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Saturday, June 20, 2020

More Capsule Reviews in the Time of Coronavirus (2)


More capsule reviews….

Fab Four: Let It Beard Livestream (onlocationlive.com)
See subsequent review immediately following for an updated review…

The Fab Four is one of several well known Beatles tribute bands. I’ve seen several concerts and performances over the years by these bands. Including the Fab Four, though to be honest, they kind of all have blurred together. In any case, in this time of sheltering at home (and, no doubt, to earn a little bread), the band decided to put on a live performance of the Let It Be album, in honor of the 50th anniversary of its release. At only $10 for a ticket ($50 with an added virtual green room meet and greet afterwards), it certainly was reasonably priced.

In costume, the band played the album, mixed in with a little bit of chatter, taking questions from fans.

The main drawback, unfortunately, was the poor sound quality. While I’m no engineer, it’s clear they had a pretty rudimentary audio set up through the computer—I had envisioned something a little bit more robust through my receiver, but it was barely better than basic computer streamed sound, versus having the equipment and mics plugged straight into the feed.

Ah, well.

Fab Four: All We Need is Love Livestream (Part 1) (onlocationlive.com)
As I was preparing to post this review, the announcement for a second livestream concert by the Fab Four was released. Given my slight disappointment with the first show, I wasn’t sure whether to watch, but the announcement mentioned that they had enhanced the sound tech—so given the low $10 price, I thought it was worth checking it out.

I’m so glad I did—the sound was indeed much better as was the overall production quality, making for a much more engaging and fun show. To watch the concert, I streamed the show on a laptop and plug it into our big screen TV, with the sound coming through the home theater receiver and speakers. So it was definitely a much better live theater experience.

They’ll be performing the second part of the show in a week (June 26) and my wife and I will definitely be there!

Reunited Apart (YouTube)
While stuck at home, actor Josh Gad has remained productive by producing and hosting “reunited apart” remote cast and crew reunions of classic and popular films. To date, he’s done Back to the Future and the Goonies. (What’s remarkable is that many of these projects were released before he was born! No doubt because the projects promote and benefit charities, he’s attracted topnotch talent.

“Reunited Apart Makes a SPLASH” was for the fondly-remembered 1984 romantic comedy Splash. The online reunion attracted the films lead actors, Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah, as well as director Ron Howard, producer Brian Glazer, and co-star Eugene Levy — and, for the late John Candy, fellow Canadian Ryan Reynolds. Putting aside the corny, contrived opening set up, the interview/reunion itself turned out to be a fun romp, with Gad asking questions about the cast and crew’s experiences and memories putting together and working on the film.



Nearly as fun was the following episode, “One Zoom to Rule Them All: Reunited Apart/The Lord of the Rings.” While the teaser showed that Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Dominic Monaghan, and Billy Boyd (the four lead hobbits), along with Orlando Bloom and Ian McKellan, would be on the feed, it was a great surprise to see so many more of the cast show up, including John Rhys Davies, Sean Bean, Mirando Otto, Karl Urban, Sean Bean, Liv Tyler, Andy Serkis, Viggo Mortenson, co-writer Phillipa Boyens, and director/co-writer Peter Jackson! While the get-together somewhat devolved into re-enactments from the film, it was clear the cast have a bond that has lasted all these years (I can’t believe it’s been nearly 20 years now since the first film’s release!)

All fun reminiscences to enjoy while sheltered at home.

Just Mercy
In acknowledgment of the times we live in and the long overdue social changes currently underway in U.S., many streaming services have made available and featured films with social justice themes under the Black Lives Matter banner.

Among those is 2019’s Just Mercy, based on a memoir by the same name by Bryan Stevenson, an attorney who founded and social justice activist, who opened a center in Montgomery, Alabama to provide legal assistance to death row inmates who did not have access to adequate or competent defense counsel, and, worse, were clearly wrongly accused and the victim of racism. It stars Jamie Foxx and Michael B. Jordan. Stevenson went on to found the Equal Justice Initiative based on the
book of the same name, which some of you probably may have seen. The film is based on the memoir of an attorney named Bryan Stevenson, an attorney and social justice activist, who opened a center in Montgomery, Alabama to provide legal assistance to death row inmates who did not have access to adequate or competent defense counsel, and, worse, were clearly wrongly accused and the victim of racism. It stars Jamie Foxx and Michael B. Jordan. Stevenson went on to found the Equal Justice Initiative that has grown and remains very successful and active. It's a very moving film, focusing on one specific egregious case (from the late 1980s/early '90s) of a man named Walter McMillian (Foxx), an inmate on death row who clearly was unjustly railroaded into prison. Stevenson (Jordan) quickly finds holes in the case, and people who are willing to speak up, but must fight a justice system that is clearly stacked against people of color and the poor.

Starting with Foxx and Jordan as the leads, the film features a solid cast, including Brie Larson as the social justice activist who brings Jordan to Alabama to do this important work and Rafe Spall as the District Attorney who fights the mounting evidence every step of the way (Spall has turned up on my radar in a few projects — he also was part of the ensemble in the film, the Big Short — and has done terrific, different work in each role, proving to be a solid character actor.

Just Mercy turned out to be an excellent complement to two other films I’ve seen with similar social justice themes, Selma and Marshall, that I hope to review here soon as well….

Sunday, June 7, 2020

Comics Distribution War

While I’m no longer beholden to the mainstream comics distribution system, the business side of the comics industry still fascinates me and is something I occasionally cover at this blog.

It’s for this reason I thought I’d weigh in on the momentous announcement by DC Comics to sever its ties with Diamond Comics Distribution and partner with two other distributors.

This move has potential serious consequences for Diamond, for comics retailers, as well as the stability of the market as a whole.

First, DC—home to the “granddaddy” of comics superheroes like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman—commands just under less than a third of the share comics market. That essentially means Diamond will lose that percentage of their sales income, at least in new comics.

For comics retailers, this means having to sign up with new distributors if they are going to sell DC’s comics. Many retailers are upset and concerned that this will increase their shipping costs for products that already have razor thing profit margins. It’s important to note that most if not nearly all comic-book retailers (usually referred to as the “direct market”) are essentially mom-and-pop operations. Overseas retailers are also concerned because the new distributors do not appear yet to have the same system in place as Diamond to affordably ship comics overseas.

Regarding the stability of the market—DC made this announcement in the middle of a pandemic, with some stores already currently shuttered; on top of that, Diamond temporarily had suspended shipments due to the pandemic, which disrupted flow of both comics and income. Indeed, Diamond suspended payments during this time. During the closure, DC temporarily sought new distribution channels, which may have partly led to this decision.

The flip side of this issue is the feeling by many that Diamond was a “monopoly” and perhaps had stagnated the system.

While I’m not enough of an expert to comment on this, I will say that making such a surprise announcement, in the middle of a pandemic and with virtually no leadtime doesn’t seem very prudent or fair. (The announcement, which was a surprise to Diamond as well, is effective the end of this month.)

As a bit of background, the last time there was this much of a seismic shift in the distribution system was in 1994. At the time, there were several competing and regional distribution systems that served the direct market. However, under new ownership, Marvel Comics similarly made the decision to distribute exclusively with a company called Heroes World. This led to the subsequent realignment of the distribution system—anxious to ensure its financial viability, Diamond signed DC to an exclusive contract. In an effort to ensure continued competition in the direct market distribution system, many of the remaining alternative publishers signed exclusive deals with a rival, Capital City Distribution. However, these alternatives did not have enough market share to keep Capital City viable, leading to that company’s eventual collapse and the alternatives flocking to Diamond. Marvel’s experiment with Heroes World failed for similar reasons and ended up with Diamond, making the distributor the sole surviving company. While the federal government did look into whether Diamond was a monopoly it ultimately took no action—I have always thought it was because the market was relatively too small to merit such action.

So here we are, in the middle of a pandemic and a seismic change in the comics industries. It’s anyone’s guess how it will play out, but there is understandably a lot of concern, given that it’s on top of a devastating pandemic that has led to store shutdowns and curtailed sales—when the economy tanks, it is usually “luxury” non-necessity items like comics that are the first to go.

For ongoing coverage of this, see Bleeding Cool herehere and here. A good history of the distribution market to 2011 can be found at the Delusional Honesty website.

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

It's Time

What a remarkable time we live in—first the pandemic, now the marches. The looting by opportunists (and other bad elements trying to exploit the situation politically) has been distracting, but I am glad to see many of the news reports noting that most of the marches are peaceful and that the message is getting across. Let's hope it results in meaningful change — and spurs people to vote in November. Changes at the top would be a good first step.

I was discussing with my daughter what was going on. As she already understood, I mentioned that even though I/we are people of color (and I am the child of immigrants), I know I haven’t experienced the kind of institutional racism that black Americans go through during most of their lives—to be on guard and reminded of their race nearly every day without the luxury of just being themselves and being able to go wherever they like without fear of being profiled or harassed, let alone not being able to enjoy the same opportunities for advancement and social mobility as other people “privileged” by the color of their skin.

My wife occasionally reminds me (especially at times like these) that she was born in L.A. during the Watts Uprising in the 1960s. I was not in L.A. yet, but we did together witness the 1992 Rodney King Riots—that year, like this past weekend, I watched on live TV via helicopter shots the looting of a local business I was familiar with. Back in ‘92, it was a now-defunct Federated Department store, just 2 miles from me (which today is a Target store, though there are actually now two other Targets even closer to me). Yesterday, it was the looting of an REI sporting goods store in Santa Monica that I’ve been to several times; I’m also familiar with the shopping area looted in Long Beach, across from the Long Beach Convention Center.

In ‘92, I recall how jarring it was to see the National Guard at my local grocery store—I didn’t find anything really threatening about their presence other than the fact that it was jarring to see armed military personnel in my neighborhood, like a police state. (The day after the King riots, in an attempt at some normalcy, we went to Santa Monica for brunch with another couple—though it did feel a bit surreal to be having a pleasant lunch on the patio while we could see columns of smoke in the distance.)

So here we are again—I’m not sure I ever thought I’d never see anything like this again, but of course, given what’s been going on in this country—especially over the last four years—it shouldn’t be a surprise. Especially with a leadership in Washington that has no understanding they are supposed to represent the interests of all Americans while regularly demonizing people of color and immigrants, and pandering to a small extremist base.

Rather than linger on all that though, I’d like to talk about the moments of hope I saw amidst all the chaos:

Like watching local news report that most demonstrators were peaceful except for those looters whose actions only served to overshadow and co-opt the message of the protests.

Seeing residents and others in the areas affected coming out to reach out to the storeowners and help clean up—one person remarked in a news interview, “These looters have only made more victims.”

Watching a young female protester—holding a sign that said “Stop All Violence”—courageously stand in front of the front doors of the REI Store to prevent looters from breaking in despite some looters trying to pull her away, and being joined by an African-American male, before someone threw a smoke bomb to make her disperse. (The store, of course, was later ransacked.)

Seeing a looter return to the scene of the crime and return what he had stolen the night before to the store owner, explaining he was homeless but felt badly about what he had done.

Seeing scattered reports of police officers expressing support for the protesters and condemning the murder of George Floyd by another police officer.

I know I’m generally an optimist, but it’s moments like these that give me hope.