Review Roundup

While I was still on break, I watched Richard Linklater's The Newton Boys. Linklater is one of the best filmmakers working today, but this film wasn't very good. All of his other movies have been set in either the present or the recent past (the 70s of Dazed and Confused). While I don't think he can only do movies about the present, Waking Life was certainly an interesting exploration of an odd world, but I think a Linklater film requires characters who exist in a world with relevance to the viewer. All of his other films have relatively universal themes, but The Newton Boys is a caper movie about bank robbers. You can't really relate to this, and the 1920s setting is further alienating. The movie has a lot more plot than your typical Linklater, and the film just doesn't quite work. You don't really care about the characters and things just go along, with no effect on the viewer. It's admirable to try something different, but this was a much too conventional film for Linklater. It didn't have any kind of personal touch.



I also saw Gone With the Wind. Now, this is an undisputed classic, and even today, 66 years after its original release, it's still a spectacular, visually dazzling film. In the film, there's a sense of discovery about the medium, like this film was trying to go beyond everything that had come before in terms of dazzling visuals. In this sense, it's tied to the art cinema of years later, when crafting impressive visuals is as important as crafting a coherent narrative. Despite being a four hour movie, not that much stuff happens, the narrative is really a showcase for visual splendor, and the film succeeds on that level. It's not a perfect film, there's issues surrounding race relations and some of the acting suffers from the typical overwroughtness of Hollywood studio era filmmaking, but by the time you reach "Frankly my dear I don't give a damn," it's pretty much impossible not to be impressed by what this film accomplished. The great films are always the ones that push the boundary of the medium in some way, and that's what this film did.



I also saw To Live by Zhang Yimou, the man who directed Hero, House of Flying Daggers and The Road Home. To Live is an earlier film, and to my mind, a much weaker film, or at least one that's less accessible to a Western audience. All his other films that I've seen are more about people than specific ties to Chinese history, with the arguable exception of Hero, but that's so visually rich, you can get by without knowing the history. To Live is all about the rise of communism in twentieth century China, and it falls into the trap of a lot of movies that cover a big chunk of time. This film goes from the 1930s to the 1960s, and even though a lot of stuff happens, I don't get a sense of consistent character arcs. It's more the world changes around the characters than the characters doing stuff to change their lives. So, I felt sort of removed from what was going on, and as the tragedies piled up, you eventually become numb to the bad stuff. This film was clearly meant for a Chinese audience, whereas someone like Wong Kar-Wai is making films that can appeal to pretty much anyone.

To Live could actually almost be a Chinese Gone with the Wind, since both films show the turmoil that a civil war causes for civilians, and the various trials they undergo. I think Gone With the Wind works better because it has a stronger emotional hook. You really care about Scarlett, and understand what she's going through, while the people in To Live change so much over time, you get the sense that they are just blank slates for whatever chunk of plot has to come next. While a film can succeed even if you aren't emotionally attached to the characters, To Live could not because it wasn't interesting enough on its own terms, it needed character hooks to make it work.

I also saw the film Blanc from the three colors trilogy. This was an odd film, a dark comedy that wasn't particularly funny, it was more about the absurdity of life. This felt a lot like the stereotypical art film, not much happens, it's set in Eastern Europe, doesn't really have a plot. There were some cool shots, particularly the wedding scenes, but on the whole this one didn't really work for me. I liked Bleu, the first of the trilogy, much better. And another strike against this film is Julie Delpy barely gets anything to do, seeing her on the box I assumed she'd have a bigger role, but that's more a fault of the marketing than of the film itself.



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Dazed and Confused

Today, I watched Dazed and Confused, the excellent film from director Richard Linklater. Linklater is one of the most interesting directors working today and is one of the biggest influences on the stuff that I've done. Linklater is notable for maintaining an independent voice even when working on big studio films, such as School of Rock and this film.

Dazed was made after his breakthrough film, Slacker, an independently financed film that put him on the map. Slacker is a non-narrative journey through the city of Austin, stopping off just long enough to hear what each character has to say, then moving on. Waking Life is structurally very similar to Slacker. After the success of Slacker he was given the opportunity to make a higher budget, more mainstream studio film, an opportunity that proves the death knell of many people who have made a great independent film. It's very easy to make a bad, or at least more conventional, less unique film when given this opportunity.

Luckily, Linklater actually improves on his first outing and crafts a really art cinema version of the teen comedy. The film drifts through a bunch of seperate character's lives, with the narrative being passed along from character to character in the same manner as in Slacker. The film doesn't really have a plot, it's just a bunch of stuff that happens, but it works becuase the film isn't about character so much as about capturing a period of time. Linklater does a great job of giving the film a 70s feeling. The soundtrack is great, and the production design make sthe film feel authentically period. However, he also touches on universal themes. So, while the film is set in the 70s, it's also timeless.

Linklater has such a great ear for talk that he's able to make some twenty unique characters in minimal time. Just from what people say, we can understand everything about them. He has an ear for minute details in dialogue that give the film a lot of realism. And, because he doesn't have to service a narrative, the dialogue is always natural, not subordinated to the demands of a story. Dazed and Confused has much more in common with French New Wave and 60s art cinema than it does with any other teen comedy ever made. Even though the film was advertised as a drug film, I think it works more as just a great art film within a traditionally commercial genre.

I like the way the film simultaneously inspires nostalgia and condemns it. To go all this effort to recreate his high school years clearly indicates that Linklater has strong love for those times, and wants to share that love with others. The success of the film is pretty much dependent on the viewer feeling on some level that high school was a great time, and wouldn't it be great to have another go at it. But then at the end, he upends this by having Pink reject this very nostalgia, and say that he's only killing time before he can leave. It's a great embrace of the odd relationship I think everyone has with high school. When you're there you can't wait to leave, but after that, there's always a part of you that would love to go back there. It's wise that Linklater has the character say he wants to leave, even though Pink ten years down the line may just be saying "Wow, those were the best years of my life."

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Music I've Been Listening To

In the ongoing journey through life you encounter many things, and in my recent journeys, I've been listening to some new albums.

Daft Punk - Human After All: Discovery by Daft Punk is one of my favorite albums of all time. It's a brilliant concoction of music that simultaneously sounds like it's from the 70s, the 80s and the future. It walks the line of campiness, but never strays too far. 'Digital Love' is one of the greatest songs of all time. So, understandably I had high hopes for Daft Punk's new album, Human After All. I have sort of mixed feelings about the album. On the one hand, it's great fun to listen to and has some excellent tracks, notably 'Robot Rock' and 'Human After All,' but it's also disappoiinting since it doesn't even approach what Discovery did. If this was just the follow up to 'Homework,' I would probably like it a lot more since I wouldn't be expecting that much. But Discovery is such a great album, I can't help but feel disappointed. A lot of the tracks have very cool elements, but they're not played with in the same way previous Daft Punk songs were. There's not enough variation. But, remove this from its context, and it's a really nice techno, and one I've thoroughly enjoyed listening to, and probably will far into the future. I think I just have to admit that Discovery is something of a standalone creation, and enjoy it for what it is, rather than seek more of the same.



Gwen Stefani - Love, Angel, Music, Baby: Speaking of Discovery, that's an album that did a great job of sounding simultaneously retro and very now. And with her solo album, Gwen Stefani pulls off the same, with the greatest 80s album never made. Now, I liked some of No Doubt's stuff, but other than a few tracks (Hella Good, Hey Baby, It's My Life), they didn't really grab me. But, after hearing the opening track off this album, 'What You Waiting For,' I was intrigued, and I got the rest of the album, and it did not disappoint. I love the 80s sound, but a lot of tracks from the 80s just aren't that good, this album gives you everything you would want from an 80s song, but also brings it subtly into the present day. This is one of the few albums where the singles aren't the best tracks on the album. 'Rich Girl,' which is pretty popular on radio right now, is probably the worst track, and even at that, it's still great. The album has an incredible pop sound and is just so fun to listen to.

This is an album where pretty much every track is great. 'What You Waiting For' is a great energetic opener, and after a couple of weaker hip hop type tracks, she busts out the first 80s ballad, 'Cool,' which reminds me a lot of Yazoo's 'Only You,' but also stands on its own. The use of synth in this song is beautiful, it belongs in a Wong Kar-Wai film. 'Bubble Pop Electric' with Andre 3000 is pretty bizarre, but lives up to the title with some bubbly pop. It's a smart, fun song. 'Luxurious' uses the same sample as 'Big Papa,' but it puts it in a different context and makes it work. This leads into a four song run that is perfect. 'Crash' continues the car as sex metaphor, the lyrics may not be groundbreaking but the song works. 'Real Thing' is an update of New Order, featuring a cameo by them, and it may be the best song on the album. Gorgeous guitar work, great vocal, it works. 'Serious' also deserves props. Then, 'Danger Zone' is hard hitting synthpop that just owns. It's a track that begs for an extended remix, since it's got an absoultely killer riff, and great use of bass. The last track's the only real dud, sounding like a reject from 'The Love Below,' but that doesn't stop this from being one of the best albums I've heard in a long time. Good pop music is an art, and with this album, Gwen proves she's a master of it. Retro without being dated, it's an album that seems effortless. This really is a must listen to album.




Doves - Some Cities: Another great album from one of the best bands at work. 'The Last Broadcast' is one of my favorite albums of all time, so I was hoping for an equally great followup and the Doves pretty much deliver. I don't think it's quite as good as Broadcast, but with each listen it's growing on me. They do some really interesting things on here that pay off quite well. There's an odd vocal processing on Snowdon that's great and makes the track. 'The Storm' goes for an almost trip hop feel in the middle, and that really works. 'Black and White Town' and 'Sky Starts Falling' are great rocking tracks and 'Almost Forgot Myself' has a nice upbeat melancholy. 'Walk in Fire' is a great track, but sounds a bit too similar to 'There Goes the Fear,' and the middle of the album slows down a bit too much. That said, it's still an awesome album and a worthy followup to The Last Broadcast. I'm really looking forward to seeing them live on my birthday.



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Wonder Women, Aronofsky, Park, Nip/Tuck

Break is winding down. It's been pretty good, I haven't done too much, but I saw some great movies and TV. If each day is fun and I'm always pretty happy, that's enough. Wanting more and being happy with what you have is not mutually exclusive.

Yesterday the news broke that Joss Whedon is going to be writing/directing a Wonder Women movie. This is what I posted to alt.tv.twin-peaks on the subject: "On the project in general, I'll see it and I think it will be good, but I'm a bit disappointed. Part of me wanted to see Joss return to the Buffyverse again, but barring that, I'd have loved to see him writing an original script. I feel like he might have to make too many concessions to the studio and while something like Spiderman and X2 would great fun, I don't know want to see one of the most talented storytellers in film doing something that's just great fun. My favorite superhero movie is Batman Returns, and that's really a Tim Burton film that happens to feature Batman. I don't think Joss has such a tight set of themes or a visual style that he can make Wonder Woman a definitively Joss Whedon film. His strength is in creating
characters, and how much leeway is there to do that within the constraints of a studio action film."

Basically, I feel like this is a project that's definitely going to help his career. I don't see huge box office for Serenity, it'll be lucky to make it to $50 million, so by directing this film, he's going to stake his claim to the A list, and like Tim Burton wtih Batman, this film will probably make him a household name, if he's not already. So, hopefully he'll get this one out quick and it will get him the capital to be able to work on an original script. And Joss is a huge comics fan, so it's got to be cool to be able to make a movie based on a comic book icon. I know if I ever got the chance to direct an Invisibles or Flex Mentallo movie, I'd be all over that.

The New York Times Arts section today (for Sunday) was awesome. They had a lengthy article about Darren Aronofsky and his upcoming film, The Fountain. This is a film I've been hearing about for years, and back at the beginning of the year, I said it was my third most anticipated film of 2005. Aronofsky is one of the best filmmakers working today, and to see him doing a complex sci-fi film is a dream. I love science fiction so much, yet most sci-fi movies are just action movies set in the future, they use a sci-fi conceit as an excuse for action scenes. The best sci-fi stuff uses the conventions of another world to explore our own. Look at a film like 2001 or Blade Runner, both give you this astonishing new world, but also have tons to say about where we are now, and The Fountain seems to be doing the same thing.

The problem with a lot of science fiction is that it's cold and not emotionally real. The best sci-fi movies in recent years were Solaris and 2046, the latter had 15 minutes of sci-fi stuff, but in those moments so perfectly used the conventions of the genre to tell this really emotional story. The Fountain seems to be doing the same thing, and hopefully it'll live up to the five years of waiting for the film.

The other great article they had was on Park Chanwook, the Korean filmmaker behind the brilliant Oldboy, one of the most pop movies ever made. The movie finally comes out here next week, but I saw it a while back, and it really lives up to the hype as just a twisting, brutal film that's just so well made. It's a film that has a great plot, but the plot is really just a base upon which Park can riff with directorial flourishes. So, it was cool to read about that, and I got a better idea of how Park works and his history.



Another interesting article was about the American remake of The Office. Now, the British version is one of my favorite series, an essentially flawless work of art, and I just don't think the American version can compare. It's the performances and characters that make the show great, not the gimmick. And, considering it'll be an ongoing series, rather than the limited British run, they can't do the coherent plot and character arcs of the British version. David Brent works because we see him push the boundaries and ultimately get punished. If the series is going on indefinitely, he can never face consequences for his actions. But, I'll sample, even if it's got half the quality of the British version, it'll still be one of the best series on TV.

Over this break, I watched the first season fo the show Nip/Tuck. As much as I love film, TV can do things that it can't, and that's to create astonishingly complex and detailed characters, and give you a sense of their whole lives. Film is designed to show the most exciting day of a person's life, while TV is best for showing everyday of a person's life. To compare the media, take a look at Goodfellas and The Sopranos. Goodfellas, while it's a great film, is all about surface and giving you an overview of this guy's life. You get a sense of the world, but not how he behaves on a daily basis. The Sopranos is all about showing the details of daily life and how things always keep coming back to cause problems for Tony and his family. The Sopranos is a much more accomplished work, and the characters are more complex than any in film. For me, film is much more about the director and the way the material is handled, while television is more about the material itself.

Nip/Tuck has a couple of great characters, and a really interesting world. It's also compulsive viewing, like the best series, you just want to stay in this world and follow these people's lives. The most interesting character on Nip/Tuck is Christian Troy, a surgeon who goes along, sleeping with a lot of women and basically living for pleasure, with no concern for anything beyond the material. He's all about image, wearing the best clothes and driving the coolest car. It's fitting considering his profession that he'd be so fixated on his image. Over the course of the season, you have a lot of conflicting feeling towards Christian, since at times he's very cool, sometimes brutally cruel and also tender at times. So, basically he has a facade that's two faced, between very charming and very mean, and this facade hides the real person beneath. I have the feeling if Julia ever confessed she loved him and wanted to be with him, he'd give up his whole life to be with her. It's just that since the only woman he really loves is with Sean, he chooses to go for quantity over quality.



With Sean, there's a feeling that he would be the straight man foil to Christian, but the writers do a good job of making him interesting. His affair with Meagan was a high point, particularly the 'Rocket Man' scene, which was brutal. The scenes at the funeral, where he has to guard his emotions from his wife are great, because the feelings between them are so complex.

Other than Christian, my favorite character is Julia, someone who basically gave up her dreams to be with Sean, and is now looking at her whole world coming down around her. Her flirtations with Christian and Jude make for some great drama, and she's got a lot of layers. It was really surprising to hear her on the bonus features speaking in a British accent, since she pulls off such a convincing American voice on the show.

So, that was good times. It's not as good as a Six Feet Under, which is the show I think it has the most in common with, but it's great viewing, and I'm really glad that it's got another season. It's been too long since I really got hooked on a series like I did on this one.

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Better to Burn Out than to Fade Away

Yesterday, I finished watching Angel season five on DVD. I had seen all the episodes before, the second half when they aired, and I filled in others as I went along, but, unlike every other Buffyverse season, I hadn't seen this season straight through. And, seeing it straight through only confirmed that this was by far the best season of the show, and one of the best in the whole Buffyverse.

The first half of the year is all about the moral gray area the characters find themselves in now that they are running Wolfram and Hart. The episodes are pretty much standalone, but they each in someway contribute to the thematic development of the season, and a lot of threads are started that will pay off later.

The basic conflict is between the fact that in theory, the group can do much more good running Wolfram and Hart than they can as independent operatives, but it doesn't feel that way. Working in the office, there's no sense that they're actually helping people, and in each of the episodes they make some kind of moral compromise to reach an end. For example, in the first episode, Gunn gets knowledge of the law implanted in his head, which helps prevent a bomb from going off that would level L.A., however it also leads to a criminal getting out of the punishment for his crimes. Yes, many people have been saved, but they had to do something bad to get there.

So, there's a lot of moral angst, and I find it very interesting. Each of our heroes is getting run down and losing the conviction to do good that was so strong in the earlier years. In Lineage, Wesley guns down his own father because it will save Fred. He has no hesitation about doing this. Similarly, at the end of 'Hellbound,' Angel imprison Pavayne in a box, presumably for eternity, an extremely cruel punishment, even for this bad guy. It will help the people at Wolfram and Hart, but the Angel of earlier years probably wouldn't have gone such a cruel route to punish someone.

The issues come to a head at the middle of the season, when we see Spike taking over as the champion, fighting evil on the streets, even as Angel becomes more and more imprisioned within his office. I love the way Spike is recast as Angel circa season one, complete with the parallel Doyle.

One of the best episodes of the whole series is 'You're Welcome,' which thankfully rescues Cordelia and gives her a fitting farewell after the way her character was trashed in season four. The scenes between her and Angel are phenomenal, particularly the brutal final scene. You have a sense of a real ending, not just because I knew she was going to die, even before that, you know that this is the end of an era.

The Cordelia appearance sets up a change in Angel, and makes him more proactive in the rest of the season, such as in another classic, 'Smile Time,' which is by far the funniest episode of the series, and also rather disturbing. Angel turns into a puppet sounds like a recipe for laughs, and it is, but those puppets are really nasty characters, and not in a way that's just meant for shock value. The scenes where they drain the energy from the kids have a really dark abuse component. And of course, no one who says the line, "I'm going to rip you a new puppethole bitch," can be a very good person.

This season has arguably the best regular cast of any Buffy show. Boreanaz, Marsters, Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker all are amazing, and do their best work here. I think Boreanaz wasn't great in season one of Buffy, but since then he's just gotten better, and he completely anchors this season, able to do both really dramatic stuff and great petty bickering with Spike. He and Marsters together are hilarious for most of the season, and even better in the dramatic stuff. In 'A Hole in the World,' when they go to England, you can sense that they really respect and understand each other now, in a way they didn't before, even in the vampire days. Some people question the placement of 'The Girl in Question,' but I think it works well within the season. When nothing that important is at stake, Spike and Angel still have their rivalry, but it's more of a joke between them. I don't think either of them really expects to win Buffy at that point, it's more just about the compettition, between each other and with The Immortal. Then, in the next episode, Spike is the first one to support Angel's plan to take down the Black Thorn, and they stand together at the end of 'Not Fade Away.'

Angel goes through a lot in this season, but he's there more as the center, and catalyst for the action. He's in a really interesting moral place at the end of the series, one that is very related to the end of his 'beige' arc in season two. Back then, he realized that if nothing we do matters, everything we do matters, so fighting for good is worth it. For most of season five, he tries to change the system from within, and ultimately fails, so he decides to stop trying to change things gradually, and just destroy the power structure of the senior partners, even though he knows it's probably going to end up killing him. He's basically sick of half measures and compromise, he's going to do what's right even if it means sacrificing a lot. Did Angel know that what he did would bring about the apocalypse? I don't think he quite expected it, but I think he figured that this is the only way to really make the world better. Talking with Lindsey, he says how bad things were getting, and it's clear that considering what he's been through, he has little reason for optimism, but that doesn't mean he's going to stop fighting.

Spike is a great addition to the series. When I was first watching, I liked that he was on the show, but I sort of felt that I'd rather have his ending on Buffy be the way he went out, since it was such a great ending to his arc on that show. However, season five is essential to the completion of his redemption arc. On Buffy, he is always a 'fool for love,' and constantly trying to impress the woman in his life, be it Drusilla or Buffy. At the end of season seven, he sacrifices himself to save Buffy's life, and it seemed like he was certainly a hero by then.

But, in Angel season five, we get to see Spike existing on his own for the first time. He'd gone from his mother to Drusilla to Buffy, but in this year, he gets to be his own person. I think Spike worked best in seasons five and six of Buffy, but he's still a great character here. The most notable thing is that he has truly become a champion, and I think his pure desire to do good is a great contrast to Angel's more compromised worldview. Spike is always there fighting for good, such that he becomes almost an afterthought. When he sacrificed his life at the end of Buffy, it was a grand gesture of love, when he agrees to do the same at the end of Angel, it's because it's the right thing to do. Spike's redemption is complete there, because he is completely selfless in his dedication to doing the right thing.

While Marsters is always great, even Spike was eclipsed by someone towards the end of this season and that was Illyria. I never thought of Amy Acker as a particularly good actress. Fred had some good moments on Angel, but I always assumed Amy Acker was basically playing herself, and she couldn't play any other role. I was proven very, very wrong after 'A Hole in the World.' First, AHITW was probably the second best episode of the series. Like 'You're Welcome,' it has a really apocalyptic feel, a sense of impending doom that has rarely been echoed on the series. Even Lorne is violent and nasty, as everyone comes together to try to save Fred. Gunn realizing that he's the one responsible for what happened to Fred is a haunting moment, as is Spike's speech about the hole in the world, but the real highlight is the scenes in Fred's apartment as she dies. It comes at roughly the same point in the series as The Body on Buffy and this episode is probably the most comprable thing that Joss has written. The Body was a brutal episode and 'A Hole in the World' is very tough too. "Why can't I stay?" was as obvious as Anya's speech in The Body, it's something we've all wondered, but would never say, and to hear it expressed is painful.

But out of all this pain came the best character ever created on Angel, Illyria. Illyria has some parallels with Anya, particularly in her more comedic moments, but she's a much more tragic character. The scene at the end of 'Shells' when she and Wesley are staring at the remains of her kingdom is really powerful. In the two parter, Wesley gets some of his best material to work with. Stabbing Gunn is harsh and really disturbing if you consider their history. Wesley had been betrayed by all his friends in season three, and now he turns further away from Gunn, who had once been his best friend. After becoming so close during the 'Beige Angel' arc in season two, Wesley can't forgive gunn for what he did.

Over the course of the series, Wesley has made a life for himself, and become leader of the team. By the end of season two, he had turned everything around from his ineptitude on Buffy and become a successful leader. But, starting in season three, he gradually loses everything. His arc is right there with Willow and Spike as most compelling in the Buffyverse. The scene where Angel tries to smother him with a pillow is still one of the best in the series. By the end of season three, he's lost all his friends and become an isolated, desolate figure. Season four sees his relationship with Lilah, and gradual reintegration into the gang, but things still aren't the same. Even though Wesley brought him back from the bottom of the ocean, I don't think Angel ever forgives him for stealing his son. Angel has to give up Connor because of what Wesley did.

By season five, Wesley has one thing to live for, Fred. He has no problem killing his own father if it means saving Fred, and right after that, he lets Fred go with Knox instead of telling her how he feels. And, when Fred dies because of Illyria, he loses the one thing he had left, and falls into an even worse depression, and an odd relationship with Illyria. The conceit of Illyria is genius because the characters are constantly confronted by that which they lost, and Illyria cannot understand why they see her that way.

Amy Acker as Illyria is a performance that's unbelievable. When she replays Fred's voice at the end of 'Shells' it really sounds like a recording, it couldn't possibly be the same person. This effect is used again in 'The Girl in Question,' when Illyria changes into Fred to fool her parents. It's almost inconceivable that it's the same person. To see her looking like Fred, but behaving like Illyria gives an idea of just how great the performance is. It's interesting that Wes passes up the chance to be with the fake Fred when back in season four, he had no problem being with Lilah dressed up as Fred. I'd imagine that seeing Lilah as Fred gave him hope, while seeing Illyria as Fred only brings up the pain again.

In the last episode, we see Wesley staying with Illyria on what is supposed to be his last perfect day. He has nothing left to live for, and remains strangely connected to Illyria. One of the most powerful scenes of the series is Wesley's death. We get the reverse of Fred's death, as this time, Illyria gives Wesley the illusion of Fred as he is dying. The really tough part is to see Illyria wearing Fred, but expressing her own emotions. As she says in the alley, she does care about Wesley, and is grieving for him. In her own form, I don't think she can really express this, but as Fred, she completely breaks down. Perhaps the best expression of Illyria's feeling is when she begins as Fred, then switches to Illlyria while punching through Vail's head. It's a great image, and really cathartic for the character.

'Not Fade Away' is the best episode of the series, and just so full of amazing moments. The last days are great, and give the episode the character touch that the end of Buffy didn't have. I like that the fighting isn't really the focus. The fight montage is cool, and we get just enough of each one. One of the most haunting moments of the finale is Lorne killing Lindsey. It's so cold blooded and unheroic, and shocking coming from the most serene character on the series. I've said it before about a couple of episodes, but this had that impending apocalypse feeling as well. Like 'The Gift' on Buffy you just get the sense that this is something very important, and the people aren't going to walk away from this the same.



The last scene of the series is pretty controversial, but I think it perfectly fits the theme of the series. I didn't realize how late things are still being developed. Illyria's grief, something critical to her character is mentioned about a minute before things end, and Gunn dying is just stated offhand. I love the rainy ambience, and Spike and Angel united again at the end. But, most of all, it's the fact that they know they're going to die, but are still doing the right thing. Angel signs away the Shanshu, he's got no destination, nothing to win, and neither do Illyria, Gunn or Spike, but they're all going to fight anyway, because compromising isn't worth it. If nothing we do matters, then everything matters, and even though they are not going to win the fight, they might save some people along the way and after a year of compromising, they are going to finally take a stand.



Comparing the end of Angel to the end of Buffy gives you a good idea of what's different about the two shows. Buffy was all about an ending, when she could stop being the slayer and live a normal life. She had an out, and in the end, she finds that end. She's not the only slayer anymore, Sunnydale and the Hellmouth are destroyed and her duties are done. Her life is just beginning. The whole series Angel had a similar out, the Shanshu, the chance to become human and maybe get back with Buffy. He would have an ending, but in this episode, he signs away the Shanshu and sacrifices the chance that he could ever have a normal life. This is the sort of thing Buffy would never do, she may have sacrificed herself in 'The Gift,' but it was becuase her life was so bad at that point.

Buffy's group always had friends and family. Buffy, Xander, Willow and Giles always had each other, they always had a home, and later Dawn had the same thing. They always had somewhere to go back to. Angel's group is assembled out of people who were alone and just sort of drifted together because they have nowhere else to be. Cordelia joined him because she had no one else, as did Wesley. Gunn killed his sister, and needed a refuge. Fred was alone in L.A. after returning from Pylea, and had nowhere else to go. Illyria is the same way, her kingdom has been destroyed, and she only has Wesley left. Even Spike in season five is basically without aim, his whole world for the past few years has been destroyed, and he can't go back to Buffy. Angel's group is cobbled together out of people who aren't fighting to an end, they've all got their best days behind them, and aren't going anywhere. On Buffy, there's always the sense that one day things will end, and they do, but what's the end for Wesley or Gunn? They've got too much stuff in their past to ever have a really happy ending.

Similarly, through everything, the Buffy people stayed together. Even after turning evil, they accept Willow back into the group, but when Wesley steals Angel's son, he's on his own for a season, and things are never the same. That wound lingers on right up to the end of the series. Similarly, Wesley stabs Gunn, Gunn inadvertantly allows Fred to die, and in season two, Angel abandons his friends. There's a lot of fluidity in the group, but somehow they all stick together, and are with Angel at the end.

While I have issues with Chosen, the end of Buffy perfectly resovles the main character conflict of the series, and gives her an ending. By not giving Angel a concrete ending, and leaving him to fight, and presumably die, the theme of the series is once again stated. It's not the end result, whether you win or lose, it's the fight itself that matters. After signing away the Shanshu, Angel can never win, there's no end point in sight, just the same struggles. So, he decides that he will not be content with leaving the world the way it is, he's going to fight to make it better even if he dies doing so, and his group, each having gone through signficant pain over the course of the series, is there to do the same. Better to burn out than to fade away.

Related Posts
Twin Peaks and Buffy Essay (12/17/2004)
Angel (2/15/2005)
Joss Whedon Q&A (9/5/2005)

Far From Heaven

The film watching on break continued with today's screening of Far From Heaven. But before that, I also saw some other stuff that's worthy of comment.

A couple of days ago, I watched Maria, Full of Grace. This was a good movie, with a really intersting story that's well told, but it didn't engage me. The style is very verite, documentary-like, and it works for the story, but it's not that fun to watch. There's some nasty moments in the movie, specifically the swallowing the drugs scene. If this movie tells you one thing, it's don't be a drug mule, the process is not a pleasant one. I liked the ending, but as I said before, it's a good movie, just not one that hit me in any special way.

Then, I watched The Road Home, a film by Zhang Yimou, the director of Hero. Like Hero, this was a really beautiful film, with some great visual acting by Zhang Ziyi. She didn't have too many lines, but just through her facial expressions, you could understand everything she was going through and it was heartbreaking at times. The story is very simple, but it's in the telling of it that the film works, and it does work. I like the contrast of the color of the past to the black and white in the present, even though the message of the film, like in Hero, is a bit suspect. He seems to be saying that village life and the past are inherently better than more modern life, and I can't agree with that. But, that's more an issue surrounding the film than something about the merit of the film itself.

Yesterday, I watched eXistenZ by David Cronenberg, which wasn't particularly good. It had some cool ideas, and I liked the way he played out video game conventions with real people, but ultimately, the twist at the end didn't have much meaning because he hadn't created characters you care about. It felt like a really elaborate Twilight Zone that had material for a half hour, not a feature film. The film just wasn't made in an interesting way.

However, Far From Heaven was an amazing film, and one I could wholeheartedly embrace. The film is about the issue of racism and homosexuality in the 50s, but it's addressed through the cinematic language of Douglas Sirk, director of 50s melodrama and the man behind the adjective Sirkian.

While I've seen one of Sirk's films, Written on the Wind, I primarily know him secondhand, through the filmmaking of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a great director behind the film, The Marriage of Maria Braun, and numerous others. He made the film Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, which was a loose remake of Sirk's All that Heaven Allows, and Todd Haynes' film is another take on the same story.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul was a great film, and I can see a ton of parallels between that and Far From Heaven, most notably the bar scene, which is almost a direct rip. I think Haynes surpasses both Sirk and Fassbinder. He's got a better handle on character development and style than Fassbinder, and he has a freedom to deal with issues that Sirk didn't have. It's really interesting to see a film set in the 50s, and produced in a very strict classical Hollywood style dealing with racism and homosexuality in the way that people in the 50s did. There's no trace of modern attitudes in the film, but as the viewer, we clearly bring a more modern view and that can make it frustrating to watch the film. You don't want the characters to behave in the way they do because they seem like good people, but are flawed.



The relationship between Kathy and Raymond was the core of the film, and it's really well played. You can see why she's attracted to him, and also how the pressures of a racially divided society ultimately destory their hopes. Julianne Moore is one of the best actresses working today, and this is right up there with her best performances. It's very similar to her role in The Hours, but is played in a different way, because of her relationship with Raymond. She pulls off the right blend of 50s inspired acting and more emotionally realistic methods. Dennis Haysbert is surprisingly good as well, and I really felt for his character. His speech at the modern art show perfectly articulates the essential question of the film, and that's is it the surface that matters or what's beneath. Can you see past the surface to the essence of something?



In many ways the real star of this movie is the style. It's gorgeously stylized. I love how their living room always has a heavy blue light when the lights are off, perfectly setting the tone for scenes like the one where Frank slaps Kathleen. Color is really emphasized in the film, and is well integrated into the story with elements like the lilac scarf. The score is great, both imitating classical Hollywood scores, but doing it without the excess of those scores. It compliments the emotional content of scenes rather than overwhelming them.



I could see people who would look at this film and see it as a pointless exercise in homage. What is the point of so slavishly recreating someone's style of filmmaking? I think it does what remakes are supposed to do, but usually don't, and that's take the essence of a work and present in a new modern light, thus exposing previously unseen potential within the work. In this case, Sirk couldn't address prejudice like Haynes does here, and by aping the style of the 50s film, Sirk is able to make you better accept that people could hold these attitudes.

I think the film is one of the best statements against prejudice put on film because rather than telling you that these attitudes are wrong, it makes you feel just wrong they are. The fact that otherwise nice and respectable people can hold these attitudes just drives home how easy it is to be prejudiced, and makes you aware of prejudice's negative effects.

So, I loved this movie, I think it's deep, challening, and beautiful. It engages you as a viewer, and makes you work and think. That's what a film should do.

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Kubrick's Barry Lyndon

Spring break rocks on today as I watched Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. Most of Kubrick's later period films are very well known, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut are all commonly known and pretty well thought of films, with the exception of Eyes Wide Shut, which is criminally underrated, and sadly thought of as softporn rather than the great film than it is. I hope in the future, the film will be rediscovered by critics and appreciated because it's a phenomenal film, #32 on my personal top 100 list.

But, regardless of their opinion, people still know the film, and that's something that can't really be said of Barry Lyndon, which seems to be sort of the lost film of Kubrick's late canon. The only thing I really knew about the film before seeing it was that it was directed by Kubrick and he developed new lighting for the film that would let him film scenes using just candlelight. Well, now having seen it, I think it joins Eyes Wide Shut as another very underrated film.

The film is a great companion piece to what I was talking about yesterday with Satyricon, in that it drops you into a completely alien world, with its own practices and rules that we gradually pick up on. For all I know, it's a realistic depiction of 1700s life, but it's a world with very different rules than our own, and over the course of the film, we gradually learn what these rules are. This is a place where emotions are kept extremely guarded, and our only guide to the characters emotion is the subtleties of their tone. This is a world where a sharp "Gentlemen" can be analagous to "Fuck you" as when Barry basicallly tells Lord Lyndon he wants him to die so he can marry his wife, witha simple 'Gentlemen.' It's very subtle, but that shouldn't be mistaken for a lack of character. This is a world where everything is beneath the surface, constrained behind ridiculous costumes and makeup.

It's notable that we never see Barry break down, even at the end of the film when he loses the duel, he doesn't express any sort of remorse, it's just something that happened, the rules of the society dictate what he has to do, and he can't break those rules. The dueling scenes best demonstrate the absurdity of the world. They think that a logical way to resolve disagreements is to stand ten paces away and shoot each other. There's a strong dwelling on the rules of the duel because it's something that seems so dumb, the rules give it a grounding in reality. They're all a prisoner of the restrictions of their society.

The only moment where we see Barry react is when he assaults Bullington after his long series of coded insults. It's satisfying to see Barry punching this guy because Bullington was clearly insulting him, and previously we've never seen someone actually do anything about being insulted. So, seeing Barry lash out here is both shocking and a relief.



I've been reading some reviews of the film, and a lot of them talk about how there's no character development, and I can't agree there. The characters have fully developed emotional lives, but they're all restricted by the rules of their society.

In most movies set in the past, I find the character interaction really unnatural. For all the visual splendor of something like Gladiator or Troy, the way they talk just isn't real. Here, rather than trying to have the people act like modern people, and just talk in the language of the past, Kubrick creates characters who actually come from a different world. That's why they seem so odd, but I completely got the story of Barry and what he went through. I feel like everyone is resigned to the fate they've been given and just drifts along. In the first half, Barry is the exception, with his social climbing and scheming, but in the second half, he is defeated and beaten down like everyone else. Lady Lyndon doesn't seem to do anything or feel anything, but I think it's actually that she's disappointed and trapped in her world, so she has drifted off into an odd haze where she spends her whole life.



If I can find one consistent theme in the film, it's that all the poorer people are alive because they're struggling to reach the level of the nobility, such as Nora's family when they're trying to marry her off to Quinn, or Barry's mother in the second half. However, the people who are actually nobility sort of detach from reality and engage in frivolous pleasures without ever really accomplishing anything.

The film is known primarily for its visuals, and it's an astonishing film. It's sucha rich world, full of atmosphere, and beauty. The costumes are really over the top, and convey the absurdity of the world. Kubrick is a master of framing, and pretty much every image in the film is striking and interesting. His direction isn't as obvious or present as someone like Wong Kar-Wai or Chan-wook Park, but each shot and cut are still very clearly motivated and exacting. The shooting by candlelight works well to enhance the reality of the scenes, and place you in the mindset of these people. At first, I was wondering why there were so many candles around, but I realized their only light was candles, if they didn't have those, it'd be completely dark, no light but the moon.

It is a long film, but I don't think anything should have been cut, it isn't slow paced, it's just there's a lot to cover. It would be possible to lose some of the stuff at the beginning, like his encounter with the German woman, or his fight in army camp, but those things add to the reality of the world, and if you try to streamline the film into what's absolutely essential, you lose the sense of this being a fully realized world, that which is the films greatest virtue.

So, I'd place this film third on my Kubrick ranking. I haven't seen everything he's done, but the ranking of what I've seen is:

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Eyes Wide Shut
3. Barry Lyndon
4. The Shining
5. Dr. Strangelove
6. A Clockwork Orange
7. Full Metal Jacket
8. Paths of Glory

I haven't seen Spartacus or Lolita, but I get the feeling he didn't become a real master until 2001, a film which besides being one of the greatest films of all time, marks a huge leap in terms of style for Kubrick. His earlier films have pretty coherent narratives, and are more about content than style. 2001 is definitely concerned with themes, but it doesn't have a very solid story. It's much more about using the medium to riff on something, really taking advantage of film itself as a storytelling medium.

I read an interview with Kubrick where he talks about how his later scripts aren't very detailed, and wouldn't be interesting to read, because he wasn't writing scripts, he was making films. The script is just a step, the quality of the film is ultimately decided by the direction and production team. A great script pretty much ensures a good film, but it takes something more than just a great script to make a great film, and in his later films, Kubrick clearly realizes this.

Like Wong Kar-Wai, he doesn't write a script and then film it, he goes in with an idea of the film in his head, and then tries to capture it as he goes along filming. This means he shoots for a long time, and the film evolves as he goes. Barry Lyndon shot for 300 days, which is brutal, and as time went on, Kubrick took even longer to make each film, notably with the twelve year gap between Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. Similarly, it took five years from the start of filming for Wong Kar-Wai to finish 2046.

I think this way of making a film makes a lot more sense than a traditional script. Shooting Ricky Frost, we first went for the dialogue, and the priority was to capture the dialogue, rather than to use the visuals to tell the story. That's why with the project I'm writing now, I'm going much looser, and plan to do a more detailed list of shots, rather than a traditional script. While this goes against the figure it out on set method of Kubrick and WKW, it's necessary, because I don't have people who are going to wait forever for me to figure out what I want to do. But, it's going to be a type of script more suited to film, rather than the format inherited from theater that most directors use.

Interestingly, Barry Lyndon touches on a lot of the same themes as A Clockwork Orange, but I think it's covered much better here. ACO is very obvious in its message about the way that society changes you. The conditioning stuff is great, but it's clearly allegorical, the average person isn't going to be confronted by something like that. Barry Lyndon takes the same themes, the way that society destroys the individuality of the average person, and does it in a much more subtle way, one that's relevant to everybody. Barry is molded into someone acceptable to high society just through the course of everyday events, in the same way that society molds every person into something they might not want to be today. If you don't assert your individuality, it's very easy to get sucked into a role within society, and after Barry gets what he thinks he wants at the end of Part I, we see the society he's living in destroy him in Part II. So, with A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick plants the idea of societal conditioning, then explores it further here in Barry Lyndon, in a much more everyday situation. While our world may be very different than Barry's, there are similar rules on how to behave, and to violate these rules leads to rejection. While our boundaries have changed, the same basic rules about what we can and can't say in 'polite conversation' persist, and everytime you have the "How are you doing?" "Good, and you" "Pretty good," exchange, you're inhibited by the same rules that inhibited Barry.



We never really meet Barry emotionally, there's no scene where he breaks down, or tells us how he feels because that would undermine Kubrick's point. These people can't be emotionally honest with each other, and the audience feels that same frustration. They have to become numb, because if they didn't, repressing those emotions would be too difficult, and they'd react violently, as Alex from ACO, Jack from The Shining or Gomer Pyle from Full Metal Jacket. When Barry does act out violently, he finds himself rejected from society, and as the film winds on, he becomes increasingly numb, such that losing his leg and being thrown out of his home at the end of the film is almost a relief.

Related Posts
2001: A Space Odyssey (7/1/2005)
The Shining (7/5/2005)

Satyricon

I'm on break, and no one else I know is home at present, so I've been watching a lot of movies. In the past two days, I've seen Casino, We Don't Live Here Anymore and Satyricon.

Casino was an entertaining movie, but it really felt like a weak echo of Goodfellas. Scorsese uses much of the same cast, the same co-writer and the same filmmaking style. This basically forces you to compare the two films, and Casino just doesn't stack up. Its story is all over, and it lacks the feeling of innovation that Goodfellas has, even fifteen years later. The film has music going in practically every scene, but Scorsese never really uses the music, it just plays along, under the action, and rarely comments on the scene its involved with. So, I liked it, but it's probably the weakest Scorsese film I've seen. Of his work that I have seen, I'd say Goodfellas and The Aviator are the best. It took me two viewings to really appreciate Goodfellas, but I don't think another viewing would improve Casino that much.



We Don't Live Here Anymore is notable for featuring two of David Lynch's ladies, Naomi Watts and Laura Dern, as well as Peter Krause, aka Six Feet Under's Nate, and Mark Ruffalo of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. So, this is a hell of a cast, but it's a movie that never quite comes together. The opening sequence is really striking, but for most of the movie, the characters just argue with each other, but unlike in, say, Six Feet Under or Buffy, you don't care about these characters, so watching them argue isn't that interesting. If this sort of stuff was happening with characters you cared about, it'd be riveting, but here, it doesn't quite make it. The acting is great though, and there's some very cool editing moments.



So, that brings us to Satyricon, by Federico Fellini. I watched 8 1/2 by him a few weeks ago, and it was great. I thought it was a pretty odd film, but this film goes way beyond it. People always say stuff like "It's a one of a kind film" or call films weird, and normally I don't agree, but this was a very weird and unique film. It's a film that challenges the viewer, but also puts you in a world where pretty much anything is acceptable, a world where morality doesn't apply, so you might be put off by what's going on, but the characters don't question it.



The mcguffin of this film is when Ascilto steals Encolpio's slave boy, Gitone, and sells him to an actor. Encolpio is in love with this slave boy, and the film makes no comment on the morality of this. You just have to accept that his quest to have a life with this boy is ok if you're going to enjoy the film. I was a little confused at first when no one seemed to question him, but it's ultimately just a way to get things started, and his quest is forgotten as the film continues.

After a little bit of watching, I was a bit disappointed that this movie didn't have the dream cut ins from 8 1/2. But, after a while, I realize that the entire film is like a dream. It just moves from one episode to another, and you're not really sure how you got there. There were moments, like when Encolpio is fighting a minotaur when I tried to think of what happened to get us to this point and I couldn't remember. We just ended up there somehow, and you can't really question it. Trying to find a coherent narrative in the film is a great challenge. Encolpio gets carried along, sometimes disappearing from the film, only to return a few minutes later after a little episode involving someone else occurs.

The most notable stylistic thing about the film for me was how Fellini constantly had the extras looking at the camera. There were these huge crowd scenes, and he'd move around the place, only to wind up with some strangely made up person staring directly at the camera. This is in some ways a Brechtian technique to emphasize the artificiality of the film world, but it doesn't take you out of the story, so much as draw you into it. It's like these people are asking what you think of what's going on, as if you're really there. It was freaking me out, because these people were just staring, like they were waiting for me to do something.

This was a movie that, despite not having much of a plot, was never boring. I got completely sucked into the world of the film and sort of drifted along, seeing this bizarre world that Fellini created. He described it as a science fiction film, but the alien civilization is Rome before Christianity, and that's accurate. This feels like a completely different world, and the film has more in common with Gilliam's Time Bandits than Gladiator.

Visually, the film is extremely rich. There's a lot of huge crowd scenes, and all the extras are made up in really odd ways. The sets are gorgeous, and there's a lot of bizarre occurrences on them. Also, everyone has the 60s ring around the eyes makeup, which I'm a big fan of.



The ending of the movie was oddly abrupt, but appropriate. Fellini just throws you out of the world, and you see the remnants of it on the beach, in the form of the mosaics. You're there, pondering what has happened, and realizing that the movie wasn't really going anywhere, it was what it was, just moments from a world that's gone. I loved the film, I think it really works as sort of a harder edged version of the typical 80s fantasy movie, and just as a really strange dreamlike journey of its own. 8 1/2 I really liked, but it went on a little too long, this one did not.

So, that was a top notch film. I've got La Dolce Vita on hold, so that'll be my next Fellini.

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8 1/2 (2/19/2005)

Endings

I feel like recently, and in the next few months, there's been a lot of endings. I've had a lot of series running along, that I'm partway through, and they all seem to be coming to a close now. Last week, I read the end of Promethea, something I started in senior year of high school, and had read sporadically over the years. It was a series I loved, and one of the few unread masterpieces I've had in comics.

In addition to that, I'm right now watching the final Buffyverse DVD box set, Angel season five. Buffy isn't something I've been watching that long, compared to others, but it still hurts to know that I'll (probably) never have another new DVD from the series. Then, later this year Six Feet Under ends. This is one of my favorite TV shows, and with that finished, only the last season of The Sopranos remains as an outstanding unfinished series. I love watching 24, Lost and The OC, but none of those series come close to how good Six Feet, The Sopranos, or last year's cancelled Angel was.

And right now, I'm also finishing up The Dark Tower book series. This is something I've been reading for a long time, like five years, and am 300 pages from the end of the last book. It's been another one of these incomplete stories that is finally being completed.

And then in May, the biggest incomplete thread is finally wrapped up when the final Star Wars movie is released. I saw the original Star Wars back in the 80s and have been waiting for this story for over 15 years. To finally see what happens is going to put a rest to speculation, and provide a finale to one of the dominant stories of my life. Those movies have had such an influence over me, to know that 'the circle is now complete' and I'll never have another first Star Wars experience is pretty sad, but also good, because I'm hoping it's going to be a great movie.

I feel like the end of a long TV or comic series, where they have to start tying up all the loose ends. All these endings I was waiting for are finally arriving, and after The Sopranos closes up in 2006, I don't think there's going to be any sort of long term story that I'm waiting for a conclusion on. A couple of years ago I had all the stuff mentioned above, plus Angel, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, New X-Men and more. Now, everything's getting wrapped up, which probably means I've got to branch out and find some new series, new stories to enjoy, but that gets more and more difficult. I know in comics for a long time, I had a seemingly endless supply of stuff to look at, in terms of long run series, but lately, I've had a bit of a struggle to even find the new Preacher, let alone the new Sandman or Watchmen. I suppose the current run of Vertigo books, like Fables and Y: The Last Man, could yield something down the line, but I definitely feel like I covered most of the great comics.

Same in TV, there's a couple of shows I still want to check out, but I feel like I've seen most of the great stuff that's out there. But, that just means I have to be more diligent in looking for stuff. Same in movies, I've found most of what is easy to find and enjoy, I have to look deeper and find stuff that's not as easily accessible, but might still be great, like Spaced or Cowboy Bebop.

Related Posts
Promethea: Until the End of the World (24-32) (2/27/2005)
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (5/20/2005)
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Before Going to Break

I'm on break now for the next two weeks, so I will be back in Mamaroneck by the weekend, and the kicking of it will begin. Not sure exactly what I'm going to do over this break, hopefully go to the Doves concert if I can get tickets, see Joss Whedon if I can get in, not sure what else, but I'm sure things will come up. I've got a bunch of movies on hold, some vintage, some foreign stuff and even some recent American films, so much variety.

It's been a really good half a semester, but more notably, a really fast one. The weeks go by really quickly, and then the weekends are just gone in a long indiscriminate period of leisure broken only by sleep. Reading Promethea was one of the highlights. The best movie I saw since getting back was Infernal Affairs, as well as its nearly equally brilliant sequel, Infernal Affairs II: The Legend. I'm taking the course on action movies, so I know a little something, and these two were phenomenal action films.

I'm looking forward to the Scorcese remake, called The Departed. I doubt it will top the original, but it's such a great premise, I'd love to see a master like Scorcese riff on it with a cast that includes Matt Damon, Leonardo Dicaprio and best of all, Jack Nicholson.

Promethea: Until The End of the World

Yesterday I finished reading the comic series Promethea, one of the best pieces of fiction ever created. Not since reading The Invisibles have I been so in awe of a work of fiction. If it weren't for the comparatively weak first nine issues, I would say this is Alan Moore's greatest work. As it is it's second only to Watchmen. What he does at the end of the series is a phenomenal fusion of character resolution and concept exploration. This is a series that redefines the storytelling potential of comics. It's an incredibly deep and powerful work, and is the only thing I've read since that comes close to touching the phenomenal experience of reading The Invisibles.

After finishing the journey up the tree of life storyline, Alan Moore brings us crushingly to Earth, with the extreme humanization of Sophie and Stacia, who are caught up in petty jealousy. First of all, I love the new look of Stacia after becoming Promethea, she's got awesome hair and cool sunglasses, and just carries herself in a different way. It's great that JH Williams is able to pull off giving her a completely new look, and yet we're still aware that it's the same person. This is even more notable in issue 31, when we see Stacia with a radically different look. The idea that Stacia and Grace are simultaneously lovers and inhabiting the same person is crazy, and Moore really pulls it off. The two of them have great chemistry, as we see in issue 25.

So, Stacia is now a master of the material realm, which brings her into conflict with Sophie, who wants to resume the role of Promethea. Their fight is pretty cool, and I love the visual of the original Promethea's scream cutting through their reality. It's a crushing return to petty humanity and individual stubbornness after the oneness that Sophie experienced in the Godhead. What makes this so powerful is that Moore is acknowledging the difficulty of maintaining an enlightened worldview in everyday life. That's something I've talked about a lot, and Jon focused on when we discussed. If you believe in a lot of this stuff, people are going to say you're nuts, and getting too lost in the meditation realm can make it tough to exist in the real world. There's a fear of going too far. What happens here is Sophie is brought back crushingly down to Earth, by Stacia's jealousy.

The next issue, the trial with Sophie vs. Stacia and Grace is pretty awesome as well. Here, Moore brings all the plot threads that were developing over the Kaballah journey to the fore. Lucille Ball and Karen Brueghel's investigation continues here and eventually they find who they're looking for. There's an incredible two page spread at the Limp concert, where we see the two of them snake through the crowd, trying to find out information about Promethea. It's perfectly executed, very readable, but also enjoyable as just a huge image of this concert. Williams drops something phenomenal in each issue, and that spread is what it is in this issue.

I really like the humor in this issue as well. Solomon's inept judging is great, and his constant desire to use that cutting the baby in half solution. And, we get some great thoughts from Weeping Gorilla. The book constantly makes me laugh out loud.

But, it's the end of this issue that leaves you reeling. It's so epic and perfect, watching the immaterial trial conclude, then seeing the FBI come around to pick everyone up. It reminds of the end of Becoming I on Buffy, where Drucilla kills Kendra, and you're reeling, then the police come in and arrest Buffy. Or perhaps even more, Seeing Red in Buffy, where Buffy defeats Warren in battle, only to have him come around with a gun and shoot Tara, bringing harsh reality into this mystical world. That's what the FBI agents do here. Seeing Jack Faust get taken into the car is tough, but the next page is brutal as we see Stacia going for her glasses, then getting shot. I literally said "Stacia!" out loud after seeing that, and had to pause the book for a minute to get back. I don't know why, but this book really got to me emotionally, in a way very few other things have ever done, and Stacia getting shot was just one such moment.

Then, the end of the issue with Trish saying goodbye to Sophie is really strong too, and we see her run off into an uncertain future. It's such a bold ending to the issue and book four. Everything's gone wrong, things are going to hell, and Sophie's got to leave. The genius of the issue is in the way it perfectly pays off everything that developed during the kaballah arc. All these threads were laid out and they culminate here in an absoultely brutal issue. Let me just say I'm glad I wasn't reading this in monthly format, because the wait would have been torturous.

From there, it's a leap into the future, where we find Sophie working at a video store in Millenium City, home of Tom Strong, fellow Alan Moore creation. Issue 26 is really jarring because it's so different from the usual Promethea style. Alan and JH work with a nine panel grid, mutely colored, wiith none of JH's trademark double page spreads. It feels so constricting and I think that's the point. Sophie's life isn't epic any more, it's almost suffocatingly normal.

Just look at the cover to get an idea of the colors.



But, the thing I love about this issue is the fact that Moore isn't condemning her new life. Sophie is happy, and maybe that's enough. I love her relationship with Carl, and the dialogue there is hilarious, particularly the Sopranos stuff. And who knew Alan Moore could do 'Your Mom' humor. There's some hilarious stuff here, and you get the sense that Carl and Sophie really care about each other. Moore creates a fully rounded character in a matter of pages, such that we can see why Sophie doesn't want to become Promethea later in the issue. The other thing that really gets me is Sophie crying as she calls her mom from the pay phone. After the step their relationship took, it's painful for her not to be able to be with Trish.

However, the new life can't last, and Tom Strong turns up in pursuit of Sophie. I'll admit I found it a bit jarring to all of a sudden have Tom Strong in Promethea's world, but it pretty much works. I'm really glad I read two trades of his series, since it helps you to get what's going on. I think Tom Strong is being used to represent an outmoded moral paradigm, but more on that later.

The return of Promethea in issue 27 is a phenomenal moment, in a really cool spilling cup two page spread. The next chunk of issues all sort of run together, culminating in the revelations in 31, but I'll try to give a bit of what I liked in each one. In 27, I love the scene between Carl and Promethea as she's saying good bye. Carl reminds me a lot of her father, and it seems to be implied that the love she missed out on with him, she has found with Carl. A little Elektra, but it makes sense.

So, Promethea goes to New York, and over the final four issue arc, she gradually breaks down the barriers between imagination and reality. Issue 28 touches on a lot themes similar to The Invisibles, most notably the two page spread where Karen Brueghel is taken outside of time, and we get to see all of time existing at once. This is basically the same thing as the time worm back in Invisibles 3.2. Here, Promethea goes into the prison and breaks out Dennis Drucker, Stacia and Jack Faust. I love the fluctuations in time and space in this sequence. Sophie is basically pulling a John a Dreams and moving through time and space fluidly. She has become powerful enough to recognize the essential fallacy of a linear time continuum, and is thus able to stop playing by its rules. Everything builds up to the moment where Trish places the swizzles the stick in the glass of water, the wand in the cup, the male in the female, another big bang, and the beginning of the end of the world. The thing I love about this stuff at the end of the series is it makes us see in action a lot of the concepts discussed in the Kaballah journey, and also gives us a better understanding of those concepts. I sort of got the male/female thing, but this shows it really concretely, and it's even clarified a bit more in issue 32.

What the merging of the male and female/cup and wand does is create a wave of hyperreality that seems to make people aware of the essential fallacy that is the division between thought and the material world. It makes people recognize that we're all one thing, we're all connected. As Promethea says, "She's always been there in us all, but she's revealed...now everything is revealed." It seems to make people hyper-aware of their lives and the moment, basically knocking you out of your apathetic trudge through daily live and begin to recognize the majesty of existence. Trish says, "Sophie, I'm real...My life is real. It's really happening to me. This...this is now."

A really funny gag in issue 29 is the painted dolls killing each other. It's a beautifully drawn sequence, and I love the idea that people are going to the doll as an angel of death, so much so that he's swamped and destroyed. He's programmed to kill, but he can't kill fast enough to satisfy them. I love the little sequence where Stacia and Dennis Drucker reuinte with their Prometheas. The Dennis Drucker story was something I really wasn't expecting to see again after issue seven, so seeing it return back in the kaballah thing, and then be resolved here is very cool. "Now we can be together. Now everyone can be together" is such a cool sentiment, it's the idea that with time and reality breaking down, these people who loved each other a time past can be together again.

One of the coolest things about the end of the book is the incorporation of stuff from the real world. Before I read the book I thought nothing good came out of the Iraq war, but this book's depiction of George Bush and the events of Iraq is so cool, it's at least one good byproduct. Moore is basically playing off the disinformation of Bush, and the constant fluctuations. As time changes, people think the war's over, right, mission accomplished, but wasn't this last March? It's a great depiction of time breaking down and blending together. Later, there's a really great scene which perfectly captures the way Bush talks. I think it's notable that even though this stuff was written in 2003, the points are even more valid now. You'd think being so topical would quickly become dated, but this Iraq war really has just stretched on for years now, and I'm glad to see Alan becoming increasingly political in his work, in a way that he hasn't been since Watchmen or V For Vendetta.

The opening of issue thirty contains what is basically a microcosm of the whole series. We first see through the eyes of Peter Hansard, an FBI agent who wearing artificial retinas, and as a result sees just what is material, his vision is objective, uninfluenced from his perception of the world, like a camera. Thing is, the world is so much more than just the material, and that fact has been made even more apparent in the new world that Promethea has created in New York. People exist in a purely idea based world, and the concrete worldview of science seems woefully inadaquete in perceiving that world. This parallels what Alan is talking about in issue 32, the idea that scince isn't enough to understand everything, and our next step forward intellectually will involve the fusion of what we've learned with science combined with the flexibility of magical systems. It's about replacing a strict scientific paradigm, that is based on an uncompromising belief in the material world. Hansard's powers of perception are woefully inadaquete here, and he has to change, just as all people with a restrictive worldview have to change.

One of the things I found sort of tough to figure out was the role of the traditional superheroes in the story. I think Moore is basically pointing out the inadaquecy of the manichean wordivew held by people like Tom Strong in this new world. Tom Strong in particular is a conservative figure, trying to keep things as they are, while Promethea is a force of change. So, Strong is woefully inadaquete in dealing with this new threat, because it's not a concrete villain you can fight, it's not even something bad.

Another important scene, and one that clarifies some of the concepts in the Male/Female Kaballah issues is Sunny and Uvula having sex. This ties into the image of the whore of babalon having sex with the beast, the same as Pan and Selene. So, she is both destruction and creation. This ties in with the idea of the big bang and the big crunch being one thing that just echoes through time. She simultaneously the end of the world and the beginning of a new one. It's an absolutely phenomenal spread too, with all the heads justting out around her.

I really liked the way that each character got a nice closure for themselves. At the end, Trish finally finds Juan again, and she's happy again. I mentioned it before, but the scene where we first meet Juan back in 'Fatherland' was one of the best in the whole series. He is the void in Trish, thinking that her one true love abandoned her, her life sort of fell apart. So, when he returns, and she finds out he's been there the whole time, still in love with her, she moves from recovery to happiness.

The two page spread at the end of 32 is awe inspiring, and does a good job of conveying the basic ideas that Alan talks about extensively in the next issue. The basic thesis of the series is that because all time is one, every moment, everything is connected. Even though Promethea may be fictional, she's still a part of the world, and as an idea, she's just as important, if not more than those things in material reality. Even though Promethea isn't real, she's talking to you, the reader, and in reading the book you're spending time in the world.

You could argue that we are in fact talking to Alan Moore, through the work of JH Williams, but part of the beauty of the comic book is the unique collaboration of it. In books, we hear things in the author's words exactly, in films, we hear things through the voices of actors, but in comics we see the characters, and they speak the writer's words, but there's not as strict an interpretation. We bring more to it. One of the beauties of the medium, an aspect that plays into what Moore is talking about, is the removal of the time element. Film is linear, even if there's flashbacks, it's not up to you when they happen, but in comics, you control the speed, and you can easily time travel to stuff that happened before just by flipping the page. That's the brilliance of using comics as a medium for discussing the nature of time, because examining the book itself will let you understand it. Even if someone dies at the end of the book, the moments that they lived are still there and equally valid. It all exists simultaneously within the cover, and we move through in a linear way. Comics exist outside of time, but in moving into the universe, we become subject to the rules of 3D time.

I'd imagine that if we were to time travel, it would feel like flipping through a comic book and seeing all these moments existing right next to each other. When you're outside the book, the simultaneity is apparent, but when you're in it, you don't know what happens next, it's like living life in our world, where even though on some level it's happened already, we're blissfully unaware of the future.

And, this all brings us to issue 31. While it's been touched on before, this is the most explicit acknowledgement of the reader in the book. Promethea talks to you, and you talk to Promethea. I love the idea of Promethea sitting by the fire, telling you this story about the universe. It ties in to cave people sitting telling stories around the fire, and Promethea ties in with Prometheus, the fire bringer. But, Promethea doesn't bring fire, she brings light.

There's a speech from promethea after the double spreads in which she talks about how she has ended the world, by opening 'your' eyes to the nature of time and the universe. While on the one hand, Promethea is talking to everyone in her world, she's also talking to the reader, and this is one sequence that I can appreciate but didn't hit me in perhaps the way it could have, because all of her revelations are very similar to those in The Invisibles. After The Invisibles, I really did feel like my world had ended and I had made a huge jump forward in understanding the universe. The book was a spell to change people, and it changed me. Promethea would have probably done the same, except The Invisibles got there first, so my world had already ended, and this was just a further exploration of it. Still, it's really powerful, and her final worlds, 'Stay Awake' say a lot. This Promethea is dead now, and a new world has begun.

This last chunk of issue 31 is probably my favorite part of the series because it presents Alan Moore's view of something I'd always wondered about. The Invisibles, not to mention a ton of other works, talk about this huge jump in consciousness that's going to occur in 2012, but they basically stop at 2012, and we don't get to see what the new world would be like. How would the world change if everyone was enlightened? That's what the end of this issue tells us.

First, I love the art style here, it looks very Frank Quitely, and that's one of the best compliments comic book art can get from me. Williams is a god of comic book art, and I am just in awe of the different visual styles he brings to the comic. He pulls off the ultra-real stuff earlier in the issue, then this more stylized stuff at the end. The pages where he has all the different superheroes and draws them all in their trademark style are amazing, it literally looks like five different artists drawing the page in their own unique style. Williams is the sort of person who can seemingly do anything, and I'm really excited to see where he goes from here.

The basic gist of the 'post-apocalyptic' world is that everyone's much nicer to each other, and there's a much greater tolerance for exploration of ideas, an integration of magickal ideas into everyday life. I liked te fact that there's still problems, and crime and poverty, but people approach things in a different way. It's not a utopia, but it's a much more open, more loving world. Hansard has chosen to go blind rather than wearing the artificial eyes. This is probably because he recognized that those artificial eyes limited his perception of the world, and, while he may not be able to see the material world, there's a lot more to see than just that.

Stacia gets a happy ending too, as she becomes part of a threeway relationship with herself, Lucille Ball and Grace. The thing is, people just seem to much more tolerant of this thing in the new world, and there's an emphasis on exploring new ideas, and synthesizing things together that don't necessarily fit. The main thing seems to be that rather than just going around like ants, as they say in Waking Life, people are open adn thing about things. Ideas aren't something to be ashamed of, there's no pressure to conform to acceptable societal ideas. That's what everyone being enlightened is all about, the freedom to explore new ideas and destroy the boundaries we place on ourselves.

Using the Texture news service, Moore gives closure to a lot of the B characters from the series. Clearly, he had a lot of sub-arcs in mind and they all get really nice wrap ups. I love the image of The Painted Doll driving around with The Four Swell Guys, though I've got to say that it looks like Kenneth and Roger have become King Mob and Ragged Robin. Trish also gets a really nice closure.

One of the coolest things for me was realizing who the twins that Carl is with are. It took a minute, but then it hit me and I saw Barbara and Stephen Shelley. He doesn't have to say anything, you just know, and it's amazing. Barbara and Stephen have reunited with Sophie now, and she's also got Carl now. I really liked Carl from back in issue 26 and 27 and seeing him return is great. Sophie gets a happy ending after all, and everything looks good for the future.

I think that whole second half of 31 is perfect, and feels a lot like those final moments of The Invisibles. It's like, the reason we fight, the reason we try to make humanity better is so we can be happy, and ultimately that happiness comes from other people, and just being together. In the new world, everyone is less alone, and that's what Promethea is about. Through the spreading of ideas, she unites people. The entire Kaballah journey was about finding the commonality, the one space that all humans are, the Godhead. We're all one, and that's what's reaffirmed by the end of the series. Positively dazzling, I love the new world, and I hope that one day we're living there. Like the fictional character Promethea, this book, Promethea, is helping move us into that world, and I'd place it alongside The Invisibles as a work that is brilliant becuase it makes you think in new, different ways, and gives you a greater appreciation for the world around you. I've been so happy since I finished this book, and that's the power of great fiction, of a great idea, a great discussion.

The last issue is basically a summation of everything that's come before, but it has a brilliant device that makes it completely unique among comics. The entire point of the series is that we're all one, there's no time, no linearity, you have to move beyond that. So, with the last issue, you first read it in linear order, then you literally break it apart, and assemble it into something bigger. You move from looking at the comic in linear time, to observing the whole at once. It moves you from the third dimension to the fourth dimension. The content of the issue itself isn't as mind blowing, but it does a great job of clarifying some questions I had from earlier.

So, Promethea is finished, but it's also just begun. I don't know how the ideas I absorbed reading it will affect me, but judging from The Invisibles, it's not something I'll soon forget. The greatest works of art rewrite the reality of the reader/viewer, and in this case, that is completely true. And, that is the reality of Promethea. She may be a fictional character, but she's rewriting reality. This is the kind of book that makes me want to tell stories for a living, to create a world, and a character that transcends fiction is magic, and amidst everything, that's the point that stands out most to me from this book. So thank you Alan Moore. Thank you JH Williams. And, thank you Promethea.

Related Posts
Promethea: 1-16 (2/22/2005)
Promethea: 17-19 (2/24/2005)
Promethea: 20-23 (2/25/2005)

Jackie Brown

I'm almost done with Promethea. The series is at direct injection level right now, I really want to read the rest of it right now, but I'm trying to give what's happened so far a little more time to sink in. The thing that strikes me is how similar this is to The Invisibles. I have the feeling if I hadn't read The Invisibles, I'd be reeling and in awe right now, like I was after the first reading of Volume III. I still love what Moore is doing, it's just I'm more into the characters than the concepts, because I've already read the concepts in The Invisibles.

Anyway, yesterday I watched Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino's third film, and his second best, behind only Kill Bill I. Jackie Brown is a really unique film, even though it's referencing 70s blaxploitation movies, it's not in the same way that Kill Bill references Kung Fu movies. It's really in the soundtrack and star that we see the blaxploitation influence, not so much the content of the film.



What makes the film unique is something difficult to articulate. It's a combination of pacing and style. On the DVD, Quentin calls it a 'hangout' film and I think that's really accurate. You're not so much engaged in the story as you're sitting around, kicking it with the characters. Other than the opening title sequence, we don't even see Jackie Brown until a half hour into the film. The film has a leisurely introduction to its world and characters, so that by the time we run into Jackie Brown, we know the stakes of what she's involved in.

But, even once the main plot starts up, we still get the feeling that we're just capturing the everyday travails of these people. Most movies focus on the most extraordinary moments of people's lives, and while what happens in the movie does have a huge impact on the characters, there's never the sense that it's so out of the ordinary, until the end. Sometimes, I feel like the ultimate goal for filmmakers is to make a movie in which nothing happens, yet is still very interesting. This movie is a step in that direction, we just drift through their lives, observing. The thing is, Quentin makes the characters so interesting that their very existence is fun to watch. It's a tribute to his filmmaking skill that he can make someone listening to music in their car as they drive a riveting scene.

The core of the movie is the relationship between Jackie and Max Cherry. Robert Forster as Max Cherry is the most human character in a Quentin Tarantino, and the most interesting to watch. You really understand him, and the joy that Jackie brings to his ordinary routine. The chemistry between them is huge, and I love their final scene together.



The use of music in the film is amazing. Quentin is always able to find brilliant obscure 70s tracks and bring them to the surface, and that talent is never better put to use than here. The most notable is the way he integrates The Delfonics' 'Didn't I Blow Your Mind this Time' into the narrative. Tarantino associates the song with Jackie, so just the scene of Max buying the tape can tell you everything you need to know about how he's feeling. Plus, it's an awesome song. Other great tracks include 'Across 110th Street' over the titles, Brothers Johnson 'Strawberry Letter 23' and The Grassroots' 'Midnight Confessions.'

I could see why some people would find the film too long, it's by no means a tight film. You could easily cut this down to an hour and a half, but that's completely missing the point of the film. It's all about inhabiting this world with the characters, not the money switch business. I can't think of a single scene that stands out as boring or should have been cut.

This film is much less flashy and overtly innovative than Tarantino's other films, but it's also much more real. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are in many ways more about the telling of the story than the story itself, and Kill Bill Volume 1 is all about using a bare bones story as an excuse to do a bunch of sketches and set pieces. This isn't bad, I love to see messing around with the nature of storytelling, but Jackie Brown has such compelling characters, you get more wrapped up in their story than you can in the tale of Butch or Vincent Vega. Quentin is a big fan of Wong Kar-Wai, and while Pulp Fiction seems on the surface more similar to his work, this film actually reminds me a lot of his, in the way it dwells on the lives of people, rather than a really complex plot. This film has a lot of similarities with Kill Bill II, and the relationship between the Bride and Bill is the only thing that even touches Jackie and Max in Tarantino's oevure.

I love the film, and I think it's sad that a lot of people who enjoyed his other work never sought out Jackie Brown. It may not have changed cinema in the way that Pulp Fiction did, but in retrospect, it's a much more unique and layered film, and is just a joy to watch. Watching Jackie play all sides against each other in the brilliantly executed money switch sequence is also watching a brilliantly executed piece of cinema.

More Promethea

So, I just finished the journey up the tree of life in Promethea, and I'm pretty satisfied with how it ended. I think the earlier issues were actually more effective, since they had more easily definable concepts. It's a lot easier to talk about intellect or emotion than to talk about the universal male essence. But, that doesn't mean that Moore hasn't done good work or that these aren't great issues. I feel like because they're discussing tougher concepts, it's going to benefit more from a reread than the comparatively simple first chunk of issues.

Anyway, the male and female isssues I see as companion pieces, and are another followup on the idea of wand and cup discussed back in the first book and in 'Sex, Stars and Serpents.' I think 'Sex, Stars and Serpents' does a much better job of conveying the essential nature of the two energies, and without it, I'd have been lost here. The best I can come up with is that the female issue is all about both compassion and sexuality, as represented by the madonna/whore. So, the cup is both a site of lust, and a receptacle for love. It's all one love, and this is about receiving the love.

The more interesting thing in this issue is Sophie's new costume, which features an open third eye. It's a good representation of the changes she's gone through as a result of her journey.

Then, the masculine issue, which is one of the most beautifully illustrated of the entire run. Williams does gorgeous painting to show this gray world. What this is about is the spark of ignition that mixes with the love in the universe, which leads to the big bang, which sets the material world into existence. I feel like this stuff is much more about Moore's cosmology than stuff that's really relevant to the real world. But, that's logical, considering this is supposed to be about a realm that goes beyond the material world.

Everything pays off in the final issue of the journey, where Sophie and Barbara make it to the level of God, and expierence what we are before we are born and where we go after we die. They make it to Heaven, and essentially discover the nature of God, as Moore sees it. The way I took it, the whole nine issue journey is about gradually stripping off aspects of worldly individuality, culminating when Sophie and Barbara are absorbed into the white bliss and experience what it is to be God. There's a really striking page where we see the prayers of people all over the world, represented in a variety of different languages. Then, we get a glimpse of hundreds of lives, and realize that God is present in everything, every moment of our lives, we're connected to something higher.

At the apex of their journey, Sophie and Barbara exist in 5D space, not held down by time or place, and are a part of every single person's life in the entire world. That's what it is to God, to be present in every facet of existence. Our lives (or afterlife) is a journey away from individuality to universality. That's what the serpent is, ascending up towards Heaven. Sophie and Barbara make it there, but she soon meets Stephen Shelley, and is reminded of her material existence. I feel like the point Moore is trying to make is that the love that Barbara and Stephen has is so strong it transcends this universal love and ties their individual essences together.

So, rather than merging into the bliss, all three decide to become doves and return to the material world. It's an amazing sequence as they descend past all the realms they experienced over the course of the journey. After going on this really long journey, it's refreshing to return to material things, not only for them, but for the reader too. It's difficult to decipher these issues after a while, especially seeing as how they become more and more complex. It really feels like you were with them on the journey and that's a tribute to Moore's storytelling.

There's something powerful in the idea that despite being in heaven, and having perfect bliss, all three of them decide to return to the material world. I think it's because once you ascend past emotion and all things human, it may be bliss, but it's impersonal. It's the emotions that make things real, and for Stephen and Barbara, their love is more important than the universal bliss they achieved up in sphere one. I like the idea that they're reincarnated, and get to explore the material world anew again.

For Sophie, the journey was all about moving beyond her own perspective, and coming to understand what's up with others, specifically her mother. The final scene is very sweet and plays off of one of my favorite moments in the whole journey, Sophie's encounter with her father.

Moore has set up a lot of stuff on the material world during the journey, and I'm really excited to see that play out. The whole journey was a very risky storytelling move, but it was a complete success for me. Together with JH Williams, he has completely changed the potential of what can be done with a comic book, in a way that no book since Watchmen has done.

I also think a lot of ideas were conveyed to the reader. I learned a lot, and I think he makes some important points. Over the course of the journey, individuality is broken down, and we understand the connections between everyone. The similarities between this and The Invisibles are striking, both have essentially the same message, and that's we're all the same, we're all connected, and if you just put in the effort to understand someone, you'll realize they're not so bad after all.

Related Posts
Promethea: 1-16 (2/22/2005)
Promethea: 17-19 (2/24/2005)
Promethea: Until the End of the World (24-32) (2/27/2005)