Movies, a Play and Some Comics

DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939) when an aging, drunken sheriff recruits the son of his legendary mentor to clean up a corrupt, lawless town run by schemers Brian Donlevy and Marlene Dietrich. Much to everyone’s astonishment, Tom Destry turns out to be mild-mannered Jimmy Stewart, who doesn’t carry a gun, believes in the law even when it helps the bad guys—and soon proves to be the toughest lawman in his unassuming way that the town’s ever seen. A great Western with a terrific cast that while not a parody flies in the face of genre conventions; this would double-bill well with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (with Stewart once again playing a man who believes in laws rather than guns), Naked Spur (for a much darker take on Stweart) or Blazing Saddles, where Madeline Kahn does a marvelous riff on Dietrich’s saloon-singer.“That’s how they shot my father, in the back—they didn’t dare face him either.”
I was disappointed when I missed CHRONICLE (2012) in theaters, but having Netflixed it I’m relieved I didn’t spend the money. The story of three teens getting TK from a glowing meteorite is completely stock (first fun, then using the power to become a Cool Kid, then Power Corrupts); the Hand-Held Camera approach for recording this doesn’t add anything, as the kids’ everyday lives are stock too. I thought Zapped! was a dreadful film about high-school TK (and it was) but at least it didn’t have pretensions to be anything better. “Do people feel bad when they step on an ant? I don’t think so.”
JUSTICE LEAGUE DOOM (2012) has immortal Vandal Savage (Alexis Denisoff) recreate the Legion of Doom (from the old Super-Friends cartoon) for a remake of a 1990s plotline in which the Legion uses Batman’s own protocols for taking down the JLA to get them out of the way before world conquest begins. Written by the late Dwayne McDuffie, this is very good and uses most of the familiar voice talent (Kevin Conroy, Tim Daly, Carl Lumbly and Nathan Filion’s Green Lantern) in contrast to the poorer voices of Superman vs. the Elite. With Hal Jordan replacing John Stewart back in the green suit, Cyborg provides some token ethnicity to the crew. “When I said I didn’t know who had done this—I might have been lying.”

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER was a local production of Oliver Goldsmith’s pre-Hollywood screwball comedy, in which a young man amuses himself by convincing a pair of visitors his parents’ house is actually the local inn, leading one of the men to switch from Stiff Formality to Outrageous Flirtation when he assumes the owner’s daughter is actually a Sexy Barmaid. A fun, fast-moving (and very well costumed) production. “An impudent man may feign modesty, but a modest man cannot feign impudence.”

JACK STAFF: Yesterday’s Heroes by Paul Grist collects the initial adventures of Jack, a retconned 1940s British hero (loosely modeled on Marvel’s Union Jack) who returns to encounter vampire hunters, Tommy Tin Man (a takeoff on British comics’ Robot Archie) and “Sergeant States” and to learn the real reason States hasn’t aged since WW II (and no, it’s not because of that silly bilge about being entombed in ice for decades). I’ve read some of Jack’s later issues, but it works much better when read from the beginning.
THE JUDAS COIN by Walt Simonson tracks one of the 30 pieces of silver through history as it affects the lives of DC’s Golden Gladiator, Viking Prince, Captain Fear, Bat Lash, Batman and Manhunter 2070. Enjoyable as an anthology, but the coin is so irrelevant to most of these, the book doesn’t really knit together well.