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Wondering how long it’d take for the events of September 11th to go from real life tragedy to thoughtless plot McGuffin? Marvel’s new mega-event Siege demonstrates that the answer is “eight years, and we can kill even more people.”

Marvel Comics’ reaction to 9/11 was both heartfelt and far-reaching, understandable for a company not only based in New York but one so tied to the city in its demeanor and subject matter (Marvel’s New York state is the setting for the majority of its line, being home for years to Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men and Daredevil, amongst many others): Not only did they publish the prerequisite memorial special editions (Heroes and A Moment Of Silence), they also created a short-lived line of emergency services comics (The Call), relaunched Captain America as a hero hunting terrorists (with patriotic covers announcing things like “Fight Terror” and “Never Give Up”), placed a memorial logo of the World Trade Center Towers on all of their comics published for more than a year afterwards, and published a very special issue of Amazing Spider-Man where the company’s most well-known character visited Ground Zero to help with rescue efforts, and found that it wasn’t only the heroes who realized how terrible the terrorist attacks were:
Yes, Doctor Doom crying may have been a little too much – writer J. Michael Straczynski later denied asking for that in the script to avoid a backlash – but the meaning of all of this was clear: As a company, Marvel Comics had been severely affected by the devastating attacks, and had not only faced up to the reality of such widescale destruction previously fantasized about in their books, but also felt that reality for themselves. This was a sobered company.

Cut to last week’s Siege: The Cabal, the prelude to next month’s Siege event running across their entire line. Following September 11th, an increasingly political subtext has crept into Marvel’s superhero lines, whether it’s the “Personal Liberty or Safety” question at the heart of Civil War, terrorist sleeper cell paranoia of the run up to 2008’s Secret Invasion or “The People Running Our Country May Not Have Our Best Interests At Heart” theme of this year’s Dark Reign, and it’s been something that’s worked very well for the company: A decade ago, they were coming out of bankruptcy and their future looked uncertain, and now they’re being bought by Disney for $400 billion. Siege: The Cabal acts as prologue to the big Final Act of the uber-storyline that’s been running throughout their titles since 2004’s Avengers: Disassembled, and ends with Norman Osborn – onetime Green Goblin and now head of what is essentially Marvel’s Homeland Security department – talking with Norse God Loki about how he can make a pre-emptive strike against the mythical realm of Iraq. Wait, I mean, Asgard:
This explains the opening of next month’s Siege, which was released in previews last week:

That’s Chicago’s Soldier Field getting destroyed, by the way. While there’s a game going on, and the stands are full of people. Considering Soldier Field’s seating capacity is 61,500, it’s probably safe to say that we’re talking about upwards of 50,000 fictional deaths in the stadium alone, even going with a “Well, it wasn’t sold out” defense, and that’s ignoring any damage and deaths in surrounding areas.

I think I’m allowed a W. T. F. around now.

There are so many things that come to mind from seeing this preview, and this amount of devastation for the purposes of getting a plot about good guys teaming up to reform the Avengers going, and to prepare for a new, optimistic status quo called “The Heroic Age”. Primarily, it’s the thoughtlessness and/or bad taste of the whole thing, especially coming from the publisher who seemed so affected by – or, perhaps, just displayed more of an emotional response to – September 11th (Which resulted in almost 3,000 deaths) and seemed to have come to some level of understanding of what an event of that scale actually means (Hint: It’s not four issues of Cap and Iron Man and Thor getting back together to kick some bad guy ass, True Believer!). Don’t get me wrong, I understand the difference between fictional death and real death, but that doesn’t excuse the strange insensitivity here.

Secondly: Killing tens of thousands of people as an excuse to go to war? This is supervillainy on a ridiculous scale here, way beyond anything we’ve seen in a long time and not only completely removed from the intentional scale and bombast of old school supervillains, but (a) literally collateral damage given little thought on the road to Osborn’s true plan, and (b) unlike other supervillain’s genocidal plans, apparently completely successful (I hope that the next scene, not shown in previews, will reveal the Soldier Field destruction to be a fantasy sequence, but somehow I doubt it – And, if it were, it’d seem even more ghoulish to release these pages to get fans excited about reading Siege: “Look, kids! WIDESCALE DEATH TWENTY TIMES LARGER THAN 9/11! THIS IS THE BIG ONE YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR! EXCELSIOR!”). I’m all for demonizing bad guys, but this is just insane; even going on the “Well, he’s mentally unbalanced” explanation Siege writer Brian Michael Bendis has been giving in interviews about the character and project, it makes mastermind Norman Osborn into a character that is impossible to sympathize with, and reduces him to almost cartoon proportions and ideas about evil. All he needs now is a moustache to twirl when explaining his plan to the heroes.

(Second-and-a-half-ly: Killing tens of thousands of people as an excuse to go to war? Is this some kind of veiled “The American Right Wing Were Behind 9/11 As A Way Of Motivating People To Back An Invasion Of Afghanistan and Iraq” thing? After all, Bendis has said about the plot, “much like we’ve seen in our own modern history, it’s not beyond world leaders to fabricate incidents if it serves a purpose.” Hmm.)

Thirdly: We’ve seen this before, in more than one sense. Not only is this a deliberate and literal call-out to the accidental explosion that launched Marvel’s Civil War, but the idea of using the destruction of a sports stadium to launch a war is from Tom Clancy’s 1991 novel The Sum Of All Fears (adapted into a movie in 1999, but not released until 2002). Of course, in that case, it’s a neo-Nazi trying to convince the US and Russia to go to war by placing blame on the event on the Russians, but still, the tone-deaf quality of the plot device becomes even stranger when you realize that it’s not even original.

So what to make of Siege’s Destruction McGuffin? A sign that, even if the rest of the world hasn’t gotten over 9/11, Marvel has managed to move on and enjoy fictional slaughter as a motivator for superheroes to team-up again? Proof that cynical shock tactics outweigh genuine emotional responses when it comes to upping the ante in the name of sales? A thoughtless plot that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth? Maybe I’m just too sensitive to these kinds of things; it’s been eight years, after all. Perhaps I should shut up and hope that they blow up an entire continent next so that Doctor Doom can reveal that he really did only have something in his eye down at Ground Zero. After all, destroying Antarctica would be really bad-ass, wouldn’t it?

Popularity: unranked [?]

Popularity: unranked [?]

Words don’t express how sad I am that I’ve gone 27 December 25ths without seeing Don’t Open ‘Til Christmas, but that’s what Mill Creek 50 packs were made for. And along with the soon-to-be-purchased boxed set of Silent Night, Deadly Night 3-5, I now have a new film to add to my annual yuletide viewing. Good thing the Muppet’s 2008 holiday special was rather lame. Not lame enough for Santa to be killed by a pocket-knife wielding psycho, but just under the bar set by Michael Kane, a Fraggle crossover, and Scooter in a go-go cage for Don’t Open ‘Til Christmas to claim its place under my tree.

Meanwhile, the coolest people I’ve ever seen on film are having a total Halloween-esque costume party to welcome the Christmas season, but sadly, festivities are cut short when the host is stabbed in the back of the head in front of all to see. A few more polyester white beard clad impostors are knocked off in a grab bag of styles, including gunshot, shoe knife slices, castration while urinating, and, in a stroke of true Kris Kringly genius, face roasting on an open fire (previously used to warm chestnuts, of course).

Our main heroine is the rich daughter of the first slain St. Nick, although she gets some stiff competition from Experience Girl (or so the IMDB listing credits her; I’d love to harp on the insanity of this naming, but then I’d forget that Kelly Baker was also in Slaughter High , so we’ll move on) who works in what I guess is an old time nudie booth, here portrayed as a store window with prison-style phones for chatting and the option of boobs. There’s also Cliff, (Gerry Sundquist), a flute playing fashion photographer and (according the the trailer) Number One Suspect, and the skeevy Inspector Harris, played by director Edmund Purdom (clearly a man of many talents). We don’t have any reason to like any of them, but by the time the killer reveals his tormented self, the audience is having more fun than a spangly dressed elf gulping eggnog on a strobe-lit disco floor.  

Am I getting soft, or was the first shot of the plastic mask somewhat unnerving?

The final flashback, wherein we discover the motive for our killer’s hatred of all things tinseled, is absolutely incredible. By that, I mean it makes the death of Billy’s parents in the original Silent Night, Deadly Night look like Citizen Kane…which is sooooooo much less exciting than the intense use of slow motion and echoed sound cues utilized by Purdom here

You have to love a film released in 1984 that still managed to sneak in a complete disco number, performed, no less, by genre fave (and also Slaughter High graduate) Caroline Munro

Time flies really fast when you’re being chased by a serial killer. It can go from night to sunny daylight in the snap of your finger!

Most women are surprisingly not excited by the idea of sapphic photo shoots in Santa suits (particularly when they’re mourning the murder of a family member while he happened to be dressed as such)

True merriment at its best.

Popularity: unranked [?]

During his interview included on the Severin disc of Macumba Sexual (1983), Jess Franco talks about his return to his native Spain after making myriad films in other European countries. He intimates that Spanish culture was certainly different in the era after Francisco Franco’s reign ended. The authors of Immoral Tales write about the changing culture in Spain; its effect on cinema; and Jess Franco’s role during this period:

As the demand for erotic sex films went up, the gap between films became much shorter. Much of the finance came from Spanish companies like Golden Films who were eager to cash in on the softening up of censorship that took place after the death of the Spanish dictator, General Franco…After Franco’s death the production of softcore comedies increased, censorship became slightly more liberal, and film makers were allowed to show nipples on the screen for the first time…The next stage was the development of the “S,” or slightly more explicit softcore film. Film-makers still weren’t allowed to show penetration, but they produced a wide range of sexploitation films for the home market, supplemented by imports. As one of the premier low budget European sexfilim makers, this was a good period for Franco.

This period would produce Franco’s Sex Is Crazy (El sexo está loco) (1981) which thematically is both a celebration and a playful commentary on this liberal period in Spanish cinema and culture.

“‘Sex is Crazy’ is a piece of mayhem that fully illustrates Franco’s bubbling creativity. Eschewing any plot discipline, Franco has fun mystifying the spectator by presenting the story as an erotic nightclub floorshow, which is imagined by a lonely wife in a ‘quadrilateral’ marriage, who is in turn an actress in the film inside the film. Are you still with me? Don’t worry, I didn’t understand it the first time I saw it!” (from Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco)

One of the most creative and playful sequences begins with Lina Romay and Robert Foster’s characters laying in bed. Romay’s character is frisky, but Foster rolls over for more sleep. Nude, she walks to the glass doors and looks out upon beautiful seaside scenery. Romay’s character walks into frame from behind the camera and outside (in cute detail, Franco realizes from behind the camera that Romay’s bum is not completely in the frame and gives the camera a slight pan down to correct. Whether it was an intentional shot or not is unknown, but it wasn’t removed in editing.) After sitting amongst the rocks on the seaside, Romay is visited by Foster who embraces her before the two begin some lovemaking. Another couple (Lynn Endersson and Antonio Rebollo) spies Romay and Foster and become aroused which in turn leads to their lovemaking (whereupon another couple spies Endersson and Rebollo which in turn…). Beyond Franco’s signature voyeuristic motif, this humorous sequence resonates louder: an overwhelming sense that “coupling” is literally in the air and no longer does the sexuality have to be hidden (from neither the camera nor in the culture).

This scene concludes with Romay and Foster meeting Endersson and Rebollo. Endersson and Romay’s characters begin a dialogue. Endersson and Romay break from their characters (into other characters possibly) and question each other as to whom is supposed to deliver a certain line. Franco steps into frame from behind the camera to direct the actresses and resolve the dilemma (only to exit the frame in the static shot to resume filming). The meta element of Sex is Crazy is as playful as its themes, and primarily upon what Franco is riffing is erotic cinema and its participants (and its burgeoning home market). More than once, Franco behind the camera is shown in a mirror. In one, Romay sits at the mirror while her lover exits the shower. Romay’s character accuses her lover of cheating, and the two actors play the scene seriously (Romay as accusatory and her lover as defensive). Franco behind the camera is in center frame during the static shot, and his voice is heard by the viewer when he asks the two to redo the scene in a lighter manner. The two redo the scene, the dialogue is almost the same, the tone is different, but one thing remains constant: both attractive actors are still nude. One character, Rosalinda, is shown briefly from time to time laying upon a bed, as the camera tracks from her head to her toes or vice versa. She is always accompanied by a voice-over narration that never fails to comment that she is the producer’s girlfriend and how excited everyone is that she will be the next star. While the scenes with Rosalinda are inserted into the film seemingly randomly, when she makes a pivotal appearance in a later scene, Franco reveals that the Rosalinda scenes are a set up for a clever joke about erotic actors and drama. Needless to say, there is quite a bit of flesh on display in Sex is Crazy, and nearly all the scenes in the film would fall into the category of (or wouldn’t be unusual within) erotic cinema. The scenes range from cold and contrived, like the opening “alien nightclub” scene, to intimate ones, as with Endersson and Romay alone (in a parody of the “swinging” scene), but above all, the scenes are mostly bizarre (which drives the humor).

Low-budget and creative, Sex is Crazy is another oddity from Jess Franco. It has been recently released on DVD by label Sinful Mermaid. Buy it here.

Popularity: unranked [?]

1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon, $42.5 million
2. The Blind Side, $40.1 million
3. 2012, $18 million
4. Old Dogs, $16.8 million
5. Disney’s A Christmas Carol, $16 million
6. Ninja Assassin, $13.1 million
7. Planet 51, $10.2 million
8. Precious, $7.1 million
9. Fantastic Mr. Fox, $7 million
10. The Men Who Stare at Goats, $1.5 million

RYAN: Not surprisingly, “New Moon” is still number one and has surpassed the $200 million mark in just two weeks.

CAROLINE: The ‘tweens can’t seem to get enough of it, but I’m ready for it to all just die down already.

RYAN: Before long, the next one will be coming out and the press campaign will begin again.

CAROLINE: I wonder why the powers that be behind the franchise don’t worry about over-exposure of their stars. They’ve been everywhere.

RYAN: I know! Whereas the Harry Potter cast doesn’t do nearly enough press, the Twilighters are all over our shizz.

CAROLINE: Over it. “The Blind Side” is truly having an impressive run. Sandy Bullock must be beside herself with joy.

RYAN: I can feel her joie de vivre over here.

CAROLINE: Maybe they’ll do a sequel.

RYAN: [laughs] Don’t. I never wanna see her blonde again.

CAROLINE: The rest of the box office is pretty unremarkable. Two Hollywood elders, Travolta & Williams sure can’t open a movie anymore.

RYAN: Right. Who really wants to see “Old Dongs”?

CAROLINE: [laughs] My thoughts exactly.

Cheeky & Fresh Movie Reviews

Popularity: unranked [?]