Author: Mindy Newell

Mindy Newell: This Is My Country

“This is my country, Land of my birth, This is my country, Grandest on Earth

“This is my country, Land of my choice, This is my country, Hear my proud voice.

“I pledge thee my allegiance, America the bold, For this is my country, To have and to hold”

This Is My Country (1940), Dan Raye – Lyrics, Al Jacobs – Music

Wow!

The sixth season of Homeland ended last night with an absolutely bang-up twisting cliffhanger and a final shot of Carrie staring at the Capitol building, mirroring the opening montage of earlier seasons that ended with Nicholas Brody staring at the White House.

Showtime did not give Homeland much publicity this year; the network instead focused on Billions – which stars Damien Lewis, who played the conflicted, and ultimately very lost, Sgt. Nicholas Brody. But after six years Homeland continues to stay relevant; this season it delivered hard punches to topical issues, with brilliant extrapolation of real world news stories and events by the producers and writers. I don’t want to spoil anything for you, so I won’t go into details except to say that this year’s story arc revolved around a President-Elect whose distrust of the nation’s intelligence services leads her to distrust the entire American political system – as Dar Adal tells Saul Berenson, “There’s something distinctly un-American about her” – and the manipulation of not just the public but the government itself through fake news, deep state conspiracy theorists, and paranoia.

There has been much ado about “diversity in comics” lately. Almost at the same time the Marvel Retailer Summit and Senior Vice-President David Gabriel made waves – tsunamis – over “female superheroes” (please read Mike Gold’s ComicMix column here), Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool posted this . I think the former is basically a tempest in a teapot and is really about Marvel sales – Saturday’s New York Times (April 7) had an article by George Gene Gustins in its business section – “Marvel Comics May Have Slumping Sales, But Don’t Blame Its Diverse Heroes” which takes a closer look at what’s going on in the Bullpen:

“While ‘Marvel Blames Diversity’ makes for a juicy headline, the issue is more nuanced.

“As Brian Hibbs, the owner of the two Comix Experience stores in San Francisco, said in an interview, Marvel has recently been experiencing a “massive sales slump” because of more basic factors: the frequent restarting of series with new No. 1 issues; fan fatigue over storylines that promise changes but fail to deliver; and the introduction of a deluge of new series. There is also the expense of comic collecting.

“This month, for instance, Marvel began rolling out a revamped lineup of X-Men titles, which will result in seven new series – two of which will publish twice a month, the other five monthly. That’s a lot of comic books, and they run an average of $3.99 each.

“The first issues will undoubtedly sell well thanks to the multiple covers and the collector’s tendency to buy them all. But subsequent issues are expected to follow the industry pattern of lower sales over time.

“’Marvel doesn’t have “more than one or two comics selling 60,000 or 70,000 copies,’ Mr. Hibbs said, adding that this trend has virtually nothing to do with ‘this diversity canard.’”

However, the later article is about anti-Semitism and anti-Christian (and by inference, anti-any religion except Islam) sentiments hidden as “Easter eggs” in the first issue of X-Men Gold by its artist, Ardian Syaf, Author G. Willow Gordon, (Marvel’s Ms. Marvel, Vertigo’s Cairo and Air, and the novel Alif the Unseen, along with other works) addressed Mr. Syaf and the controversy on her blog site (Here is What Quran 5:51 Actually Says).

All I can say is this:

If that’s truly how you feel, Mr. Syaf, then why do you work in an industry whose roots are firmly established in Judeo-Christian beliefs and mythology? Do you know that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were born Stanley Leiber and Jacob Kurtzberg? That Superman was created by two kids named Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster? That the very first “comic book” was the brainchild of two men named Max Gaines (nee Max Ginzberg) and Harry L. Wildenberg?

I believe that the upswing in overt and covert bigotry and intolerance in this country is directly related to the man who sits in the Oval Office at present. A man who cries about the women and babies killed in Syria, but won’t lift his ban on Syrian refugees. A man who decries the use of sarin gas – a weapon of mass destruction – but told Chris Matthews during the campaign, “Why do we have nukes if we’re not going to use them?”

Crocodile tears.

Mindy Newell: It Was Twenty Years Ago Today…

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer showed the whole world, and an entire sprawling industry, that writing monsters and demons and end-of-the world is not hack-work, it can challenge the best. Joss Whedon raised the bar for every writer – not just genre/niche writers, but every single one of us.” – Russell T. Davies, producer, writer, showrunner, Doctor Who

…Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.

Oops. Sorry. Got carried away there for a moment and started grooving to one of the most groundbreaking albums ever – and anyway, that album came out way more than twenty years (and 23 days) ago today. But it was twenty years (and 23 days) ago today, on March 10, 1997, that another groundbreaking event in pop culture occurred: the premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the fledgling WB network.

Although it wasn’t exactly a premiere. More like a reboot, as in Ronald D. Moore’s reboot of Battlestar Galactica from an incredibly corny “let’s cash in on the Star Wars phenomenon” series that deservedly failed into an incredibly intelligent series that deservedly succeeded. Then again, the televised BTVS wasn’t exactly a reboot, either. It was… more of a rebirth.

As most of you already know, Whedon’s original 1992 Buffy screenplay was hijacked by a dumb studio and a dumber director and totally bombed. And then something that only happens in storybooks and Disney movies happened. A fairy godmother by the name of Gail Berman, whose company, Sandollar Television, owned the rights to the movie, waved her magic wand, said bippidi-boppidi-boo, and granted the one thing that most of us wish for and never get – she gave Joss Whedon a “do-over,” a chance to start over with his original concept of “the ditzy blonde who walks into an alley and beats the crap out of the monster that attacks her” and do it right.

Did Joss do it right?

Did he ever!

Of course it wasn’t that easy. Life isn’t like that. It never is, or if sometimes it seems to be, there are always pitfalls and potholes to maneuver. But here’s the thing – all the crap that life throws at us was thrown at every single character who lived in the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Sometimes it was metaphoric crap, as in monsters and demons and werewolves and vampires, and sometimes it was just truly plain crap, as in dead mothers.

Twenty years (and 23 days) later, BTVS is still watched, still talked about, still written about, still studied, still reviewed. YouTube features hundreds of channels dedicated to the Slayer; I am an aficionado of one channel in particular, Ian Martin’s Passion of the Nerd and his “Buffy Episode Guide.” Ian is a video producer for LinkedIn, and his very first video, “Why You Should Watch Buffy” kicked off his series.

Ian and I were both at Denver ComicCon last June, though we didn’t get a chance to meet – his panel and mine coincided, unfortunately. But here’s a bit of his presentation:

“Now Joss Whedon created in Buffy a densely, densely layered series that all filters down from the primary metaphor in the show, the Slayer role being the symbol of adulthood or becoming an adult.

“From there, each season has a unique overarching theme, informed by that primary metaphor. And each episode in the season was informed by that season’s theme.

“And the entire structure was built on this very robust existential philosophy.”

Here’s a quote from “Becoming,” the Season Two finale:

“Bottom line is, even if you see ’em coming, you’re not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are.”

It still resonates, doesn’t it?

Even twenty years (and 23 days) later.

 

Mindy Newell: “Flash” Dance

I grew up on Broadway musicals. Once upon a time when going to see a show on Broadway didn’t cost you your mortgage plus the life of your first-born, my mom and dad were avid theatergoers. They saw the original production of South Pacific with Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza, the original production of Camelot with Richard Burton and Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet, and the original production of The King and I with Gertrude Lawrence and a then little-known Yul Brynner.

When they were still dating they went into town to see Oklahoma! Over the years they saw Carousel, and Brigadoon, and Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady, and Zero Mostel in Fiddler on the Roof, and Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!, and the original West Side Story with Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert. My father fell asleep at Cats and my mother said she had a hard time staying awake herself.

Our stereo console was filled with “original Broadway cast” albums from all those shows and more – well, not Cats. When I was kid I would put on an album of, say, South Pacific and pretend I was Mary Martin washing that man out of my hair – oh, and I still do that in the shower some times:

“When a man don’t understand you, When you fly on separate beams,

 “Waste no time, Make a change,

 “Ride that man right off your range. Rub him out of your roll call,

 “And drum him out of your dreams.”

Yes, I am singing as I type.

My brother and I would put on West Side Story and dance around the living room, jumping on and off the chairs and the tables and sofas and getting into a lot of trouble. Later on, my mom often took Glenn and I into town to see revivals of these shows and others. In 1966 my father was laid up with a really bad ankle sprain, so I was privileged to go with my mom to see the one and only Ethel Merman in the revival of Annie Get Your Gun at Lincoln Center.

So it’s safe to say that I grew up on Broadway musicals. And love them. I have more Broadway soundtracks on my iTunes playlist than anything else – perhaps not cool, but fuck you and your Beyonce and Adele. One of my proudest and happiest moments and one that I will remember on my deathbed is when I played Peter Pan in Peter Pan at Camp Monroe. I have also played Ado Annie in Oklahoma and every single female role in Fiddler on the Roof except for Golde (Tevye’s wife, for those not in the know). I was Miss Mazeppa, bumping with my trumpet and in full Roman centurion regalia, in Gypsy.

So it’s safe to say that I grew up on Broadway musicals. And that it has continued into adulthood and to the present day. I became mesmerized by Hugh Jackman long before he was Wolverine when John and I went to see him as Curly in a revival of Oklahoma. And I became familiar with Melissa Benoist and Grant Gustin and Darren Criss long before any of them put on a superhero costume through my allegiance to Glee. And I knew Jesse L. Martin as Tom Collins from Rent, not to mention Victor Garber from Godspell, Sweeney Todd, and the 1990 revival of Damn Yankees.

And of course I knew John Barrowman from his days as Captain Jack on Doctor Who. But I never watched Smash, so I never caught on that Jeremy Jordan could sing and dance until last week…

…which was, of course, the crossover musical episode of The Flash called “Duet.”

It was wonderful.

It started in the epilogue of Supergirl on Monday night, in which Darren Criss pops up as the Music Meister, who does “something” to Kara which places her in a seemingly coma and then pops off to find the “fastest man alive.” Meanwhile, Kara wakes to find herself in a nightclub in what looks like the 1940s, dressed in a gorgeous gold beaded gown with a man telling her that she is the last-minute opening act. She steps through the curtains, and finds herself standing in front of a microphone and an audience. She opens her mouth and…to be continued.

And on The Flash the next night…

A young Barry Allen is watching Singin’ in the Rain with his mother, who is, uh, singing the praises of the musical. Then, in present time, Barry is watching Singin’ in the Rain and other classic musicals to soothe his tormented soul over his breakup with Iris. “Everything is better in song,” he says to Cisco, with whom he has moved in as a temporary(?) roommate.

Called to S.T.A.R. Labs because of a breach in the multiverse, they find Mon-El carrying a still-comatose Kara and J’onn Jonzz, who have come to Barry’s Earth because of the Music Meister’s claim to be looking for the Flash. The villain shows up, puts Barry into the same coma-like state as Kara, and suddenly Barry finds himself in the same nightclub as his Kryptonian friend… and she is up on stage, singing “Moon River.” (One of my favorites – from the not-musical Breakfast at Tiffany’s, in which Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly sings the lovely ballad, composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, while sitting on her fire escape and accompanying herself with a guitar.)

After Kara finishes her performance, the Music Meister pops in and tells them what’s going on – they are actually living this scenario psychically, or “in their own minds,” while their bodies lay undisturbed and inanimate in S.T.A.R. labs. Why the musical setting? Because both are deeply connected to the genre – Barry through his mom, and Kara through her love of The Wizard of Oz. They both must follow the plot of this mind-blowing musical to its end to recover and get back to the real world. Except: “If you die in here, you die out there.”

The episode is full of remarkable performances. Perhaps, at least for me, the best was the beautiful rendition of “More I Cannot Wish You” from Guys and Dolls sung by Jesse, Victor, and John. Grant’s interpretation of “Running Home to You” is heartbreaking and glorious. “Super Friend” is a treat to watch, with Grant and Melissa singing and hoofing and having a joyous time. Jeremy, Darren, John, and Carlos (Valdes) swing to “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.” And Melissa’s “Moon River” is, just, well, I just have to sing along…

 “You dream maker, you heartbreaker,

 “Wherever you’re going, I’m going your way.”

 “Two drifters, off to see the world.

 “There’s such a lot of world to see. We’re after the same rainbow’s end,”

 “Waiting ‘round the bend, my huckleberry friend,

 “Moon River, And me.”

Brava!!!!

Also… Encore!!!!

 

Mindy Newell: What Is Human?

Death has been everywhere lately this March of 2017. Actor Bill Paxton. Rock and Roll pioneer Chuck Berry. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Jimmy Breslin. The great artist Bernie Wrightson. Underground comics’ Jay Lynch and Skip Williamson. ComicMix’s Tweeks Maddy and Anya Ernst’s grandmother. Fellow columnist Marc Alan Fishman’s college friend. My dad.

As Martha Thomases said last week, although in an entirely different context – Too Much! Too Much!

Radiolab, which airs on NPR – check your local station – is a show that features issues both philosophical and scientific. In its 15th year, I was listening on Saturday as the hosts, Jay Abrumrad and Robert Kulwich, discussed a case brought to their attention by reporter Ike Siskandarajah. It was called “Mutant Rights.”

Two international tariff lawyers, Sherry Singer and Indie Singh, discovered that the legal classification of “doll” were taxed at a higher rate – 12% – than the legal classification of “toy,” at 6.8%. This was because dolls are considered “human,” and toys, such as figures of robots and demons and vampires and monsters, are not. A very strange idea to begin with, but what really piqued their interest was that Ms. Singer and Ms. Singh happened to include in their client list none other than Marvel Entertainment, also known – around here, at least – as Marvel Comics. And Marvel was importing its action figures as “dolls.”

This meant that Ms. Singer and Ms. Singh set out to save $$$ for their client by using the X-Men action figures to claim that these representations of the mutant superheroes were not human, and therefore should be taxed at the same lower rate as toys. To help illustrate their point, the two lawyers collected between 60 and 80 samples of action figures, and especially the mutant X-Men.

Bryan Singer, oft-time director and executive producer of the X-Men movie and television franchise, discussed the history of the X-Men with Ike and the two lawyers, reflecting on the history of the X-Men, and how, throughout their history, they have represented those who are different from or outside the society in which they live, whether by skin color or sexual preference or religion or place of birth or, well, whatever.

But the crazy thing is, the court case, which lasted over ten years, became to be about what it means to be human (as did the segment). And the final verdict? All Marvel actions figures, whether representing mutants or not, are now classified as “non-human” – therefore, toys.

But does that ruling apply to all the action figures from all the companies from all the world? I mean, not all action figures are created equal. Kal-El is Kryptonian, so that’s easy, and Diana is either made from clay or half-goddess, depending on which origin you prefer (YMMV), so that’s easy, too. Buffy’s powers come from the demon darkness, Willow and Tara are witches, Oz is a werewolf, Angel and Spike are vampires. But what about Giles? And Xander? And what about Bruce Wayne, and Dick Grayson, who may classify as superheroes, but are totally and completely human?

I’m guessing that, having set a precedent with this ruling, imported action figures, if they are connected to comics or other popular media specializing in science fiction and fantasy, are paying the lower 6.8% import tariff. But…

This is a case for ComicMix’s resident commenting attorney.

Up, up, and away, SuperBob!

Mindy Newell: Not An Imaginary Story

bucky-and-captain-america-150x197-1666480robin-dead-150x197-8697931It used to be that the death of a superhero was an “Imaginary Story” or a What If…? tale.  Then, with the death of Superman in 1992, it became all about the publicity, the sales boost, the net dollars.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the accountants. The impermanence, the easy reversibility of death trampled on the audience’s feelings; we felt disrespected and we fought back in the only way we could – with our wallets. And the companies answered with more stunts and more exploitative stories in which heroes like Captain America and Spider-Man died and were brought back, or supporting characters like Aunt May and Jason Todd died and were brought back, and when that stopped working, they revived long-dead characters like Bucky Barnes.

Sometimes it works out. The morphing of Bucky into the Winter Soldier was and continues to be a brilliant piece of storytelling.

And sometimes people who are dead stay dead. Gwen Stacy. Uncle Ben. Karen Page. Thomas and Martha Wayne. Jor-El and Lara. Their deaths are constant echoes in the lives of Spider-Man and Daredevil and Batman and Superman. Their lives continue to reverberate in the hearts of those who loved them.

My father died a week ago today. His death will be a constant echo in my life. His life will always reverberate in my heart.

“Papa, how I love you…

“Papa, how I need you…

“Papa, how I miss you…

“Kissing me good night.”

  • Barbra Streisand, Yentl (1983)

Mindy Newell: Maybe You Haven’t Been Keeping Up, But…”

Bill Maher may be claiming that he’s responsible for kicking Milo Yiannopoulos off of Breitbart and out of the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) convention – or whatever the hell their annual party is called – but the truth is I did it. Yep, those words I “uttered” last week did it. Di pen shist erger fun a fayl, which is the Yiddish way of saying that the pen is mightier than the sword. Okay, for you purists out there, the actual translation is The pen stings worse than an arrow.

Well, Milo might be gone – and don’t let the door hit you on the ass your way out, luzer (Yiddish for “loser) – but the hate just keeps on coming. In a bar in Kansas, a piece of drek (Yiddish for “shit,” and I promise to stop with the Yiddish already) who had been asked to leave for using racial slurs came back with a gun, shouted, “Get the hell out of my country,” and then shot two men, both from India. One was killed, the other wounded.

Anti-Semitism is clearly on the uptick, with – you’re not going to believe this – 19,253 tweets against Jewish journalists since you-know-who started his campaign, over 70 bomb threats made over the phone to Jewish community centers in the two months since the election, and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries in Philadelphia and the St. Louis areas. Attacks against Muslims are spiking, too; in my own city a jerk named Jonathan Hussey was arrested by the police for writing “Fuck Muslims,” “Fuck Allah,” “Fuck Arabs” and “Donald Trump” on the recently opened Muslim Community Center. In Queens, New York a Moroccan Uber driver caught the driver of an SUV on film yelling “Trump is president, asshole, so you can kiss your fuckin’ visa goodbye, scumbag, we’ll deport you soon, don’t worry, you fuckin’ terrorist” at him. Mosques have been vandalized and set on fire.

Overall the Southern Poverty Law Center has been kept busy since President Trump – I still shiver whenever I put those two words together – was inaugurated, tracking 700 incidents like the above, not only against Jews and Muslims, but also against Latino, immigrants, African-Americans, and the LGBTQ community. He took office on January 22. Today is February 27. That’s one month and six days.

“Oh, dear Lord Jesus, this ain’t happening, man…This can’t be happening, man! This isn’t happening!”

Private Hudson uttered those words in Aliens; the man who played him, Bill Paxton, 61, died on Saturday (February 25) from, according to his family, “surgical complications.”

I loved Bill Paxton. I loved him in Aliens, I loved him in Titanic, in Twister, and Apollo 13, on Big Love on HBO and on the 2014 season of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., in which he played S.H.I.E.L.D. agent John Garret, a Hydra mole.

His other credits – over 80 of them – include Weird Science, Tombstone, Predator 2 and the History Channel’s “Hatfields & McCoys” mini-series, for which he won an Emmy for his Randolph McCoy. There was something so personable and real about Paxton’s acting – like every great character actor, he was able to project the “average Joe” as a doppelganger for us, the audience. C’mon, wouldn’t you have reacted like Private Hudson if you were trapped on a planet where the mission turned sour?

I’ll leave you with one more quote from Bill Paxton as Private Hudson in Aliens:

“Is he fuckin’ crazy?”

Yes, he is. At least you won’t have to suffer the indignities of the coming years.

Our headline atop this week’s column is a quote from Bill Paxton as Private Hudson in Aliens (1986).

Rest in peace, Mr. Paxton.

The staff of ComicMix offers our most heartfelt condolences to Mindy on the loss of her father, WWII fighter pilot Meyer Newell. Mindy often spoke of him here in this space, and our respect, admiration and gratitude knows no bounds.

 

Mindy Newell: Homeland, 24: Legacy and Yiannopoulos, Oh My!

Before I get into the meat of today’s column…

Do you watch comedian and political satirist Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO, Friday, 10 PM ET)? What I especially love about Mr. Maher’s show is that he invites people on who are from all shades of the political spectrum and that he’s unafraid of calling out bullshit when he sees it, whether it’s coming from the left, the right, or anywhere in the middle. Yes, he can be crass, profane, and occasionally downright rude, but he’s not sitting on the sidelines.

One of Friday night’s guests was Milo Yiannopoulos, a public speaker and a senior editor for Breitbart News, the alt-right news site that brought us such lovely individuals as Steve Bannon. This was my first experience with this guy, and it was incredibly unpleasant and I cannot be-lieve that anyone takes this very sad, very mixed-up little boy seriously. Er iz a meyvn vi a bok af a klezmer, which translates to He’s an expert like a goat’s an expert on musicians.

Homeland has been back for a month, and though perhaps the first three chapters were a bit slow and tedious in the set-up, last week’s episode kicked the series into high gear. To bring you up to date, Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) is back in the States, living in Brooklyn with her daughter by the now-dead Nicholas Brody (Damien Lewis) and working for a foundation whose goal is to help Muslims living in America, while secretly advising the new President-Elect on foreign policy and the intelligence agencies motives and games. The foundation’s latest client is Sekou Bah, a teenage convert to Islam who had been arrested by the FBI for terrorist-related activities – he had been posting videos critical of American policy towards Islam and the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the incoming President’s policy agenda – she wants to cut down on what she terms “America’s interference with foreign countries” – is antithetical to Carrie’s old co-workers at the CIA, Saul Berenson (Mandy Pantikin) and Dar Adal (F. Murray Abraham); they believe that Iran is clandestinely working with North Korea on a “parallel nuclear” project – in other words, Iran is helping North Korea build a nuclear bomb and the means to deliver it – and breaking the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a.k.a. the “Iran deal.”

And Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) is one fucked-up ex-spy; no, he didn’t die in that hospital bed last season – as I and just about everyone believed – but he is suffering not only from the lingering physical effects of the Sarin gas, but also one helluva case of PTSD. When we first saw him, he was living in a V.A. rehab center; now he is living in the basement of Carrie’s brownstone. And he has discovered that someone is spying on Carrie from an apartment across the street – only Carrie doesn’t believe him.

Last week’s episode, “A Flash of Light,” saw Saul visiting his sister, who lives in the disputed West Bank of Israel, using her as an excuse to hide his real reason for being there – to meet an Iranian general and ask him to investigate Iran’s [possible] “parallel nuclear program” with North Korea. The general agrees, but as Saul is about to leave for the airport to return to the States, the Israelis pick him. They know that a senior Iranian official was in Palestinian area of the West Bank, and they know that Saul had crossed over the previous night. They detain him.

Meanwhile, Carrie has used her espionage skills to get the FBI to release Sekou and to clear him. There is one warning – that Sekou not post any more videos. But when Sekou arrives home, his friends are suspicious of how he got off, and think he has become an informant. To prove them wrong, Sekou posts a new vid, in which he outs the real FBI informant, a former gang member named Saad Masoud. Carrie is able to eventually convince Sekou to take it down; although she does not tell him she is ex-CIA, she does let him know that not only will the Feds lock up Sekou and throw away the key, she could go to jail if it is discovered that she took what she calls “highly risky measures” to clear him.

That night, Quinn, who is now convinced that the man across the street is spying on Carrie – he broke into the apartment and found a stool placed next to the window; its indentations in the carpet indicate to him that he has been there a long time – takes her car and tracks the man, who has been picked up by a car. He follows him to Medina Medley, a warehouse and distribution center where Sekou works; Quinn takes pictures, until a cop hurries him along for illegal parking.

The next day newspapers feature a story on the President-Elect having information on Iran’s nuclear program and not acting on it. She believes Dar Adal leaked the story. She wants Carrie to give her information on Dar – and by inference, Saul – that the new administration can use against him, but Carrie is reluctant to betray her former colleagues. She leaves to pick up her daughter on the street, where Dar is waiting for her – he makes a nasty crack about the color of her daughter’s hair, a reference to Carrie’s affair with Nicholas Brody – and tells her he knows that Carrie is giving the President-Elect advice. When Carrie denies it, he says, “I’m not Saul.” (Great line!)

He tells her that she has been out of the CIA for three years, and that none of her information is pertinent.

The next morning, Sekou is back at work. He drives his delivery van into midtown Manhattan.  He hears a beeping. The van explodes.

And in Israel, Saul is told he’s being released. “You’re needed back home. There’s been an attack in New York.”

A great cliffhanger. And which today, as you’re reading this, will have been only sorta resolved, because the thing with Homeland is that you still don’t know what’s coming next…even if you think you do.

Which brings me to…

I’ve also been watching 24: Legacy. I don’t know if I’m going to stay with it. For one thing, I’ve been missing Supergirl, which is on the CW the same time Legacy is on Fox, Monday at 8 P.M. ET, and CBS video-on-demand is lagging behind the Girl of Steel’s episodes, and I don’t want to pay for CBS All-Access. But the other thing is that 24: Legacy kinda sucks.

I don’t know whether it’s because I’m missing Jack and Chloe and Tony and everyone else at the “old” CTU, or whether it’s because the plotting on 24: Legacy is “eh.” I’m not going to go into an extensive rundown of it, because I’ve already immersed you into my recap of Homeland; but one thing that really bothers me is the “jealous girlfriend,” a trope so old that its gray hair is showing. The other thing that’s really bothersome is that I can see the “twists-and-turns” coming from a mile away. For instance, last week, when the new Jack Bauer – see, I can’t even remember his name – was stuck in a police precinct with every cop and SWAT team member about to blow him away, I knew that CTU was going to ring up in the nick of time and call off the dogs. (And that was the cliffhanger the previous week. That’s a long time to see what’s coming.) I only rarely guessed what was about to happen on Jack’s 24. More important, I didn’t want to. I just wanted to lose myself in the story – and I was.

That ain’t happening with what one of our readers, ReneeCat, calls 24: Light. Nope. I’ll give it one more episode, which is being more than fair. But I’ll watch it later, either on VOD or via streaming.

Because tonight I’m watching Supergirl.

 

Mindy Newell: Collecting

Yesterday was a tough one for the Newell family. Actually, the past few months haven’t been easy; my dad is – well, the best way to describe the situation is that my father is a soul trapped in the shell of what was once a healthy, vibrant human being. To be honest, I don’t know why he isn’t dead. And my mom had a stroke about a month ago – and although she’s up and walking around (with the aid of a walker), the energetic and vivacious woman with whom I laughed and fought and loved is gone, too, leaving behind an old lady who is dip-shit batty – though I must admit that some of what she says is pretty funny.

And at least they both are in the same nursing home.

We have spent the last few weeks cleaning out their apartment – especially my brother, who has the responsibility of doing most of the work and coordinating everything, since he lives only seven miles away from their adult community complex in a town on the Jersey side of Philadelphia. Alixandra, Jeff, and I have had at least the luxury of distance in dealing with all this as we all live in the metropolitan New York area; meaning that we are there on weekends, but Glenn is there every single fucking day. So here’s a shout-out to you, bro – you rock!

Anyway, I’m not about to tell you that while cleaning their place yesterday I found a mint copy of Superman’s first appearance (Action Comics #1, June 1938) buried beneath old photos and magazine in a beat-up old trunk. If only, right? ‘Cause the Los Angeles Times reported in August 2014 that a copy of that iconic comic went for a record-breaking $3.2 million. I’m not even sure if either of my parents ever read or were even aware of it; though come to think of it, now I do have a faint memory – or perhaps it’s just a wistful thought – of my father saying that he did, or maybe it was that one of his friends was reading it. I’m not sure.

Come to think of it, I do know that my mom said she never read comics, but neither of them objected to my reading them years later, especially after my uncle, a New York City Public School principal, said that it was wonderful that “she was reading, and understanding what she read, at such a young age.” Of course, reading a comic book was strictly taboo if I hadn’t done my homework or at the kitchen table during meals – which I never understood, because my father read the newspaper during breakfast, especially on Sunday mornings. The funny thing is, I don’t remember my brother reading comics. That doesn’t mean he didn’t – I just called him to check on that, and he said, “No.” I said, “Never?” He said “Aah, maybe once in a while, Richie Rich or something…”

Although there always were comics around the house, nobody ever saved them. They might lie around my room for a while, but eventually they made their way into the garbage. Which is why all the old comics are worth so much these days, because they are rare – it’s like real estate, y’know? When it comes to real estate, it’s location, location, location. When it comes to comic books, it’s rarity, rarity, rarity.

But there were plenty of other printed words. In the form of books.

You remember books, right?

My parents were voracious readers, and they collected books. They were probably charter members of the Book-of-the-Month Club, and the New York Times Book Review was read as much as the Sports or Style sections. (I remember my parents tearing out reviews of certain books and taking them along to the bookstore. Remember bookstores? And in their bookshelves were everything from popular bestsellers to beautifully bound in leather and slip-cased classics.

Books like Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The Collected Works of Somerset Maugham. Salome by Oscar Wilde. The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. All five novels of the Leatherstocking Tales by James Feinmore Cooper (and illustrated by Newell Wyeth, Andrew’s father). First editions of The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway), Giant (Edna Ferber), Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, and Winston Churchill’s five-volume history, The Second World War. And those titles are just off the top of my head. There are three huge boxes of books sitting in the hatchback of my Toyota Matrix right now, too heavy to struggle with in the cold, sleety rain last night to bring upstairs to my apartment.

I am planning on keeping almost all of them. But last week my brother and I were wondering if any of them might be worth on the market. So I did a little research on the web, ending up at the Antiques Roadshow site, and found out that, for instance, the Heritage Print, 1939 edition of Great Expectations is worth $450 – $500. The Collected Works of Somerset Maugham, Doubleday, 1953, is worth $250 – $300. And I don’t even like Maugham.

Wow.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that, if we decide to sell them, that’s what we’ll get. Vagaries of the market, and all that, and of course it depends on whether or not we sell them directly or to a dealer – the dealer automatically taking 20 or 30%.

And, of course, chances are that I’ll end up keeping them even though I don’t know where the hell I’m going to put them. *sigh* Alix claimed shotgun on my parents’ bookshelves. Time to go to Ikea.

But in all likelihood, there’s a few thousand dollars worth of books sitting in the back of my 1994 Matrix right now. Thank God the roof doesn’t leak.

Hmmm…

Wonder what that old Time Magazine, dated December 22, 1980, is worth? It’s the one with John Lennon on the cover.

 

Mindy Newell: Have A Coke And A Snark

I watched the second episode of Riverdale mainly because there wasn’t anything else on that interested me, and secondly because I wanted to give it another chance. I admit to having a negative disposition towards the show – the premiere, if you recall, elicited an unenthusiastic response from me. So let me start with what I liked…

Ummm…Hmmm…

Nope. Sorry. Aside from the twisting of an American icon into something dark and twisted – hey, did Zack Snyder have anything to do with the production? – small things just kept aggravating me. Like Archie’s hair bothers me. Hey, for 76 years (the first appearance of Archie, Betty, and Veronica was in Pep Comics, cover-dated December 1941) the guy has been a true “carrot-top,” his coloring closer to Damien Lewis (Homeland, Billions), but Mr. Apa’s hair – and I grant you, the kid has some terrific head of hair on him – is a dark chestnut, as if a henna rinse was applied to his brunette locks… and not all of it took.

Am I being silly? Yeah, perhaps. After all, the original Barry Allen, a.k.a., the Flash, has blonde hair and blue eyes, and Grant Gustin, who plays him on TV, has light brown hair and eyes. But Mr. Gustin and his supporting characters are so well written, the show is so engaging, that holding fast and true to their comic book driver license pictures and ID’s becomes secondary to the viewer – at least this viewer.

And although Lili Reinhart and Camilla Mendes do honor the looks of their four-color progenitors (Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge, respectively), I’m not feeling them. In my mind, I keep substituting Kristen Bell and Charisma Carpenter (as they were back in the day on those other teenagers-in-high-school-hell) for Ms. Reinhart and Ms. Mendes. This is not to impugn the talent of either of the later two; there just hasn’t been any there yet to separate them from any other starlet.

As for Case Cott’s Kevin Keller – can he do anything else besides drool over some other male character? Sheesh, how one-dimensional can you get? Okay, we get it, he’s gay. Jesus, enough already with the tokenism. (Tell us how you really feel, Mindy.)

The only character I find intriguing at all is Forsyth Pendleton Jones, a.k.a. Jughead, which is ironic, because he has always been the least interesting character to me in the comics. Played by Cole Sprouse, Jughead is the guy just standing off from the center of activity, the one who marches to the beat of a different drum, the neo-beatnik, the observer. He’s the type girls’ parents really warn them about (as opposed to Betty’s mother cautioning her about Archie). Im-not-so-ho, if the show is to succeed, it needs to hitch its wagon to Jughead Jones.

Right now, the Super Bowl pregame show is on. I am really, really, really rootin’ for the Atlanta Falcons, if only to wipe that smug smile off of Tom Brady. I know the guy is one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game, but there’s always been something about him that irks me, and always has. And it doesn’t have anything to do with Deflate-gate, or even Brady’s support of Il Trumpci. (Yeah, “Make America Great Again,” you poor, poor multi-millionaire.) So, Go, Falcons!!!

Great commercial on right now with “Oh, My!” George Takei. (I think it was for Pizza Hut.) The other commercial I want to see is the Stranger Things Season 2 teaser trailer.

There’s another premiere following tonight’s game. I read the New York Times review, and here’s piece of it, by Neil Genzlinger:

“Until the Trump presidency became a reality, the main order of business in any review of  24: Legacy would have been to assess whether the franchise is still viable without Jack Bauer, Kiefer Sutherland’s memorable counterterrorism operative, as its lead character. Now, though, and especially given the events of the past week, it’s the show’s chosen villains, not its hero, who demand attention.

“That’s because a good number of them speak in foreign accents, and some embody President Trump’s bogyman of the moment, the radical Muslim terrorist.

“The premiere was filmed back when it seemed unlikely that Mr. Trump would be elected – it was screened in New York on November 7 – but the opening moments play as if they were scripted to support the immigration restrictions he imposed last week. The series grows considerably more layered as it goes along, with the panoply of villains encompassing a variety of demographics, yet the choice of a bin Laden surrogate as the starting point is sure to reignite the debate over the demonization of Muslims that “24” has encountered before.”

And Coca-Cola just had a beautiful commercial – men, women, and children of different ethnicities, religions, and colors singing America the Beautiful.

If that bastard in the White House and his band of malevolent goons are watching –

Have a Coke on me.

Mindy Newell: Utopia, Dystopia, Death…and Riverdale

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Sir John Hurt died a few days ago. One of Great Britain’s finest actors, his rise started with his turn as Robert Rich, a courtier and lawyer in Henry VIII’s court, in Fred Zimmerman’s A Man for All Seasons. The movie, based upon Robert Bolt’s play about the fall of, British Lord Chancellor Thomas More, could be considered a science fiction story as it deals with a perfectly harmonious island society that was nowhere to be found in More’s 16th century – or in the 21st, for that matter.

Sir John, in his long and brilliant career, was no stranger to our brand of cultural pop geekdom. Besides his outstanding turn as the War Doctor on the 50th anniversary special Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor – he recreated the War Doctor on four sets of audio plays for Big Finish; three are already out, and the fourth is debuting next month (and thanks to editor Mike Gold for the info) his filmography includes Alien; Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Parts 1 and 25; Snowpiercer; Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; V for Vendetta; and 1984.

I am struck with irony. Sir John rose to prominence in a movie about the man who coined the term “Utopia,” and later starred as the protagonist – Winston Smith – in the film adaptation of 1984, the classic, definitive novel of a dystopian society. Dystopian being, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, “[a]n imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one; the opposite of utopia” – just in case you needed to look it up. Which I doubt.

But here’s why I am “struck with irony,” and I quote from Friday’s (January 27) New York Times in “Why ‘1984’ is a 2017 Must-Read,” by the Times critic Michicko Kakutani:

“1984 shot to No. 1 on Amazon’s best-seller list this week after Kellyanne Conway, an advisor to President Trump, described demonstrative falsehoods told by the White House press secretary Sean Spicer – regarding the size of inaugural crowds – as ‘alternative facts’. It was a phrase chillingly reminiscent, for many readers, of the Ministry of Truth’s efforts in ‘1984’ at ‘reality control’. To Big Brother and the Party, Orwell wrote, ‘the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresies of heresy was common sense’. Regardless of the facts, ‘Big Brother is omnipotent’ and ‘the Party is infallible’.”

Sir John died the same day the article appeared.

There was another article in the Times, on Saturday, Jan 28, this one by Alexandra Alter, “Fears for the Future Prompt a Boon for Dystopian Classics,” in which the journalist wrote that sales have “also risen for [Orwell’s] Animal Farm, as well as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here. She also notes that last weekend, at the Women’s March in D.C. (and, I add, around the country and the world, including Antarctica), signs were everywhere referencing Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The book, which was written 32 years ago, has never been out of print – Ms. Alter notes that it in 2016 sales were up 30%, that it is in its 52nd printing, and that “Ms. Atwood’s publisher has reprinted 100,000 copies in the last three months to meet a spike in demand.”

In other news, Mary Tyler Moore died two days before John Hurt, on Wednesday, January 25. You young ‘uns may not remember, unless you catch reruns, but Ms. Moore starred on The Dick Van Dyke Show Laura Petrie, wife of Van Dyke’s Rob. She broke the mold of the then current (1960s) suburban housewives on television sitcoms; her Laura was well-read (she often had a book in her hand) talented (she was a dancer), fashion-forward (when Laura started wearing Capris, every housewife in America started wearing the cropped pants), daring (she dyed her hair blonde), and sexy (there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Rob and Laura closed the door to their bedroom for a reason.) And she and Rob had fights, too.

Then, in 1970, she broke the mold again, starring as single woman Mary Richards “making it on her own” working in the newsroom of a small television network in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Originally Mary Richards was going to be divorced, but there are two reasons that didn’t happen: divorced women were still an anathema to network execs in 1970, and there was actual fear that the audience would think that Laura Petrie had divorced Rob, and which would totally kill the show before it even got started. So the suits decided that Mary Richards had broken off her engagement. Along with a stellar cast that included Ed Asner as her boss Lou Grant, Valerie Harper as her best friend Rhoda Morgenstern, Ted Knight as the dimwit anchorman Ted Baxter, Betty White as devious, superficial Sue Ann Nivens, Cloris Leachman as neighbor Phyllis Lindstrom, Georgia Engle as Georgette Franklin, Ted Baxter’s ditzy yet smart girlfriend, and Gavin MacLeod as news writer Murray Slaughter, The Mary Tyler Moore Show won 29 Emmys and three Golden Globes, along with too many honors to mention.

And though the network chickened out of allowing Mary to be divorced, along the way there were plenty of separations, divorces, living together, and, yes, marriages. But Mary Richards ended the show as she started – single and living alone.

Journalist and television anchor Jane Pauley, writing in the New York Times on Thursday, January 26, noted that the “The Mary Tyler Moore Show started several years before two words, ‘and women,’ were inserted into an F.C.C. affirmative action clause pertaining to television station hiring. That might have helped women like me get a job, but Mary Richards may already have opened as many doors; she had made a woman in the newsroom seem normal.”

And speaking of death – one that occurs off-screen but will drive the plot of the show’s first season – I watched the premiere of Riverdale on Thursday night.

So far, not crazy over it.

Here are my texts to editor Mike about it:

“I thought it sucked.”

“That was the only funny part, if you’re an Archie fan. Lots of very weird scenarios running through this dirty mind.” (Regarding the scene between Archie and Miss Grundy doing the dance of the two-backed snake in the car.)

“Trying too hard.”

“Betty and Veronica instant friends? Ronnie would definitely not feel any guilt right away.” (Regarding getting it on with Archie.)

“Just seemed like it was plotted from one of those computer programs on how to write a screenplay.”

“Dialogue seemed false.”

“Best one was Ronnie’s mother.”

“Well, maybe next week will be better. Some of Buffy’s first season sucked, too.”

“I love Archie, too.”

“Trying too hard to be Twin Peaks.”

“Too hard.”

“Gonna eat dinner.”

Wait.

That one was about my growling stomach, not Riverdale.

 

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