The Drink Tank 196 (2009).pdf

The Drink Tank Issue 196

Garcia@computerhistory.org

That is a Mo Starkey cover which

might be the most accurate drawing

of me ever done! It captures my

grizzled prospector nature, I think.

There’s some Genevieve art in here

as well~!

wearing a Nazi uniform. This is

obviously a Frank Miller thing, but

she’s so hot in it, I felt terrible. Samuel

L. Jackson was good in it, as he loves

chewing scenery, and the guy playing

The Spirit was OK. I liked Plaster of

Paris, she’s played by the incredible

Paz Vega, and I thought that the ilm

had a couple of moments, but Frank

Miller is not the one you want writing

a story like thing. One of his classic

quote is ‘Whores, whores, whores,

whores, whores!’ His ilm writing hasn’t

been great, though I thought that Sin

City was pretty good.

The DVDs were much more

frequent, I think that The Spirit made

me less likely to want to go to the

movies (that, and there really wasn’t

much that I wanted to see). The DVDs

I got for Christmas were a bit of a

dog’s breakfast, as it were. Mamma

Mia, the terrible ilm version of the

awesome stage show of ABBA hits, was

one of them. I had it on as I worked

on various zine bits. I got The Golden

Compass, a ilm I’d never managed

to make it through before when I

had it from Netlix and on the plane

to England. I wasn’t a fan. I actually

made it through to the end, partly

because through the middle moments,

I was working on Claims Department.

I also got The Dark Knight, which I

haven’t watched again, partly because

it’s not a short ilm and it’s one that I’d

want to actually pay attention to.

Sometimes, it gets tiring

being this awesome. I mean, how

am I supposed to keep it up? This

Christmas break, I basically did

nothing. I went to my Mom’s, I wrote

a few zines, I sent a bunch of TAFF

ballots, I worked on more articles and

zines, I ate a lot and I watched a lot of

movies. A whole lot of movies. I think I

averaged about four DVDs a day and I

went to the theatres twice.

First off, Bedtime Stories, the

Adam Sandler ilm that’s on screens

now, is a decent ilm. Sandler’s a funny

guy who often goes too far over the top

(see You Don’t Mess with the Zohan)

and here he pulls back and becomes a

family-friendly dude. He’s good working

with the two kids in the movie, both

of whom are almost excessively cute.

Well, I think they’re excessively cute. I

can only stand so much. The story is

simple: Sandler tells stories and they

come true…sort of. Kerri Russell is in

it and she’s ine, as is Courtney Cox,

who only stops by for a bit of the ilm.

There’s a piece for Lucy Lawless and

for my man Mr. Guy Pierce. He sorta

fell off the Earth, didn’t he? I mean,

after LA Conidential, I thought he’d

be a huge star, but alas, no. There

are some really good bits, especially

featuring the marvelous Russell Brand,

the guy who made Forgetting Sarah

Marshall the great ilm of the summer.

I would say you should see it.

The Spirit is quite another story.

There’s beautiful work in it. Simply

beautiful cinematography which slides

between sepia and red-splashed black

and white. There’s a lot of dialing down

on the saturation, which is a trend I’m

not that much a fan of. There’s the

beautiful Sara Paulson, from Down

with Love and some TV shows I didn’t

like, and there’s the amazingly hot Eva

Mendez. There’s the gorgeous Scarlett

Johannson as The Octopus’ assistant.

She’s the hottest one in the ilm.

She’s smokin’ beyond all reasonable

comprehension. At one point, she’s

On New Year’s Day, I bought four

videos from Hollywood because Linda

was sick so I wouldn’t be hanging out

with her. That made me sad, but I

found that Hollywood Video was having

a Buy 2, Get 2 deal. I tend to buy ilms

that I’m only half-way into at deals like

those. The irst one was a ilm I already

owned, but it was also the Unbearably

Long, Self-Indulgent Director’s Cut. It

was Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

At 2 hours, it was 1/3 again as long

as the theatrical version. It’s so much

better than the original in that the

biggest problem with the original was

that it felt like it had been hacked up

and major segments had been tossed

aside. This one brings some of that

material back and it works much

better. Yeah, it’s a touch long, but it

works really well.

You Don’t Mess With The Zohan

I saw in the theatre and it was bad,

but on DVD, it’s the kind that you can

have on and do stuff. Still, even on

DVD, I wasn’t into it. There weren’t any

good extras, though.

Tropic Thunder might be the

most wrong movie ever made, but

it’s also damn funny. This is the best

comedy that came out this year and

it’s gory and hilarious. Jack Black

was largely wasted in the ilm, but I

thought that Ben Stiller gave one of his

best performances in ages. I usually

don’t like him, but here he was great.

The performance of my main man

Jay Burchell was great. This was the

year of Robert Downey Jr. and he

was awesome playing the Australian

actor had pigmentation enhancement

(an actual surgery, by the way) so

that he could play the black sergeant

of the company. It was a weird role,

but it worked. Of course, Matthew

McConnahey was really good, as there

are a lot of folks who hate him, and

I’ve been with that at times, but here

he was really funny. Tom Cruise’s

performance was way over the top and

was just another thing that made it a

ine ilm. I didn’t get a chance to watch

the extras, but I hear they’re pretty

good.

Sadly, the ilm that got the most

attention from me was The Love Guru.

Why’d I buy it when I really didn’t like

it in the theatre? Well, I am working

on a complete Mike Myers collection,

plus I’d heard that there were some

awesome extras, which there were. The

thing is, the movie is perfect for what

I was using it as. I’d just put it on and

start writing. I don’t know if I watched

every frame of the ilm because I’d tune

in for a second, and then tune back

into whatever else I was doing.

Yes, I feel terrible because Mike

Myers was easily at his worst in this

one. He’s usually funny with a bit of

wry to his work, and here he’s just

lat-out annoying. As the Guru Pitka,

he’s over-the-top, even by Mike Myers

standards. There’s an equally over-

the-top Ben Kingsley and Jessica

Alba’s also pretty lat, though she’s

always nice to look at. I actually think

that Vern Troyer is the highlight of an

otherwise terrible lick.

And while I was watching

these licks, I was writing Claims

Department. You may have read some

of the early issues on eFanzines. It was

my irst GimmickZine, basically the

story of me doin’ stuff and the movies,

music and books that went along with

them. The issue I just did was simple,

a weekend at home where I planned

on doin’ a bunch of stuff, but I was

waylaid a couple of times. Simple and

overly-long, somewhere around 10K

words, I wrote it up and managed to

print 25 copies. And that led to an

interesting problem. I had to igure out

who to give ‘em to.

You see, I like to give my zines to

folks who may or may not be the kind

who regularly read zines. I looked at

all the people I regularly send zines to

and I sorta shifted it to get folks who

wouldn’t normally see my stuff. And

since I was giving away 10 at BASFA,

since they’re the best bunch of folks I

know, I had 15 to send out.

I irst took a couple of extra

labels I had from the TAFF mailing,

those going to Australia and Sweden,

and igured that those could go instead

of being wasted. I sent three to Oz,

one to Sweden. That seemed right. I

igured a couple of people in the UK

might be interested, and a few folks in

Canada. Sadly, I thought I’d sent one

to Lloyd Penney, but apparently I did

not. I’ll have to ix that by eMailing him

a copy, since he’s a key to this entire

experiment. That’s right, there’s even

more gimmickry to this than I started

with.

The US folks were harder to

sort out. I knew I had to send one to

Guy Lillian for The Zine Dump. I read

TZD religiously, though sometimes the

attachments don’t make it through. I

had to make sure he had it since he

wants to see every zine in the English

language. Guy’s a good guy and I love

Challenger, so he gets one. Same for

Glyer. Mike’s File 770 is everything a

newszine should be and he’s a damn

nice guy. He got one of the few US

copies. So did Christian McGuire. He’s

awesome and I try to make sure he

gets printed version of my stuff when

it happens. I igured I’d send one to a

couple of folks who have sent me stuff

in the past, and a couple to folks I’m

pretty sure I’ve never sent a zine to.

Claims will probably never have

a regular mailing list due to the size

of the print run, though I’ll try and

send it to folks who LoC and such, but

I’m going to bounce it around, send

an issue every now and again to all

sorts of different people. I know that a

smallish group reads The Drink Tank,

but mostly, I’d like to get my words out

to folks who I’ve never met, folks who

have probably never read.

Of course, once they get a

chance to read me, they may wonder

why they, or I, bothered.

I’ve been reading a lot of year

end zines. That is to say a lot of zines

that’ve come out over the last few

weeks. Argentus had a good year, as

usual, including a piece of my TAFF

report. There’s a good issue of Askance

that just dropped with a wonderful

piece from Taral Wayne, who is being

talked of for a Fan Writer Hugo. Lloyd

Penney is also getting a lot of buzz.

There’s a lot of Hugo talk coming, and

I’ll be doing the Handicapping the

Hugos issue which will likely be the

biggest issue I’ve done in a long time.

I’ve already started my reading for it

(Anathem will probably take me a week

of straight reading!)

To Cheslyn Hay, in the wilds of

Staffordshire, for a weekend with

my kid sister and her family. Back in

the mists of fanhistory, Tracy was an

occasional visitor to the Solihull Science

Fiction Group, whilst husband John

has occasionally let his enhoyment of

epic fantasy inluence his career as a

jewellery designer (friends of former

Pan Horror editor Jo Fletcher might

remember her wedding tiara, with its

band of silver bats); little wonder my ive

year-old nephew Tomas is exhibiting

every indication of being a sf fan in

embryo.

The major difference is that I was

a voracious consumer of all things

scientiictional, from the yellow-

jacketeted Gollancz hardbacks scooped

up by my father at the local public

library (that publisher’s decision to

use the same livery for its crime novels

also explains

my accidental

c h i l d h o o d

exposure to the

works of Agatha

Christie) to any

and all 1960s

British telefantasy

(four decades on,

I still rate UFO as

one of the greatest

sf series ever

produced). Tom, on

the other hand, is

fascinated by Star

Wars , in all its myriad merchandising

opportunities: videos, models, t-shirts,

Lego kits, trading cards, ad paupertas .

Ironically, despite the fact that I

managed to inesse myself into the press

launch for the original Star Wars , way

back in 1977, the more recent movies

represent one area where our interests

fail to overlap. I found The Phantom

Menace barely watchable, fell asleep the

irst time I attempted Attack of the Clones

and never bothered with Revenge of the

Shit , sorry, Sith . As for The Clone Wars ,

Tom’s latest fave, my irst impression

is that it displays neither the stylish

animation of Warners’ Batman nor the

narrative coherence of a irst-season

Scooby-Doo .

Still, that doesn’t prevent me from

trying out Tom’s light-sabre, modelled

upon that wielded by Yoda in the very

ilms I’ve skipped. It’s sturdy, nicely

balanced, gives off an eerie glow

– and slices straight through the glass

lampshade immediately above my head.

My nephew is most impressed, whilst

my sister assures me the lounge ittings

were due for replacement this coming

summer, but I still feel the Force let me

down.

Equally unfortunate is the distant

relative of Yoda’s which John and

I discover in their greenhouse the

following morning. Puzzled by the

pitiful trickle of water emanating from

his watering can, John gives it a shake

to dislodge what he initially assumes

to be garden waste, only to discover a

bloated and now extremely dead frog

has jammed itself up the spout. Ick.

When I walk back into the house,

Tom is waving a copy of Attack of the

Clones at me and suggesting we watch

it together. For a moment, I wonder

if there’s enough room up that spout

for me as well, but hell, it’s xmas, the

season of suffering in silence.

Photo from Steve Green

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