A fun way to learn astronomy basics

The Manga Guide to the Universe (No Starch Press, 2011)
Authors: Kenji Ishikawa, Kiyoshi Kawabata, and Yutaka Hiiragi
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

When a high school drama club is at risk of being disbanded, its members decide to stage a dramatic adaptation of a Japanese legend about a maiden who came to Earth from the Moon. This leads them to explore the science of celestial objects, space, and the physical universe as a whole (with some detours into folklore from around the world and multiversal theories).

"The Manga Guide to the Universe" is a fun and breezy way to learn the basics about astronomy while enjoying some light-hearted jokes about nerds, theater geeks, fan culture, and Japanese society along the way. The book is divided between comic book (manga) and pages of text. The comics portion follows the goofy high-schoolers and the science experts they consult about the mechanics of the solar system and the universe, while the text pages that go into the scholarly and scientific underpinnings of what they're told. Both the comic book portions and the text portions are clear and straight-forward in how they present the story and information, and they are further augmented with diagrams when needed. (I also really appreciate the fact that these books aren't tainted by the lazy translations that have been the norm for the past 15-20 years in the Japanese comics imports--the comics read left-to-right, front to back, as they should in a book presented in English.)

I  was given "The Manga Guide to the Universe" as a Christmas present, and I enjoyed it so much that I've gone ahead and ordered "The Manga Guide to Relativity" in hopes that I will finally have some of that information presented in a way that I can wrap my simple, BA-degrees holding mind around. I will let you all know if the Manga Guide crew was successful in edumacating me when the time comes!

'The Fraidy Cat' is worth knowing

The Fraidy Cat (1924)
Starring: Charley Chase, Beth Darlington, Ed Mohan, Emma Tansey, Joe Cobb, and Mickey Daniels
Director: James Parrot
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A misunderstanding causes a cowardly man (Chase) to finally fight back against all the bullies who've been picking on him. His newfound courage comes in handy when his girlfriend (Darlington) is abducted by one of those bullies (Mohan).

"The Fraidy Cat" is a well-paced, well-acted film that's a little painful to watch for those very reasons. Charley Chase presents such a charming, hapless character that you're going to hate seeing him picked on and abused during the first half of the film, and the when he finally tries to put one of the kids harassing him in their place, the film's biggest bully and closest thing it has to a villain (played with gusto by Ed Mohan) shows up and ruins even that. This film is so well put together that just as Chase's character starts to get just a little too pathetic, we're presented with a goofy motivation for him to finally stand up for himself and take the fight to his tormentors. It's both satisfying and very funny watching Chase getting even with the bullies.

What's more, "The Fraidy Cat" also offers up a spoof of the standard melodrama plot element of the villain kidnapping the love interest. It leads to one of the most amusing chases you're going to come across in a film like this, as well as a heroic rescue worthy of more serious fare. The mix of drama and comedy during the film's climax is perfect, and so is the final confrontation between Chase and the villain also plays out perfectly--including the moment where the audience discovers they have something pretty amusing in common. (I won't say what, because it spoils the joke.)

Watching "The Fraidy Cat" is a fun way to spend 11 minutes of your day, and you can check it out right here in this post, as I've embedded it below. (The film is of even greater interest to fans of the "Our Gang" comedies and The Little Rascals, as is marks their first appearance.)

Wonder Woman Wednesday

There's a new Wonder Woman movie arriving in theaters on June 4, 2020. To get ready, we're going to feature great portraits of her from top-notch artists (with some of her friends and enemies thrown in) every other Wednesday from now until then!

By Jose Luis Garcia Lopez

By M.L. Peters

By Jose Luis Garcia Lopez

Happy birthday to Curt Swan!

I just read that it would have been Curt Swan's 100th birthday today. He remains one of the greatest artists to ever draw Superman, Supergirl, Superboy, and the Legion of Superheroes.

Here's a trio Superman portraits from Swan's pencil in his memory and in celebration of his birthday!

Musical Monday with Camila Cabello

Singer Camila Cabello first came to public notice as a teen-aged contestant on the X-Factor talent show in 2012. Over the past eight years, she has risen to pop music star status, complete with scandals and Twitter/Instagram apology tours for making insensitive posts!

As I type these words, it's less than a week since she released her latest music video and single. Camila Cabello ... which means it's probably the "freshest" thing to ever be featured here at Shades of Gray. Featuring this video as quickly as possible on a Musical Monday was a no-brainer since it's supporting a nice song and is set in an imaginary version of the Old Hollywood that produced so many of the films and cultural icons that are covered around here.

Oh... and don't get scared when the video is suddenly in color at the end. It's that shift that lifts if from good to great, in my opinion!

My Oh My (2020)

Starring: Camila Cabello and DaBaby

Director: Dave Meyers

Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

(This is at least the second time that director Dave Meyers has used fake movie title cards as part of a music video. I'll have to check out more of his work to see if it's a signature. He also did it in this Pink video from 2012.)

It's Tom and Jerry... and they're in 'Trouble'!

Trouble (1931)
Starring: Anonymous Voice Actors and Singers
Directors: John Foster and George Stallings
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Tom and Jerry are ambulance-chasing attorneys looking for a way to drum up business for their firm.

In "Trouble", we see Tom and Jerry making a go at being lawyers, one of the many professions they will work in over the course of the series. Out of their various career choices, this may be the most ill-considered, given they live in a world inhabited by rubbery beings who can transform physically on a whim and who can fall from great heights, get blown up, sink to the bottom of the ocean, and otherwise have disasters happen to them that should be fatal but doesn't leave a scratch or a bruise. 

During the six-minute running time of this film, we get to see our heroes sing about their law practice, engage in a clever attempt at guerilla marketing, and literally chase an ambulance when they think they have a lead on a client who is about to fall from the top of the Empire State Building following a botched docking attempt by a zeppelin. The concluding (and funniest) gag is at once a masterful bit of fourth-wall humor, as well as a reinforcement of my opening thought: Accident lawyers in Tom and Jerry's world have a difficult time making a living.

As "Tom and Jerry" cartoons go, this one is pretty mild. The music is fairly unremarkable, the gags mild and, with the exception of the one at the end, predictable. Nothing here is bad... it's just average. (But you can judge for yourself; take a few minutes and watch "Trouble" right now!)





One general thought about most cartoons of this era (late 1920s through the early 1930s) that often occurs to me but I forget to mention when writing these posts, is how they are essentially silent movies. Yes, there's music and singing and sound effects, but what passes for dialogue in minimal and often nothing more than sounds that are word-like but not actual words... or just stay words mixed in with mumbles and squeaks. I wonder how aggressively the studios that produced them pursued foreign markets. While there are unique American cultural and political references in them, it still seems they would have works almost as well in European nations.)

Firearms Friday with Dolores Brinkman

Okay... so today's post may have been more suitable as part of a Ranged Weapons Wednesday series, but since this is Friday and Valentine's Day, I couldn't pass on the chance to present these pics of Dolores Brinkman hamming it up as a gender-reversed Cupid.

Born in 1910, Brinkman began acting as a young teenager. Her brief film career consisted of appearances in roughly a dozen movies made over the six year period from 1924 to 1930. Her final film appearance was in the comedy "Whispering Whoopie". She held her own opposite comedy legends like Charley Chase and Thelma Todd, and it shows that she had plenty of talent.

But, in 1930, Brinkman walked away from performing and spent the rest of her life trying to avoid the public eye. She was so intent on anonymity that she requested no obituary be published upon her death.

 Dolores Brinkman passed away in 2003. You can read what may be the most complete biography of her that anyone will ever be able to write by clicking here.

I finally saw an important bit of film history...

Steamboat Willie (1928)
Starring: Walt Disney (as the voices of all characters)
Directors: Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Mickey and Minnie perform "Turkey in the Straw" using barnyard animals as instruments while on a riverboat.

Thanks to Disney Plus, I've finally seen "Steamboat Willie" (1928). If not for the place it holds in the history of animation and the film industry in general, I wonder if "Steamboat Willie" would be remembered at all. It's the first appearance of Mickey and Minnie Mouse... and it's first cartoon with sound. All those are, of course, enough to secure this film's place in history, but compared to other cartoons of the period, and certainly to ones that followed from Walt Disney's production house and his competitors, this is pretty unremarkable.

Maybe it's because I'm not a kid, or maybe because it's not 1928, but I found the story and the gags to be cute but not much more than than. My favorite bits were Mickey creatively using the crane to get Minnie aboard the boat, and the goat turning into a musical instrument after it eats some sheet music and a ukulele. The second incident  is the foundation for the second half of the film which is a performance of "Turkey in the Straw" on various items and animals. On the downside, though,, this part of the film became less amusing as it went on, because it's a festival of animal cruelty. By the end, I was happy to see Mickey get punished by the steamboat's angry cat captain.

On the other hand, I've had "Turkey in the Straw" lodged in my head since I watched "Steamboat Willie"... and I think after listening to this, it may be stuck there forever.

(It should be noted that for the Disney Plus release, "Steamboat Willie" has been restored to how it was when it was first released. It was edited in the 1950s for its theatrical re-release, removing part of the bit where piglets and a mother pig are used as instruments by Mickey. I also noticed that Disney has uploaded the restored version to their YouTube Channel. I've embedded it below, so you can check it out, in case you have a hole like mine in your film history knowledge.)

The Swank Quarterly

Hillary Swank is cheering, because she's joining the ranks of great actresses--like Bessie Love, Milla Jovovich, and June Collyer--who've been featured as Quarterlies here at Shades of Gray.

Born in 1974, Hilary Swank was an accomplished high school athlete who began acting professionally in her teens, with roles on a variety of television series during the early 1990s, with her starring role in "The Next Karate Kid" (1994) being the film that first garnered her lots of public attention. After starring in a string of thrillers and horror movies during the late 1990s (as well as recurring roles on a number of television series, such as "Beverly Hills 90210"), she earned an Academy Award for "Boys Don't Cry" in 1999. Today, Swank continues to split her time between  television and horror/suspense films. Her forthcoming projects are the horror film "The Hunt" and the sci-fi television series "Away" (neither of have projected released dates yet).

Will the future just hold pretty pictures of Swank, or will she be revealed to be a secret superhero or robot-fighter? Stay tuned!a

Musical Monday with Beyonce

"Single Ladies" is Beyonce's 2008 smash hit that is still well worth listening today; it's a song that will have you dancing your way into your work week. Meanwhile, the video for the song is another perfect illustration of this blog's unifying theme. Enjoy, and Happy Monday to you!



(Valentine's Day is coming up later this week, so maybe someone out there will find this song inspiring and "put a ring on it"!)