Embrace the Madness

“All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.” -The Killing Joke

  

The Killing Joke, written by Alan Moore with artwork from Brian Bolland, is delightful to read. I was excited to read this for class because I love the Joker and was interested to see how Moore portrays him. I was not disappointed.

First off, the artwork in here is not to be ignored. Bolland does a sensational job at bringing the comic to life with the details in every frame and the coloring. I got a great sense of story in every illustration even if there were no words. The contrast of colors and lighting are beautifully done and really aid in carrying the dark tone of the story where it is needed.

Now onto the Joker himself. I've always thought he was a fascinating character and I loved watching him in Batman: The Animated Series (especially when Harley was around). The origin story was interesting in this comic. There's probably hundreds of Joker origin stories floating around, but I liked Moore's approach probably because I'm a sucker for the combination of love and madness, and the origin story here definitely plays that up.

The Joker is an asshole, but he's mad and embraces his madness, and that was enough to have me hooked. The way he calls himself mad and a loon among other things in The Killing Joke is great. It makes me wonder if someone was truly mad, if they would even know to call their self that, but the

way the Joker goes about it has me convinced of his lunacy and his cognizance about it, which makes for a perplexing character. He does not care about the chaos he spreads, but rather he is on a mission for everyone to embrace that chaos...for everyone to have that one bad day and join him in madness. I love the way he taunts Batman about how he must have had a bad day once, otherwise why would he be dressed up as "a flying rat?"

But then the way Batman and the Joker share a laugh at the end just made my heart smile. I loved the ambiguity of the ending. They beat the shit out of each other and then laugh darkly in the rain. Brilliant. We may instantly label the Joker as the psycho, and while I don't think Batman is psychotic, he is definitely dark. Otherwise he would not seek the Joker out to talk about their batshit madness and then join in on the joke. It's wonderful. I love the messed up dynamics of that relationship.

“Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them away…forever."

Road Trip from Hell

Jack Ketchum's Joyride is dark, suspenseful, violent, and a hell of a trip. His writing possesses topnotch qualities that easily made me see why Stephen King said, "Don't open this book unless you intend to finish it in the same night" about Joyride. I was appalled, intrigued, and couldn't put the book down.

As much as I enjoyed the setup of the plot, I want to jump right into how much of a master Ketchum is at making the readers hate Wayne. I felt intense disgust toward this fictional man and just wanted to reach through the book and throttle him. He's disturbed, vulgar, deeply imbalanced, and yet it is impossible to stop reading because we want to know how far this sicko takes it. And boy does he take it all the way. Wayne is a nasty piece of work and we get a glimpse into his past when the cops go talk to Wayne's mother. After that encounter the pieces start to fall into place and we realize that with an upbringing by a woman who is described with words like poison and madness, that Wayne probably never stood a chance with a prize mother like that. I'm picturing something similar to Norman Bates, but perhaps worse, perhaps.

Wayne especially crept me out when he asked Carole about the details of how Howard raped her. He's indifferent and cold. He asks awful questions like he's asking about the weather instead and there is just no emotion. He's a psychotic robot in human skin trying to learn to feel something, but unfortunately blood, murder, and power are what he needs to even have something resembling true emotions within him. The way Wayne took those details and used them to rape the girl in the woods made my skin crawl. It was horrific and yet as the readers we cannot look away. Carole and Lee may have been locked in the car's trunk, but the readers were still Wayne's witnesses to it all, and that's what he wanted- witnesses.

The murder spree at the end reminded me of that awful story in Alaska where Michael Silka went on a spree killing and nine people were murdered. It's hard to think all those deaths could happen without police interference, but when the people are so close together it just happens too quickly...all the more terrifying.

One thing I wanted to see was for Carole to be less of a victim. I thought she had been killed in the crossfire during the end, so I was glad to see her survive. However, after learning this was a woman who had been molested as a child by her father, raped and beaten by her husband, and then kidnapped and put through hell by Wayne, I was dying for her to have just one awesome moment where she had the upper hand and beat the shit out of Wayne- just once! She didn't need to be the one to kill him necessarily, but I would have been so satisfied to see her be more than a victim for one strong scene. True, she did call Wayne out on his bullshit and tried to attack him a bit in the car earlier on, but I wanted something a little more gratifying.

Otherwise, I have very little complaints about the novel. It's packed with adrenaline, action, amazing imagery, and writing that I learned from, which is my favorite kind. Ketchum is absolutely an author worth studying. I look forward to reading more of his work.

The Deadly Seven

"If we catch John Doe and he turns out to be the devil, I mean if he's Satan himself, that might live up to our expectations, but he's not the devil. He's just a man." -Se7en

For class this week I was emotionally traumatized by a movie titled Se7en, directed by David Fincher and starred Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. I love David Fincher. The man has Fight Club, Zodiac, Gone Girl, and some other great works under his belt, so I was pretty pumped for this movie. I'm not even sure where to begin reflecting on the piece because I thought the movie was brilliant, but my heart has been destroyed. However, I guess that's a sign of great work. I cared enough about those characters to feel their torment and sadness, and isn't that what we strive for as writers? I know having my audience care about my characters and what happens to them is certainly one of my main goals.

Before we get into Kevin Spacey playing a hell of a creepy motherfucker named John Doe (loved the way they used that name by the way), let's applaud Pitt and Freeman for their portrayals as Detectives Mills and Somerset. The contrast of attitudes and outlooks toward life that these two characters had created the kind of dynamic that sucks you in. We are fascinated to see how these two come together, despite their differences, and work on this case. They are still vocal about what they disagree on, but they also build a camaraderie that is crucial to the plot's development. Mills says fuck in nearly every scene, has enough of a temper for John Doe to label him "wrath," but he also loves his wife and his dogs, and still has that chase for life that Somerset is missing. Somerset's calmness and analytical process of the world around him is drastically different, but works so well to be Mills' opposite. I loved watching these two fight, work together, chase down John Doe, and even the scene where they just have a conversation in a bar.

And okay that chase scene sequence was amazing. I was so hooked. The action was intense but believable. What a hell of an introduction to the killer. I loved the whole concept of the seven deadly sins too and how John Doe uses that as a higher calling for his justification.

"Nothing wrong with a man taking pleasure in his work. I won't deny my own personal desire to turn each sin against the sinner."-Se7en

When we're alone in the car with the detectives and John Doe, the tension is high. I kept waiting for

him to escape his handcuffs and for something bad to happen there, but the ending was SO much worse than that. I won't say the spoiler here in case someone comes across this who hasn't watched the film, but dear god, my heart. That was painful. But holy shit did it work. I can't even form thoughts.

John Doe was fascinating. He had a Hannibal Lecter/Francis Dolarhyde vibe in the way that he was educated, calm, and wanted to create a masterpiece, but at the same time he was entirely his own brand of psycho. We don't know anything about his past, which is usually something I don't like, but it worked so well here. He is such a present force that I didn't feel like I needed that background. And he scared the hell out of me so there was that.

Overall what can I say except yes, this is a clever, well-written, intense, dark film. My heart still hurts, but it's okay because tomorrow is Halloween and I have three bottles of wine waiting.

The Punisher

"Those who do evil to others - the killers, the rapists, psychos, sadists - you will come to know me well. Frank Castle is dead. Call me... The Punisher." -The Punisher

For class this week we visited The Punisher (2004) in all its glory. It had been awhile since I'd seen this film and I was happy to revisit it. Frank Castle is an interesting character and the film handles him and the project of bringing a comic book story to life. There are several aspects of the film that you would most likely only find in films based on comic books, yet I never felt so overly-comic-booked-out during the movie that I got sick of it.

Castle is intriguing because he's got that vigilante, dark, and brooding thing going on, let's be honest. We're drawn to these characters. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe because most of us have gone through hard times and have wanted to take a situation (or revenge) into our own hands, but often times we end up playing different scenarios over in our head without taking action. So when we see a character that has been tortured to the point of breaking (and I think having one's family slaughtered would be a hell of a breaking point), it is rewarding and satisfying to us as audience members to live vicariously through a character's self-directed revenge.

The Punisher presents interesting ideas because yes, Frank Castle has been through hell, but at the end of the day he is still killing people, yet we like him. He's dark, kind of awkward, but also
giving. He leaves most of Saint's money to those that helped him extract revenge, and he feels he really is doing his family justice by, well, punishing those he thinks deserves it. He may not play by the rules or abide the laws, but we don't feel cheated by that.

So overall, I appreciate how the movie handles the comic book stories because I know this movie is going to be a little different than ones not based on comics, and I like that. John Travolta is still not my favorite in this film, but that aside I have very little complaints.

Misery, Africa, and Dirty Birds.

"I am your number one fan."

Who knew those words could evoke such terror? Stephen King's Misery tells the tale of one author's horrendous struggle for life against one hell of a psychopathic woman. Annie Wilkes may be crazy, but she also shows us what happens when someone becomes too attached to a fictional character in the most extreme way. The terror Paul Sheldon barely manages to live through is gut-wrenching, but King drops in all these other elements that make the ride of horror a lot of fun along the way...at least for the readers.

Sheldon's torture goes through several phases and we float along through his drug-induced moments just as he does. While I appreciated the images and metaphors of the scenes where Sheldon was lost in the world of the beach with the pylons stacking higher, the moments where he was clear and thinking were my favorite. Then again, those moments would not have stood out as much if the poor man wasn't suffering or retreating to his doped-up coma moments as well. I mean it's Stephen King here, what can I say? Misery is genius with its little tricks-of-the-trade moments for writers, and also the whole concept of Misery's name in Sheldon's novels. I don't think a lot of other writers could pull off something as obvious as the concept of Misery as a character of a book within a book while the emotion of misery is another central idea of the novel. It's a labyrinth of ideas that are executed with impressive smoothness here.

Along with that, Sheldon's descent into madness is something we almost delight in. He starts to adopt Annie's words and thoughts. He becomes a victim in ways that go deeper than the obvious. Insanity becomes infectious here between Annie and Sheldon and we want to keep seeing how far that envelope gets pushed before Sheldon really cracks.

“Writers remember everything...especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar. Art consists of the persistence of memory.”-Stephen King, Misery
But the Funhouse of Annie and all her demented glory are what really stands out here. She is an insane woman with a lot of strength and knowledge of drugs. She does not have time for your

Hmm "Ian" sure has a familiar face ;-)

cockadoodie dirty bird games. But oh does she play her own games. Annie is a phenomenon within herself. She has her own odd vocabulary, ways of punishing herself, even more ways of punishing others, and a murder scrapbook, which was terrifying and brilliant. She was almost clever enough to get away with so much, but blessed be the Royal typewriter for tripping her up. She is astonishing (a goddess even) when it comes to her temper and the ways to get what she wants. She's a psycho with an agenda, but she's also human and Sheldon even sympathies with his captor at times. The framing device of the burning books (even though the last one was fake) works so well because we are all readers identifying with the pain of wanting to know how something ends and then having that being taken away from us...that would be actually painful. But we also delight in Annie's final death because of all of what happened to poor Paul Sheldon.

It's a wild roller coaster, but it's worth it. And this book just feels like King had fun along the way creating this horror. I hope you all enjoyed this book as much as I did.

Africa. Now rinse.

Flight of the Starlings

"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."
The Silence of the Lambs

The movie Silence of the Lambs is one of my favorites, so I was thrilled to be watching this again as a legitimate homework assignment. I love everything from beginning to end with this film. The dark music in the beginning, the introduction to Clarice as she's running through the training course, how quickly she gets pulled into the assignment, how she meets Hannibal for the first time while he awaits standing in his cell...all of it is captured in a wonderful, eerie way that creates memorable cinematic moments, but it's also good storytelling.

Anthony Hopkins plays the role of Hannibal brilliantly. Though physically Hannibal is described as small and lithe with maroon eyes and dark, slicked back hair, Hopkins brings the character to life in his
own way. Hannibal reads people much the way Sherlock Holmes does, but with a darker agenda, which has always fascinated me. Holmes can be arrogant and manipulative, but it was never to the sociopathic extent Hannibal would drive people toward.

The relationship between Hannibal and Clarice is very interesting. Though I have yet to read Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, I cheated with Wikipedia awhile ago to see what happens to the characters in each of those books and wow does that relationship get even stranger. I won't reveal any spoilers here, but I definitely need to read both books to better understand the direction the characters go in. In the movie, Clarice is clever, brave, and ultimately kicks ass. She has to deal misogyny in the FBI academy and from strangers, but she proves herself capable (and even more capable than the agents when they go to the wrong house) over and over. Hannibal treats her differently though. He may be creepy, but he respects her and I think that's

another reason why she is drawn to him. He recognizes her intelligence.

"I think it would be quite something to know you in private life."
-Dr. Lecter to Agent Starling, The Silence of the Lambs

She does what she needs to and takes down Buffalo Bill, but her interactions with Hannibal leave us so intrigued. The pull between her and Hannibal is strong and we as audience members can feel her curiosity tugging at the darkness...it reminded me a lot of the relationship between Will Graham and Hannibal on the NBC show Hannibal where Will flirts with the darkness inside himself because of Hannibal and well, it ends pretty interestingly for him as well.

Buffalo Bill is a great psycho though too. He goes the Ted Bundy route and pretends to be injured and in need of help which proves effective in luring victims. Both this movie and Bundy's history have

made me cynical enough to never help someone who appears to be struggling if I am alone (terrible person alert), but it really is creepy. Bill's violence and the idea of making a woman-suit are definitely good psycho traits that make the movie interesting, but I do wish we had more history on Bill's past and just some more character development. Perhaps there is more in the book? I'll have to find out.

The Great...Red...Dragon!

"Fear comes with imagination, it's a penalty, it's the price of imagination." -Thomas Harris, Red Dragon

I was ecstatic to finally read Thomas Harris' Red Dragon. I've been a fan of the movie Silence of the Lambs for years, and also obsessed with the tv show Hannibal since it came out, but I've never read the books. I hope to read the other ones in the Hannibal series as soon as I get the chance.

The most recent (and sadly final) season of Hannibal dealt with Francis Dolarhyde and the material from Red Dragon, so I had a good idea of the basic plot elements going into the novel, but I was still captivated by Harris' writing. The man's style is something to learn from. The way he does dialogue, setting, imagery, characterization...just the whole lot is on fire. And throw in William Blake references and I'm in love. I particularly love this line from Dolarhyde's point of view that reads,  "There is no sense of vengeance in him, only Love and thoughts of Glory to come; hearts becoming faint and fast, like footsteps fleeing into silence" (Harris, Red Dragon).

Along with that, Harris never loses the overall mood of something sinister taking place in this story. The darkness interweaves so finely between the plot that we know it is there and we are aware of it, yet we are intrigued by it at the same time. We want to know more about Hannibal and Dolarhyde, we want more details on the murders of the Jacobi and Leeds' families. Dolarhyde is such an interesting psycho because there are parts of his history, like issues with mother and grandmother, that could border on the cliche, but Harris writes the past so richly that it does not feel that way. As we dive deeper into Dolarhyde's inner conflict with the Dragon and how

The tiger scene from the show Hannibal. I really loved
whom they cast to play her on the show. She was brilliant.
And then Dolarhyde lurking the background.

it talks to him, we are exposed to an ill man that is combating against something deep and consuming within himself. In addition, we discover Reba along the way who interferes with Dolarhyde's Becoming in some pretty interesting ways.

I really love what the show Hannibal did with Dolarhyde for the third season because I think it explored Dolarhyde's depth and character even further than what the book did. A lot of that is because of the relationship Hannibal and Will share on the show compared to the book. I won't give any spoilers away for those who haven't watched yet, but man, be prepared for some epic storytelling.

I didn't realize in Red Dragon how briefly we actually see Hannibal, but the letters he sends to Will and his infection in Will's personality certainly comes through loud and clear with the small excerpts we do see from him. Which again, all goes to highlight Harris' brilliant writing. I especially love this line from Hannibal's final letter in the book:  “We live in a primitive time—don’t we, Will?—neither savage nor wise. Half measures are the curse of it. Any rational society would either kill me or give me my books" (Harris, Red Dragon).

And then of course at the end we are left with poor, tortured Will Graham and his thoughts, which still are not tasty to him:

Hugh Dancy as Will Graham on Hannibal.

"He roused and watched the mindless clock but he couldn’t stop thinking. In the Green Machine there is no mercy; we make mercy, manufacture it in the parts that have overgrown our basic reptile brain. There is no murder. We make murder and, it matters only to us. Graham knew all too well that he contained all the elements to make murder; perhaps mercy too. He understood murder uncomfortably well though" (Harris, Red Dragon).

Again, the way the tv show plays with the darkness inside of Will is beautiful, chilling, and truly crafty. Harris brought the original material out in full force, but Bryan Fuller's Hannibal show really delves into those layers more than I thought possible. Basically, I could gush on about both this book and the show. I can't wait to read the other books.