Words Seem Out Of Place

"Uh, an editorial tête-à-tête . Wanna grab a drink?" Whenever things go south on the job, I quote that line of dialogue from David Fincher's masterpiece, Zodiac (2007), which dramatizes the infamous, unsolved serial murders in Northern California in the 1970s, attributed to the Zodiac Killer. The dialogue belongs to Paul Avery, a rogue scamp of sorts, played brilliantly by Robert Downey Jr. in a performance that should be considered one of his career best. Unfortunately, we don't seem to talk enough about just how good he is in the film. So, let's, shall we? As a sarcastic, cynical, and disgraced reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Avery starts the film in a professional and personal funk, exacerbated by his being a highly functional alcoholic. Then he finds a new purpose, a path towards redemption, through the paper's political cartoonist Robert Graysmith's ( Jake Gyllenhaal) obsession with the Zodiac case. What follows is Downey and G...

Brief programming note: I wrote this last October for a series celebrating women of horror in the lead up to Halloween. For one reason or another this piece didn't make it into the series before Halloween passed. One year later, here we are again, celebrating another Halloween season, and Carla Gugino is once again starring in a Netflix horror production from director Mike Flanagan, this time the dread-filled new series The Haunting of Hill House . I'm two episodes in and loving it so far. Gugino is an unsung national treasure, so it's good to see her in some higher profile work. She's also a natural fit for horror, bringing the right combination of strength and vulnerability necessary to really shine in the genre. Her performance in Flanagan's Gerald's Game was one of my favorites of 2017. Here's why. ***** Most actors would be hampered in their performance by spending the majority of a film handcuffed to a bed. They might struggle with the inab...

I always understand and try not to judge people who don't do horror. Usually they avoid the genre because it just doesn't appeal to them, or it does but they're so deeply affected by it that they can barely function after. What I have no tolerance for is people who simply refuse, out of stubborn snobbery, to grasp the importance of horror and how it can help us process trauma and grief. Those people usually turn their noses up at Stephen King's work, often after reading only a book or two of his, or in certain cases, none at all. I immediately distrust those people. Like many kids, King was my gateway into reading—and also writing—horror, just like Elvira turned me on to horror movies (and turned me on to her, but that's a whole other story). Then, like a lot of adults, I stopped reading King for one reason or another, mostly just because I drifted towards other influences and various genres, but also because I believed I'd outgrown him. About ten year...

Roger Ebert's (1942–2013)  Movie Home Companion books were my introduction to film criticism during adolescence. Of course, I also loved watching Ebert and Gene Siskel do their thing At the Movies — especially when they championed difficult, but important cinema . I would read and reread Ebert's review essays over and over again, though. Not only were they terrific criticism but they also worked beautifully as standalone prose. In fact, I can still remember small excerpts from some of them! A favorite was from his review of the laughably bad (and outrageously fun) Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf   (1985):  I have to concede that no one presides over a ritual quite as well as Sybil Danning, especially when she is savagely ripping open the bodice of her dress. She rips the dress so dramatically, in fact, that the shot is repeated twice during the closing credits, providing the movie with its second and third interesting moments. He's right. Dannin...

If you grew up in the 1980s, then chances are you know Jose Garcia-Lopez's work, even if you didn't read comics or don't know his name. His art was not only featured in the pages of DC Comics, but also on almost every bit of company merchandise imaginable, from t-shirts to toy packaging and everything in between. If you took a Wonder Woman lunch box to school in, say, 1985, then it's likely you carried around some stellar Garcia-Lopez art and were the envy of all your friends. Much of this merchandising art was pulled directly from Garcia-Lopez's highly influential and legendary DC Style Guide . For decades, this was the company bible, to which all artists referred when drawing the deep stable of DC characters, and it was Garcia-Lopez's art that they were referencing. His sequential art is not to be ignored, either. Look at the page below from a Superman comic. Note how each panel is brimming with life—from the wonderful variety of facial expressions o...

Uma Thurman performance in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2  has always been more than deserving of high praise. She's outstanding, turning in one of the great performances in film of the last two decades. Not only is the role about as physically demanding as any in recent memory, but through all of the stunts she also delivers an emotional powerhouse of a performance. As The Bride, Thurman crafted one of the most iconic female performances of our time—or any time, really. Throughout both films, she's put through the wringer by the events of director Quentin Tarantino's madhouse mashup of genre action and suspense. No matter, she's never anything short of outstanding. Whether it's wielding a samurai sword with ease, engaging in knockdown, drag-out fisticuffs, or by using only her eyes to reveal The Bride's steely resolve, she is pure cinematic gold. Thurman recently opened up to The New York Times , going into detail about events she only alluded to on the red c...

Terry's determined investigation into the Colony provides the film's most heroic moments. Oh, Terry. You were so full of spunk and wit and had such incredible hair. Every time I watch Joe Dante's seminal 1981 werewolf film The Howling , I want to warn Terry of the dangers that lie ahead—namely Robert Picardo's unnervingly deranged serial killer-cum-werewolf Eddie Quist—and beg her to just drop the amateur sleuthing, turn around, and skedaddle out of the woods and back to L.A. Sadly, every time I watch, her fate remains the same. Belinda Balaski turns in a remarkable performance in a supporting role as Terry, the best friend to star Dee Wallace's character, Karen White. Whenever she's on screen it's impossible to take your eyes off her. She's a dynamo, full of magnetic charisma. She breathes such tremendous life into the role and I doubt most actresses could've done any better with the part. Balaski imbues Terry with attractive qualities, lik...

Nicola Scott. Photo: Cole Bennetts. For my money, Nicola Scott is the finest comic book artist working today. Certainly, she's been an excellent artist for a while now, since she first entered the field about fifteen years ago, but recently she's emerged as a truly special artist, with a style all her own. Make no mistake: she's outrageously good now. Her recent work, especially on DC's  Wonder Woman and Image's  Black Magick,  is astonishingly impressive—seriously, drop everything and pick up the trades for these series right now. These books make it clear that Scott is in the midst of a major moment, and she's grasping those opportunities and making the most of them. Thanks partly to a unique confluence of events, including Wonder Woman's (brief) United Nations Ambassadorship last fall (for which Scott illustrated the jaw-dropping poster), the character's 75th anniversary in 2016, and the new Patty Jenkins film starring Gal Gadot, Scott's...

Writer. Street poet. Heartbreaker. Blank generation. Voidoid. Fashion icon. Bassist. Neon boy. Punk. Richard Hell (né Richard Lester Meyers) was everywhere and everything all at once in the nascent punk rock scene in 1970s New York City. During the decade he was in several seminal bands: the Neon Boys, Television, the Heartbreakers, and the Voidoids. Hell played bass and sang (if one can call it that) with a warble and a sneer, all furious punk fury just barely masking a sensitive songwriter's ethos. Hell is responsible for the famous ripped clothes, spiked hair, and overall fuck-you style of early punk rock. When you see a wannabe punker sporting the look these days, four decades on, realize it's Hell to whom they owe a debt. Back then, he managed to seem more alive than almost anybody else while looking like he'd just been mugged, beaten, and left for dead. Malcolm McClaren was inspired by and lifted the essence of Hell's couture for a new band he was managing ...

Photograph by Chris Gabrin I like to think this was photo was taken at a diner near the Chelsea Hotel, back in the day, maybe right before William Burroughs meandered in, ordered a black coffee and winked in Debbie's direction. Maybe he was meeting Patti Smith, who sat by the window, engrossed in Rimbaud. Maybe David Johansen had just kissed Debbie goodbye and strolled out the door. Maybe I was sitting at a table nearby, watching it all unfold. Maybe I even snapped this picture. Too young, you say? Eh. Don't do the math; it won't add up, but in some alternate reality it might've happened. My film-and-music-nerd buddies Jason Blanco and Dean Garman were there and scarfing down pancakes while Debbie sipped tea and I slurped coffee and we both raved about the Ramones. Anything's possible. Two bands hooked me on the power of rock as a kid: the Pretenders and Blondie. Then came U2, then came Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden etc. But it really started with the v...

History is littered with great bands and musicians that are left behind in the always charging stampede to move on to the next red-hot thing. Because of my age and musical proclivities, I'm thinking especially of acts from my youth like the Cars the Go-Gos, Boston, or the Bangles. Sure, their hits are still played religiously on classic rock radio, but it's doubtful any of them will be receiving serious critical reappraisals any time soon. It's almost as if they've been relegated to the dust bin of history now (which is what rock radio has become), dismissed as nothing more than catchy corporate rock from the era that defined catchy corporate rock. Maybe they'll never be hip, but bands like that left behind some great music. Scandal—and especially their spark-plug firecracker of a lead singer, Patty Smyth—are one of those bands that I'd love to see receive a little more love. They had some hits, but two in particular that positively rocked my young life, ...

"There was no movie...there was only...her life." All Heather wanted was to raise her son in peace and work in television. Instead, she has to confront that sick bastard Freddy. Again. Only this time outside of the safe confines of playing Nancy on a film set, and instead in the all-too vivid Hellscapes of both her dream state and her waking life. Blame it all on Wes Craven. After all, he had to purge those new nightmares—featuring everyone's favorite burnt, razor-gloved serial killer—out on the page. Dude was right though: Heather/Nancy is the key. She's the constant. She's our hero, a fierce mamma bear battling Freddy tooth and nail every step of the way for her little cub's life. Throughout, she's battered, bruised, cut, sliced, repeatedly prank-called, widowed, leered at by a creep limo driver, demeaned by an arrogant doctor, hit by a car, and repeatedly accused of being an unfit mother. Rarely has an actress faced more unrelenting horror than Hea...

Admit it: it's nice to have our opinions validated. Those moments are usually uplifting, even invigorating. Recently reading this precise, critical analysis of Shelley Duvall's performance in one of my favorite films, The Shining , was one such moment. I've always found Duvall to be astonishingly good as Wendy Torrance in The Shining .  She breathes life into a thankless role, giving an absolutely heartbreaking performance as an abused spouse. In the annals of horror, few actors have expressed real, palpable terror any better than Duvall does in the chaotic final act, when tidal waves of blood gush from elevator doors, a man wearing a dog costume suddenly appears, and Jack is maniacally axing his way through the hotel towards her and Danny. That she claws her way out of that timidity and fear to be the hero of the story, fighting for her son's life with every last gasp, is all you need to know, really. Yet over and over again, for decades, Duvall...