Salgood Sam's Dream Life: A Late Coming of Age

Page two of Dream Life: A Late Coming of Age

Salgood Sam, otherwise known as Max Douglas, has been drawing since he was six. His latest endeavor is Dream Life: A Late Coming of Age. It's a trippy, moody epic and a feast for the eyes. The visuals range from cosmic to the everyday, and the juxtapositions are wonderful.

Real life in Dream Life

Plus it references Peanuts.

The spectacular earth bull

Awesome.

Check it out!

Review: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

A complex, ponderous epic, The Dark Knight Rises begins with a high altitude bang. Bane (Tom Hardy) mounts a breathtaking, if preposterous, escape from sadistic CIA captors. After that, we transition to the outskirts of tranquil Gotham, where Bruce Wayne is moping about his barren mansion. Poor little rich boy, with nothing to do and no one to beat senseless. The film meanders about existential issues and then lurches to an epic conclusion.

Almost two and a half hours long, Christopher Nolan's concluding Batman film is inconsistent but never boring. He even tosses around enough ideas to warrant a second viewing.

Christian Bale is excellent as the retired Batman, crippled by years of physically punishing crime fighting. Bruce Wayne hasn't donned the Batcowl for eight years. The city is at peace thanks to the manipulated 'sacrifice' of Harvey Dent. Bale doesn't appear masked until later in the film, and the movie is stronger for it. The gravelly vocal affectation Bale employs as The Bat is more annoying and out of place than ever. It's when he gets quiet character moments that Bale really shines.

Hardy's Bane is a worthy adversary: ruthless and forever calm, he hijacks not just airplanes but whole ideologies. After seizing control of Gotham, he implements a revolutionary agenda and the rich are thrown down. But that's not the end of it. Not by a long shot. Gotham is put in peril like never before.

Bane's voice (a subject of much controversy, I found him perfectly understandable), a distorted warble over sophisticated accent, is in stark contrast to his hulking physique. A deeper exploration of his motivations might have helped make him even more compelling. We never get past his surface, not really. Yet he's a captivating screen presence.

As Bane's partner in crime, Selina Kyle adds romance, eye candy, and moral ambiguity. She's a Robin Hood style sexpot who robs from the rich and gives to the poor (primarily herself). Considering the value of what she steals, she must spend a lot to remain poor.

Michael Caine gets a chance to chew the scenery as Alfred, and he emotes with aplomb. Unfortunately these Emo scenes feel forced; the presence of the screenwriter's pen can be felt, and they do not mesh with the narrative smoothly. They're essential, but not enough time is devoted to do them justice.

Economic inequality and revolution are explored in a way that few films dare. Nolan has wicked fun at the expense of Wall Street stockbrokers and their Occupy movement counterparts.

The material is fascinating enough, and rolls along at a good enough clip, that plot holes the size of small moons don't derail the narrative.

Certain aspects of the film invite discussion while others must be gleaned over lest suspension of disbelief be irrevocably lost. In the end, The Dark Knight Rises doesn't achieve its lofty ambitions. Nolan's reach exceeds his grasp. But we're better off for his effort.

DKR nevertheless makes for a fitting conclusion to the Nolan/Bale Batman series.

Until I see it a second time and change my mind.

Pixomondo Magic

I'd never heard of this special effects house before. Haven't been paying any attention for far too long it seems, because they're awesome. They've worked on everything from Game of Thrones to Spiderman.

Over at io9 they've posted a fabulous video of effects work from Snow White and the Huntsman byPixomondo, showing before and after shots. I've always loved looking at this sort of thing, as all my copies of Cinefex magazine attest.

The Abominable Charles Christopher

 Eisner Award winning online comic by Karl Kerschl, who's also known for working on Teen Titans and Superman. Beautifully illustrated, atmospheric, cinematic. Take a look. It's been up since 2007 so there's a lot of material to take in.

Karl can work in a number of styles, and the quality level is always consistently high. He's also Canadian. Yay!

Oyster War

Eisner-nominated cartoonist Ben Towle, writer of Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean, is now working on the intriguing webcomic Oyster War. Apparently swashbuckling steampunk oyster pirates (there were oyster pirates?) fought with American authorities from the 1860s to 1959, off the US coast. Fascinating topic for a comic, and something I knew absolutely nothing about. Charming images with a touch of Dr. Seuss about them propel the well researched story forward. And in full colour!

Check it out and learn about Treacher Fink.

Tommy Douglas Stamp

Worked on a stamp for Canada Post with the awesome art director Derwyn Goodall earlier this year, and it's finally out. My illustration graces the envelope and the background of the stamp. It's a collectible and honours the father of Canada's medicare system. Best of all, the photo of Tommy is by the one and only Yousuf Karsh. I kid you not. My work pared with Karsh.

Officially.

On a stamp.

I know. Just did the background. Whatevah. I still think it's totally awesome,

Available at finer post offices near you, but only in Canada. Booyah!

Peter Ferguson: the new Hildebrandt

Very few illustrators have a command of light like the Hildebrandt brothers, except for Peter Ferguson. 

His work graces the covers of dozens of young adult novels, and for obvious reasons. He conjures up the most amazing sci-fi and fantasy scenes. Take bright sumptuous colours; sharp, instantly recognizable expressions, steampunk machinery, Maxfield Parish style lighting and tie them all to the imagination of a mad scientist. That's Peter Ferguson.

Concept art, comics, books, magazines, posters, you name it, he's done it. Don't believe it? Think he hasn't done Samurai fighting robot attack fish while aboard a red panda air force jet piloted by a space baby? Well... behold!

More of his work here.

The Mad Genius of Balint Zsako

Like Marcel Dzama, but on drugs. Awesome. And he went to Ryerson in Toronto, of all places.

Love it. Check out his website.

The work of Tomio Nitto

Tomio is an illustrator whose elegant, delicate work can be either tightly rendered or loose and spontaneous, and veers from Surrealist to observational. Often it has a mischievous edge.

His acrylic illustrations have graced everything from Saturday Night Magazine to Esquire, but his watercolour sketches are equally remarkable. The pieces below graced a show at the IndexG gallery:

Check out his website here, and his work on Behance here.

He's also written a children's book, The Red Rock, which is well worth a look. It reflects his deeply held beliefs on preservation of the environment.

Frankenjelly!

WIRED SCIENCE has an article about an artificial jellyfish made from rat heart cells and silicon. Does Tim Burton know? The motto of the scientists invovled: 'Copy nature, but not too much.' Nice.

Toronto Outdoor Art Show Continued

Two other notables I stumbled across at the TOAS this year were Cole Swanson and Steve Chmilar. Both men are inspired by art from earlier eras: Swanson by Rajasthan and Chmilar by Bruegel.

Cole Swanson gives Indian miniature painting a modern twist, taking the traditional art form and populating it with modern life motifs. Fascinating stuff. I love when people build upon and spin traditional approaches in new ways. And Swanson is no dilettante: he studied under Dr. Nathulal Verma, a renowned Indian artist. There you go. Appeal to authority.

Check out his work.

Steve Chmilar switched from music to painting, and I'm happy he did. I love the work of Flemish artists such as Pieter Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch, and last year I saw some of their originals in the Bojimans Museum in Rotterdam. Obsessively detailed, tightly painted macabre scenes brimming with imagination and wit. Bruegel's Tower of Babel is a particular favourite of mine.
Chmilar is going for a similar effect, and while his work strikes me as inconsistent at this point, you can see the potential he offers, which is that of a master. It should: he lavishes 500 hours on each piece. Check out his work.

Oatmeal Religion

The Oatmeal is an online website by the delightfully deranged Matthew Inman. Remarkably, he survives on a steady diet of crickets and whiskey, which I would not have thought possible. Perhaps this is the source of his genius. He had a recent series of comics about religion which I thought were pretty amusing. Check them out.

He also has some musings on printers being sent from Hell.

I think he's on to something there.

Review: Ted (2012)

Ted is crass, vulgar, ridiculous, and awesome.

Not sublime, I grant you that. But definitely brimming with sheer awesomeness. The kind of awesome that sets the teeth of snobs on edge.

Seth MacFarlane wears so many hats here (writer, director, producer, actor) that I wasn't honestly expecting much. How could anyone pull off so many different roles successfully simultaneously? Is he superman? C'mon! But pull it off he does, and with flying colours. Sans spandex. This movie is one rudely fun romp, particularly for males of a certain age who are familiar with the material MacFarlane constantly references.

It starts with a lonely young boy's Christmas wish for a best friend. It being the movies, the wish miraculously comes true, bringing to life Ted (voiced by Seth MacFarlane), a stuffed bear. I know, I know. So far, so typical. We've all seen sappy Christmas movies where the wishes of virtuous younglings come true, so long as Anakin isn't around to cut them short. But that's not what the movie is interested in, or about. It has much more fun fish to fry.

Instead, the film takes a sharp twist twenty-five years into the future. The boy, John Bennett, has now grown up into Mark Wahlberg. He's a loveable bong smoking loser who spends lots of time on the couch with his stuffed but ambulatory friend Ted. Ted's matured too, in spirit if not form, and now is a foul mouthed, sex obsessed pothead. Both are deeply immersed in pop culture. Consider your Christmas fantasies set firmly askew.

This delightfully simple premise is executed with aplomb. Expletives and politically incorrect material flies in every direction. 

John's love interest, Lori (Mila Kunis) is charming and shares chemistry with Wahlberg. Ted, however, is constantly getting in the way, and much of the film deals with how the trio manage to set their lives in order. 

Shameless joy resides behind the film, a lightheartedness which I honestly hadn't expected. And while some of the humour hits the mark with a wallop, and some doesn't, it's all just so silly and unselfconscious, you can't help but love it. I left with a big smile on my face.

I'm looking forward to whatever project MacFarlane sets his sick, twisted, brilliant mind to next.

Do yourself a favour though: be sure to watchthe camptastic cheesefest Flash Gordon (1980) and Airplane! (1980) before you see this film, just to jog your memory if you're my age, or so you can get the jokes if you're a younger person. All three share a similiar sense of unbridled lunacy and joy.

Review: John Carter (Spoilers)

Tepid. That's one way to describe it.

I very much wanted to dig Johnny. Read the books as a kid. Unfortunately, while the film has many fun scenes, taken together they don't exceed their sum.

The film begins with the trippy Therns, blue-hued, shape-shifting beings, introducing themselves to warlord wannabe Sab Than (Dominic West). They bestow upon him the shizz, a powerful Ninth Ray weapon. As long as he asks how high when they tell him to jump, they'll see to it he 'rules' Barsoom. Sabby's a lame-o puppet who can't make a real decision without checking with his boss first.

The film then cuts to earth, where we're introduced to a dour and irritable John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), prospecting in the Old West; in short order, zam-bam, it's ten years later, we're back in New York. We meet Edgar Rice Burroughs (Daryl Sabara), who inherits Carter's estate and diary. He promptly begins to read it, delivering us back ten years to finally begin John Carter's tale.

So bit of a roundabout beginning. Much of the film is like that: fun but overly complex, slowed down thanks to a surfeit of material. A sin I'm familiar with.

It's not painful by any means. There are great action sequences and moments of laugh out loud comic relief along the way. The creatures are believable, the sets superb, and the floating ships magnificent. Yet John Carter lacks epic sweep and the convoluted plot doesn't effectively build to a satisfying climax. The ending seems like a rushed afterthought.

On the other hand, Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) is awesome.

Director Stanton makes a noble effort, but by remaining so faithful to the source material he hamstrung himself. He tries to cram too much in. Rather than barrel along at a mile a minute, the film lumbers like a ponderous Zitidar.

The Therns and their shape shifting, planet hopping, Machiavellian games add an unnecessary layer of complexity to an already overloaded story. The marriage subplot is bizarrely extraneous, given that Helium is already at the mercy of Zodanga. Meek Sab Than's pushed into it by the Therns. After the wedding he's to assassinate her to put an end to Ninth Ray research; his men are posed to plunder Helium right after the ceremony. Why bother with the whole charade then? Wait! Look over there! It's a fight scene!

When Sab Than (convincingly) puts his life at the mercy of Dejah Thoriss (Lynn Collins), she's sorely tempted to take him up on the offer. His actions seem completely out of character; obviously, the Therns must have put him up to it. Again. Poor Sabby is always being pushed about by these refugees from Beneath the Planet of the Apes. I kept expecting them to peel their false faces off or play percussion.

When the Thern leader (Mark Strong) takes Carter prisoner, like other great villains before him, he can't resist explaining his entire nefarious plan to our seemingly helpless hero, who promptly escapes. Such is the price of hubris. Who could see that coming?

What was Strong's character going to do with Carter? Carter's an obvious threat, a wrench in their plans, yet for utterly inexplicable reasons the Therns don't bother to dispose of him when they have the chance. Then again, the story is set long before Goldfinger.

Star Wars liberally pillaged Edgar Rice Burrough's books for ideas, yet A New Hope has a very clear storyline that builds to a planet shattering crescendo. Carter doesn't. The final battle in Star Wars is well staged and beautifully paced in order to build suspense to the highest level possible. Not Johnny, where everything happens in a big jumble. No build up. No elegant pacing. Just borderline chaos, albeit with well played comic relief.

Finally there's no real spark between Kitsch and the Princess, which is a pity. Both are appealing actors and this isn't Hamlet. But they  couldn't fake a romantic spark for the cameras leaving their relationship unconvincing.

After saying all that, you might think I hated John Carter. Not so. And if I were ten, I'd have loved it. I wasn't bored, even during the extended middle, which is something I can't say of numerous other aspiring blockbusters. I watched right to the end credit roll, something I can't say for the cinematic monstrosity that was the first Transformer film. That thing was a crime perpetrated on my eyeballs.

John Carter's playground has been pillaged for decades, making his film debut feel derivative. Hardly fair. As a fun action adventure flick that reintroduces the world of Edgar Rice Burrough's classic books to a new generation, the film's worthwhile. Even more so for kids who haven't been plied with big budget, epic fantasy films for twenty years.

Sadly JC looks on track to lose the studio a whopping $200 million, making it one of the most catastrophic money losers ever made, a title it doesn't deserve. Guess we won't be seeing a sequel anytime soon, but you can read the original ERB books at Project Gutenberg.

Hell Lost: The Counter Revolution Begins

Satan's oppression and insidious machinations finally drive the disaffected population into revolt against his rule, millennia after their rebellion against God.

The story follows Balthazar, an infernal knight who has been recently released from spiritual rehabilitation for a minor belief infraction.

To reestablish his status, Balthazar is tasked with taking down his former mentor, Baal, who has been falsely set up by Satan as a traitor.

So why a graphic novel about revolution in Hell? Because Hell sucks. It smells, it’s hot, and it’s filled with assholes. It’s worse than Fort Lauderdale during Spring Break. And, sooner or later, some Fallen Angels are going to wise up and ask, “What were we thinking?”

It’s written and illustrated by me, James Turner, who is known (in certain circles and local bars) for Nil: A Land Beyond Belief, Rex Libris, and Warlord of Io.

And yes, that’s Io, as in the Galilean moon of Jupiter. Not the number ten. I know, unfortunate choice of logo. Live and learn.

Hell Lost is really swell. I suggest you read it. Tell your friends to read it. Let your dog and cat read it.

You'll have a blast with lots of good, clean fun in the deepest pits of damnation and depravity.

Review: The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Written and directed by Preston Sturges, it's even more subversive of the genre than Waitress and much funnier.

Claudette Colbert plays Gerry Jeffers, a frustrated wife with a financial failure of a husband (Joel McCrea) who's on the brink of bankruptcy. Ever practical, she decides to  dump Joel's ass, despite still being  in love with him, and run away to seek a richer partner.

Informed by a cab driver that Palm Beach is the best place to get a divorce, she sets off immediately by train, only to get entangled with a drunken hunting club. Mayhem and gunfire ensues, and in the aftermath she steps on the face of one of the world's richest men, John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee), who is promptly enraptured by the foot of her feminine wiles. First impressions count, and kink has a long history.

Petulant Tom, however, is in hot pursuit, but when he catches up, Gerry passes him off as her brother, to his great consternation. To top it off, Gerry presents him to John's sex hungry sister, Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor).

Despite being a stiff stick in the mud, Tom still has Claudette's heart, and she must now decide between true love and financial security with a charming and affable millionaire.

The ending has a fun last minute twist that resolves everything in a suitably ridiculous but satisfying manner.

A surprisingly fresh film for being over seventy, Sturges weaves together a light hearted tale whose only real villain is poverty. It's a refreshing change from the romantic comedies of today, when there's always one male suitor who's revealed as a despicable slime.

The only character presented as a complete joke here is poor Toto (Sig Arno), a bumbling and inept lothario presumably there to represent French surrender-monkeys.

A real classic. Five silkscreens out of five, taking into account its great age.

Review: Waitress (2007)

An unconventional romantic comedy, Waitress follows Jenna (Keri Russell), of the title, in her attempts to find happiness, or at least a level of misery she can live with. After a drunken night of conjugal relations with her control freak husband Earl (Jeremy Sisto), she finds herself, ba-da-boom ba-da-bing, unintentionally pregnant and more trapped than ever. 

Fortunately she has one stand out ability: she can make magically delicious pies, and stands a good chance of winning a pie contest that will transport her into a new life. Her culinary wizardry also attracts the attention of her earnest and affable doctor (Nathan Fillion).

In film, unlike life, everything happens for a reason. The trick is to make it look natural. Unfortunately, with Waitress you can frequently see the gears of the narrative turning.

It aspires towards the quirkiness of Like Water for Chocolate, but the direction lacks the necessary light touch. The staging is often awkward, musical cues far too heavy handed, and dialogue on the nose.

Russell's performance is uncharacteristically stiff and passionless. Worse, she lacks chemistry with Nathan Fillion. Yet events occur because they must: Russell and Nathan get involved because a romance is necessary, not because they're believably attracted to each other. For a romantic comedy, that's a critical weakness.

The problems Jenna faces, being trapped in a life she doesn't want and forced to make soul crushing compromises, are compelling. In fact, compromise and suffering is something all the characters share in common. There is a bleakness that underlies the film, and characters thrash about emotionally, desperately trying to find some way to quiet their inner torment. Crushed and frustrated dreams abound, and even tip over into areas not often openly explored in cinema.

The ending, however, is a day dream of a cop out, with Andy Griffith fulfilling the role of a Deus Ex Machina.

Hamstrung by a low budget, rough script, and tight filming schedule, the film never quite gels together, which is a pity. It's like a half-formed piano concerto being played by an overly enthusiastic monkey. It needed more time to be smoothed out, refined, then played with a more delicate touch. Despite all that, I still enjoyed the film, particularly Andy Griffith's speech while dancing (shuffling?). It did make me ponder.

Writer/director Adrienne Shelly, in her last performance before her brutal murder, is quite good as Dawn, Jenna's mousy co-worker. I think she understood the material better than Russell and wish Shelly'd taken on the lead role herself. It would have done the film good.

Two and a half MarilyMaos out of five.

Toronto Outdoor Art Show

Took a quick look on the weekend. It's Canada's largest annual juried outdoor art exhibition, but smaller than I've ever seen it before. The front lawn section just north of Queen was mostly empty, even while artists were placed in remote, narrow areas along the sides of city hall. There's construction going on so that may have complicated the layout.

There was a wonderful array of talent on view, in the usual, bewildering variety of mediums. I wanted to call out some of the work I that caught my eye.

First up is the wonderful George A. Walker, who does stark, graphic wood engravings. His body of work is enormous, and ranges from fine art to illustration and graphic novels. 

He's done a good deal of work with The Porcupine's Quill, including the marvelous Mysterious Death of Tom Thomson, about one of Canada's celebrated Group of Seven artists (well, posthumously) who drowned in a canoeing accident in 1917.

He printed me up a business card on the spot with a little hand press.

Classy!

Max Zing on the Drunk Duck

Have a series up at Drunk Duck called Max Zing, and they did a little callout for it yesterday here.

It's about a spoiled kid who inherits a planet and becomes an evil pacifist conqueror. Of sorts.

Well, I thought it was funny at any rate.

Takes the characters from my graphic novel, Warlord of Io, and puts them in a full colour gag strip format.

Isle of the Dead Number Three

This is my favourite of the five versions painted by Arnold Bocklin.

Establishes a fabulous, somber mood. Very representative of the Symbolists.

Took the picture in Alte museum.