Wonder Woman Wednesday

On this, the first Wonder Woman Wednesday of 2022, we view our favorite Amazon through the pen and eyes of Milton Knight!

You can see more of Milton's work at his website here. You should also check out his Patreon site and consider subscribing!

'Wedding Present' is a gift for Cary Grant fans

Wedding Present (1936)
Starring: Cary Grant, Joan Bennett, William Demarest, Edward Brophy, Gene Lockhart, Conrad Nagel, and Purnell Pratt
Director: Richard Wallace
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Charlie and Rusty (Grant and Bennett) are big-city journalists who are colleagues and lovers who spend as much time tracking down leads and working on stories as they do pulling pranks and staging elaborate practical jokes. When Charlie is promoted to editor, and he suddenly has to be serious about managing writers and assignments, his relationship with Rusty falls apart. It isn't until she's about to marry a stuffy author of self-help books (Nagel) that Charlie quits his new job, reverts to his previous self, and tries to win her back with the help of a notorious gangster (Demarest).

"Wedding Present" is a fast-moving, witty comedy. It's a little too fast-moving in some ways, as the first half of the film feels more like you're watching a series of loosely connected sketches rather than a movie. It put me in mind of some comedy television series, such as "Faulty Towers" or "'Allo, 'Allo" where most episodes unfolded with a series of almost free-standing sketches that were only united by a circumstance which framed them. 

As the film continues, the story begins to coalesce firmly around the rocky romance of Charlie and Rusty. At about the halfway-mark, the film ends up firmly in romantic comedy territory. It's almost like we're watching a sequel to the first half, as this part is comes complete with its own beginning, middle, and end. Some of the "skits" from the first half turn out to be crucial to the story here, but if we'd walked in late, we wouldn't have missed anything, because characters remind us of what went on and why they're doing what they're doing. 

This is not a great movie, but it's not a terrible one. Its odd structure is a bit distracting, but it's not a fatal flaw. In some ways, what I view as a flaw might make it more enjoyable for some viewers, especially those who are big Cary Grant fans.

"Wedding Present" is one of the first films where Grant was unquestionably the star. While Joan Bennett certainly holds an important role in the story, has lots of screen-time--most of it in scenes with Grant--it is Grant who carries the movie. His is the character the audience is primarily invested in, and the story that's ultimately told is that of Charlie's road to life-long happiness (if not maturity). It's also the film where, I feel, that he clearly has come into his own as a comedic screen actor. Thanks partially to the episodic nature of this film's first half, we get to see Grant perform in different comedic styles, playing off different actors and situations... and even being the straight man in a scene or two. 

Cary Grant is so much fun to watch in this film--especially in scenes shared with Joan Bennett (who gives as good as she gets, every single time) and William Demarest (who does a great job at walking the line between seeming funny and dangerous) that I almost gave it Seven Stars. The totality of the odd structure, though, made me decide to give it the highest possible Six Star rating. This is a highly entertaining, but flawed, film that contributes to making the "Cary Grant: Screen Legend Collection" well worth the purchase price. (I've watched three of the five films in the set so far, and each was almost worth the price by itself.)

Oh--a fun way to watch this film is to consider it a prequel to "His Girl Friday". It's very easy to imagine the lead characters from this film being those portrayed by Grant and Rosalind Russell in that one. Maybe you should get both and have a double-feature watch party with friends!

Then there's that time...

... when four Japanese high school girls saved the shopping mall by defeating a giant monster with a chemistry set, a pineapple, and pure spunk 'n' funk!

Atarashii Gakko! is a girl band out of Japan that has been working their toward international fame with their catchy songs, energetic dancing, and more-than-a-little crazy music videos. After five years, it appears they have arrived, managing to even do some U.S. concert dates  during 2021.

This music video, which features an abbreviated version of their first international hit "Pineapple Kryptonite", is a great introduction to the group and their musical antics (as well as being a fabulous spoof of Godzilla and other Kaiju movies.

This is Atarashii Gakko!'s second appearance here at Shades of Gray. Click here to see that other post, along with a look at how wide their musical range is. And if you aren't afraid of having your senses overwhelmed by lots of color and the full-length version of "Pineapple Kryptonite" (performed against the backdrop of the girls taking on a monster at Area 51 in Nevada), click here.

Sunday Coffee Klatch with Tanzanian Peaberry

A friend and former coworker who's been enjoying my coffee reviews sent me a couple of bags of unground beans that were a total mystery to me: Tanzanian Peaberry!

But I ground it, I drank it, and here's my review of it!

TANZANIAN PEABERRY

As mentioned above, this drink was even more of a mystery than the Mystery Blend from Bones Coffee that I reviewed a few weeks back. I had no idea what to expect from it.

Looking at the beans, I assume this is a blonde or light roast. Given that this was not one of the many flavored coffees I've been drinking over the past several months, the only aroma that I got from the beans or the ground coffee, whether in the grinder, in the basket of my drip coffee maker, or from the pot as the coffee brewed, was... well, coffee.

But what ended up in my cup was so surprising that this might has well have been a flavored blend. 

I put this Tanzanian Peaberry blend through my now-standard steps of my review process, starting with drinking it black. This was an amazingly smooth coffee that seemed like might have been a flavored blend but isn't. The coffee flavor is there, but it's mellow and sweet, almost as if sweetener of some sort had added. There's also a lemony note that put me in mind of lemon cake. I liked this coffee so much black that I drank half a cup before I added anything to it.

Since this coffee already had a natural sweetness to it, I first tried adding Unsweetened Almond Milk. It blended nicely with the existing flavors. The sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer seemed initially to make this drink too sweet, but when I tried another cup with my usual amount dialed back to just a dash, it worked as well as the Unsweetened Almond Milk. 

At room temperature, this coffee was best with the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer (when it was just a dash). It also works extremely well when iced, whether with the almond milk or the creamer, or just black. I think I actually prefer it when iced, but I'll have to try a few more pots before I can completely make up my mind, since I thought it was tasty in all modes. (Fortunately, I was gifted with an entire 12-oz. bag of beans, so I have plenty to "work" with!) 

So... what IS Tanzanian Peaberry Coffee?

If you're an unrefined clod like me who just likes to drink the magic bean juice whether it's from a blend made by a boutique roastery, from a bag off the shelf at a grocery store, or from the vending machine down the hall at work, you probably had no idea there even was such as thing as Tanzanian Peaberry coffee was before seeing this post. 

Well, as I discovered by doing a little half-assed research via the Google Machine, coffee is among Tanzania's top ten exports (along with precious metals and cashew nuts, another two of my favorite things). What coffee snobs generally think of as "Tanzanian coffee" is mostly grown on the lower slopes of Mount Meru and Mount Kilimanjaro, and it's considered inferior to the better-known other African export, Kenyan coffee. (I will have to order another bag of Kenyan coffee before I run out of my Tanzanian Peaberry so I can compare the two...)

As for the "peaberry", a coffee plant's fruit usually contains two beans, each of which is flat on one side and rounded on the other, basically forming two halves. However, in about 5% of fruits, there is only a single, round bean, and these are called peaberries. These malformed beans are typically sorted out and used in specially designated roasts, such as the flavor of the week here at Shades of Gray HQ, Tanzanian Peaberry. Since peaberries are rarer than the regular coffee beans, roasters can (and do) charge extra for coffee made exclusively from peaberries. Depending on who you ask, peaberry-based coffee is superior in taste to the regular stuff--some swear this this to be case while others are just as adamant that any perceived differences in taste are just marketing-induced delusions.

 What is the truth about Peaberry coffee? Is it tastier or just more expensive? I have no idea. All I know is that the Tanzanian Peaberry coffee I drank was GREAT, and I'll be grinding and drinking more of it in short order... with thanks to the generous friend who sent the bag o' beans my way!

It's a Sala Saturday!

 Here's another early work from the late, great Richard Sala. It was collected in his anthology from Kitchen Sink Press "Black Cat Crossing" (1993) and it dates from the mid- to late 1980s. (Click for a larger, more readable version.)

This is my favorite of the sci-fi/horror genre-based one-pagers that Sala did.

Sidney Poitier dead at 94

Celebrated actor and director Sidney Poitier passed away on January 6, 2022.

Sidney Poitier was born in 1927 and spent his early childhood in the Bahamas. At 15, he was sent to live with his brother in Miami, as his parents tried to head off a growing tendency toward criminality. There, he encountered racism for the first time in his life, and it shaped many of his attitudes as he grew into adulthood.

After a brief stint in the U.S. Army (joining after lying about his age) and a series of menial jobs, Poitier decided to try his hand at acting. His initial audition at the American Negro Theatre was such a disaster that he spent six months focusing on eliminating his Bahama accent and improving his acting skills. His next attempt was far more fruitful, and he was soon performing on Broadway.

Poitier's first major film role was in "No Way Out" (1950) in which he played a doctor who had to treat a bigoted racist. He immediately attracted the attention of Hollywood, but, in an approach that would mark his stance for his entire career, he turned down most offers because he thought they were demeaning toward him as a black man.

Poitier starred in many great movies, among these being "Blackboard Jungle" (1955), "Edge of the City" (1957), "The Defiant Ones" (1958), "A Raisin in the Sun" (1961), "The Long Ships" (1964), "The Bedford Incident" (1965), "To Sir, With Love" (1967), "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967), "In the Heat of the Night" (1967) [and he played a slightly revised version of his character from "In the Heat of the Night", Virgil Tibbs, in two kinda-sorta sequels, "The Call Me Mister Tibbs!" (1970) and "The Organization" (1972)], "A Piece of the Action" (1977), "Shoot to Kill" (1988), "Sneakers" (1992), and "Mandela and DeKlerk" (1997). He appeared in a total of 55 movies, and on many of his projects, Poitier had contracts that stated he received a percentage of earnings from the very first dollar that was taken in.

During the 1970s, Poitier turned to directing and producing. He also remained active on stage. He retired from acting in 2001, He spent his remaining years in the Bahamas where he also passed away.

The Coming of Gun Fury!

Gun Fury 1-5 (Aircel Comics/Malibu Graphics, January - May 1989)
Story and Pencils: Barry Blair

Inks and Washes: Dave Cooper

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

In a city where innocent citizens are being preyed upon by the rich and powerful, and by the violent and psychopathic; where the media lies as much as they tell the truth; deluded goofballs can't tell the difference between comic book fantasies and reality, a cry went up for a hero. Gun Fury answered that call... to the regret of many.

"Gun Fury" was a 10-issue series by Barry Blair and Dave Cooper, with the latters artistic style becoming increasingly dominant as the series progressed. Published by Aircel (which was by this time an imprint of Malibu Graphics) from January of 1989 through October 1989.
It featured broad, often crude, satire of the "grim and gritty" comics that were trendy at the time, as well as making fun of fandom and comics industry.

The first five issues are liked by several intertwining storylines and subplots. Along the way, the title character Gun Fury as a demented, ultra-violent hero who's part 1960s Batman and 1980s Punisher. His secret civilian identity is Jack Luger, mild-mannered staff writer at Fan Graphics, a firm that publishes several entertainment-related magazines and comic books. He has a money-grubbing, homophobic boss, and a go-getting investigative journalist female co-worker with a superhero fetish. 

In the first issue, Gun Fury's boy sidekick, Ammo, is killed in a clash with minions of the mysterious Master. Over the next few issues, he adopts and breaks in teenaged orphan Peter Pane as the new Ammo while simultaneously protecting the boy from the Master's agents, including fellow superhero Captain Rearguard who is duped into furthering the evil schemes. Meanwhile, a second more odious threat is lurking in the shadows, preparing to ooze onto the scene. 

Over the course of five issues (which form a complete, self-contained storyline), Blair and Cooper poke fun at superheroes as they were developing in the mid-1980s and into the 1990s... all grim and gritty and violent in the wake hits like "The Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns", with a few dollops of hamfisted social commentary thrown in for  good measure. Perhaps the most clever aspect of Blair's approach to the topic was having the grim-and-gritty co-exist with the lighthearted melodrama and downright goofiness that were the hallmarks of the superhero comics he'd grown up with. It gives a bizarre feeling to Gun Fury's world that is perfect for the title.

What is less perfect is Blair's sense of comedy. While this is an effective spoof in broad strokes, it's less effective when you zoom in. 

First, Blair was just not very good at coming up with one-liners, and the timing is even sometimes off on gags that span panels or pages. His inability to come up with zingers that hit home is particularly obvious when he's trying to play with characters making unintentional double-entendres that are supposed to be plays on sexual activity--homosexual activity in particular. It's particularly painful when it comes to Gun Fury exclaiming "Justice is about to spurt from my loins!" (or some such battle-cries). Some of those kind of jokes made around the superhero suffering from PTSD known as Captain Rearguard work a little better, but not by much.

Second, some of the humor is just too mean-spirited for my tastes--and I'm the guy who produced things like "Bill Clinton Meets a Girl Scout" and "Super Muslim Bros." Reading these comics, it appears that Blair might have hated comics fans, comics retailers, and comics critics in general, and Gary Groth (the founder of Fantagraphics and a key figure in the comics industry when this series was published), since they're all stupid, perverted, gross, and/or money-grubbers who are corrupt to the core. Some of the shots at the comics industry are dead-on, but others just feel like Blair is grinding his personal axes and isn't terribly concerned if he's being funny or not. 

The best of Blair's industry commentary can be found in the scene where the Gary Groth stand-in is berating an editor and a pair of talented hacks for not delivering the promised issues, despite having been paid. The scene ends with the trio heading off to find ANOTHER publisher from whom to get paid for not producing a product. Most of it, though, just feels too venomous and personal to be amusing.

One thing that is of high-caliber and always close to perfect is the art. While not quite at the level of Blair and Cooper's other major collaboration, "Jake Thrash", the combination of Blair's slick, cartoony-with-a-slant-toward-the-manga-style (a decade or more before EVERYONE started doing it) and Cooper's chunky inks and brilliantly applied washes was the perfect visualization for the mixture of old-school superhero posturing married with modern-day gore and violence. The occasional playfulness with the "language" of comic book storytelling that shows up in the art is also very well done. The page below is from "Gun Fury" #1, and it's one of my favorites from the entire series.

Sometimes, when I break out these old comics and re-read them for review purposes, I find myself disappointed; I find that something I have fond memories of doesn't match those memories. That is not the case with "Gun Fury". I had the same reaction to reading it now as I remember having back then--it's fun but flawed. It's got great art and it's a decent spoof of All Things Comics as they stood ca. 1989, but it's dragged down by the writer spewing too much venom in various directions.

Watch this space for thoughts on "Gun Fury" #6 - #10. (Meanwhile, if you have any memories or opinions about "Gun Fury" or any other Aircel Comics, that's what the comments section is for! Also, for an excellent exploration of the man behind the creation, Barry Blair, click here.)

It's January...

... January Jones that is. And she's decided to "declutter" in the new year, reducing her belongings to the essentials.

We think she may have gone a little too far...

A caution for those traveling to or within Slaughter Valley

If you're planning to visit us here at Shades of Gray HQ, you might want to delay the trip. Here are a few problems with getting around at the moment. This video will explain:

Musical Monday with Weird Al

I think Aaron Sorkin and Co. missed a major opportunity by not using this as the theme for their "Being the Ricardos" movie, nor using this clip as part of the End Credits. (The parody song is lots of fun, and while 'Weird Al' isn't the greatest Ricky Ricardo, Tess MacNeille is GREAT as Lucille Ball!)

Ricky (1983)

Starring: Al Yankovic and Tess MacNeille

Director: Janet Greek

Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

(Click through to watch the video on YouTube. If you have any familiarity with "I Love Lucy", you won't regret it.)