A few of my reviews whirled by over at 366 Weird Movies while I was too busy with other things (week off for Father’s Day and all that). To catch up:
CAPSULE: AGAINST THE CLOCK (2019) – A messy mish-mosh of cyberpunk spy thriller themes, as half-baked as the sloppy CGI fractals and hyperactive jump cuts that frame this abortion of a film.
CAPSULE: KEOMA (1976) – Could have been a contender for the last great spaghetti western, but is ruined by the Soundtrack From Hell. Yes, you heard right, and you’ll wish you’d never heard. You’re asking of course, how bad can this possibly be? Here’s a sample. Now imagine that crotch-splitting abomination going on for the ENTIRE MOVIE. That’s right, it never shuts up, a continuous Greek chorus obliterating every serious moment for the 105 minute run-time.
CAPSULE: HARD TICKET TO HAWAII (1987) – A harmless descendant of Miami Vice, with lots of booby cheesecake and a loose story that has something impenetrable to do with a snake, a toilet, a blow-up doll, a skateboard, and a razor-edged Frisbee.
But let’s get to the important part
The 366 Weird Movies project releases one yearbook per year, and this last year’s copy is out. And my writing is in there, along with the stable of 366 Weird’s distinguished film experts with whom I have the honor to share paper and pixel space. In fact, my work has been in several yearbooks going back a few, so browse the whole collection of 366 distributions if you want to see me on paper pulp for a change.
One of the articles that made the 2018 yearbook was my eulogy for Harlan Ellison. The cantankerous sci-fi / fantasy author passed last year, and him being a kind of big influence on my own career (not the personal part, thank muffins!), I felt moved to write a send-off. I forgot all about it until my contributor’s copy of 2018 showed up, and fanning through it, it hit me again.
Once I was a child reading a book of Ellison’s terrifying, hilarious, and visceral fiction wondering if I’d ever have a career doing that. And this week, I opened a book to find my own writing, talking about his passage. It completed a circle for me. This one time, I’m stopping to remark upon it.
There are so many authors treasured to me, who have all died off one by one, and I keep wanting to carry their tradition on for new generations. It is the Dark Ages in America. I have far more fans overseas than I ever will have in this country. I am a cultural expatriate here. These authors whose memory I carry, am I their kind? Will I be the last of our kind?
