siskel & Ebert, has a tribute to the pair which illustrates nicely the nature of the man and his work. While I can appreciate his popularity and contributions to film studies, I'm not a fan. I find that he's too quick to apply a perceived agenda to films, and can be derisive of films not adhering to a script 3-act structure made in the past 50 years. He also tends to make a few factual errors, which is one of those things only nitpickers like myself are really bothered with.

However, nothing bothered me quite as much as his review of Conan the Barbarian. The reasons will be self evident.

The Revenge of Spike Blogs

Oh man. Oh God.

Oh MAN. OH GOD.

OH MAN OH GOD OH MAN OH GOD OH MAN OH GOD

Do not go to Spike Blogs - that way, madness lies!

I have no words.  Well I do have words, but they'd erupt in a blasphemous gibbering outpouring of unintelligible insanity.  I'll just let these reviews for The Film Whose Name We Do Not Speak say it for me. Points of interest shall be put in bold, while points of sheer unfathomable, unreasoning bafflement shall be put in red.  I have to think some of these were not written in English originally, resulting in some quite spectacular translation quirks.

Be warned, oh ye blessed folk who have not read this yet: madness this way lies.  It's too late for me, you can still make it!  Don't do it.  What ever you do, don't click that link!

Conan the Barbarian Review Reviews: Grand Illusion Cinema tackles the Conan films

Time for another Review Review.  Syon, feel free to skip this one.

Conan The Barbarian is a sweeping fantasy epic from the days when they knew how to make a sweeping fantasy epic. The formula was a simple one: hire a bodybuilder, don’t give him any dialogue, and make sure he’s packing an enormous sword; then add is an evil wizard, and a scantily clad female or two and you’ve got the recipe for pretty much every swords and sorcery epic of the 1980′s.

That's what I've been trying to tell everyone! Bodybuilders, big swords, evil wizards, scantily clad females do not make a Conan movie.  They make a Big Dumb Sword-and-Sorcery movie.  From Ator to Zardoz, those elements can be found in all the useless Sword-and-Sorcery movies out there.  How one distinguishes a Conan movie - be it Milius or Howard - from any of the others relies looking beyond those elements shared by them.

Produced by Dino De Laurentis—who was certainly no stranger to spectacle—both Conan films (Barbarian and Destroyer) embodied the larger than life ideals of the Marvel Comics. It is true that Robert E. Howard invented the character of Conan, but neither film really captures his storytelling which was all  manly action and gore-spurting combat. Instead the films attempt to humanize the mighty Cimmerian and make him more than just an iron thewed killing machine. The result is an uneven, yet awesome pair of films in which Conan falls in love, loses his lover, sexes up a werewolf, fails to be seduced by either a simpering princess, or the terrifyingly oiled-up Grace Jones, and then goes head to head with a giant rubber snake.

... Right.  Because it isn't as if we see Conan's more contemplative side in "Beyond the Black River," "The Black Stranger," "Queen of the Black Coast," "The Tower of the Elephant," or "The Phoenix on the Sword" - you know, the very first Conan story.

Now he laid down the golden stylus with which he had been laboriously scrawling on waxed papyrus, rested his chin on his fist, and fixed his smoldering blue eyes enviously on the man who stood before him. This person was occupied in his own affairs at the moment, for he was taking up the laces of his gold-chased armor, and abstractedly whistling – a rather unconventional performance, considering that he was in the presence of a king.

"Prospero," said the man at the table, "these matters of statecraft weary me as all the fighting Ihave done never did..."

"...I did not dream far enough, Prospero. When King Numedides lay dead at my feet and I tore the crown from his gory head and set it on my own, I had reached the ultimate border of my dreams. I had prepared myself to take the crown, not to hold it. In the old free days all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to my enemies. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless.

When I overthrew Numedides, then I was the Liberator – now they spit at my shadow. They have put a statue of that swine in the temple of Mitra, and people go and wail before it, hailing it as the holy effigy of a saintly monarch who was done to death by a red-handed barbarian.

When I led her armies to victory as a mercenary, Aquilonia overlooked the fact that I was a foreigner, but now she can not forgive me...."

"No, Prospero, he’s beyond my reach. A great poet is greater than any king. His songs are mightier than my scepter; for he has near ripped the heart from my breast when he chose to sing for me. I shall die and be forgotten, but Rinaldo’s songs will live for ever."

My goodness, that's a totally emotionless, robotic, iron-thewed killing machine right there, isn't it?

I'm consistently baffled by this idea that Milius' Conan "humanized" Robert E. Howard's, as if Howard's character was some sort of boring one-dimensional slayer with no depth or vulnerabilities. Have these people not read the stories, with Conan's sly self-depracating gallows humour, his philosophical outlook, his canny strategic mind, his appreciation of the arts?  Wait, don't answer that.

Not many films have managed to capture the feel of the comics that they are based on as well as the Conan films do. The characters may not be complicated, but they don’t have to be, because they are larger than life. Despite efforts to humanize them, they remain iconic. They may not be played by the greatest actors in the world, but each and every one of those actors is perfect for the role they are asked to play. We don’t want to see Conan deliver a fancy speech, we want to see him chop off Thulsa Doom’s head and roll it down the stairs like a bowling ball! We don’t want Grace Jones in a romantic roll, we want to see her hitting stunt men in the crotch with a pointy stick! All right thinking people want to see that (except for the stuntmen) and I can assure you, with Crom as my witness, that seeing these films at the Grand Illusion is one of those things that is best in life.

Oh really? You mean fancy speeches that make up some of the most fantastic dialogue in any of the Conan stories? For that matter, what is Konahns prayer to Krumm but a fancy speech in itself?

Also gotta love "all right thinking people."  Because the quality of a film, contrary to popular conception, is not subjective, and that there is in fact a "right" and "wrong" way of watching a film.There might be appropriate ways to watch a film and inappropriate ones, but that doesn't mean right or wrong.  Sure, one can try to look at a Joel Schumacher film from a critical perspective, but just because the film won't really stand up to as much scrutiny if viewed as anything other than a popcorn flick doesn't mean that it's wrong to try.

Shadow's B-Movie Graveyard on Conan the Barbarian

A fairly comprehensive and impressive review of Conan the Barbarian.

Not that it isn't without its weird moments...

When viewed within context of existing Conan stories by creator Robert E. Howard, the film is somewhat of a patchwork affair, taking various ideas, characters, locations and names from the Hyborean age and melding them into a storyline that simultaneously has little and everything to do with the character. The look and feel of the people and world in the movie are most certainly recognizable as Conan, yet there is an odd emptiness that can be felt on occasion by many fans of the character’s literary origins. Something perhaps lost in translation from written word to silver screen.

"Somewhat" of a patchwork affair?  Ye gods.  Yet again, it's that nebulous "look and feel" being used.  The only phrase that annoys me more is "capture the spirit."  What is this "spirit" which is apparently captured?

Gotta laugh at the "odd emptiness."  As if fan disappointment at the film completely altering the backstory, philosophy and theme of the character was somehow odd.  Something sure was lost in translation: the character of Conan.  Heck, the reviewer seems to stumble upon this himself later:

In the same fashion that the film takes a hodgepodge of Conan lore and molds it into something new, likewise the film Conan is his own person…and being quiet, brooding and aloof is who he is.

Exactly. "Quiet, brooding and aloof" is exactly how I would not describe Howard's Conan.

Conan the Barbarian is a fun film. Certainly it is the best example of the Swords and Sorcery subgenre of fantasy films. Beyond that, it exudes a certain brutal and primitive charm. Not to be over analyzed, it exists purely on a popcorn movie level. Even to this day, it may be too violent for some people, especially kids. For those who like lots of talking in their epics, this film may not be for you. However, for those who like sweeping visuals that really add atmosphere to a story, this may be more to your liking – even if the story in question is a bare bones affair driven by plot more than character. Fans of fantasy films should check it out at least once, though don’t expect the deepness or intricacy of The Lord of the Rings.

And here I'd have to disagree.  I'd considering Conan the Barbarian easily as "deep" and "intricate" as Jackson's The Lord of the Rings.  Hell, I'd actually say it's deeper in some ways.  Jackson and company - like Milius - did Tolkien's greatest hits, with precious little of the subtlety or carefully balanced nuance of the source material.  What resulted in both cases were films telling the director's interpretation of the source material.  Sometimes they got things right - even Milius had Conan almost acting Conan-like in a few brief instances - other times, they got things wrong.  In both cases, I found the production design, costumes, props and score the best parts of the films by far.  Both are big action movies with a surprising amount of depth, though barely a fraction of the depth of their respective source material.

I will say Jackson definitely adapted The Lord of the Rings, though - Milius certainly didn't adapt Howard's Conan.

But then, I have to wonder about a review that says it's "not to be analyzed" and to be enjoyed "purely on a popcorn movie level"... right after a fairly lengthy analysis of the movie.  Hmm.

Agnes the Barbarian Review Reviews: SF Appeal

It's refreshing to have another subcategory for the "Review Reviews," this time for Agnes the Barbarian.  This time, SF Appeal (SF for San Francisco).

One of the dumbest things a theatre company can do in establishing a play's mood is to the waste the first opportunity they have to make an impression. From the moment someone walks into a theatre, they are at some level, immersed in the world of the play--even if the curtain has yet to rise. Most companies fill this pre-show space with music but few are particularly deliberate about their song choices. Sure, there's generally a wide-swath effort to pair upbeat pop songs with whimsical comedies and morose ballads with heart-rending dramas, but rarely does a song played before a show tell you exactly what to expect the moment the actors come onstage.

Thunderbird Theatre Company's world premiere comedy, Agnes the Barbarian, is a welcome exception.

So, it starts off well. Then...

Before playwright Jason Harding' s hilarious a-historical farce, Tenacious D's "Wonderboy" blasted over the theatre's sound system. Tenacious D, a band comprised of comic actors Jack Black and Kyle Gass, lovingly mocks area rock clichés by embracing them so wholeheartedly they're rendered even more patently ridiculous then they were originally. "Wonderboy" is the band's self-aggrandizing origin story, in which our heroes meet for the first time, band together on an epic quest and slay a ferocious beast.

So... area rock is patently ridiculous, then?  The thing is, Tenacious D love that stuff.  They can't get enough of it.  Mocking is something you do to something you hate.  It's taunting via shallow imitation.  Poking fun at something you love is something else altogether: self-deprecation.  Self-deprecation is parody: mockery is satire.  And satire isn't always funny, nor is it always intended to be so.

Tinged with Led Zeppelin's penchant for heavy riffs and mystical imagery, the song is a perfect corollary for Agnes The Barbarian, a play that follows the same basic structure (young hero sets out on adventure, meets friends along way and ends up successfully running her sword through something evil) and has a similar relationship with its source material: a blend of genuine appreciation and the kind of smirking condescension without which good farce is impossible.

"Smirking Condescension" is something without which a good farce is entirely possible - I'd even say it's what separates the gems from the detritus. There's a difference between honest lampooning of faults or tropes, and being condescending about it: most notably, a distinct lack of maturity. Compare the likes of Airplane! and High Anxiety to Meet the Spartans and the ____ Movie series: the former are permeated with "genuine appreciation" for the source material, while the latter seem to treat their sources with little more than thinly-veiled, sarcastic contempt - or "smirking condescension." The gap in quality between the two groups is vast: while affection for the source material may not be required, and I'm not seeking to prove some sort of correlation, it seems to be the case that more good parodies have a decent amount of affection in them than the bad ones do.

Of course, good satire is a different animal, but even then, smirking condescension is surely less powerful than biting, belligerent wit.  The most powerful satires are pointed, savage and relentless - so much so, that it's as likely to result in deathly silence as to riotous laughter.  Satire and parody are two very different things, and it's clear Agnes is a parody.

Besides which, I can't really see a use for smirking condescension in any context, save one to provide an excuse for a good skelp on the cheek. Condescension in any shape or form is irritating in the extreme.

The source material here is the post-stone age, pre-Roman world of swords and sorcery created in the 1930s by Texas writer Robert E. Howard and inhabited by Conan the Barbarian, Krull the Conqueror and pretty much every character ever played by Kevin Sorbo.

I... I... I got nothing. The reviewer seems to be under the delusion that the Hyborian Age takes place during recorded history. And that Conan and "Krull" shared the same epoch. And that Kevin Sorbo only played one REH character (and even then that's seriously pushing it), and I sure can't remember Howard ever writing about wisecracking Hercules or Captain Dylan Hunt. The silly person can't even take a few seconds to check Wikipedia to get Kull's name right. I guess this is the sort of "smirking condescension" he or she is talking about. Hate to break it to ya, kiddo, but condescension doesn't work when the person you're talking down to knows you're talking complete balderdash.

Aging, balding, increasingly corpulent and perennially shirtless, Conan (ably played by the playwright) has ruled Aquilonia with not quite an iron fist for decades, but is currently vexed by both the constant stream of paperwork given to him by his scheming, corporate-style advisers intent on destroying the kingdom and his ever-rebellious daughter, Agnes.

See, Agnes doesn't want to be a barbarian. She much prefers the Utopian, left-wing ideals espoused by her unseen pen pal to the violent, ignorant way of her barbarian, Crom worshipping forbears. Conan hates how Agnes, "struts about the castle, fully dressed, reading books," and wishes instead she was more like a traditional barbarian woman, "more of a smolderer or a temptress." But like most parents, his most serious complaint is that she always leaves her dirty laundry on the floor of the throne room instead of in the hamper where it belongs.

Based on what parts of the script Jason sent me, I could at lest rely on him in some parts (Elseworlds Conan, Elseworlds Conan, Elseworlds Conan...) but I never could've imagined him taking the title role!  Heh, above and beyond, methinks.

Conan's advisers, who have conned him into getting bogged down in a war to eliminate a foreign power's weapons of mass destruction (namely zombies and catapults) that turned out to be as imaginary as their real-life counter-parts, need Agnes dead to complete their plan.

Unfortunately, not everything really works. WMD gags were overplayed when the WMD controversy was new. And if you're going to look for commentary on the Iraq war (or at least the applicability of such a work to current events) one needn't go further than the source:

Such a wave of enthusiasm and rejoicing as swept the land is frequently the signal for a war of conquest. So no one was surprized when it was announced that King Tarascus had declared the truce made by the late king with their western neighbors void, and was gathering his hosts to invade Aquilonia. His reason was candid; his motives, loudly proclaimed, gilded his actions with something of the glamor of a crusade. He espoused the cause of Valerius, “rightful heir to the throne”; he came, he proclaimed, not as an enemy of Aquilonia, but as a friend, to free the people from the tyranny of a usurper and a foreigner.
- The Hour of the Dragon, Robert E. Howard... written in 1935

I'm dreading the LotR comparisons if "The Phoenix on the Sword" ever gets an adaptation...

Much like in Harold Ramis's uneven, yet underrated, Year One, most of the humor in Agnes the Barbarian comes from anachronism--the incongruity of trying to apply our modern sensibilities to an unrepentantly pre-modern time.

I haven't seen Year One yet. My distaste for Michael Cera and ambivalence to Jack Black (how I loathe and like him) notwithstanding, this sounds an awful like the sort of stuff not just Terry Pratchett, but Monty Python was doing too. Life of Brian, anyone?

Evil sorceresses have to deal with ex-boyfriends who call them relentlessly, and crossbow wielding assassins talk like they just walked off the set of The Sopranos. The aforementioned royal advisers assure their victims that their evil deeds are, "nothing personal, only business" and make everyone sign everything in triplicate. Unlike some of the show's baser running gags, the humor of anachronism never gets old, thanks to the sharp characterizations and snappy pacing.

That, too, sounds extremely Pratchettesque.

Even though the show is essentially a follow-up to Arnold Schwarzenegger breakout role...

On that, I think we can agree, given the frightening similarities Agnes the Barbarian shares with King Conan: Crown of Iron.  (And only one of them's meant to be a parody!)

... the figure looming large over the production isn't one based in Sacramento--it's Mel Brooks. From its incessant breaking of the fourth wall and winking pop-culture references to its Borscht Belt comic sensibility, Agnes the Barbarian could be presented as Mel Brooks's take on the fantasy genre without anyone batting an eyelash.

Mel Brooks! That's another one.  Man, if I were Jason, to be considered in the same sentence as Mel Brooks would be awesome (unless Jason doesn't like Mel Brooks for some unholy reason).

So it seems Agnes the Barbarian succeeds with the general crowd who don't know their Robert E. Howard from their Robert E. Lee - I suspected it would, since the novelty is there, and it sounded like the sort of crowd-pleasing thing one would get.  I haven't yet heard from any Californian Howard fans on the production, though.  I guess that'll be Agnes the Barbarian's hardest battle.  In the meantime, I suspect further reviews will be of this ilk - next to no knowledge of the source material outside of the films and maybe the comics, assuming that having Conan being swamped by paperwork and courtly bureaucracy is some sort of gag in itself, and that Agnes' bookish, independent, politically-minded daughter would be nothing like any of Howard's heroines.  Ah, well, at least he didn't bring up the suicide or some of the more stupid "factoids," or blame something from the films on Howard.

... Sacramento?

Robert E. Howard Movie Review Reviews: Richard Scheib's Moria

Originally, I was going to take Richard Scheib's movie reviews one at a time, but seeing as he recently put up his Solomon Kane review, I feel I might as well do them all.

Solomon Kane Review Reviews: Superhero Cinema

The frustrating thing about Michael Bassett’s Solomon Kane film is that it comes so close to getting it right. The cinematography and gloomy atmosphere capture the somber tone of Conan creator Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane tales very well, and there is a scene in the film where Kane encounters a mad priest who keeps a “congregation” of gibbering cannibals locked in the basement of his ruined church that feels like it could have been directly adapted from one of the original stories.

The frustrating thing about Jefferson’s Solomon Kane review is that it comes so close to getting it right. The article clearly knows enough about Conan creator Robert E. Howard's tales to understand how profoundly wrong Bassett's characterisation is, and there are some very salient points...

Nah, I feel mean. After all, this is a pretty good review.  I just feel I have to comment on some things.

Solomon Kane Review Reviews: Robert Mann

A good review, for once: Robert Mann.

Still, a few queries.

The creation of pulp fiction writer Robert E. Howard, known for characters such as Conan the Barbarian, Kull the Conqueror and Red Sonja, Solomon Kane is a character that can be distinctly classified as an anti-hero. Extremely dark, even by the standards of Howard, who has written some pretty dark stuff, he is a character that makes even the likes of Batman seem quite tame by comparison and, given the big screen potential for such a character, it is actually rather surprising that he hasn’t been brought to the big screen before.

It's fairly clear he doesn't have much experience with the literary character, since he considers him "distinctly classed as an antihero" who would make "even the likes of Batman seem quite tame."

This is entirely the creation of the film, based on a very extreme interpretation of the poetry. In reality, Solomon Kane is possibly the LEAST "anti-heroic" of his characters. Sure, he's dark and conflicted, but he's also immensely kind and gentle to the innocent. He'd only be an antihero if he was put into a modern context, where laws, society and mores are very different from the 15/1600s.

There are, however, a few things that set this film apart from other films in the sword and sorcery genre, things you may not expect. For starters, the acting is much better than it really needs to be. James Purefoy is excellent as the titular character, delivering a thorughly convincing performance of a character that is actually more complex than you might expect.

He mentions the performances being "better than they needed to be", but also says Kane is "a character more complex than you might expect"... surely a performance would need to be good in order to portray such a character?

Still, those problems aside, it's an interesting review, well thought out, and actually explaining why and how he came to his conclusions. Would that more critics took after his example.

Solomon Kane Review Reviews: Nigel Powlson

Oh boy.

Nigel Powlson's review.

BEFORE he created Conan the Barbarian Robert E Howard tested out the plot on Solomon Kane. Instead of the steppes, we have Somerset; instead of animal skins we have black hats, instead of paganism we have Christianity.

Otherwise it's the same tale of a cast out child who grows up to seek revenge for an act of violence by a brutal nemesis.

And with one fell swoop, all Nigel's credibility in this review goes whooshing out the window. No, Nigel, Robert E. Howard did not "test out the plot" of Conan on Solomon Kane, because...

1. The story of Conan the Barbarian has nothing to do with Robert E. Howard
2. The story of Solomon Kane has nothing to do with Robert E. Howard
3. Just as Howard's Conan and Kane are very different from each other, so too are the stories of Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane as films!
4. Konahn wasn't "cast out" as a child, he was captured and enslaved. Big freakin' difference, I'da thought.
5. Bassett's Kane isn't driven by revenge, he's driven by desire to save his immortal soul. Again, I'da thought that would be a big freakin' difference.
   

Quintuple point failure, damn. How could it possibly get worse?