The Return of Stickman #1568

I don't even want to touch the foreskin debate.

The Comic Critic Reviews "Frank" 2014

Frank is a tale of a quirky weirdo. Or I should say it’s a quirky weirdo story. Such stories generally fall into three categories:

• The quirky weirdo who is completely confident in who they are.

• The quirky weirdo who’s trying to find out who they are.

• The quirky weirdo who confuses striving to be something with striving to be something other than who you are. Frank dips into all three categories. The movie has us guessing which is being employed at any given time. Along the way, the audience gets to vicariously revel in the antics of the characters. The hope of the quirky-weirdo genre fan is to experience a new series of outlandish events that show whimsy and odd humor. While there is some whimsy involved, Frank’s odd humor has a nihilist feel with all of the appeal of an old ashtray. Utilitarian if you’re a smoker, a little distasteful if you aren’t.

RR Anderson, fellow CLAW founder, and proprietor of Tinkertopia, asked me to do this review. Other movies he asked me to review were Rubin & Ed and Rubber.

The Comic Critic Reviews V/H/S

I enjoy watching anthologies. Perhaps it’s because my first anthology viewing experience was the thoroughly entertaining 1972 release of Tales from the Crypt. I can’t remember how my ten-year-old eyes managed see this treasure, but I was the perfect demographic for the stories it told. I’ve been a sucker for horror anthologies ever since. VHS does a superb job of following a theme for its anthology. Yes, it falls into the “found footage” genre, but the use of dated video equipment was purposeful, giving a vintage feel to the worst aspects of home recording. The footage itself is humanity at its worst: sleazy hidden-camera shots, captured public sexual assault, vandalism, and other assorted activities that, when found by the police, usually land the scuzballs involved in jail. What actually does find and collect these videos, well, I won’t spoil it for you. I’m not a fan of the “found-footage” genre, but VHS did okay sticking to its theme. It’s a solid enough film that it launched a franchise.

BTW: This is my 1,000th blog posting on eBlogger.