Lost Review: Battle: Los Angeles

Beginning in December 2005 with my history of apes in film essay “Gorilla of Your Dreams” (the substantially update and revised version appears in The Apes of Wrath), I regularly contributed to Moving Pictures Magazine. First in the print incarnation and then for primarily the website. I contributed reviews and essays for the last three years of the publications existence. Following the June 2011 demise of both the print and website editions, all of the digital work for MPM disappeared into the ether. In the coming months (years?), I plan on reposting many of my reviews and articles.

For this special Memorial Day edition, I re-present my review of the alien invasion war flick Battle: Los Angeles.

File:Battle Los Angeles Poster.jpg Continue reading

Lost Review: Green Lantern

Beginning in December 2005 with my history of apes in film essay “Gorilla of Your Dreams” (the substantially update and revised version appears in The Apes of Wrath), I regularly contributed to Moving Pictures Magazine. First in the print incarnation and then for primarily the website. I contributed reviews and essays for the last three years of the publications existence. Following the June 2011 demise of both the print and website editions, all of the digital work for MPM disappeared into the ether. In the coming months (years?), I plan on reposting many of my reviews and articles.

I noticed that Green Lantern is currently showing on HBO. Let this review serve as warning.

File:Green Lantern poster.jpg

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Lost Review: Rango

Beginning in December 2005 with my history of apes in film essay “Gorilla of Your Dreams” (the substantially update and revised version appears in The Apes of Wrath), I regularly contributed to Moving Pictures Magazine. First in the print incarnation and then for primarily the website. I contributed reviews and essays for the last three years of the publications existence. Following the June 2011 demise of both the print and website editions, all of the digital work for MPM disappeared into the ether. In the coming months (years?), I plan on reposting many of my reviews and articles.

I recently re-watched Rango via Netflix streaming. Here’s my March 2011 review of the Oscar winner. Continue reading

Lost Review: Casino Jack and the United States of Money

Beginning in December 2005 with my history of apes in film essay “Gorilla of Your Dreams” (the substantially update and revised version appears in The Apes of Wrath), I regularly contributed to Moving Pictures Magazine. First in the print incarnation and then for primarily the website. I contributed reviews and essays for the last three years of the publications existence. Following the June 2011 demise of both the print and website editions, all of the digital work for MPM disappeared into the ether. In the coming months (years?), I plan on reposting many of my reviews and articles.

Another film available via streaming on Netflix, the fascinating documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money attempts to explain the whole Jack Abramoff scandal.

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Lost Review: The Oxford Murders

Beginning in December 2005 with my history of apes in film essay “Gorilla of Your Dreams” (the substantially update and revised version appears in The Apes of Wrath), I regularly contributed to Moving Pictures Magazine. First in the print incarnation and then for primarily the website. I contributed reviews and essays for the last three years of the publications existence. Following the June 2011 demise of both the print and website editions, all of the digital work for MPM disappeared into the ether. In the coming months (years?), I plan on reposting many of my reviews and article.

This time I’m dusting off my review of The Oxford Murders, a fairly obscure mathematical murder mystery, based on the book Crímenes imperceptibles by Guillermo Martínez. It is available for streaming via Netflix. Continue reading

Library Journal reviews THE APES OF WRATH & other news

Middle size Apes cover

The esteemed Library Journal reviewed The Apes of Wrath in their March 15 issue.

The Apes of Wrath. Tachyon. Mar. 2013. 384p.
ed. by Richard Klaw. ISBN 9781616960858. pap. $15.95. FANTASY

Bringing together such classic writers such as Gustav Flaubert (“Quidquid Volueris”), Edgar Allan Poe (“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”), Edgar Rice Burroughs (“Tarzan’s First Love”), Franz Kafka (“A Report to an Academy”), and Robert E. Howard (“Red Shadows”) with modern fantasy and horror authors, editor Klaw, co-owner of Mojo Press, a noted publisher of graphic novels and themed anthologies, has assembled a collection of 13 stories revolving around the great apes and playing upon their similarities to and differences from humans. Including James P. Blaylock’s steampunk comedy of errors (“The Ape-Box Affair”) featuring a space-traveling ape, several bumbling Londoners, and a mysterious silver box or two, and Philip Jose Farmer’s continuation of a classic ape story (“After King Kong Fell”), this volume attests to literature and film’s fascination with our primate cousins. The foreward by Rupert Wyatt, director of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and a pair of essays by Jess Nevins (“Apes in Literature”) and Rick Klaw (“Gorilla of Your Dreams: A Brief History of Simian Cinema”) make this more than just a curious short-story collection. VERDICT Aficionados of apes in literature and film should enjoy this gathering of new and old stories.

Overall a good review. But why do people have some much trouble spelling “foreword?” Continue reading

Lost Review: The Last Exorcism

MPM DecJan06

Beginning in December 2005 with my history of apes in film essay “Gorilla of Your Dreams” (the substantially update and revised version appears in The Apes of Wrath), I regularly contributed to Moving Pictures Magazine. First in the print incarnation and then for primarily the website. I contributed reviews and essays for the last three years of the publications existence. Following the June 2011 demise of both the print and website editions, all of the digital work for MPM disappeared into the ether. In the coming months (years?), I plan on reposting many of my reviews and article.

With tomorrow’s release of The Last Exorcism Part II, I thought I’d share my vilification of the original movie from August 2010.

The Last Exorcism

Review by Rick Klaw

Directed by Daniel Stamm
Starring Patrick Fabian, Louis Herthum, and Ashley Bell

Before the film actually starts, three factors affected the general impressions of The Last Exorcism: its rating, release date, and subject material. In regards to exorcism, Hollywood consistently produces inferior products centered around the topic with the three notable exceptions of The Exorcist, often cited as the scariest movie of all time, the terrifying Poltergeist, and the Tim Burton-helmed comedy Beetlejuice. Studios typically reserve the post-summer blockbuster season period of late August for lesser genre offerings; horror films that would not attract a wide audience and/or not scary enough for the Halloween crowd. A PG-13 immediately saddles the project with lower expectations among fans. As legendary horror film actor Bruce Cambell (Evil Dead films) puts it “You show me a PG-13 horror movie, and I’ll show you a sell out.” Directed by German filmmaker Daniel Stamm (A Necessary Death), The Last Exorcism fails to overcome these perceptions and actually further perpetuates them thanks to a ludicrous script, mediocre acting, and the worst kind of clichéd Hollywood horror ending.

A documentary film crew accompanies disillusioned evangelical minister and exorcist Cotton Mauer (Patrick Fabian), as he performs his final exorcism all while exposing the fraud behind the ritual. Widower Louis Sweetzer (Louis Herthum) summons Mauer to small town Louisiana for a combat with the demon that currently possesses Sweetzer’s teen daughter Neil (Ashley Bell).

Defying preconceptions, the first thirty minutes actually offers an enjoyable insider’s account of the workings behind a ministry and an exorcism. Mauer reveals his methods for deceiving the rubes within his flock and the even more fascinating manner in which exorcists make the supernatural real.

Rather than stick with that far more intriguing and unique track, the Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland (co-writers for Mail Order Wife) screenplay disappointingly degenerates into stereotypical fare, complete with attempts at cheap shocks, tiresome characters, and ineffectual red herrings. Toss in the most ludicrous and inane conclusion of the year, the not scary The Last Exorcism ultimately wastes 87 minutes better spent doing almost anything else. If only there was a way to exorcise this dismal movie-going experience.

I’m interviewed at Suvudu & other Apes news

Matt Staggs, who calls The Apes of Wrath “fantastic,” interviews me for Suvudu about the origin of the book and my longtime fascination with apes.

Okay, why apes? I know you like them, but why, and why create an anthology about them?

The interest started when I was a child with King Kong (the original not the blasphemous 1976 remake) and The Planet of the Apes.Here were humanlike creatures—far more powerful than me who appeared in control but ultimately not. In my youth I identified with that loss of control. My parents divorced when I was very young. My father for all intensive purposes abandoned me. The apes and those lessons made me realize that no matter how grownup (or to my youthful mind “powerful”) and in charge I felt, things could change in a moment’s notice. Much like Kong in chains, I often lashed out to no avail.

Middle size Apes cover

Did you limit yourself to a particular kind of ape? Did some monkeys sneak in? What about ape-like creatures?

My favorites are gorillas, probably coming from my initial love of King Kong. Ape-like creatures can be fun as sometimes monkeys. In this book I chose stories with apes playing a prominent or important role. Much like the presence of an airship doesn’t make it steampunk nor a computer cyberpunk, a tale needs more than just mention of an ape to be an ape story.

Breaks between stories

What are some of your favorite fictional apes from any medium?

Obviously King Kong. Others include the Flash villain Gorilla Grodd, Mojo Jojo from The Powerpuff Girls, Zira from The Planet of the Apes, Joe Young from Mighty Joe Young, Sam Simeon from Angel and the Ape, and Tarzan’s mother Kala.

 

Check out the rest of it at Suvudu.

 

Half title page

 

And in other Apes news this came across the interwebs via Tumblr from AlkthashicArchive:

The Apes of Wrath… Okay pack it up speculative fiction anthologies, go home. We’ve found the best anthology ever.

 

I’m a humbled by all the positive feedback to the book.