I’m an ubashed fan of Charlie Chaplin. Not only was he one of the brightest stars the world has ever known, he was also one of the most brilliant filmmakers, often (usually) leaving his contemporaries far behind. Few films of any time by any filmmaker are as perfect as, say, City Lights.
What better way to celebrate his birthday than by discussing the Criterion release of Modern Times?
When the Criterion Collection released Chaplin’s “Modern Times” I was ecstatic. I’d never seen Modern Times. I’d seen pieces of it before, particularly the sequences with the gears, but I’d never watched it in its entirety until the Blu-ray release.
This is a film of stunning power and should have a particular resonance today. It’s as relevant now as ever. Modern Times is about the struggle of the worker and his constant and tireless exploitation. He doesn’t want to start a revolution, he just wants to get by.
Starring Chaplin as his lovable Tramp and Paulette Goddard as his love interest (and real life wife at the time), this film is so full of heart and hilarity that it’s hard to ignore. In fact, the only thing I think this film has going against it is the fact that it’s so easy to compare it to City Lights. While this film is excellent, it lacks the same punch of City Lights, but regarded in its own way it’s a masterpiece.
There’s also something bittersweet about this picture. It was Chaplin’s last time playing his most famous creation, The Little Tramp, and also the first time we heard words come out of his mouth. Chaplin wasn’t interested in having him speak at all, but if he was going to do it, he made the wise choice of making those words absolute gibberish in one of the most hilarious musical numbers ever put on screen.
The ending, too, is bittersweet:
This film gave us one of the most wonderful and optimistically sad pieces of music the world has ever known with “Smile”.
And can I mention how absolutely gorgeous Paulette Goddard is in this picture:
This picture was taken from one of the most breathtaking and ludicrously funny scenes in the movie. Chaplin and the girl have stolen away into a department store and decide to put on skates and Chaplin doesn’t realize that the floor behind him looks down over the lower floors of the store.
It’s nerve wracking to watch, not knowing how much danger he was actually in or not.
Here’s the scene:
Now imagine being able to watch this brilliance with Criterion’s full-blown 1080 Blu-ray picture. It’s astounding.
Modern Times is definitely a product of the Great Depression and is a story about the problems working people face every day. He infuses so much heart and understanding into it, making it relevant for people of all ages today, what with our own Depression going on. It feels like a Chaplin version of The Grapes of Wrath, and that’s a wonderful thing to see.
So this is it! After 13 weeks, we finally reach the end of the Green Hornet’s adventure! Will he and Kato emerge triumphant or does gangland have one final ace up their sleeve? You’ll never know unless you watch Chapter 13, Doom of the Underworld! (Wow, I hope that title doesn’t give anything away!)
So, The Green Hornet is over, but this column is not! Here is your chance to have a say in the content on this site. I’m going to bullet point new serials I have that I can post. Add a comment with your vote! To my knowledge most of these are in the Public Domain, so I can definitely post them. I am not too sure on Superman or Batman, but if they win, I’ll still put them up unless asked to remove them. My personal preference is for Captain America, because it’ll tie in nicely with the upcoming movie, but I’ll defer to the winner. See you next week with a new serial!
As I intimated in our preview of this issue, Betty & Veronica are very old hat at going to prom. The full-length story in this issue pokes a bit of fun about that, when the duo try to remember who took Archie last time and who’s turn it is this go around. If that was it to the story, it’d be pretty standard Archie fare, but writer Dan Parent takes a different tack, and it was quite refreshing. Some time ago, a school district in Riverdale’s vicinity closed and the orphaned students were welcomed to Riverdale High with open arms. With all the new blood, B&V decide maybe it’s time to play the field a bit.
Opportunity knocks when Veronica goes prom shopping!
Veronica has a scheme in mind, and the purpose it serves is twofold and a stroke of storytelling genius as well. To find out who to take to the prom, Veronica sets up a speed date session with all of the new guys, which turns out to be a good plan and introduces the reader to all of the new characters without having a roll call, which is all too often the case in other comics. The speed date ends with our two heroines with some new arm candy, but the lads of Riverdale also get to meet some new people on their dates, even Jughead!
Forsythe P. Jones, master of sarcasm.
The prom dates themselves have some interesting quirks that drive the rest of the story, and makes for a very atypical prom night (except for maybe Jughead, surprisingly). As the story wraps up, things come full circle in way that leaves the reader with a smile on their face. This is why I read Archie books, I can forget about the insanity of other companies’ rigamarole and just sit down and genuinely enjoy a story.
Can I say I love that an Archie book has an asterisk box?
Moving onto the technical aspects of the book, I mentioned above how much I admire Dan Parent’s writing on the book, but I’ll be honest, I was more familiar with his artwork, so it was even more of a pleasant surprise that he can hold his own in both fields. The art in this tale is by Jeff Shultz, and while some will says the ‘Archie Style’ makes it difficult to gauge an artist’s talent, I have to disagree. The clean lines and masterful facial expressions (aided by the inks of Bob Smith) are second to none and places Shultz in my top 3 of current Archie artists.
This book won’t be in stores until next Wednesday, but I implore you to tell your comic shop owner to save you a copy. You won’t regret it and it comes with my highest recommendation.
In a piece of truly depressing news, Tokyopop, one of the larger publishers of manga in the US, has announced effective May 31, their US offices are closed. They aren’t completely dead, as their German operation will remain to run Tokyopop’s film division as well as to oversee licenses, but still this is a devastating blow.
Tokyopop founder Stu Levy had a parting note for fans. You can read the full letter on the company’s website:
I simply want to thank all of you – our incredibly talented creators from all over the world, our patient and supportive business partners and customers, our amazingly dedicated TOKYOPOP team – full-timers, part-timers, freelancers and interns, and of course the greatest fans in the entire world. Together, we’ve succeeded in bringing manga to North America and beyond.
Tokyopop has been suffering a lot of hardships lately, including layoffs, so this isn’t a complete surprise. The mark they left on the US manga industry is a proud legacy that will endure even if the company itself does not. I remember reading my first Tokyopop book, back when they were called Mixx. I loved that they tried the anthology format, and they took many risks. If not for Tokyopop I never would have discovered of my favorite mangas ever, Parasyte. I salute you, Tokyopop. You will be missed, but never forgotten.
It’s time for another installment of This Week IN Comics!
Big Shiny Robot! has a weekly column in the Salt Lake City alt-weekly IN Magazine and every week we bring it to you on the site.
If you live in the greater Salt Lake area, you can pick up a copy of IN Magazine up from one of their ubiquitous newsstands, and we would highly suggest that you do.
This week we give you the skinny on Tom Hodges’ Salt Lake City appearances. There’s one tonight at Brand32 and another tomorrow at Dr. Volts Comic Connection.
I’ll admit, I’ve deliberately kept myself out of the loop on the upcoming Jon Favreau directied Cowboys & Aliens. I didn’t want to know much going in, but then I broke down and saw the new trailer released today. It tells and interesting story. I won’t go into details, but after you watch it, I’ll give my thoughts.
Ok a couple thoughts:
While amnesia is a played out storytelling device, mixing it with the arrival of aliens actually makes it compelling
Hell, the mixture of the Old West with Sci-Fi elements is enough to get me to see it.
Harrison Ford’s “They took my son!” Is Rifftrax fodder if I ever heard it, so it’s got that going for it.
Shirtless Daniel Craig… for the ladies.
So yeah, I have faith in Favreau from Iron Man, so I’ll be going to see this. What do you all think?
Here are two more clips from the season premier of Doctor Who. The episode, which is titled “The Impossible Astronaut,” premiers on BBC America and BBC One on April 23rd, which is just over a week away!
Since we’ve had such an overwhelming response to our Joker Mimobot contest (here), Mimoco has given us THREE more 2gb Batman Mimobots to give away.
And here’s the great part: You get to choose which one from the Batman line you want!
They have Batman, Robin, Catwoman, and The Joker.
If you entered the Joker contest, you can still re-enter for this one.
All you need to do to enter is send an email to EDITOR (at) Big Shiny Robot.com (except formatted like a real email address) with the headline BATMAN MIMO-BOT CONTEST.
For an extra chance to win, you can go to our facebook page and invite all of your friends to like us. Or you can ask your followers on twitter to follow us @BigShinyRobot. Just be sure to mention in your email that you’ve done it.
We will also be extending both contests through the weekend, Sunday midnight MST is the entry deadline with winners announced on Monday.
If you just can’t wait that long and need to get one of these bad boys in your hand, I can’t argue with you at all. You can pick them up at Mimoco’s website. They also have plenty of other lines to choose from. My particular favorite? The Star Wars line.
After a short hiatus – that we here and BSR can only assume was gay porn-related – the boys from Laser Brain are back with a brand new, just as awful episode! We know you’re jonesin’, so here you go!
Laser Brain Podcast – 04/13/11
In this episode Tristan tells the tales of his privates and battle with stinky skin!
Once in a while, a character becomes popular in spite of their origins, and today’s subject is a good example of this. Today’s hero doesn’t have a bad origin, but it is full of stereotypical tropes, and one element that just screamed at me to be lambasted (read on and see if you can pick that moment out). The mainstream media has heard of him, thanks to his appearances on popular children’s cartoons, but even then his origin was glossed over. That’s why I am here for you, with the Secret Origin of… Cyborg!
As is the case with a lot of these origins it’s told in flashback. In Cyborg’s case, he’s on a bit of a furlough with his teammates in the Titans. The Titans sup and the conversation turns to the team seeing each other as friends. This causes Cyborg to reminisce that he lost all of his friends when he became the half man, half machine he is today. Before you know it, we’re off into flashback-ville. Cyborg, aka Vic Stone, relates that while his parents loved him, they were a bit pre-occupied with their careers as research scientists, and the environment he was raised in wasn’t exactly nurturing.
"Now son, that's not true, have some food pellets!"
The experiments were pretty successful, and Vic ends up with an IQ of 170, well past genius-level. The result of this, is that Vic’s early childhood is filled with learning more than anything else, living quite a sheltered existence. When he got to be 8 years old, he started using those smarts to sneak out at night, just to experience the world around him, unfortunately for Vic, his wide-eyed innocent and naïvety leads him to almost be hit by an oncoming truck. Fatefully, he was saved at the last second by someone who would affect his life profoundly…
"I was smart enough not to wear the same stupid hat, however."
Of course this sort of behavior is going to catch up to you sooner or later, and Vic gets caught. A long and drawn out conversation with his parents ensues where both parties plead their case. Vic wants to go to public school so he can have something resembling a normal social life, and his father thinks that Vic should be doing so much more with his life, given his potential. Of course, he tells Vic in the form of a guilt trip, so he’s not exactly feeling the love. Time passes and Vic gets his wish to attend public school. While there, he focuses on sports, honing his body as much as his parents honed his mind. While he didn’t run with Ron’s gang any more, he still considered him a friend. Things at home still aren’t great though, as evidenced by this exchange:
Vic was never a good lissener.
After Vic leaves, his dad says a boy so full of rage is bound to explode sooner or later, and his words end up being prophetic when Ron returns from reform school. Ron asks Vic to lend his significant athletic prowess to join him in a “rumble”. Vic initially refuses, but is goaded into it when his life debt to Ron and race is factored into it, and the fight is on. Vic gets cut up a bit, and the beast within is unleashed.
The White Man. Contradicting the Black Man since well, forever.
Thankfully, Ron still has Vic’s back, owing him yet again. It isn’t long before police sirens wail, and everyone high-tails it out of the fray. Back home, Mom and Dad Stone are pretty ticked off that their boy is still getting into this sort of crap. Vic’s dad actually renounces any claim of fatherhood, and walks out, leaving Vic and his Mom alone. You might think his mother would be nurturing, even when her son seem like a common thug, but you’d be wrong. This is the straw that broke the camel’s back…
"Are you "lissening" now, Vic?"
Sadly, Vic is still pretty hard-headed and he walks out. Time passes and Vic is nearing adulthood when he gets a message from Ron. Ever the good (yet not too bright) friend, he stops on over. Ron’s latest scheme to get back at ‘The Man’ is to take over the Statue of Liberty, by um, climbing it like a chimpanzee. Since Vic is educated, Ron wants him to be their spokesperson, but Vic actually shows some sense and tells him how stupid this course of action is. Ron tries to lay the guilt trip on Vic, but it doesn’t work. Vic, finally letting his mother’s words sink in tells Ron that breaking off their friendship is Ron’s decision, not his. Ron ends up in prison for his actions, while Vic is getting his own life back on track, becoming an Olympic hopeful! He even decides to square things with his Mom, so he visits her at STAR Labs. It seems Mom and Dad are working in probing other dimensions and military research respectively. This will define Vic’s life from this moment on as an experiment gone wrong brings Vic to the edge of forever…
Come on, Vic! There's always room for Jell-O!
Sadly, Vic’s mom was utterly consumed by the blobby-thing and it takes all of his Dad’s effort to reverse the dimensional portal to banish the thing back from where it came. Vic ends up with a good portion of his body literally dissolved. That’s where Vic’s father comes in. One of the weapons he was working on was a cybernetic suit specifically designed for war amputees. Before you could say “Six Million Dollar Man montage” Vic is rebuilt, given steel to replace lost skin. Thankfully, he is unconscious throughout the entire procedure. That doesn’t last forever though, and a month later, Vic wakes up…
"You've been turned into a Terminator two years before the movie! You're gonna be rich!"
After awakening, Vic confronts his father, who is grateful his son is alive. Vic, on the other hand, is royally P.O.’ed that his father his literally made him into the man he always wanted. He curses his existence and curses his father, saying outright that he hates him. The hatred only grows, because while Vic is alive, he isn’t ready to rejoin society just yet, he spend half a year rehabilitating his body, his father there every step of the way. You would think the two might have bonded after this experience, but Vic is still pretty hardheaded.
Um... "Your hate has made you powerful?"
So Vic leaves again, continuing the pattern that has made his life such a bowl of cherries so far. Fate like repetitiveness it seems, because just then Ron re-enters Vic’s life. Ron has another “opportunity” for his “best friend”, but Vic is at least bright enough to reject his offer. Ron tells Vic that all of his problems are the fault of “Whitey” and he’ll come to realize it soon. Vic’s life continues, but he falls deeper into despair as his girl doesn’t return his calls, is thrown off the basketball team, and loses his scholarship. Ron is waiting on his doorstep. Vic breaks down and asks Ron what he wants. Ron’s plan is to set off an explosive device at the United Nations, because there is nothing like blowing up the symbol of unity to promote solidarity. Vic prepares himself for his role in this little play. He finally puts that genius IQ to work though and realizes he’s being set up as a patsy.
"You think YOU have abs of steel, check these out, baby!"
Cyborg shows some real heroism, making short work of the ill-advised thuggery. In the scuffle, Ron falls off the side of the UN building, hanging on by a thread. He begs Vic to save him, and of course he will, being a hero. There is a monkey wrench thrown into it all though, as it turns out the explosive device was jostled and is now about to explode, leaving Vic/Cyborg is a pretty big predicament.
Not exactly Lady or the Tiger, is it?
So Cyborg hurls the bomb where it can’t damage the building. Vic intends to save Ron right after, but he couldn’t hang on long enough. The cops never found his body, but his death wasn’t for anything. Vic finally discovers that his life is in danger of being consumed by anger and hatred just like Ron’s. He eventually meet the Titans and learns what having real friends are like, and he even reconciles with his dad.
His epiphany also came with an improved fashion sense.
So Cyborg’s story ends on a bit of an up note. He went on to get involved with all sort of convoluted history that there is no way I’m going to get into now, but it is pretty cool to see a character break from the “angry black man: mold and become such an enduring character. He’s even getting a star turn in the upcoming Flashpoint event, so keep your eyes open for more Cyborg exploits!
This tale originally appeared in Tales of the New Teen Titans Vol. 1 #1 June, 1982 It was reprinted in New Teen Titans Archives Vol. 3.
